The Place of Science, Scepticism and Normativity in…
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The Place of Science, Scepticism and Normativity in
Quine’s Naturalised Epistemology
Introduction
In this paper I shall be concerned with Quine’s naturalised epistemology and its relationship both to
and with the sciences, philosophical scepticism and epistemic normativity. As the title may suggest,
both the pros and cons of Quine’s position will be considered. However, I must say immediately that
the overall examination of these issues tends to be more favourable to Quinian epistemology than any
potentially unfavourable account would be. At least that is how I see it in retrospect.
The first section of the paper deals with naturalised epistemology’s relationship to and with science. It
asks two primary questions:
1) Is naturalised epistemology just that – epistemology?
2) i) Can naturalised epistemology both borrow from science at the same time as legitimising
and criticising both itself and science with scientific, or partly scientific, means? ii) Should
such a reciprocal relationship be acceptable in the more specific case of epistemology’s actual
relationship itself with science being legitimised and criticised in such an apparently mutual
manner? iii) Or, alternatively, is all this simply a good example of a philosophical vicious
circle?
The final question to be asked in the first section is whether or not naturalised epistemology itself is
guilty, if only in part, for the apparent killing of (traditional) epistemology. More to the point, it asks: Is
naturalised epistemology responsible for such a death at all? Is epistemology in fact dead? The answer
to this question takes us back to the one just asked: Is naturalised epistemology, epistemology?
Succinctly, death-of-epistemology theorists are taken, in this section, to be too melodramatic on this
issue. In addition, these theorists can only make their points by effectively ignoring or dismissing all
the naturalisation projects in epistemology; as well as simply assuming that scepticism, and therefore
also foundationalisms, are at the heart of every kind of epistemology on the market.
Section Two deals exclusively with naturalised epistemology’s relation to and with philosophical
scepticism and with what kind of relation it in fact is. Some epistemologists argue that naturalisers of
epistemology simply ignore or dismiss all sceptical challenges. Quine himself argues that he doesn’t do
so. He also argues that naturalised epistemology does not - by nature or definition - stop sceptical
challenges from arising within it and then being questioned. The sceptical issue of science versus
science also arises in this section. And, as before, Quine argues that this scenario has itself been an
issue generated by science itself; or that science, at the least, provides the context and content of it.
Hume’s own naturalism also plays a fairly large part in this section - as it does in the following one.
In Section Three similar issues arise again; along with a few new ones. This time they are placed in the
environment of epistemic normativity, as seen by various philosophers. And just as Quine denied that
naturalised epistemology ignores scepticism, he also says the same about normativity. However, he
describes normativity in strictly scientific terms. Another issue raised in this section is whether or not
some kind of epistemic supervenience theory could be – or already is - acceptable to naturalisers of
epistemology. At first I cover this debate as it has occurred in moral philosophy in order to get a grip
on the possible problems which may come up later in the case of epistemology, as well to create some
kind of context in which such questions can be asked. The problem we soon arrive at is whether or not
there is a place between the rock of extreme naturalism and reductionism in epistemology, or its
epistemic eliminativism (as Putnam would no doubt put it), and the hard place of epistemic realism. In
terms of moral philosophy, we find these issues arising when moral intuitionism/realism and moral
naturalism were discussed in a comparative way. However, as we shall see, moral supervenience, or the
supervenience of moral properties on natural ones, does not give the moral realist what he wants
because of its still acknowledged belief in the dependence of moral predicates and properties on the
natural conditions and facts posited by the supervenience theory itself. And as moral naturalists may
put it, on the other hand, moral realism/intuitionism, along with its ‘non-natural properties’, will not
give the naturalistically-inclined contemporary philosopher what he wants either. This will be because
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of the former’s complete rejection or denial of any fact/value, or natural property/moral property,
causal relation, which, the naturalist might say, is as hard to stomach as moral eliminativism. The
question now is: Would epistemic supervenience theory encounter the same or similar problems as
supervenience theory has in the sphere of moral philosophy? Indeed, in terms of Quine’s own scientific
description and take on normativity (mentioned earlier and to be seen in Section Three), it would seem,
prima facie, that Quine would have rejected any talk of epistemic supervenience - just as Stephen
Schiffer does when philosophers talk of moral supervenience. He says:
How could being told that non-natural moral [or epistemic] properties stood in the supervenience relation make them
any more palatable?… On the contrary… [it is] just to add mystery to mystery… (1987)
Section One: Naturalised Epistemology and Science
Is Naturalised Epistemology, Epistemology?
One of the most important, basic and familiar criticisms of Quine’s project of naturalising
epistemology is brutally clear and concise: if naturalised epistemology shares nothing at all with
classical epistemology, whether that is its problems, tools, methods, concerns, projects, hopes, etc.,
then clearly there is a sense in which Quine has no right to call his discipline ‘epistemology’. Just as
many balk at Hegel’s definition of ‘freedom’ as ‘conformity to the institutions of the state’, etc., so
many contemporary epistemologists think that Quine has simply changed not only the rules of the
game, but the game itself. This is especially the case, many epistemologists think, when it comes to
philosophical scepticism. (Quine, of course, was mot the first 20 th century philosopher to deflate
scepticism and even epistemology itself: think here of G.E. Moore, the logical positivists and
Wittgenstein.) So if naturalised epistemology is a different artificial kind than good old epistemology,
then how on earth could Quine, or any other epistemological naturaliser, think that it has or could take
over the role of its supposed predecessor? This would be like botany being superseded by gardening, or
vice versa. And if there are no genuine connections or similarities between classical epistemology and
naturalised epistemology, then the latter cannot be said to be doing epistemology ‘better’ if it is not
doing it at all. Having said that, both the old conservative and the new radical are both said to
investigate the nature of theory and how the evidence accounts for it. But surely this is not enough of a
connection between them.
Quine himself has said that we must ‘settle for psychology’ when it comes to epistemology. That is
partly why Putnam writes that ‘Quine’s position is sheer epistemological eliminationism’ (1981). As a
result of this, Putnam concludes that we should, according to epistemological eliminativists
abandon the notions of justification, good reason, warranted assertion, and reconstrue the notion of ‘evidence’ (so
that the ‘evidence’ becomes the sensory stimulations that cause us to have the scientific beliefs we have).
On this account of Quine qua epistemological eliminativist, the earlier accusation of him not playing
the game and not offering a successor would be re-enforced. The question is: Would a naturalised
epistemology automatically, if at all, eliminate the epistemic notions of justification, good reason,
warranted assertion and so on? Perhaps Quine, for one, would not see all these notions in the same light
in the sense of their not all being equally culpable from a naturalist point of view. For instance, would
Quine see the notions of justification and warranted assertibility in the same way – i.e., as equally
culpable from a naturalist point of view? Perhaps the notion of evidence, which he wishes to
‘reconstrue’ according to Putnam, may rely on, or at least not be inconsistent with, the notion of
warranted assertibility.
Despite all that, Putnam acknowledges the fact that Quine himself has said that ‘he didn’t mean to “rule
out the normative”…’ (1981)
The most frequently used defence Quine offers against the accusation that naturalised epistemology is
not epistemology because it gives science a primary status is that traditional epistemologists have
always looked to science for the implicit or explicit context and content of their work, if not for a direct
and unequivocal defence and/or source of it. For example, Quine claimed that both Berkeley and Hume
drew on the findings of science in their work. Of course we now must respond to the often-heard
accusation that such an attitude implies ‘circularity’ if and when epistemologists look to science for
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their context, content and/or the source of their own work, specifically when it comes to providing
foundations for science and the means needed for securing increased certainty and objectivity within it.
This was certainly the desire of both Descartes and, two centuries later, Husserl. In terns of Berkeley
and Hume again, Quine said that their worries of circularity were unwarranted – at least when seen on
his own terms. (Quine, 1973).
It is in the case of scepticism that what Quine says about this perceived circularity becomes most
relevant. All the traditional sceptical challenges to epistemology actually arose, Quine argues, within
science itself – not internally to epistemology or philosophy generally. It follows, then, that if that is
the case, then why shouldn’t naturalised epistemology use the findings and methods of science in
responding to those sceptical challenges? Quine thought that if it is the case that science first
articulated and found the context and content for the sceptical challenges, then, by inference, he must
also have believed that it follows that epistemologists could legitimately revert back to science in their
work.
We can back up Quine’s view that epistemology has always had a close relation to and a dependence
upon science with this example. Take the word ‘external’, as in the phrases ‘external world’ and
‘external to the mind’. These phrases do not belong to the vernacular when used in such ways. More
concretely, if the man in the street does use the term ‘external’ in the self-attributive sense of
distinguishing it from the ‘internal’, he still wouldn’t have meant, in all probability, that his own body
too is ‘external’ – at least not external to his and all other minds. This idea, instead, owes a tremendous
amount to Descartes’ substance dualism and his well-known ‘method of doubt’ (Descartes, 1641). It is
not at all the intuitive or spontaneous way that most people divide the world from themselves – i.e.,
divide their minds from both their bodies and the world. And this in turn generates the Cartesian
experiential knowledge/knowledge-of-the-external-world distinction that works against both Quine’s
naturalised epistemology and, for example, Davidson’s more ‘externalist’ view that we are part of the
world, not just in it; and that therefore we have direct access to objects, events, etc. as objects, events,
etc. (see M. Luntley, 1999, and the later comments on Davidson). So although this take on the word
‘external’ may not seem particularly scientific, at least not prima facie, such a Cartesian standpoint on
the mind-world relation chimed in well with the scientific opinions of Descartes’ time. In addition,
such a stance was adopted by science, if it didn’t already have a similar viewpoint, and has stayed with
it right up to and beyond, say, Carnap and the logical positivists. The latter, after all, believed that their
prime project was to reduce the assertions of science to statements that express and report the
experiential or observational mental events on which the whole of science ultimately depends and
relies upon. Cartesian internalism was passed on, via others, to the logical positivists who, in a sense,
often passed it back to science (see Blackmore on Mach’s ‘phenomenalism’, 1972). And even in
Quine’s case it can be argued that we still have a kind of Cartesian internalism on our hands – if
actually a mitigated and very scientific version of it.
One philosopher, Barry Stroud, is well known for casting doubt on the Quinian defences just
articulated and therefore also on the naturalisation of epistemology project itself (Stroud, 1984). He,
like many others, believes that it would be a circular relation if epistemologists used scientific
knowledge to counteract sceptical questions and even any other problems from our epistemological
heritage. But Quine has actually written that naturalised epistemology does not in fact ignore sceptical
challenges at all. He has also said that there is no reason that such sceptical challenges could not arise
within it. Despite that, Quine did indeed seemingly ignore many of the well-known sceptical
arguments. For example, the Cartesian questions about whether or not we may be dreaming, or the
victim of an evil demon, or even of Putnam’s mad scientist who has, somehow, put our brains in a vat
and fed them with information-carrying electrodes, etc (Putnam, 1981).
Quine is well aware of the nature of these challenges. For example, on the problem of the existence and
nature of the external world he has this to say:
The challenge runs as follows. Science itself teaches that there is no clairvoyance; that the only information that can
reach our sensory surfaces from external objects must be limited to [our sense modalities and the nature of the
stimulation, etc.]… How, the challenge proceeds, could one hope to find out about the external world from such
meagre traces? In short, if our science were true, how could we know it. (1973)
The least we could admit to (if only from the above) is that Quine was well aware of the nature of the
sceptical challenges confronting epistemologists; whether or not he preceded to ignore them or simply
class them as bogus is of course another matter.
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Quine again and again made his position on scepticism clear. Specifically, he argued that if we did not
pay attention to science and its findings, we would not even have the information or the ‘meagre traces’
needed in the first place to prompt the sceptical challenge that wish to know how science can say
anything that is true or certain about the nature or existence of the external world and its objects.
Quine, in another example, goes all the way back to the Greek Sceptics and the scepticism engendered
by the illusions they thought called into question the senses and whether or not they were a reliable
source of information about the external world. Descartes, for one, began his ‘method of doubt’ with
precisely such doubts. And even the non-sceptic Plato never had any faith in the senses or in science
itself (at least according to certain, but not all, accounts). In terms of the Greek Sceptics, Quine had this
to say about them:
… this concept of illusion itself rested on natural science, since the quality of illusion consisted simply in deviation
from external scientific reality. (1973)
However, it is difficult to accept that the Greek Sceptics only had a concept of illusion in the sense of it
being a ‘deviation from external scientific reality’. Surely these sceptics did not need science to show
them and others what is real and what is illusion. Even primitive tribes would surely recognise that
their drunken or hallucinogenic illusions (even if really hallucinations) were not real but instead the
result of inebriations or the ingestion of hallucinogenic substances. (And if hallucinogens showed them
‘the truth’, a distinction could still have been made between illusions/hallucinations and the offerings
of the everyday world.) In that case, there would indeed be a deviation from reality, but not from
‘scientific reality’. And if this could be true in the case of a primitive tribesman, then it would have
been even more likely to be the case with the philosophically sophisticated Greek Sceptics. In their
case, if such a sceptic were banged very hard on the head and thereby immediately suffered sensory
distortions and hallucinations, surely he wouldn’t have needed science or its findings, or even his own
prior scientific knowledge, to show him that his hallucinations were in fact just that – hallucinations.
Some could say that this example is unfair because the Sceptic would at least know before hand that he
had been banged on the head. But what if equivalent illusions occurred without such an obvious prior
cause? In addition, I may be conflating the words ‘illusions’ and ‘hallucinations’ in the sense that the
bent stick in the water is of the former type, and seeing moving patterns on the wall of the latter.
However, if that difference amounts to something in other contexts, it is still surely the case that our
primitive tribesman thought that an otherwise straight that bends in the water was the cause of an
illusion. And if that were the case, then he might not have had problems, certainly not scientific ones,
with lines that converge in the distance, or with swaying and flapping trees that are taken to cause the
wind rather than vice versa, or with the illusions caused by the mirroring but moving water in a river,
and so on. However, certain illusions were, admittedly, harder to fathom and because of this they often
became standard parts of the ancient mythologies of such tribes. For example, the illusion that the sun
goes around the earth rather than vice versa; or that the world is flat not round; or that the sun is only,
say, about the equivalent of three days’ walk from us (only the empty space between stopped them
from getting there). And so on.
A more readily palatable position on scepticism, and perhaps more likely to be offered by scientists
than by epistemologists (of any persuasion), is that the ‘problem of the external world’, as well as the
nature of its objects having the attributes we generally ascribe to them, was offered to us by science
itself in the guise of its best current physical theories. To follow, such theories offered us, and still do, a
better pure-and-simple explanation of this problem than any offered to us by its sceptical competitors.
More concretely, it explains the nature of our sensory experience in order to do so. This, of course, is to
see the best scientific physical theories as examples of ‘inferences to the best explanation’. So even on
purely scientific and intellectual grounds, rather than on, say, the pragmatist or psychological grounds
that will be mentioned later, such a stance could be seen to make much sense.
Scientists and naturalists alike conclude that we have more reason to shop at the supermarket of science
than to shop at global scepticism’s equivalent.
Quine even admits that sceptics could employ science to try and refute science. Indeed, this possibility
has often been attempted in the history of scepticism or, alternatively, in that less popular history book
which contains accounts of all those philosophical attempts to deflate science by taking it off its
ostensible pedestal and placing philosophy there instead (i.e., where it should be and where it used to
be). However, such examples of science against science would simply be an example of a reductio ad
absurdum according to Quine (1975). Here again with Quine’s riposte we find him telling us that it is
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not the epistemologist who shows us that ‘science can be used against science’, but science itself.
However, Quine does qualify his argument. He says that if the sceptical epistemologist did indeed use
scientific means and arguments to show us that science is impossible, or that it could destroy itself,
Quine’s response to this, which is perhaps a little predictable, is that we would simply need to find
faults with those supposedly scientific arguments or in the scientific methods and tools used to come to
them. Quine could therefore be accused here of simply assuming that such sceptical but possibly
scientific conclusions directed against science would be faulty in some way and would therefore be
refutable. The question is, then, do such arguments exist? And if they do, are they convincing? In
addition, if there are such arguments, has Quine or any other naturaliser of epistemology tried to refute
them? Or, alternatively, have they simply dismissed or even ignored them? (As Quine apparently
ignored the well-known sceptical scenarios mentioned earlier.)
Barry Stroud offers a similar arguments to all that which concern the circular arguments against
scepticism and the naturaliser of epistemology’s assumption, in my example, that sceptical arguments
must be false in some way and can therefore be legitimately ignored:
If we then reasoned as Descartes reasons and arrived by reductio ad absurdum at the conclusion that we know nothing
about the physical world, and we found ourselves dissatisfied with the conclusion, clearly we could not go blithely on
to satisfy ourselves and explain how knowledge is nevertheless possible by appeal g to those very beliefs about the
external world that we have just consigned to the realm of what is not known. (Stroud, 1984)
Stroud’s situation also parallels, to some extent, another Quinian belief that if in science the
investigator or observer comes across an anomalous result in the form of a potentially destructive piece
of evidence or a similar observation/experience, then the anomaly could be either explained away or
retained by the scientist by simply his re-jigging his scientific belief-web in order to either successfully
call it into question, or, alternatively, to enable him to account for and accommodate it in a way that
doesn’t do too much damage to his overall scientific system (Quine, 1953 and 1969).
Epistemology, Science and Normativity
In terms of the question of normativity and, to put it in the old way, ‘the scientific attitude’, Quine
himself defended his allegedly non-normative epistemology quite recently. He wrote:
Naturalisation of epistemology does not jettison the normative and settle for the indiscriminate description of ongoing
procedures. (1986)
We can even say, as Quine didn’t but might have done, that the notion of a purely descriptive
epistemology does not even make sense. Such a discipline and its superior, science, would be more like
the relation between the history of ideas (or the history of philosophy) and philosophy itself. That is,
the description of epistemological procedures would not actually be epistemology – let alone
philosophy. Indeed it would be in a position akin to that of philosophy during the early years of a
rampant logical positivism. Then the positivists believed (in accordance, so they thought, with
Wittgenstein) that philosophers should do nothing other than describe (or at the least analyse) the
propositions of science. (They could also fill in any extra time they had by describing why
metaphysical statements were just that – metaphysical, i.e., ‘meaningless’.) The important point,
however, is that the logical positivists themselves argued that philosophy does not, or should not, result
in strictly philosophical propositions – those that ‘say’ something, to use Wittgenstein’s own word,
rather than just describe the propositions of science and thereby leave everything ‘as it is’
(Wittgenstein, see his various notated comments from the 1920s in Monk’s 1990). Within minutes of
this edict many logical positivists grew bored of the said past-time and demanded something meatier
for them to do. (For example, some thought that the analysis of the ‘scientific method’, as they saw it,
would, or could, result in some acceptable non-metaphysical but still philosophical assertions - this too
was denied by Wittgenstein at the time!)
So just as it could be argued that the Wittgensteinian role for philosophy, at least as the early logical
positivists saw it, would have essentially ended in the death of philosophy if it had been adhered to for
long enough, so a purely descriptive naturalised epistemology could, would or has likewise result(ed)
in the death of epistemology, not its betterment or indeed anything else. Some philosophers have taken
this death-of-epistemology scenario very seriously and some of them also believe that it has actually
occurred. That death, they think, is primarily the responsibility of naturalised epistemology (see the
later part of this section).
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The Quinian naturaliser of epistemology could instead argue that although science is pre-eminent when
it comes to epistemology (plus all the other branches of philosophy), he is in fact referring to science
with a capital ‘S’. In other words, he could in actuality be more ‘scientific’ in approach and attitude
than any individual scientist, or even more so than a specific sizable group of scientists working on a
given project or theory. Similarly, a naturaliser of epistemology could quite easily believe that certain
specific theories or findings of science are in fact bogus or highly suspect precisely because the
supposedly scientific methods and experiments used to discover them were scientifically suspect or
even non-natural (i.e., they endorse the wrong kind of ‘metaphysics’). In that case, we could have
science, or scientists, deferring to naturalised epistemology rather than vice versa. However, on the
whole naturalisers of epistemology would still believe that other naturalisers must ‘defer’ to science
and scientists, not the other way around. In this case science would be seen as a kind of ideal point at
which all scientists, and naturalisers of epistemology, will eventually ‘converge’, as stated in the works
of Peirce (see Hookway, 1985). Put in simpler terms, if we find a naturaliser of epistemology arguing
with a scientist, especially with a physicist, on the nature of certain of his results (or the methods used
to come to them, etc.), and that there were no way of deciding the matter of who is right and who is
wrong (at least right there and then), then the former must indeed ‘defer’, to use Quine’s own word, to
the latter or to other scientists who are interested in the issue and who are qualified to offer an opinion
on it. This means that the scientist is more likely than the naturaliser to have the truth on the matter - if
only because science is on the front line when it comes to being closer to the world. Scientists, after all,
spend all their time discovering the nature of the world. They also have the best tools and methods for
finding such things out. It is still the case that the naturaliser need not put every scientist on a pedestal,
or, similarly, take every single scientific theory or hypothesis as the gospel truth. Again, like Peirce, if
the truth or ‘the reality’ of the world is to be ‘converged’ upon at some unspecified future time, then
this automatically must mean that particular scientists today have not yet done so; and also that
particular theories or hypotheses could fall short of the Peircian ideal. Indeed we can say that it is
precisely because of this lack of ‘convergence’ on the Peircian ideal that Quine himself is rather more
sceptical about the findings and methodologies of the social sciences than he is of the hard sciences.
Despite that, these arguments could still be used against the ‘hard’ sciences, even if not in so
effectively a way as is the case with the ‘soft’ or social sciences.
Quine’s Scientism and His Representationalism
Having talked about the relation of Quinian naturalised epistemology with science we can now
consider whether Quine’s actual metaphysics and epistemology is coherent, vis-à-vis science, when
taken apart from such a relation. That is, Quine is a epistemological naturaliser in the sense that he
argues that ‘epistemology is a part of science and science is a part of epistemology’. And he must think
that in itself legitimises their mutual dependence. But what of Quine’s philosophy itself when taken in
and of itself and not just as set of arguments in favour of naturalising epistemology?
Take Putnam’s accusation (if it is one) that Quine is a ‘metaphysical realist’ (Putnam). Despite Gödel,
the logical intuitionists, various anti-realists, alternative logicians, etc., Quine believes that scientific
statements are determinately true or false even if undecidable now or in principle. This, to Putnam’s
Quine, is just as epistemic problem of not knowing which truth-value is the case. However, Putnam
claims that metaphysical realism ‘is at the heart of Quine’s philosophy’ . He argues that such a
philosophy has a
picture of a determinate ‘copying’ relation between words and a noumenal world.
We can offer another example of the kind of metaphysical realism Putnam has in mind, vis-à-vis the
general context of Quine’s ‘metaphysical realism’, with the following passage from Thompson Clarke:
Each concept or the conceptual scheme must be divorceable intact from our practices, from whatever constitutes the
essential character of the plain.
Clearly, if we take concepts as representations of some kind, or, instead, as always coming along with
them, then the strategy articulated above would be deemed impossible by a philosopher like, for
example, Donald Davidson. What's more, such a vision of a ‘view from nowhere’ would, when taken
alongside representationalism, make representations (as the necessary vehicles of our knowledge of the
world) seem even more problematic and susceptible to generating various kinds of scepticism. But we
need to establish if it is right to call Quine a ‘metaphysical realist’. With reference to the above, the
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proposed divorce from our practices clearly reacts violently to, say, Wittgenstein’s position on these
matters. More to the point, the parallel divorce from the conceptual scheme, or from conceptual
schemes, certainly conflicts with Quine’s own strong emphasis on the importance and necessity of
conceptual schemes or scientific systems. (Note: conceptual schemes not read in Davidson’s strict
relativist sense of the term ‘conceptual scheme’, which leads him to argue that they don’t exist.)
Putnam, concludes, therefore, that not only do the various ‘anti-realist’ (for want of a more convenient
term) philosophers, mathematicians and logicians he refers to conflict with Quine’s ‘metaphysical
realism’, but Quine himself is internally self-contradictory when he accepts undecidable sentences
within his own philosophy. The realists, of course, accept the determinately true or false nature of
statements that are unverifiable or unprovable and also accept also their mind-independent status.
Would they additionally accept their undecidability – at least their undecidability-in-principle? For
example, many realists accept that many ‘future contingent’ statements are determinately true or false
now, but not that they are also undecidable – certainly not undecidable-in-principle. Presumably they
could be decided when the future event that is the content of the statement comes to pass.
Quine, according to Putnam, accepts that the principle of bivalence certainly applies to certain
scientific statements. Perhaps he also believes that a few are also undecidable – perhaps in principle. Of
course, the idea of the undecidability of scientific statements, let alone their undecidability-in-principle,
would have been anathema to the classical logical positivists. Such scientific statements would have
been taken to be equivalent to all those ‘metaphysical’ statements that were unobservable-in-principle
and devoid of empirical consequences. Of course Gödel’s theorems show us that there are statements
or expressions in mathematical systems that cannot be proved or refuted within such systems. This,
however, would have been acceptable to classical logical positivists because it is a result in
mathematics, if metamathematics, not in science. Things have moved on since then. The question
remains as to whether or not Quine did or could have accepted un-provability and undecidability in
science as well as in mathematics. He certainly accepted Gödel’s results. Can an equivalent nonbivalence be sustained by Quine in his attitude to science? More relevantly, do the majority of
contemporary scientists accept non-bivalence or undecidability-in-principle for scientific statements?
More to the points raised by Putnam, are contemporary scientists as metaphysically realist as he
believes Quine assumes them to be? Or, perhaps, it is only Quine who is a metaphysical realist and not
the average scientist. (We can say here that Kripke is a metaphysical realist in his acceptance of
determinate and mind-impendent ‘natural kinds’, which Quine actually would have rejected. And
therefore we can also ask: Do contemporary scientists, e.g., physicists and biologists, accept, use or
even need Kripke’s – and lately Putnam’s - notion of a ‘natural kind’?)
Going back to representations. It must follow, then, that in adopting a Davidsonian position on
representations, that Davidson’s position is more genuinely naturalistic than Quine’s naturalised
epistemology, despite the anomalies of Quine’s supposed ‘scientism’ and Davidson’s unwillingness to
place science, or, more correctly, physics, in a pre-eminent and superior position vis-à-vis every other
discipline and enterprise. In that sense, science can be treated as Nelson Goodman treated it in his
works (see his 1951 and 1978). In addition, science may not be naturalistic enough for Davidson if it
does endorse something similar to an early Carnapian or Quinian reduction of science to an equivalent
of the former’s ‘cross-sections of experience’ or the latter’s ‘sensory stimulation’/ ‘sense-events’. All
this depends on the assumption here, of course, that science or physics does indeed accept something
like the Carnapian or Quinian position on the ultimate status of experience when it comes to science
and its observation-statements and experiential reports. (Many scientists did indeed accept similar
positions on such matters. For example, in the case of Ernst Mach’s ‘phenomenalism’, see Blackmore’s
1972, and, for that matter, also in the case of those early 20 th century ‘Kantian’ physicists scientists like
Einstein.) All this depends on whether or not science, or physics, endorses representationalism, or at
least its own take on it. And this, therefore, would provide an example of the scenario in which the
epistemologist turns out to become more naturalistic in position and attitude than a scientist or of
science itself. Thus, in this hypothetical case, it would not be an example of epistemology ‘deferring’ to
science, even if the naturaliser of epistemology still willingly accepted that he and other naturalisers
must on the whole defer to science rather than the other way around. To put this in more simple words,
the naturaliser need not always accept that science and scientists are always in the right on every issue
and that he is always in the wrong - at least in the cases of naturalised epistemology’s actual relation to
science. If these kinds of situations can arise within naturalised epistemology, then the oft-made
remarks that Quine is a ‘scientistic’ philosopher, and that naturalised epistemology is so infatuated with
science that it also suffers from ‘scientism’, may have less purchase than we would otherwise think. A
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naturaliser need not place science on a pedestal or feel the need to have science casting its shadow
over him at all times, just as the thoroughly physicalist and logical empiricist Goodman mentioned
earlier didn’t. (Even in the case of a specific artist we can say that he need hardly ever think of science
or how his endeavours match up to the rigid stipulations laid down by it and yet still remain a
physicalist, empiricist or even a logical empiricist - if one of a pretty indeterminate nature.)
Hume as an Early Naturaliser of Epistemology
Earlier we quoted Quine’s phrase ‘epistemology simply falls into place as a chapter of psychology’.
With Hume we can also find a kind of proto-naturalised epistemology in that he believed that
epistemology must be dependent upon, or even equivalent to, the ‘science of human nature’ – i.e.,
psychology. He thus provides an interesting anticipation of Quine’s own psychologised epistemology.
Hume realised that epistemology, and indeed the whole of philosophy, evidently depends on the nature
of the human mind. And the only existent science that had as its subject-matter the mind of man in his
own time was that of psychology, or, as he called it, the ‘science of man’.
According to Hume, psychology is
The capital or centre of these [other] sciences… [all sciences] lie under the cognisance of men… [our epistemic]
powers and faculties… are dependent on the science of MAN. (1739)
However, there is a problem with Hume’s naturalism for the contemporary naturaliser of epistemology
who may scrutinise Hume’s naturalist credentials. Despite Hume’s evident emphasis on the ‘science of
man’, Hume, in certain respects, not only saw psychology as his First Philosophy, but also as a
basically aprioristic discipline in the sense that he believed that psychology could and should not rely
on scientific or empirical knowledge to ascertain our ‘powers and faculties’. So Hume heeds the
sceptic’s warning to epistemology that it must not rely on science to justify science and itself. And he
must have also heeded the warning not to succumb to the accompanying vicious circle that could have,
or now does have, both science and epistemology as constituents along its parameter. Hume, however,
recognised the possibility of this vicious circle and so instead treated the science of psychology as a
science that is not, and must not be, dependent on any other science or on any other type of empirical
knowledge. Despite that, his emphasis on psychology still greatly parallels Quine’s own statement that
epistemology ‘falls’, or that it must fall, ‘into place as a chapter of psychology’. This time, however,
Quine’s own psychology is partly behaviourist in nature and wholly scientific and physicalist, unlike
Hume’s own introspectionist version that owed a lot to Descartes’ ‘internalist’ vision.
Again, despite psychology’s First Philosophy status for Hume, his position on psychology also
parallels the work of logical positivists like Carnap who believed that the whole of science, and indeed
potentially everything else, is ultimately dependent on the analysis of experience or, in his case, on the
‘cross-sections of experience’ (Carnap, 1928/1967). This also less strongly parallels Quine’s similar
notion that science is ultimately dependent and reliant upon the ‘sensory stimulations’ or the ‘senseevents’ that make up our experience of the world.
Since we have delineated Hume’s empiricist ‘psychologism’ and Carnap/Quine’s logical empiricism in
such ways, we can also say that such positions epitomise the problem often described as:
The possibility or impossibility of escaping the confines determined by the limits of our
experience. And the parallel problem of the limited applicability of our experiential terms.
In other words, how do we get to, or at, the world without any experiential or
representational/conceptual blinkers? But, as I have said, such a question falls foul of Davidson’s
animadversions against representationalism in any of its many and varied varieties. For Hume, Carnap
and Quine, in other words, our route to the world would be indirect (i.e., ‘posited’ or ‘inferred’ in
Quine’s and Carnap’s case respectively). It would not be direct, as Davidson argues it in fact is (see
Luntley, 1999). That is, to see the world in the internalist way of Descartes and Hume, and perhaps also
the ways of (early) Carnap and even Quine, in itself generates sceptical problems.
Hume should not have been worried about seeking out other sciences to back-up his psychologised
epistemology. In contrast, we can praise, or condemn, Quine for not so worrying but instead
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recognising that the consultation with the sciences constitutes no problem for his naturalised
epistemology. In a sense, that aspect of Quine’s epistemology alone would qualify him as an
‘externalist’ of some kind. However, as said elsewhere, if we subtract Quine’s supposed ‘scientism’
from the equation that is his naturalised epistemology, a Davidsonian would say that it is still not
externalist/naturalist enough, primarily because of its tacit or explicit representationalism and, more
clearly, because of Quine’s continued old-empiricist belief that ‘sensory stimulations’ are ultimately
the foundations and starting-points of all our inferences or ‘posits’. Such stimulations, then, do/would
not give us direct access to the world of objects, events, etc., but, instead, offer us an indirect route
because of the perceived reliance on the ‘intermediaries’ of sensory stimulations. (E.g., just as sensedata were the intermediaries for the phenomenalists, or ‘cross-sections of experience’ were for Carnap,
and the ‘ideas’ and ‘sense impressions’ were for Locke and Hume, but not for Berkeley.)
Was Epistemology Killed by the Naturalisers of Epistemology?
Finally, did Quinian naturalised epistemology contribute to the death of epistemology, as it was
perceived by such philosophers as Rorty (1979) and Michael Williams (1977 and 1992)? Such theorists
believe in the death of epistemology because they thought its assumptions had come to be seen, by
many people, as, at the least, questionable but most definitely pointless (especially in Rorty’s case).
Furthermore, if epistemology is at the heart of philosophy itself (as some have argued), then the death
of philosophy itself (a la Foucault, Derrida, et all) would soon follow its own offspring’s death.
Williams, for one, argues that if epistemology is the attempt to clarify and determine the possibility of
knowledge and show us what is the extent and limit of such knowledge, then it cannot rely or depend
upon the findings and/or methods of empirical research – i.e., on science. This is the classic circularity
argument yet again. However, death-of-epistemology theorists also conclude that every epistemologist
claims that their own discipline is non-empirical and therefore aprioristic in nature – that is, a kind of
First Philosophy or ‘Queen of the Sciences’ to all the empirical pursuits that it judges and rectifies.
Epistemology determines, on this view, what can be called ‘scientific’, ‘rational’ and so on in all
scientific and empirical areas.
It is clearly the case that such an account of epistemology ignores, or simply dismisses, Quine’s
naturalised epistemology and its successors. Not only that, but less clearly, it seems to assume that the
war against scepticism is at the very heart of epistemology, as it is, we can also say, at the heart of the
defence of sceptical positions (in some circles at least). But naturalised epistemology exists. And it
rejects many of traditional epistemology’s assumptions about scepticism (or, more accurately, about
global scepticism). And, no doubt, other schools of epistemology also discount global scepticism. (See
the discussion of D. Lewis in the next section.)
However, Rorty, for one, may have a semblance of a case against Quine if he is indeed some kind of
representationalist. And Putnam, as we have said, certainly classes Quine as a ‘metaphysical realist’.
Quine himself as classed himself as a ‘realist’, if not a metaphysical realist. Indeed, pragmatist realism
goes back as far as Peirce (Hookway, 1985). So we now need to ask whether or not Quine is a
pragmatist and a follower, in some relevant way, of Peirce. Anyway.
Representationalism, according to Davidson (see Luntley, 1999) creates insuperable problems for the
epistemologist, including, possibly, also for the naturaliser of epistemology. It is always possible in
principle for there to be mismatches between representations and the represented. We could even have
massive cases of misrepresentation and therefore of falsehood. But Davidson, who is neither a realist
nor an anti-realist, neither a pragmatist nor a representationalist, has argued fervently against such
possibilities as massive falsehood (as well as massive irrationality in terms of both the individual and
the community, see Davidson, (1984)).
Rorty certainly thinks that the only right thing to do, if one is a genuine pragmatist, is to apply
pragmatist or ‘behaviourist’ principles to our beliefs in the sense of seeing them simply as tools for
managing and living with our everyday problems (whatever they are). If that attitude were endorsed
and adopted, scepticism, as the favourite child and favourite demon of epistemology, would wither
away like the state in a communist society (according to Marx’s futurology that is). So too, according
to earlier statements, would epistemology itself. And when epistemology is dies, philosophy will soon
follow. That is if we don’t already think that it is dead. Strong stuff!
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Another phenomenon, along with scepticism, is also seen as the essence of epistemology by these
gravediggers of epistemology: foundationalism. The very same arguments we used to show that
scepticism need not be at the heart of epistemology also apply in the case of foundationalism. Indeed,
as Rorty is correct to argue, foundationalism and scepticism (often) come together as a single packagedeal. Again, we can ask if Quine and other naturalisers of epistemology are guilty of endorsing
scepticism simply by challenging it. Or, alternatively, if they are guilty of attempting to build
foundationalist edifices, built on axiomatic self-evident principles, to scare away the ghost of
scepticism. However, the answer to both parts of this question would be: No, they are not.
Section Two: Naturalised Epistemology and Scepticism
Are Sceptical Challenges to be Ignored/Dismissed or Tackled?
Quine, being an implicit/explicit pragmatist (at least in his earlier works), may sympathise with
Peirce’s opinion on scepticism (at least on those scenarios discussed) that the epistemologist, or anyone
else for that matter, is not really rocked by sceptical arguments at all (Hookway, 1985). In fact, just as
Hume said that he forgot about his sceptical conclusions when playing billiards with his mates, so we
too hold on to our old pre-sceptical beliefs and only fake our doubts. Indeed, Peirce himself saw the
Cartesian Cogito as essentially little more than a massive con trick on Descartes’ part. However,
perhaps this is too much of a psychological take on scepticism to satisfy a logical empiricist like Quine.
(Just as Descartes’ own notions of ‘indubitability’ and modal ‘imagination’ are similarly seen as too
psychological in nature.) In terms of Peirce’s pragmatism, Quine would, instead, defer to Oscar
Neurath’s ‘boat’ as a good analogy for our situation – as he often does. Quine would say that scientific
knowledge, or our belief in it at least, keeps this boat afloat. Contrawise, global scepticism, if practised,
or even just believed in, would contribute to its sinking (see Neurath, 1973). We simply could not
withstand, pragmatically speaking, the full onslaught of (total) scepticism. Quine is not the only one to
think in this kind of way. And this kind of position is not only found within naturalised epistemology
and pragmatism. David Lewis, for one, believes that the demands of global scepticism are simply too
strong (see Lewis, 1996, and the later discussion).
Another pragmatist move would be to say that any scientific finding or theory could be compatible
with the sceptical possibilities on offer. For example, the one that claims that there is no external world
or that the world is significantly distorted by the findings or theories of science. The contrary position
to this seemingly positive conclusion is, of course, the negative conclusion that if this is indeed the
case, then no scientific theory or finding could in turn refute the sceptical challenges. Perhaps this
simply would not really matter to the naturaliser of epistemology. Here we can recall the position of the
early logical positivists who often said that it does not matter if one is a metaphysical realist or an
idealist; or if one is an ontological pluralist or a monist. A realist’s world would be no different to an
idealist’s. Similarly, a world with a plurality of substances would be no different, observationally
speaking, to one constructed according to a monist God. (see Ayer’s introduction, 1936.) And so we
can apply this sort of argument to the sceptical hypotheses. The world today, taken as being what it
would be like if the sceptics were right, would be identical to the world tomorrow, taken as what it
would be like if the sceptical anti-sceptics were right. However, the bizarre aspect about this conclusion
is that this is precisely what the sceptic believes about the matter! Indeed, that’s the whole point of his
argument. In addition, we could say that the sceptic and the scenarios or conditions he posits are a little
like Russell’s teapot floating around a planet in a distant galaxy is to the anti-realist.
It all depends on whether Quine was a genuine pragmatist when it comes to such issues. Similarly,
Quine could have taken the sort of position defended by certain anti-realists when their anti-realism
comes very close to a kind of verificationism. That is, none of the sceptical scenarios can be verified or
confirmed – by definition. The problem is that Putnam, again, has said that ‘metaphysical realism…. is
at the heart of Quine’s philosophy’. And surely if that were the case, such ostensibly anti-realist
rejoinders to scepticism, if that’s what they are, would never satisfy a realist, just as they do not satisfy,
amongst others, Thomas Nagel (1986) and Barry Stroud (1984). (Perhaps it is worth repeating here that
Peirce-the-pragmatist was also a self-named ‘realist’. No wonder he preferred the term ‘pragmaticism’
to, for example, the ostensibly non-realist ‘pragmatism’.)
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We could also say here that if Quine is a representationalist (as hinted at earlier), which may or may
not follow from his apparent pragmatic realism, then this too would contribute to his anti-scepticism
problems. If one accepts representationalism, at least according to Davidson (see Luntley, 1999), then
such sceptical problems are bound to occur. That is, there will always be the possibility of a missmatch between a representation and what it is supposed to represent. There is also the problem of the
representation’s ability to represent (Brandom, 1994). Or, as Brandom puts it, we still have a problem
with ‘the representingness of representings’. However, if one is an anti-representationalist like
Davidson, such problems, by definition, simply disappear due to the painfully simple fact that if we
cannot see the world ‘as it is’, i.e., without our concepts, etc., and if we instead get the world ‘directly’
(not indirectly, as with sense-data theorists), then it is pointless to say we can always get things wrong
– at least on the massive scale suggested by the global sceptic and fiercely denied by Davidson
(Davidson, 1984). As Wittgenstein said about the person with a purportedly private mental language
that he would not know if he were going right or going wrong with such a private language
(Wittgenstein, 1953/1958), so if we take a representationalist position on the sceptical challenges, we
would never know if we were going right or going wrong because we would never have the
opportunity of knowing what would constitute the conditions of going right or what could tell us so –
i.e., we have no access to the noumenal world or the world divorced of conceptual determinations and
structurings. In addition, there is also the well-known point raised by Berkeley that the only thing we
can compare our representations to (or, in his case, ‘ideas’) are other representations, not the world ‘as
it is in itself’ (Berkeley,1710 and 1713).
Hume’s Naturalist Position on Scepticism
Strawson makes the following Wittgensteinian points about Hume’s own take on scepticism:
… the existence of the body is a point we must take for granted in all our reasonings. (1985)
However, Strawson qualifies his positive account of Hume by also writing that Hume
then conspicuously does not take it for granted in the reasonings he addresses to the causal question.
Strawson believes that Hume has not naturalised his epistemology enough, as it were, in that he does
not apply his conclusions about the nature of causation to the casual receptivity and efficacy of the
human body itself. If Hume were a Davidsonian, in other words, he would have reasoned that if
causation is thus and so in the case of ‘external’ causes and their effects, then it must also be thus and
so in respect to our bodies. And, as a consequence of this, we could help ourselves to naturalise the
human mind by placing it fairly and squarely in the causal spatiotemporal world rather than as seeing it
in the Cartesian manner and therefore as non-natural. In turn, it would place us in a position in which
the Cartesian internal/external distinction cannot legitimately be made. And in consequence of that we
could accept, for example, the Davidsonian stance that because we are part of the world, and therefore
that the mind is a natural phenomenon, we could, in consequence, also come to believe, but with
admittedly more argument, that we also perceive the world directly in the sense of perceiving objects,
events, etc. directly, rather than via ‘inference’ or ‘posit’ in the phenomenalist and Quinian manners
respectively (see also Strawson, 1959).
Hume also takes a more pragmatic, if not pragmatist, stance on scepticism. As can be gleaned from the
earlier remarks about Hume playing billiards, if he had not ignored or forgotten, if only temporarily
(i.e., while playing billiards, etc.), his outrageous and disturbing sceptical conclusions, then he would
probably have been rendered intellectually, perhaps also emotionally, impotent (as William James was
when he contemplated the possibility that outright determinism is in fact the case). We can also say that
scepticism, or at least global scepticism, would effectively result in intellectual stagnation, at least for
the philosophers who are concerned with such things.
Here we have yet more pragmatist justifications, as it were, for our discounting or ignoring global
scepticism, even if this, like the others, is almost entirely psychological not logical in nature. In more
concrete terms, perhaps we are justified in ignoring or dismissing, for example, the sceptical possibility
that the planet earth was created only five minutes ago, replete with fake fossils, signs of age, etc.
which disguise the fact, as in Russell’s example. This could be an example of a not-p in Lewis’s
contextualist epistemology (1996, see later discussion). And, as Lewis also argues, there is an
indefinite number of possible contents for the expression not-p, most of which, according to Lewis, we
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can ‘proper ignore’. Indeed, such sceptical scenarios, ones that could be the content of a not-p, may be
so easy to fabricate that we could formulate a dozen not-p’s before breakfast.
The better known of Hume’s takes on scepticism is the psychologistic view that it is natural for human
beings to disregard or ignore the majority of the radical doubts we have become so familiar with. That
is, we do so by bringing on board Hume’s emphasis on habit and custom that shows us that we are
simply habituated and accustomed into believing things that would otherwise be the subject of
sceptical doubt. And this conclusion would even hold if our beliefs in the untruth of sceptical doubts
were utterly without justification or foundation. Instead, we could see such cases of as the proper
ignorings or proper dismissals of various examples of non-p as part of our epistemic survival-kit. That
is, such things would not be purely psychological phenomena in the Humean sense, but also, in a way,
a question of method. Our epistemological methods may require Lewisian ‘contexts’ which exclude, by
necessity, as it were, many and various examples of not-p. And if these cases exhibit examples of
Humean naturalism in their appeal to psychology generally, as well as to habit, custom, etc., then that
very naturalism would surely be acceptable to Quinian naturalisers of epistemology. Not only that, but
the question of epistemological method being conditioned by contexts and the resultant necessary
exclusion of many examples of not-p can similarly be seen within a naturalistic context in the sense
that, to put it simply, (belief in) radical scepticism is, well, quite unnatural, or at the least potentially
responsible for future cases of intellectual paralysis.
Despite all these defences of epistemological naturalism and Lewisian contextualism, we can still say,
but with some trepidation, that if epistemological questions and answers are fixed by context and also
by, as it were, Humean nature, the question as to the truth-content of these answers is not. We can now
make the quasi-realist, or just plain realist, claim that epistemic inquiries are, or must be, contextdependent. Truth, however, is not. We can then endorse a Peircian realist position on truth by both
acknowledging the truth and efficacy of fallibilism, and also the idea that truth lies in the far distant
future and that on this temporal point all scientists and all epistemologists will ultimately ‘converge’
(Peirce, 1992 ). Put in that way, we seem to be coming very close to saying, or admitting, that truth is,
after all, mind-independent, even if it will still coloured by our naturalist, pragmatist and fallibilist
hands. In other words, just as Peircian ‘convergence’ is in effect nothing but an ideal to spur us on
(like, say, an anarchist’s belief in a benign anarchism which he knows will never be actualised but that
still affects his behaviour and beliefs), so truth too is an ideal that, as it were, provides a focus and an
aim that is outside the hands of epistemologists and of men generally - if only seemingly external to
such contexts and constraints.
Strawson offers us more comments on Hume’s naturalism. This time on the impossibility of doubting
our bodies, other minds and induction. He writes of Hume:
… whatever arguments may be produced on one side or the other of the question, we simply cannot help believing in
the existence of the body, and cannot help forming beliefs and expectations in general accordance with the basic
canons of induction. He might have added, though he did not discuss this question, that the belief in the existence of
other people (hence other minds) is equally inescapable. (1985)
Interestingly enough, Strawson’s description of the nature of induction, in terms of the psychological
phrase ‘we cannot help but believe’, parallels Wittgenstein’s notion that induction has more to do with
human psychology that it has with logic (Wittgenstein, 1969). However, unlike Strawson, Wittgenstein
appears to be a little sniffy about psychological induction, whether or not it is ‘natural’ and
‘inescapable’. Strawson’s presumably naturalistic acceptance of induction, as well as of other minds,
provides the naturaliser of epistemology with more grist to the mill-of-anti-scepticism that would
counteract scepticism in naturalistic terms. Such justifications would help such a naturaliser of
epistemology when in the company of the Cartesian demon, or Putnam’s mad scientist, or even simple
flesh and blood sceptics.
If we are left feeling uncomfortable with the Humean and Wittgensteinian conclusion that inductive
belief-formation is purely psychological in nature, too psychological, perhaps, in Wittgenstein’s case,
then we can qualify that position by making the Kantian-like point that even if Humean nature
determines such things, there is nothing to stop us, to put it in Kantian terms, from making our
inductive principles (if we have any) more sophisticated, refined, acceptable and logical in nature by
applying reason to what is otherwise just a product of the ‘empirical self’. A purely Humean approach
to induction may prove incapacitating and counterproductive. But through alternative naturalisms, as it
were, we could make induction less psychological in nature by, for example, applying rigorous logical
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principles to it. In so doing, we could stop logic from falling prey to the fleeting opinions and mental
states of inquirers. We could apply a Quinian logical rigour to the problem of induction without making
it any less Humean or naturalistic in the process. This could, in theory, create an equilibrium between
pure Humean naturalism and the obsessive nature of anti-psychologistic logics and philosophies. After
all, to emphasise, what could be more non-naturalistic, or anti-naturalist, than, for example, a purely
Husserlian approach to logic – indeed, his approach to everything else within philosophy.
Wittgenstein and Lewis’s Anti-Scepticism
The questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it
were like hinges on which those turn… But isn’t that the situation is like this: we just can’t investigate everything, and
for that reason we are forced to rest content with assumption. If I want the door to turn, the hinges must stay put.
(Wittgenstein, from On Certainty, 1969)
This passage chimes in well with David Lewis’s own ‘contextualist’ epistemology (1996), but it also
harmonises with Peirce’s more cynical stance on Cartesian doubt (if ‘cynical’ is the right word to use).
And, of course, it adds to the ammunition needed to defend naturalised epistemology against the
accusations that it supposedly ignores or dismisses scepticism.
To put the Wittgensteinian position another way. We can say that all justification occurs within a prior
context of beliefs and justifications that must be accepted, or simply assumed, without being either
tested or re-justified. Such prior beliefs and justifications constitute a part of Wittgenstein’s
‘framework’ (or frameworks), which in turn not only secures us against the threats from global
scepticism but also show us that such a thing is in fact impossible.
Barry Stroud’s position (as seen in the passage in the first section) also sounds a little like an argument
against the late Wittgenstein’s anti-sceptical arguments. In On Certainty (1969) Wittgenstein argues
that certain sceptical doubts could not be raised, or, alternatively, that scepticism could never become
global (rather than merely local) because certain things are never doubted by the sceptic. Or if they
were doubted, the sceptic would in fact end up relying on other uncertain beliefs in order to do so. Such
unquestioned aspects of the world, or of our beliefs, provide what Wittgenstein describes as the very
‘framework’ in which, or on which, sceptical questions can only be asked. And this is not unlike
Quine’s own sceptical ‘framework’ – science itself.
Lewis’s solution to sceptical impossibilism, as it were, is what we have already called ‘contextualist
epistemology’. According to Lewis, we never have infallible knowledge of p, but must, instead,
‘properly ignore’ certain possibilities that not-p, at least those outside our cognisance and/or ‘context’.
In addition, Lewis believes that there are certain examples of knowledge that we cannot justify or do
not need to justify. For example, a belief that we once justified but can no longer do so. Moreover, we
have knowledge, according to Lewis, that our lottery ticket couldn’t possibly win, as in the ‘lottery
paradox’, even though the chance of it winning are not zero, but, say, a million-to-one. (Or, to the
contrary, we also have knowledge that it could win, and for the same reasons.) Not only all that, but
global or extreme scepticism would destroy epistemology itself; or, as Lewis puts it, sceptical
epistemology ‘destroys its own subject-matter’ (1996).
Not only in epistemology are Lewis’s ‘contexts’, or indeed limits, to be found and/or accepted, but also
in science and everyday life. In most cases, the context is provided by the very subject-matter we are
studying or involved in. For example, if we were doing neuroscience we would automatically discount
the possibility that everything in the brain and body is, or could be, controlled by a ‘ghost in the
machine’. If the scientist, qua neuroscientist, is warranted in his ‘proper ignorings’ or dismissals of the
ghost-in-the-machine hypothesis, so Quine, qua naturaliser of epistemology, would in turn be justified
in doing so. If he took that hypothesis seriously, in contradistinction to the neuroscientist, he would not
in fact be an epistemological naturalist at all because that very naturalism, according to Quine himself,
brings along with it a commitment to the findings, methods and theories of science to which naturalised
epistemology must ‘defer’ when, say, a particular epistemologist and scientist are at loggerheads on a
specific issue; or on the occasions when neither party is determinately sure of the facts of the matter
they are debating.
Indeed we can take Lewis’s contextualism further by arguing that not only must epistemologists accept
that their inquiries have a context (they cannot do anything else!), but that the very context, whatever it
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is, provides the resulting statements and theories it engenders, or partly does so, with the very epistemic
nature and status that they have in the first place (or that they are seen to have). In other words, they
would not be seen as statements and theories within epistemology at all if they did not occur in, or
result from, a specific context and all its constituent conditions, processes, etc.
Section Three: Naturalised Epistemology and Normativity
Radical Translation and Normativity
Quine is often accused of overlooking the role of normativity in his epistemology. More specifically,
the role of normativity in the case of epistemic belief-attribution and therefore in, for example, Quine’s
‘radical translation’ scenarios (Quine, 1969). This normativity, in the case of belief-attribution, would
specifically require normative accounts of the studied subject’s general rationality and therefore also
the coherence and consistency of his beliefs or belief-system. And the acceptance or assumption of a
particular subject’s set of beliefs will often require normative criteria that posit the subject’s rationality
and the coherence of his set of beliefs. But none of these things, in many cases, would fit the evidence
or be established by epistemic methods that allegedly wouldn’t fall under the stipulations of a
naturalised epistemology. As Davidson has famously argued, when we evaluate our subject we must do
so on the assumption that he speaks and acts, on most occasions, in conformity with the rules of
rationality (Davidson, 1984). Apart from the extreme cases that if a person were utterly irrational we
could not even understand him. Or if we found the subject’s ‘output’ to be thoroughly irrational, absurd
or self-contradictory (see Stitch, 1988) , then if he seemed irrational we either couldn’t have interpreted
him correctly, as with the translations of the native’s word ‘gavagai’ as meaning ‘rabbit-sections’, or
‘rabbit-parts’, or even ‘rabbithood is instantiated here’ (Quine, 1969), or our own epistemic principles
and rules of rationality must be at fault in some either large or small way. The latter option is not likely
to be accepted by the inquirer – or by Davidson and Quine for that matter. However, if the subject were
either mad or the utterer of beliefs and the actor of actions completely incomprehensible to our
epistemologist or field researcher, then he must conclude that the strange person could not be the
subject of epistemological inquiry at all. Consequently, in order to make the various square shapes of
the object-language fit into the interpretative or translational square holes of the meta-language, we
would need normative principles and assumptions in order to do so. Indeed, if we were trying to make
a madman or alien’s square shape fit into our rational round hole, we would need even more normative
principles and assumptions – as well as needing to adhere to them more strictly, if not blindly.
We mentioned earlier that Quine accepted the normative in naturalised epistemology, but that his
version of normativity is expressed in a jargon redolent with scientific terms. Here’s an example:
For me normative epistemology is a branch of engineering. It is the technology of truth-seeking… There is no
question here of ultimate value, as in morals; it is a matter of efficacy for an ulterior end, truth or prediction. The
normative here, as elsewhere in engineering, becomes descriptive… (Quine, 1986)
Although Quine’s description of the normative is scientific in nature, this does not automatically mean
that he has, in fact, actually dispensed with or rejected the normative. What he does reject, however, is
the normativity of ‘ultimate value, as in morals’ (Quine, 1986). We could find such normativity, for
example, in the moral intuitionism of G.E. Moore (see his 1912) or in the work of many moral realists
(from Kant onwards). Quine’s own normativity abides by Peirce’s fallibilism, according to which
there are no ultimates in either science or epistemology, only rough (or not so rough) guesses that can
and should be amended or even completely dropped when the case requires it. Normativity in Quinian
naturalised epistemology is still retained, but not the kind of normativity that posits absolute truths,
ultimate values, irreproachable principles, perfect methods, necessarily assumptions, etc., all of which
have a categorical status rather than their, as it were, hypothetical status within naturalised
epistemology. The normative principles that lead us to effective ‘truth-seeking’ or ‘prediction’ are there
and are still relied on by the naturaliser of epistemology. It is only the case that such principles should
not be seen in the same way as they sometimes are in moral philosophy (or at least in moral
intuitionism/ realism).
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Epistemic Supervenience
We can say, for example, that epistemic justification must have rationalisations that are based on facts
and natural conditions. However, the epistemologist need not accept, and often does not accept, the
reductionist belief that justification itself is reducible ‘without remainder’ to these facts and conditions.
In other words, this tells us again that epistemic justification can be seen, as is often said, as a
thoroughly normative concept – as normative as rational and also not unlike good and beautiful in
moral philosophy and aesthetics respectively.
All this is not to say that epistemic supervenience theory, as we could call it, has no problems. Take
one problematic case. We could say that the whole point of introducing the supervenience theory into
moral theory is to secure a categorical connection between fact and value. However, traditionally moral
and evaluative properties were often deemed as entirely non-natural. They were thought not to depend
or supervene upon the natural or factual. This position was held by G.E. Moore and was, by some,
‘moral intuitionism’ (G.E. Moore, 1912). Moral intuitionists, or their contemporary equivalents, may
not be happy with this ostensible supervenience of values on facts or natural conditions. They may
think that this would make values seem to be too closely linked to natural properties. And, of course,
not only too closely linked, but by definition they would also depend upon and be determined by them.
According to moral intuitionists, the whole point of the non-natural status of moral and evaluative
predicates would be lost. All this is shown by Van Cleve (1985). Contrary to that, if the nonsupervenience thesis on non-natural properties were to be accepted instead, then many a moral
philosopher would probably argue that our valuational and normative terms and beliefs would thereby
become irrelevant and without significance to many of us - at least those in the world of ethics. The
question for us, then, is how is all this relevant to Quine’s naturalised epistemology?
Clearly, we can firstly discount non-natural properties in naturalised epistemology. However, having
also disregarded non-natural properties from the position of supervenience theory, we can now ask:
Moral intuitionists don’t want moral properties besmirched by their possible supervenience on natural
conditions and facts, but could we accept instead their reduction to entirely natural conditions and
processes as defined and offered to us by science? More relevantly, could we accept Quine’s
identification of epistemic principles and tools with those that are natural and scientific? The
intuitionists don’t want their non-natural properties polluted in any way. Our epistemic supervenience
theorists may not like their own normative epistemic terms completely reduced to, or defined by,
conditions that are entirely natural and always scientifically bona fide. The dependence of the nonnatural on the natural is a dependence too far for our moral intuitionists and realists. Likewise, the
complete reduction of the epistemically normative to the entirely natural may also be a reduction too
far for many epistemologists (as in fact it is).
Of course many non-naturalistic theories, in fields as diverse as ethics and the philosophy of mind, still,
despite the adjective ‘non-naturalistic’, put the natural or factual in an important place in their work. In
a work by the moral philosopher R. M. Hare (1952), for example, he argues that many, if not all, moral
properties supervene on natural ones. He thinks, as do many other moral philosophers, that all values
and other normative properties depend upon and are determined by natural conditions - presumably
ones accounted for by the natural sciences (if not by other sciences). In this book, The Language of
Morals, Hare argues that if the behaviour of two different individuals concur in all descriptive and
natural conditions, then our predicative terms applied to the two could or should not diverge. If we say
that one agent is ‘good’/‘bad’ or ‘right/wrong’ or whatever, we must say the same about the other.
This, of course, exactly parallels the thesis of supervenience in the philosophy of mind where it is more
commonly found and better known.
In the broader terms of moral supervenience, many theorists additionally argue that even if values
could not be reducible, ‘without remainder’, to facts, they must nevertheless be consistent with them –
i.e., not contradict them. In that case we can take the supervenience thesis in the contrary direction.
Instead of saying that all values and all other normative properties supervene and depend upon and are
determined by natural properties and conditions, we can move in the opposite direction, as the theorists
of the mental/physical distinction do (see Davidson’s ‘anomalous monism’ in his 1980). Such people
argue that if the physical conditions or objects are indiscernible vis-à-vis their descriptive properties or
factual status, then they must also be indiscernible vis-à-vis the normative properties that supervene
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upon them. This two-way symmetry is essential for supervenience theorists, whether in the philosophy
of mind, moral philosophy, or elsewhere. Why can’t we apply a similar approach to the principles,
properties and tools of epistemology? They too may ‘transcend’ the natural in certain respects but
nevertheless still be entirely beholden to ‘the facts’ as science perceives them.
However, it is not really the case of epistemologists being persuaded to adopt normative principles, or
to admit that they use them, but that they have always used and believed in them - not only before the
20th century. As W. Alston puts it:
Like any evaluative property, epistemic justification is a supervenient property, the application of which is based on
more fundamental properties… (1976)
Hang on! This passage from Alston, in which he mentions ‘epistemic justification’ being a
supervenient property, goes squarely against Quine when he, in turn, says:
If we are seeking only the causal mechanism of our knowledge of the external world, and not a justification of that
knowledge in terms prior to science… (1970)
I mentioned earlier the question of whether or not naturalised epistemology is the same game as
traditional epistemology. Let’s talk in terms specifically of the epistemically primary notion of
justification. (This goes back to Plato’s distinction between opinion being merely unjustified belief and
knowledge being justified belief.) The desire for a proper account and defence of justification is still
with us today in epistemology. However, Quine, in the passage above (also in others) clearly rejects the
need and desire for justification in epistemology – if only ‘in terms prior to science’. Many
epistemologists, like Quine, appeal equally to causal mechanisms in their epistemology and sometimes
in their explications of justification (especially when it relates to belief-formation). In addition, not all
thereby disregard or reject the epistemic notion of justification. Indeed, reliabilists and other causal
theorists believe that causal processes actually constitute justification in various cases and respects. The
question is, though, are these causal justifications explicated by and dependent upon procedures, terms,
findings, etc. that are ‘prior to science’ and also dependent on science? Of course they could still be
consistent with science but not dependent upon - or posterior to - science in the sense of their not
deferring their findings to scientists or waiting for the correct scientific tools or experiments to come
along which could properly legitimise their causal justifications. In other words, such an epistemology
would still be partly aprioristic in nature, if only in appearance.
Causal Evidence
Not only that, but there are also causal theories of evidence on offer that may be held ‘prior to science’.
And just as Quine himself sees justification (if he sees it at all) purely in terms of evidence scientifically bona fide evidence, so many contemporary epistemologists do the same but outside the
realms of a thoroughly naturalised epistemology and therefore in terms ‘prior to science’. For both
Quine and non-naturalists there are problems with the causal theory of evidence as well. It has been
argued that in such causal theories of evidence the ‘nomic’ causal input-output relations are not also
evidential in nature. That is,
a) We know what goes into the head.
b) We know what comes out of the mouth.
c) We know how to correlate the in-ings with the out-ings (like good behaviourists).
d) But we don’t know what goes on after the input goes in and before the output comes out.
We have no evidential criteria for the actual input-output relation, only for the output simpliciter and
the input simpliciter. Or, if we do have evidence, it is expressed completely in the temporal terms of the
cause-effect relation. Such accounts, if Quine endorses them, do not go all the way down to the
evidential and naturalist bone.
Another evidential missing link can be found in these causal theories of evidence. Such theories
attempt to give us causal criteria for the schema
e is evidence for…
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However, even if this is correct in some way, such a statement in itself does not - by definition provide us with a causal reduction or definition of the evidence itself. In terms of reduction, evidence
cannot be reduced to various examples of the ‘e is evidence for…’ schema because that only states a
relation between evidence (or the non-evidential e) and the beliefs or hypotheses that are the responses
to it. This relation between e and, say, b, cannot in itself be a reduction or a test because we also need
evidence of what actually is the evidence and, additionally, evidence of e’s relation to the beliefs or
hypotheses it supposedly brings about. Just as we had no evidence before for the input-output’s inbetween, so we have no evidence for the in-between of the schema ‘e is evidence for b’; or of the
insides, as it were, of e and its causal, not temporal, relations to b. All we have is a outwardly causal
statement, and perhaps a genuine temporal relation, offered between e and the engendered beliefs or
hypotheses.
Again, the same fate would strike a causal definition of the notion of evidence simpliciter. We can say
that ‘e is evidence for…’, but we cannot say that is a definition of the concept of evidence. Quite
simply, it would be a circular definition in that the schema already includes both the word ‘evidence’
and the symbol-letter ‘e’, which is supposed to be the evidence for something or other. This means that
the schema should really state:
The evidence is evidence for…
Or more charitably:
These conditions, objects etc. here tight now, straight in front of you, are our evidence for the
resultant statements we now make and the beliefs we now have.
In the first schema the relation between evidence-as-thing and evidence-as-causal-process is almost
tautological in nature. That is, e taken as symbolising evidence-full-stop, is evidence-for precisely
because it is (also) evidence-full-stop. More specifically, the relation between e and b has not been
accounted for in causal terms by the schema itself (though it could have been elsewhere). We do not
automatically have a causal definition of the concept evidence. Again, we have a problem with the inbetween of the ‘e is evidence for…’ schema when taken as a definition. We have not given a causal
definition of e or of e’s causal relation to its consequents (i.e., beliefs and hypotheses). We are given
the schema, but that is not a causal definition of evidence. (We can see it, instead, as already said, only
as a schematisation of a temporal cause-effect relation.)
Conclusion
I hope that it is now evident that there are problems – perhaps many problems – with Quinian
naturalised epistemology. There are also problems with every other position and school within
epistemology. The problems elicited in this paper alone should not be viewed as justification enough
for renouncing naturalised epistemology and all that it says – unless, of course, some of its problems
are deadly! Quine, perhaps due to some of these problems, shifted back and forth between an easygoing pragmatism and a hard-headed logical empiricism, as well as between a Peircian realism and
positions that can be taken as coming fairly close to anti-realist in nature. And his position on
conceptual schemes could be taken in the pluralist way in which Nelson Goodman takes them. Or,
alternatively, they could be taken as applying only within a purely scientific context, as Quine himself
applied them. On the other hand, his position on conceptual schemes, or his ‘webs of belief’, is not as
extreme and anti-relativist in nature as Davidson’s.
We could also easily become a little sceptical about the level of ‘scientism’, to use his enemies’ term,
Quine reaches, at least at times, in his overall philosophy - and which therefore clash with the
aforementioned Goodman’s philosophically pluralist and liberal stance on philosophy - and all else! and science (or, I should say, physics). It is also not entirely clear whether or not Quine is indeed an
epistemic eliminativist, as Putnam, for one, claims he is in the previously mentioned work. In addition,
although I attempted to discount even the possibility of a purely descriptive naturalised epistemology, it
is still not absolutely clear if Quine does or does not believe in such a thing; despite what he has said
and written on the matter. A case could also be made to argue that Quine did indeed ignore or dismiss
the well-known sceptical challenges that fascinate philosophy students so much. The same, or similar,
could be said about Quine’s attitude to epistemic normativity, about which he also denies any
culpability when it comes to a genuine neglect of the issue.
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We could also be suspicious of Quine’s general attitude to science, as already hinted at. Despite the
arguments in this paper as to the possibility or potentiality of a genuinely reciprocal relationship
between naturalised epistemology and science, one can’t help but still suspect, at least on occasion, that
epistemic naturalisers would only fulfil a role, in Quine’s scheme, similar to that which was once
ordained by Wittgenstein for philosophers in the 1920s; and which was taken up by many logical
positivists – if only for a short time! That role is severely deflationary in nature. It amounts to the
philosophically limited analysis - perhaps not even analysis, but only the mere description - of
scientific propositions. Similarly, a purely descriptive epistemology would be no epistemology at all. In
that case, Quine, if not naturalised epistemology itself, might well have been guilty of killing
epistemology, as some theorists have it. That is if it is in fact dead (which it evidently isn’t). We need,
therefore, to get a firmer grip on the word ‘descriptive’, as it occurs in ‘descriptive naturalised
epistemology’, before we reach any firm or final conclusions on the matter.
Nevertheless, despite all these criticisms and warnings, we must remember that there are other
naturalisms on offer within epistemology. There are even options within naturalised epistemology. For
example, just as Quine had a deep respect for physics and physicists, so another naturaliser of
epistemology could quite easily see, say, biology as being of more relevance and use than physics in
terms of our attempts to naturalise epistemology. Perhaps we could even say the same about a social
science; not just about Quine’s acceptable kinds of psychology that he uses and refers to. Or, finally,
we could become naturalisers, or just plain naturalists, who are also philosophical pluralists as well as
being, in addition, physicalists and logical empiricists into the bargain, just as Goodman and my
fictional artist (referred to in the paper) are.
Notes and Further Reading:
Alston, W. (1976) ‘Two Types of Foundationalism’, in the Journal of Philosophy 73
Ayer, A.J. (1936) Language, Truth, and Logic
Berkeley, G. (1710) Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
Blackmore, J.T. (1972) Ernst Mach
Brandom, R. (1994) Making It Explicit
Carnap, R. (1928/1967) The Logical Structure of the World, trans. R.A. George
Clarke, T. ‘The Legacy of Scepticism’, in the Journal of Philosophy 69
Davidson, D. (1980) Essays on Actions and Events
- (1984) Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation
Descartes, R. (1641) Meditations on First Philosophy (various editions)
- (1644) Principles of Philosophy (various editions)
Goodman, N. (1951) The Structure of Appearance
- (1978) Ways of Worldmaking
Hare, R.M. (1952) The Language of Morals
Hookway, C. (1985) Peirce
Hume, D. (1739) A Treatise of Human Nature
- (1748) An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Kant, I. (1787) The Critique of Pure Reason (various editions)
Lewis, D. (1996) ‘Elusive Knowledge’, in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74, 4
Luntley, M. (1999) Truth, World, Content
Moore, G.E. (1912) Ethics
Nagel, T. (1986) The View From Nowhere
Neurath, O. (1913-1946/1973) Philosophical Papers 1913-1946, eds. Cohen and Neurath
Peirce, C.S. (ed. 1992) Reasoning and the Logic of Things
Putnam, H. (1981) Reason, Truth and History
- Realism and Reason
Quine, W.V.O. (1953) From a Logical Point of View
- (1969) Ontological Relativity and Other Essays
- (1970) ‘Grades of Theoreticity’, in Experience and Theory, Eds. Foster and Swanson
- (1973) The Roots of Reference
- (1975) ‘The nature of natural knowledge’, in Mind and Language, ed. Guttenplan
- (1986) ‘Reply to Morton White’, in The Philosophy of W.V. Quine, eds. Hahn and Rorty, R. (1979)
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
Schiffer, S. (1987) Remnants of Meaning
Stitch, S. (1988) ‘Reflective Equilibrium, Analytic Epistemology and Cognitive Diversity’, in Synthese 74
Strawson, P.F. (1959) Individuals
- (1985) Scepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties
Stroud, B. (1984) The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism
The Place of Science, Scepticism and Normativity in…
Van Cleve, J. (1985) ‘Epistemic Supervenience and the Circle of Belief’, in The Monist 68
Williams, M. (1977) Groundless Belief
- (1992) Unnatural Doubts
Wittgenstein, L. (1921/1961) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
- (1953/1958) Philosophical Investigations
- (1969) On Certainty
- Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics
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