Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T11:18:03.742Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Naturalizing Epistemology: Quine, Simon and the Prospects for Pragmatism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

Stephen Stich
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In recent years there has been a great deal of discussion about the prospects of developing a ‘naturalized epistemology’, though different authors tend to interpret this label in quite different ways. One goal of this paper is to sketch three projects that might lay claim to the ‘naturalized epistemology’ label, and to argue that they are not all equally attractive. Indeed, I'll maintain that the first of the three—the one I'll attribute to Quine—is simply incoherent. There is no way we could get what we want from an epistemological theory by pursuing the project Quine proposes. The second project on my list is a naturalized version of reliabilism. This project is not fatally flawed in the way that Quine's is. However, it's my contention that the sort of theory this project would yield is much less interesting than might at first be thought.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 34 , March 1993 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Buchanan, B. 1983. ‘Mechanizing the search for explanatory hypotheses’, in Asquith, P. and Nichols, T. (eds), PSA 1982, Vol. 2. East Lansing, MI: Philosophy of Science Association.Google Scholar
Dunbar, K. 1989. ‘Scientific reasoning strategies in a simulated molecular genetics environment’, Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society Ann Arbor, MI: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Foerstl, H. 1990. ‘Capgras' delusion’, Comprehensive Psychiatry, 31, 447–449.Google Scholar
Fong, G., Krantz, D. and Nisbett, R. 1986. ‘The effects of statistical training on thinking about everyday problems’, Cognitive Psychology 18,253–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, A. 1986. Epistemology and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D., Slovic, P. and Tversky, A. (eds) 1982. Judgment Under Uncertainty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kim, J. 1988. ‘What is “Naturalized Epistemology?”’ Philosophical Perspectives, 2, 381–405.Google Scholar
Kitcher, P. 1990. ‘The division of cognitive labor’, Journal of Philosophy, 87, 5–22.Google Scholar
Kitcher, P. 1992. ‘The naturalists return’, Philosophical Review, 101, 53–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kornblith, H. (ed.) 1985a. Naturalizing Epistemology, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kornblith, H. 1985b. ‘What is naturalistic epistemology?’ in Kornblith (1985a), 1–13.Google Scholar
Kulkarni, D. and Simon, H. 1988. ‘The processes of scientific discovery: The strategy of experimentation’, Cognitive Science, 12, 139–175.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kulkarni, D. and Simon, H. 1990. ‘Experimentation in Machine Discovery’, in Shrager and Langley (1990a).Google Scholar
Langley, P., Simon, H., Bradshaw, G. and Zytkow, J. 1987. Scientific Discovery: Computational Explorations of the Creative Processes.Google Scholar
Nisbett, R. (ed.) 1993. Rules for Reasoning. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Nisbett, R. and Ross, L. 1980. Human Inference. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Nisbett, R., Fong, G., Lehman, D. and Cheng, P. 1987. ‘Teaching reasoning’, Science, 238, 625–631.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Qin, Y. and Simon, H. 1990. ‘Laboratory replication of scientific discovery processes’, Cognitive Science, 14, 281–312.Google Scholar
Quine, W. 1969a. Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Quine, W. 1969b. ‘Epistemology naturalized’, in Quine (1969a), 69–90. Reprinted in Kornblith (1985a).Google Scholar
Quine, W. 1969c. ‘Natural kinds’, in Quine (1969a), 114–138. Reprinted in Kornblith (1985a).Google Scholar
Quine, W. 1975. ‘The nature of natural knowledge’, in Guttenplan, S. (ed.) Mind and language. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, R. 1979. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, R. 1982. Consequences of Pragmatism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, R. 1988. ‘Representation, social practice, and truth’, Philosophical Studies, 54, 215–228.Google Scholar
Shrager, J. and Langley, P. (eds) 1990a. Computational Models of Scientific Discovery and Theory Formation. San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.Google Scholar
Shrager, J. and Langley, P. 1990b. ‘Computational approaches to scientific discovery’, in Shrager and Langley (1990a).Google Scholar
Simon, H. 1966. ‘Scientific discovery and the psychology of problem solving’, in Colodny, R. (ed.), Mind and Cosmos: Essays in Contemporary Science and Philosophy, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Simon, H. 1973. ‘Does scientific discovery have a logic?’ Philosophy of Science, 40, 471–480.Google Scholar
Stich, S. 1990. The Fragmentation of Reason. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Stich, S. 1991a. “The Fragmentation of Reason — Precis of two chapters', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 51, 179–183.Google Scholar
Stich, S. 1991b. ‘Evaluating cognitive strategies: A reply to Cohen, Goldman, Harman and Lycan’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 51,207–213.Google Scholar
Thagard, P. 1988. Computational Philosophy of Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Zytkow, J. and Simon, H. 1988. ‘Normative systems of discovery and logic of search’, Synthese, 74, 65–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar