Abstract
This chapter introduces the theme of the book, epistemological naturalism, explains central concepts and gives an overview on the book’s contents. In particular, I introduce my understanding of epistemological naturalism as consisting of two elements, namely naturalized epistemology and justificatory monism. Briefly, naturalized epistemology is the project of pursuing epistemology in a strictly scientific manner. Justificatory monism claims that there is only one fundamental way to justify any claim whatsoever, namely through empirical-scientific evidence. Furthermore, I discuss basic Quinean terminology, as Quine’s work is a central point of orientation throughout the book.
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Notes
- 1.
My distinction between epistemic and epistemological matters distinguishes the actual practice of justifying claims and attaining knowledge from reflecting and theorizing about this practice. Epistemic questions are questions regarding the justification of a given claim or position; they are internal to the game of giving and asking for reasons. For example, to maintain that the epistemic standing of the claim that god exists is weak is to maintain that the claim has little warrant, or justification. In contrast, epistemological questions are questions about this game; they are answered with reflections and theories about central concepts or principles of the game. By drawing this distinction, I do by no means dispute that many epistemic debates evolve into epistemological debates.
- 2.
I take it that what Glock (2003, pp. 27–28) calls metaphilosophical naturalism largely coincides with methodological naturalism: he (ibid.) considers Quine’s methodological monism as an instance of metaphilosophical naturalism.
- 3.
I use the term ‘justificatory monism’ instead of Quine’s term ‘naturalism’ for two reasons. First, ‘naturalism’ is—mostly due to Quine’s influence—currently used in so many different ways that it has lost any distinctive meaning. Second, I hope that the term ‘justificatory monism’ serves to highlight the aspects of Quine’s naturalism that I am focusing on.
- 4.
Hence, I disagree with Keil (2003, p. 277), who maintains that “it was far from clear what he [Quine, RG] did ban under the name of prior [i.e. first, RG] philosophy”, and also that “[t]here are not many philosophers left at whom Quine’s criticism of philosophical apriorism could be aimed.” Quine’s justificatory monism excludes any position according to which reflection on the correct explication of empirical-scientific justification is not itself bound by this conception. Such positions are still held by a significant part of contemporary philosophers of science.
- 5.
Further passages where Maddy implicitly relies on empiricist justificatory monism are: Maddy (2007, p. 262), where she makes clear that it is not conceivable that any other evidence than empirical evidence could play a role in developmental psychology; Maddy (2007, p. 279), where she acknowledges, in striking analogy to Quine, that even the laws of logic can be revised in light of empirical evidence; Maddy (2007, p. 410), where she agrees with Mark Lange that interpretations of physical theories that allow for new empirical predictions thereby qualify as scientific theories, instead of being philosophical speculation; Finally, Maddy (2007, p. 88) distinguishes her position from Carnap’s by rejecting the very idea that there is any realm of inquiry beyond the empirical one: “what she [the Second Philosopher, RG] wants, of course, is a defense based on empirical study of human language use. In contrast, Carnap explicitly distinguishes his pursuit of ‘the logic of science’ from the empirical study of language”.
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Gubelmann, R. (2019). Introduction. In: A Science-Based Critique of Epistemological Naturalism in Quine’s Tradition. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24524-5_1
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