WVO Quines Epistemic Paradigm :: Naturalized Epistemology

WVO Quines Epistemic ParadigmSince its take in 1969, Quines seminal essay entitled Epistemology Naturalized has had a polarizing effect on pursuits in this field. Many have rejected the naturalist admission to epistemology on the grounds that it is mere relativism (see below), while others have celebrated Quines syllabus for articulating an empirical approach to epistemology. In what follows, I will endeavour to reserve a clean explanation of some of the central features of Quines realness and blot out what I believe are the strengths and weaknesses of these features and, I will tenderize a brief account of why I believe Quines naturalism to be an exemplary approach to clarifying how epistemic pursuits ought to be carried out. 1. Quines realness What thus is naturalized epistemology according to Quine? Simply stated, it is the departure from traditional philosophy insofar as it invites empirical science to play a crucial role clarifying the explanatory relation between th eory and evidence. The designer that this is a departure from the tradition is because philosophical doctrine has clung to the notion that epistemology is mainly a normative inquiry concerned with the pure conscionableification of our claims to knowledge. matchless of the major, and perhaps ironic, problems with the traditional view, however, is that there has been much disagreement over just which criteria are to count as justification in the first place. If we consider justification to increase the liklihood that our beliefs are true, and thus wind up with knowledge, then how are we to know that our original criteria are themselves warrant? The most old(prenominal) strategy1 against this risk of infinite regress is to accept only beliefs that are beyond doubt true, such as first-person reports of conscious phenomena or clear and distinct ideas. From this sign cache of first principles wizard could then, were this endeavour successful, rationally reconstruct an epistemica lly justified account of how we come to have knowledge. Quine characterizes this approach generously by displace a parallel to the attempted reduction of mathematics when he says ideally the obscurer concepts would be outlined in terms of the clearer ones so as to increase clarity, and the less obvious laws would be proved from the more obvious ones so as to maximize certainty.2 With this kind of foundationalist epistemology, once one has defined which first principles are to be accepted as justified truths, one can then proceed with the project of explaining science (inter alia) in uniformity with them.