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On the Ontology/Epistemology Distinction

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The Map and the Territory

Part of the book series: The Frontiers Collection ((FRONTCOLL))

Abstract

There are good reasons for thinking that any sharp division between ontology and epistemology is untenable, because ontology is characterized by the fact that objects are standardly seen by us in terms of a conceptual apparatus that is substantially driven by mind-involving elements.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The reference work in this case still is Quine’s paper “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, in Quine (1980), pp. 20–46. For a more recent perspective see McDowell (1994).

  2. 2.

    The distinction biological/cultural evolution is constantly present in pragmatist authors like James, Peirce, and Dewey. For a contemporary assessment see Rescher (1990).

  3. 3.

    See especially D. Davidson, “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme,” in Davidson (1984), pp. 183–198. The paper was originally published in Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 47, 1974, pp. 5–20. See also R. Rorty, “The World Well Lost”, in Rorty (1982), pp. 3–18. I cannot take this problem into account here. For a criticism of Davidson’s and Rorty’s positions see Haack 199.

  4. 4.

    James (1907), p. 156.

  5. 5.

    Ibid., pp. 222–223.

  6. 6.

    Ibid.

  7. 7.

    James (1907), p. 171.

  8. 8.

    See Stapp (1993).

  9. 9.

    H. I. Brown, “Conceptual scheme”, in Honderich (1995), pp. 146–147.

  10. 10.

    “Conceptual scheme”, in Blackburn (1996), pp. 72–73.

  11. 11.

    D. Davidson, “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme”, cit., pp. 187 and 189.

  12. 12.

    Ibid., pp. 190–1.

  13. 13.

    Ibid., p. 197.

  14. 14.

    Ibid., p. 198.

  15. 15.

    R. Rorty, “The World Well Lost”, cit., p. 6.

  16. 16.

    Ibid., pp. 9–10.

  17. 17.

    Ibid., p. 14.

  18. 18.

    W. Sellars, “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man,” in Sellars (1963), pp. 1–40.

  19. 19.

    D. Davidson, “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme”, cit., p. 187.

  20. 20.

    Ibid., p. 197.

  21. 21.

    Laudan (1996), p. 13.

  22. 22.

    D. Davidson, ibid., p. 196.

  23. 23.

    “Our statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience not individually but only as a corporate body” (W. V. Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, cit., p. 41).

  24. 24.

    Ibid., p. 36.

  25. 25.

    Ibid., p. 42.

  26. 26.

    See Putnam (1995), pp. 59–61.

  27. 27.

    “We cannot strip away the conceptual trappings sentence by sentence and leave a description of the objective world; but we can investigate the world, and man as a part of it, and thus find out what cues he could have of what goes on around him. Subtracting his cues from his world view, we get man’s net contribution as the difference. This domain marks the extent of man’s conceptual sovereignty—the domain within which he can revise theory while saving the data”. Quine (1994), p. 5.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., pp. 275–276.

  29. 29.

    The similarities between Quine’s and Ajdukiewicz’s conceptions in this regard are analyzed in (Jakubiec 1986).

  30. 30.

    D. Davidson, “Three Varieties of Knowledge”, in Phillips Griffiths (1991), p. 157.

  31. 31.

    W. Sellars, “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind”, in Sellars (1963), p. 169.

  32. 32.

    W. V. Quine, “On the Very Idea of a Third Dogma”, in Quine (1981), p. 41.

  33. 33.

    With the exception, of course, of such texts dealing specifically with Polish philosophy of our century such as Skolimowski (1967) and Wolenski (1989).

  34. 34.

    Wolenski (1989), p. 199.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., pp. 204–205.

  36. 36.

    See for example Devitt (1991) and N. Rescher, “The Rise and Fall of Analytic Philosophy”, in Rescher (1994), pp. 31–42.

  37. 37.

    Wolenski (1989), p. 205.

  38. 38.

    K. Ajdukiewicz, “The World-Picture and the Conceptual Apparatus”, in Ajdukiewicz (1978), p. 67.

  39. 39.

    V. V. Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, cit., p. 43.

  40. 40.

    K. Ajdukiewicz, ibid., p. 72.

  41. 41.

    K. Ajdukiewicz, “The Scientific World-Perspective”, in Ajdukiewicz (1978), p. 117.

  42. 42.

    Wolenski (1989), p. 208.

  43. 43.

    W. V. Quine, “Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, cit., p. 43.

  44. 44.

    D. Davidson, “On the Very Idea Idea of a Conceptual Scheme,” cit., p. 188.

  45. 45.

    J. Giedymin, “Editor’s Introduction”, in Ajdukiewicz (1978), p. xl. Giedymin refers to Ajdukiewicz’s 1935 paper “The Scientific World-Perspective”, cit.

  46. 46.

    For a definition of this expression see W. Sellars, “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man”, cit.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Genova, Genoa, Italy

    Michele Marsonet

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  1. Michele Marsonet
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  1. R. N. Podar School, Mumbai, India

    Shyam Wuppuluri

  2. Advanced Studies Research Group, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Francisco Antonio Doria

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Marsonet, M. (2018). On the Ontology/Epistemology Distinction. In: Wuppuluri, S., Doria, F. (eds) The Map and the Territory. The Frontiers Collection. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72478-2_2

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