The Naturalistic Approach to Epistemology--A Study of Quine's Naturalized Epistemology

• Main Authors: Tsai, Cheng-hung, 蔡政宏
• Other Authors: Lin Cheng-hung
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 1998
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/77988188830765112547

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 哲學系 === 86 === The aim of this thesis is to examine Quine's naturalized epistemology,investi-gating whether its adoption would repudiate the normative element in epistemo-logy. In his well-known essay "Epistemology Naturalized" of 1969, Quine arguesthat epistemology should be reconstructed as a branch of natural science, an empirical study of the relation between sensory stimulations and scientific theory formulations. There are three major objections that have been raised against Quine's argument and his approach to epistemology: (i)Quine's charact- erization of traditional epistemology is misconceived. (ii) Quine's recommedat-ion of naturalizing epistemology neglects the notion of epistemic justificati-on, and hence the evaluative strain in epistemology. (iii)Quine's naturalized epistemology, understood as a scientific study, does not and cannot response to the skeptical challenge to the very possibility of our knowledge of the ex-ternal world,and hence fails to be a normative study of knowledge. In this th-esis, I reconstruct Quine's argument for naturalizing epistemology within his systemic philosophy, and focus on Quine's holism and its application: Qui-ne relies on it in arguing against traditional epistemology (especially Carna-pian reductionist program), in supporting his thesis of underdetermination of physical theory and indeterminacy of translation, and in responding to radicalskepticism. It offers the key to an understanding of the normativity and scopeof Quine's naturalized epistemology. After analyzing three criticisms on Quin-e's naturalized epistemology, especially proposed by Harvey Siegel, Jaegwon Kim, Alvin Goldman, and Barry Stroud, I try to show that those critics miss the point because they do not appreciate the close connection between Quine's naturalistic approach and holistic approach to epistemology.