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Gavagai Redox Or ―Epistemology Naturalized‖ Through Lockean Spectacles (Undetached Draft Parts) 1.) Introduction in This

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Gavagai Redox Or ―Epistemology Naturalized‖ Through Lockean Spectacles (Undetached Draft Parts) 1.) Introduction in This Gavagai Redox Or ―Epistemology Naturalized‖ Through Lockean Spectacles (undetached draft parts) 1.) Introduction In this paper I pursue two ambitious goals. First, and foremost, I outline an alternative both to the standard interpretations of Quine‘s ―Epistemology Naturalized‖ and to the standard projects in naturalized epistemology. Second, I place this alternative view of naturalized epistemology in the context of recent epistemology as well as the recent and long-term history of philosophy, evaluating the outlined view both as an interpretation of Quine and as an epistemic project. Understanding the theory in a broader historical context is important to epistemology, which all too often evinces an indifference and/or ignorance of its historical roots. Indeed, in an ironic twist—given Quine's famous thesis regarding the indeterminacy of translation--I argue that the literature in epistemology exhibits a profound misunderstanding of Quine's position. Ultimately, the primary philosophical significance of the theory lies with its utility in epistemology. Therefore, I try to exhibit the consistent and strong motivations for Quine's rejection of traditional approaches to epistemology, outline his positive position, and defend that position against the skeptic as well as the charges of circularity. 2. The Standard Interpretations/Programs of Epistemology Naturalized Epistemologists standardly explicate Quine‘s essay, and hence, naturalized epistemology, in accordance with one of three interpretative traditions. Kim and Stroud famously assert that Quine rejects epistemology‘s normativity in ―What is Naturalized Epistemology?‖ and ―Naturalized Epistemology‖ respectively.1, 2 Kornblith articulates perhaps the clearest and best argued interpretation of Quine as an advocate of psychologism in ―What is Naturalistic Epistemology.‖3 Feldman discusses the interpretation of naturalized epistemology as project in conceptual reduction (or at least compatibility with physicalism) in ―Goldman on Epistemology and Cognitive Science‖ and ―Naturalized Epistemology‖4, 5, as does Kim1, 6, 7. This last approach to naturalized epistemology, whatever its merits as an interpretation of Quine, is probably the most active project in naturalized epistemology, including contributions from such theorists as Bayer8, Davies9, Hacker10, Horgan11, Mi12, Sinclair7, Timmons11, and Villanueva13. Despite the earnest intent and intellectual prowess of the scholars responsible for each of the above-mentioned interpretative traditions, each faces several significant difficulties as an interpretation of Quine‘s actual works. All the standard accounts have tenuous textual bases. All the standard interpretations, likewise fail to provide consistent and strong motivations for the positions each attributes to Quine. Finally, all the standard interpretations combine an ill-defined positive project with a naïve and inconsistent understanding of, and response to, both the traditional epistemic project and the skeptic. I briefly outline each view and its general interpretive difficulties in the remainder of this section. The Replacement Thesis The replacement thesis represents a pervasive view of Quine‘s work. Kim1, Kornblith3, and Feldman4 among many others all base the replacement thesis interpretation largely on two quotes from Quine:14 The stimulation of his sensory receptors is all the evidence anybody has had to go on, ultimately, in arriving at his picture of the world. Why not just see how this construction really proceeds? Why not settle for psychology? (p.75) and14 Epistemology, or something like it, simply falls into place as a chapter of psychology and hence of natural science. It studies a natural phenomenon, viz., a physical human subject. This human subject is accorded a certain experimentally controlled input--certain patterns of irradiation in assorted frequencies, for instance--and in the fullness of time the subject delivers as output a description of the three- dimensional external world and its history. The relation between the meager input and the torrential output is a relation that we are prompted to study for somewhat the same reasons that always prompted epistemology: namely, in order to see how evidence relates to theory, and in what ways one's theory of nature transcends any available evidence.... … But a conspicuous difference between old epistemology and the epistemological enterprise in this new psychological setting is that we can now make free use of empirical psychology. (pp.82-82) Epistemologists usually quote Kim in outlining the standard interpretation:1 Quine‘s proposal is more radical than that. He is asking us to set aside the entire framework of justification-centered epistemology. That is what is new in Quine‘s proposals. Quine is asking us to put in its place a purely descriptive, causal-nomological science of human cognition. (p.338) Similarly, Stroud tells readers that the traditional epistemologist...2 ...wanted to identify the indubitable information we could be said to acquire in perception so that he could pose more sharply and more precisely the question of how that information could ever justify our richer beliefs about an external world. But once the project of justification is abandoned, Quine thinks, we can sidestep the issue of awareness and simply try to explain how our torrential theoretical output arises from those events that take place at our sensory surfaces. (p.224) Interpreters of Quine seek to answer three questions; Q1 Is naturalized epistemology autonomous? Q2 Is naturalized epistemology normative? Q3 What results might one expect from naturalized epistemology? Thus, one finds three elements to the replacement view: Q1 Is naturalized epistemology autonomous? 1R Psychology replaces epistemology. Q2 Is naturalized epistemology normative? 2R Epistemology renounces its normative character. Q3 What results might one expect from naturalized epistemology? 3R The theory that emerges from a psychologized epistemology is a causal-nomological explanation of belief genesis. In later sections I discuss the plausibility of R1. Here I emphasize the interpretive difficulties facing the replacement thesis as regards R2 and R3. The main problem with the replacement thesis as an interpretation of Quine lies in the fact that Quine clearly never abandons normativity. He consistently distinguishes science from other less laudable human pursuits, he never disavows justification (See for example15, 16), and he continues to use evaluative terms such as theory and evidence. He consistently distinguishes science from other less laudable human pursuits, he never disavows justification (See for example15, 16), and he continues to use evaluative terms such as theory and evidence. For instance, Quine tells readers of The Roots of Reference,17 Are we to conclude then that the old epistemologists' problem of bridging a gap between sense data and bodies was a pseudoproblem? No, the problem was real but wrongly viewed. The old epistemologists may have thought that their atomistic attitude toward sense data was grounded in introspection, but it was not. It was grounded in their knowledge of the physical world. … The crucial logical point is that the epistemologist is confronting a challenge to natural science that arises from within natural science. 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 two-dimensional optical projections and various impacts of air waves on the eardrums and some gaseous reactions in the nasal passages and a few kindred odds and ends. How, the challenge proceeds, could one hope to find out about that external world from such meager traces? In short, if our science were true, how could we know it? (p.2) Likewise, Quine begins From Stimulus to Science by asserting,18 We are faced with the problem of error. These are worries about our knowledge of the external world. To deal with them we have had to turn inward and seek a knowledge of knowledge. (p.1) Similarly, Quine‘s numerous appeals to evolution and analogies between epistemology and engineering belie claims that he viewed the proper product of naturalized epistemology as a causal-nomological explanation/description of belief genesis (3r). Quine did seek explanations, but the explanations he sought were explanations of epistemic excellence. For example, Quine informs readers that,19 Naturalization of epistemology does not jettison the normative and settle for the indiscriminate description of ongoing procedures. For me normative epistemology is a branch of engineering. It is the technology of truth-seeking, or, in a more cautiously epistemological term, prediction. (p.664-665) In a similar vein, Quine opines,14 There is some encouragement in Darwin. ... Creatures inveterately wrong in their inductions have a pathetic but praiseworthy tendency to die before reproducing their kind. ... For me then the problem of induction is a problem about the world: a problem of how we, as we now are (by our present scientific lights), in a world we never made, should stand a better than random or coin-tossing chances of coming out right when we predict by inductions.... Darwin‘s natural selection is a plausible partial explanation. (p.126-7) Thus, those who try to interpret Quine as advocating the replacement thesis find themselves at great pains to try to reconcile the non-normative, causal-nomological explanatory project with Quine‘s body
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