Naturalistic Epistemology: A Symposium of Two Decades (Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, 100)

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. Front Matter....Pages i-vi Introduction....Pages 1-13 Front Matter....Pages 15-15 Immanuel Kant and the Greater Glory of Geometry....Pages 17-70 Comment on Webb....Pages 71-72 Peirce’s Conception of Truth: A Framework for Naturalistic Epistemology?....Pages 73-90 The Philosophical Significance of Piaget’s Researches on the Genesis of the Concept of Time....Pages 91-111 Comment on Čapek....Pages 112-114 Reply to Shimony....Pages 115-118 Konrad Lorenz as Evolutionary Epistemologist: The Problem of Intentionality....Pages 119-144 Wilfrid Sellars on the Nature of Thought....Pages 145-161 Front Matter....Pages 163-163 Neurological Embodiments of Belief and the Gaps in the Fit of Phenomena to Noumena....Pages 165-192 Causal Relations in Visual Perception....Pages 193-214 Why Ideas are Not in the Mind: An Introduction to Ecological Epistemology....Pages 215-229 Comment on Reed....Pages 230-234 Naturalized Epistemology and the Study of Language....Pages 235-257 Quine on Psychology....Pages 259-290 Comment on Levine....Pages 291-294 Comment on Levine....Pages 295-298 Integral Epistemology....Pages 299-318 Front Matter....Pages 319-319 Naturalistic Epistemology and the Harakiri of Philosophy....Pages 321-332 Comment on Sagal....Pages 333-336 Front Matter....Pages 319-319 Comment on Sagal....Pages 337-340 Naturalistic Epistemology: The Case of Abner Shimony....Pages 341-351 Comment on Agassi....Pages 352-355 Epistemology Historicized....Pages 357-374 Comment on Wartofsky....Pages 375-377 Back Matter....Pages 379-388