Naturalistic Epistemology

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vi

   PDF

2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Abner Shimony

      Pages 1-13

3. Historical Figures

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 15-15

      PDF

   2. Immanuel Kant and the Greater Glory of Geometry

      • Judson Webb

      Pages 17-70

   3. Comment on Webb

      • Abner Shimony

      Pages 71-72

   4. Peirce’s Conception of Truth: A Framework for Naturalistic Epistemology?

      • Peter Skagestad

      Pages 73-90

   5. The Philosophical Significance of Piaget’s Researches on the Genesis of the Concept of Time

      • Milič Čapek

      Pages 91-111

   6. Comment on Čapek

      • Abner Shimony

      Pages 112-114

   7. Reply to Shimony

      • Milič Čapek

      Pages 115-118

   8. Konrad Lorenz as Evolutionary Epistemologist: The Problem of Intentionality

      • Theodora J. Kalikow

      Pages 119-144

   9. Wilfrid Sellars on the Nature of Thought

      • William A. Rottschaefer

      Pages 145-161

4. The Use of Cognitive Psychology in Epistemology

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 163-163

      PDF

   2. Neurological Embodiments of Belief and the Gaps in the Fit of Phenomena to Noumena

      • Donald T. Campbell

      Pages 165-192

   3. Causal Relations in Visual Perception

      • John Heffner

      Pages 193-214

   4. Why Ideas are Not in the Mind: An Introduction to Ecological Epistemology

      • Edward S. Reed

      Pages 215-229

   5. Comment on Reed

      • Abner Shimony

      Pages 230-234

   6. Naturalized Epistemology and the Study of Language

      • Louise M. Antony

      Pages 235-257

   7. Quine on Psychology

      • Joseph Levine

      Pages 259-290

   8. Comment on Levine

      • Abner Shimony

      Pages 291-294

   9. Comment on Levine

      • Joseph Agassi

      Pages 295-298

1. AIMS OF THE INTRODUCTION The systematic assessment of claims to knowledge is the central task of epistemology. According to naturalistic epistemologists, this task cannot be well performed unless proper attention is paid to the place of the knowing subject in nature. All philosophers who can appropriately be called 'naturalistic epistemologists' subscribe to two theses: (a) human beings, including their cognitive faculties, are entities in nature, inter­ acting with other entities studied by the natural sciences; and (b) the results of natural scientific investigations of human beings, particularly of biology and empirical psychology, are relevant and probably crucial to the epistemological enterprise. Naturalistic epistemologists differ in their explications of theses (a) and (b) and also in their conceptions of the proper admixture of other components needed for an adequate treatment of human knowledg- e.g., linguistic analysis, logic, decision theory, and theory of value. Those contributors to this volume who consider themselves to be naturalistic epistemologists (the majority) differ greatly in these respects. It is not my intention in this introduction to give a taxonomy of naturalistic epistemologies. I intend only to provide an overview which will stimulate a critical reading of the articles in the body of this volume, by facilitating a recognition of the authors' assumptions, emphases, and omissions.

• Charles Sanders Peirce
• Immanuel Kant
• epistemology
• evolution
• knowledge
• subject

• Boston University, USA

  Abner Shimony

• University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

  Debra Nails

Policies and ethics