Mike Mackus

Matthew Benton
Philosophy 220
December 12th, 2008

(Un)Naturalized Epistemology

Epistemology has found itself in search of certainty- a Cartesian certainty- since the

moment Descartes put in our minds the frightful idea that an evil demon could, at present, be

tricking us. The skeptic was born and the epistemologist has fought a fierce battle since.

Epistemology has sought a criteria on which one might be able to use the word ‘knowledge’ and

be able to attribute the possession of knowledge. Thus, in essence, epistemology sets its aim to

examine if we have grounds for particular beliefs about the world and hence a foundation on

which empirical science can stand. So if we grant that our senses are accurate then the goal of the

epistemologist should be to take these senses and proceed to see if our beliefs about the world

are derivable from them.

But, here, Quine interjects. He claims it is apparent that such a goal for epistemology is

likely to be impossible. As support for this Quine draws from the recent failure of philosophers

of mathematics to reduce all arithmetic to logic. Gödel dealt a swift blow with his two

incompleteness theorems leading many to the conclusion that there is no way to ground for

mathematical knowledge and thus impossible to display mathematical certainty. If a system so

simple and so crucial to the empirical sciences cannot be proven to stand on a solid foundation

then what is the hope for epistemology?

Quine argues that the pitfalls of studying the foundations of mathematics are, similarly,

the burdens that epistemology is faced with. The studies of mathematics can be divided evenly

among the conceptual and the doctrinal. The conceptual studies aim to define terms and clarify

them, often in terms of one another. The doctrinal studies establish laws by proving them, some
derived from other laws and some derived from self-evident axioms. Thus if the mathematical

concepts are clear enough to be translated in terms of logic then the truths of mathematics would

be truths of logic. Likewise, epistemology can be seen as having a division between conceptual

and doctrinal studies. If epistemology looks to ground knowledge in our sensory experience of

the world then the conceptual side is explaining the physical world in sensory terms; the

doctrinal side is then the establishment of laws of knowledge- that is, using those sensory terms

in order to justify knowledge of particular truths.

However, we have already seen that any axiomatic system will either be incomplete or

inconsistent; thus, even if we were to couch our sensory terms in logical and set-theoretic

language, as Quine suggests we might, this would not assure that any and all statements are

provable. Given such a position, Quine recommends that epistemology can and should rid itself

of all this “creative reconstruction” and “make-believe” (294). Quine asks, if the epistemologist

is to admit that all an individual has to form his beliefs are his sensory experiences of the world

then why not simply strive to understand how one moves from sensory experience to belief? That

is, epistemology can simply consider itself a sub-branch of psychology. The goal of

epistemology would be straightforward: a subject has a stimulation of his sensory receptors; the

subject, from this sensory input, then forms a belief about the external world; the epistemologist

would examine this causal relationship between the subject’s experience and his belief. Quine

admits that this transition in epistemological aims appears circular. If the goal of epistemology is

to find a grounds for which one can be said ‘to know that p’ from empirical evidence and thus

reveal grounds for all empirical sciences then the epistemologist should not be able to use

psychology, or any other empirical science for that matter, as a tool in his investigations. Quine,

however, refutes any crime or wrong-doing in such circularity. Rather, he holds that this
circularity does not pose a problem given that epistemology is to give up on any hopes of

deducing science from sensory experience and observation. The circularity would indeed be a

problem for a traditional account of epistemology attempting to do what Quine holds is likely to

be impossible (discover grounds for certainty). But if the goal is to instead understand how

sensory stimuli lead to beliefs and how observations lead to science then, Quine argues, we are

entitled to use any means available.

As we have seen, Quine provides a list of reasons to propose that epistemology’s

traditional aim is perhaps both misdirected and futile. Quine’s proposed naturalized epistemology

places epistemology under the umbrella of psychology; epistemology becomes a member of the

natural sciences. As we have also seen, this move can only be made by removing a key aspect of

traditional epistemology: the normative element. Quine offers a view of epistemology that

deletes any need for prescription: sensory stimuli in a subject result in the subject generating a

belief; that causal relationship is the object of study. That is, instead of questioning how beliefs

ought to be formed, Quine seems to be arguing that how one does is how one should. While this

new project Quine suggests may very well be worthy of study, he is right to believe that it is a

job for the psychologist. The epistemologist cannot rid himself of the normative element for a

number of reasons. First and foremost, Quine’s naturalized epistemology is a venture to study

how beliefs are formed; traditional epistemology states as its goal almost always that it is

searching for how knowledge is attained and what exactly can qualify as knowledge.

Epistemology is only concerned with how beliefs are formed at a secondary level; the central

concern is why such beliefs are formed and whether or not such beliefs are justified. In taking up

the naturalized epistemology that Quine proposes we essentially end the quest for knowledge-

we remove that which was our goal in the first place. We lose any hope of understanding what
knowledge is. No matter to what degree one agrees with Quine, however misdirected or far off

our dreams of Cartesian certainty are, in disbanding with a prescriptive epistemology that

explains a proper way in which how to form beliefs we are conceding to the skeptic. A

descriptive epistemology is simply not adequate in satisfying the aims of what a theory of

knowledge is: description of belief formation is not a criteria for assessing the right one has to

hold a belief.

Furthermore, the behaviorist psychology that Quine resorts to as an umbrella for

epistemology is not necessarily in agreement with the cognitive approach of the majority of

today’s cognitive psychologists. Quine puts forward a simplistic model of stimulus and response.

However, such crude behaviorist models of uncomplicated causation have been getting weeded-

out of psychology for decades. Today’s psychologist would likely answer in-step with the

prescriptive epistemologist and ask “Why? Why is this belief formed as opposed to any other?

And is there grounds for holding such a belief? If not, what is wrong- what evidence is missing

or being misused?”. Cognitive psychology, while not directly pursuing the questions of

justification and knowledge, admits to the existence of internal states of mind; that is, the subject

does have conscious applications of certain processes, indeed epistemic ones. The subject does

not simply have sensory experiences and immediate beliefs. Many beliefs require informal (and

possibly formal) methods of inference. A person is able, if the epistemologist provides them, to

apply epistemic reasoning that is sound. The individual has a conscious input on what beliefs he

may form; the simple cause-and-effect model that Quine would have us follow is not so straight

forward: there is a space between the stimulus and the belief formation that the individual is

entitled- in this gap between evidence and belief the subject must apply some method as to

determine what is a proper conclusion to draw. This is the exact space where prescriptive
epistemology stakes out its domain and argues over what that method ought to be in order to

arrive at beliefs that equate to knowledge. The behaviorist mold no longer fits in psychology and

thus cannot be applied make-shiftily to epistemology.

Lastly, it is not necessarily the case that Gödel’s proof of incompleteness has the same

impact on epistemology as it does on reducing mathematics to logic and set theory.

Epistemology does not have to be a formal axiomatic system and, moreover, a criteria for

knowledge does not appear to be of the same nature as the system of numbers. Most

epistemology struggles to rid itself of the need for intuitive judgments; this, however, does not

have to be a bad thing. Intuition is integral to the means by which we determine if attributions of

knowledge are accurate and intuitions are far from a formal representation. While providing as

formal an account as possible for epistemic requirements is a worthy goal, it may just not be

exactly what epistemology needs to do. An account of how to accurately arrive at beliefs and

how beliefs may qualify as knowledge may be provided by a simple criteria, possibly a simple

check-list: is the belief justified, is it true (in addition to whatever else may prove to be a

necessary condition for a sufficient account)? If one does not embrace Quine’s indeterminacy of

translation then there is room to argue that epistemology does not face the huge barriers Quine

props up.