Nature of Naturalism: Chris Hookway

Chris Hookway, in his paper 'Quinean Holism and Quinean Naturalism', offered an account of the sort of naturalism that we could expect to arise from the rejection of the analytic/synthetic dichotomy. A familiar way of thinking about this is that the resulting naturalism sees philosophy as a branch of natural science. This is encouraged by Quine's own suggestion that naturalised epistemology be seen as a part of psychology. But when Quine offers concrete examples of naturalised epistemology, he often useses logic and mathematics. This seems reasonable, since logic and mathematics are not, on the Quinean view, to be seen as fundamentally separate from the natural sciences. It suggests, however, that Quinean naturalism can model philosophy on those disciples rather than on the natural sciences themselves. Quine focus on psychology, Chris suggested, can be largely understood to be a consequence of his focus on the (empiricist) concern with the relation between experiences and observational beliefs, and his desire to defend a causal and non-justificatory construal of it.

One of the issues that came up in discussion concerned Quine's claim that naturalised epistemology, just like previous epistemology, was concerned with the relation between evidence and theory. If experiences cause but do not justify observational beliefs, then it seems odd to think of them as evidence. One would expect, rather, that the observational beliefs themselves be thought of as the evidence. But this would disqualify Quine's interest in the relation between experience and belief as a part of epistemology and, if so, we still don't have an explanation of why Quine wanted to see epistemological questions as psychological ones.

VRG: Maddy on Quine

The chapter on Quine may seem like in-fighting amongst naturalists, but it has the virtue of delineating further, through the criticisms of Quine, the SP's position. If what I have to say today is unclear, that's because my thoughts on the issues are still fuzzy.

The criticisms of Quine appear to come from two directions: on the one hand he is said to incorporate non-naturlistic elements into his naturalism, on the other the exact character of his naturalism is taken to be problematic. In actual fact, however, the two strands of criticism are closely related. For, on Maddy's view, Quine's failing to be naturalistic enough - his taking on board too great a portion of the goals and concepts of the traditional philosophical (metaphysical and epistemological) project - is really one of the major sources of the problems with his position.

Of central importance here is the way in which Maddy interprets Quine as responding to (Stroudian) scepticism. Quine admits that there is a certain sort of circularity involved in the naturalist's response to scepticism (see fn. 4, p.84), in that the results of scientific investigation are relied upon in offering an account of knowledge. However, Maddy argues, Quine's own conception of what scientific investigation amounts to appears to undercut this move. For Quine thinks that the job of the naturalised epistemologist is to offer an account of "the relation between the meager input and the torrential output" (Quoted on p.89). Quine's 'input' is the 'stimulation of his sensory reseptors', and the 'output' is his theory. As is well known, Quine thinks that the former underdetermines the latter.

But, argues Maddy, thinking of things in this way is problematic. For our acceptance of one theory over another is, in a certain sense, arbitrary, and so it is unclear what justifies us in relying on this particular one in our response to the sceptic - in our account of the world and our knowledge of it. The problem, as Maddy sees it, is to conceive of naturalised epistemology as, roughly speaking, a sophisticated empiricism pursuing much the same goals as traditional epistemology (i.e. to account for the legitimacy of our 'output 'on the basis of our 'input')

SP sees the project of naturalised epistemology differently from Quine. She refuses to give the (Stroudian) sceptic the foothold he requires, because she declines the challenge of responding to the sceptic on his own terms. To the question of how we know, say, about medium sized physcal objects, she simply cites the relevant scientific findings (about neurophysiology, visual perception, etc.). SP finds no use for Quine's input/output distinction and thus doesn't think of the one as underdetermining the other. If so, then the Stroudian sceptic can't mount the same challenge as he did to Quine.

Early in the chapter, Maddy says of SP that, "she doesn't denounce as 'unscientific' the desire of Stroud's skeptic to find an independent justification for her methods; she simply sees no way to do this." (p.85). This way of putting things, however, seems to me to be rather precarious. For it sounds rather like accepting scepticism. Quine openly denies that science is "answerable to any supra-scientific tribunal" (quoted on p.85). SP, in keeping with her refusal to delimit science, doesn't do this. But, so it seems to me, she needs to have some other way of answering the objection that her methods are problematically circular. If all SP says to the Stroudian sceptic is that his objections are unanswerable, I think that she is in trouble. Maddy sometimes gives the impression that the difference, between SP and Quine, makes the difference between the legitimacy or otherwise of employing the apparently circular reasoning involved in the naturalistic response to scepticism. At no point does SP rely on any proposition such as 'beliefs formed scientifically are justified', for she has no conception of 'the scientific' per se, rather she simply uses the science itself. Does this sort of move help? We need to think about exactly the sort of circularity involved in both Quine's and SP's views.

Consider two arguments, A and B:

(A1) Beliefs formed scientifically are justified
(A2) Science (psychology perhaps) says that we see medium sized physical objects
So,
(A3) We see/there are medium sized physical objects

(B1) The human visual system works in such-and-such a way
(B2) That the human visual system works in this way allows us to see medium sized physical objects
So,
(B3) We see/there are medium sized physical objects

Roughly speaking, A is supposed to characterise a Quinian naturalist's reasoning (ignoring other aspects of Quine's view, such as ontological relativity, and concentrating on the naturalism), and B SP's reasoning. I hope I'm not mischaracterising here, although I admit that I'm pretty uncertain.

My question is whether A is problematically circular in a way in which B avoids. Obviously neither are explicitly circular (in neither case does the conclusion appear as a premise). But both look somehow problematic. The problem with A looks to be that our reasons for accepting (A1) are dependent on our accepting (A3). That is, if we didn't already accept (A3) we wouldn't accept (A1). With B, it looks as though the same can be said for both (B1) and (B2), that our reasons for accepting them rely on our already accepting (B3).

The question whether this sort of circularity is (always) a bad thing, making the arguments useless, is I think a very difficult one. For it depends on our giving a satisfying gloss on "our reasons for our accepting___ are depndent on our accepting___". But my point is that both arguments seem to be in the same boat. So, I don't see how SP's strategy is an improvement in the Quinian one (ignoring the comments about input/output, and the later discussion of holism which I leave to one side).

So, just admitting to the Stroudian sceptic that you can't answer his objection is not good enough. You need to be able to account for the reasonableness of your own procedures. If this is done by relying on the results of those procedures, the Stroudian can say that you're arguing in a circular way. But, as I see it, Quine and SP face the same challenge here.