Quines Physicalist Epistemology :: Philosophy Theories Papers

Quines Physicalist EpistemologyQuine, in his article In Praise of the Observational Sentence, use ups to earn naturalized epistemology and the work of science as a realist mapping of the world. Invoking Rortys criticisms of foundationalism from doctrine and the Mirror of Nature, this paper analyzes Quines observational sentence by discussing the unresolved growth of justification. It discusses whether a causal explanation can be a reassert true belief and adequate grounding of knowledge. I suggest that the criticisms of Quine rotate similarities betwixt Rortys arrangement and Quines. Such polemic positions - characteristic of the post new-fashioned/modern debate - imply a false dichotomy. These criticisms of justification and grounding argon best understood as a means to argue for discriminating viewpoints of human understanding. I conclude that Wittgensteins idea of human life form, or world-picture, provides further context for insisting upon interdisciplinary dialogue in place of an assumed hierarchy of specialized sciences. In his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Richard Rorty argues that Quines doctrines of indeterminateness of translation and ontological relativity call for the end of epistemology. Nonetheless, Rorty criticizes Quines physicalist stance. According to Rorty, Quines claim that observation sentences are a foundation for empiricism contains a mutually exclusive ontological bias. In a more recent article In Praise of the Observation Sentence (1993), Quine allegedly clarifies his physicalist epistemology addressing criticisms analogous to Rortys. Quine states that naturalized epistemology is non a theory about an internal domain of qualia it is an intermediate position between what Quine calls old phenomenalism and anti-epistemology. (1) He argues that observation sentences entail observations of the world itself that are not entirely subjective. Consequently, in comparison to old, that is, analytical phenomenalism, Quine claims that his use of manner of speaking and logic is a more realistic rational reconstruction of knowledge. (2) In this paper, I examine Rortys challenge that Quines physicalist claims are contradictory and Quines recent defense. I conclude that Quines position is not inconsistent although his intermediate position at bottom epistemology remains controversial.Overview of Quines Intermediate Position on ObservationFor Quine, classical epistemology has its approximately recent roots in British Empiricism. Consequently, according to Quine, epistemologys primary headache has been to clarify how we derive natural knowledge from sense data. The link between observation and the natural world is allegedly a resource for inside access to such natural knowledge. Quine in parallel to classical epistemology asserts that perceptual similarity is the basis of all learning, all habit formation, and it is testable in state and other animals by the reinforcement and extinction of conditional respons e.