Table Of Content

Naturalized Epistemology and Philosophy of Science Rodopi Philosophical Studies 7 Edited by Francisco Miró Quesada (University of Lima) Ernest Sosa (Brown University) Amsterdam - New York, NY 2007 Naturalized Epistemology and Philosophy of Science Edited by Chienkuo Michael Mi and Ruey-lin Chen The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents - Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 978-90-420-2198-3 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2007 Printed in the Netherlands Table of contents Preface 7 Ernest Sosa(Rutgers University, U.S.A.) Sources and Deliverances 9 Ronald N. Giere(University of Minnesota, U.S.A.) Modest Evolutionary Naturalism 21 Hilary Kornblith(University of Massachusetts, U.S.A.) The Naturalistic Project in Epistemology: Where Do We Go from Here? 39 Joseph Rouse(Wesleyan University, U.S.A.) Naturalism and Scientific Practices: A Concluding Scientific Postscript 61 Danielle Macbeth(Haverford College, U.S.A.) Naturalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics 87 Chienkuo Mi(Soochow University, Taiwan) What Is Naturalized Epistemology? The Quinean Project 105 Ruey-Lin Chen(Soochow University & National Chung-Cheng University, Taiwan) The Structure of Experimentation and the Replication Degree—Reconsidering the Replication of Hertz’s Cathode Ray Experiment 129 Patrick Hawley(Hong Kong University, Hong Kong) Skepticism and the Value of Knowledge 151 Jeu-Jenq Yuann(National Taiwan University, Taiwan) A Naturalistic Approach of Scientific Methodology: A Comparative Study of O. Neurath and P. Feyerabend 171 Preface Naturalized Epistemology and Philosophy of Science Much has happened in the field of contemporary epistemology since Quine’s “Epistemology Naturalized” was published in 1969; furthermore, before Ronald Giere published his article “Philosophy of Science Naturalized”, naturalized philosophy of science had been pushed by the so-called historical approach. Kuhm, Lakatos, Feyerabend and Laudan’s historical philosophy of science can be regarded as a form of it. Without a doubt, philosophy of science is closely related to epistemology. There is an intimate connection between (normative or descriptive) knowledge in this naturalistic approach and norms, values, reason- ing, and knowledge in science and technology. The naturalistic approach to epistemology and philosophy of science has been gaining an ever more dominant role. However, with respect to the following questions, it is not totally uncontroversial. Both in naturalized epistemology and in naturalized philosophy of science debates continue. The papers in this volume address the following questions in particular. In naturalized epistemology questions include: What exactly is naturalized epistemology? What is the sig- nificance of this investigation? How can this naturalistic approach be further developed and applied? Can the normative aspect of epistemology really be replaced by the descriptive psychology or science in general? In naturalized philosophy of science the following questions arise: Should philosophers of science propose any methodological rules or norms for scientific inquiries? What roles do norms and values play in scientific decision, choice and reason- ing? What are those different forms of cognition appearing in the scientific practice? The 2006 Soochow International Philosophy Conference and Workshop: “Naturalized Epistemology and Philosophy of Science”, held in Taipei, Taiwan, aimed to address these questions over four days (May 31 to June 3) of papers presentations, workshops, panel discussions, and informal conversation. The papers collected here bring together the keynote lectures and some highlights of the conference overall. We would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to all those who have made both the meeting and this publication possible, not least to the Taiwan National Science Council, the Taiwanese Ministry of Education, and the Soochow Philosophy Centre (SPC) who jointly funded the conference and workshop, and the keynote speakers Ernest Sosa, Ronald Giere, Hilary Kornblith, 8 Preface and Joseph Rouse, for their much appreciated contributions. We are particu- larly grateful to Ernest Sosa for his help in publishing this work, as well as to Chao-Shiuan Liu, the President of Soochow University for his continued encouragement of the SPC. Finally, we must express our sincere thanks to the Friends of Soochow Foundation for presenting us with the Edward L. Rada Award, which substantially supported the publication of this volume. Chienkuo Mi Ruey-Lin Chen Ernest Sosa Sources and Deliverances Rutgers University 1. Animal Knowledge and Dependent Tracking Animal knowledge requires a belief that is “apt,” in that the believer gets it right not by accident but by tracking the truth, in the following sense. Tracking. One tracks the truth, outright, in believing that p IFF one would believe that p iff it were so that p: i.e., would believe if it were so and only if it were so.1 If suitably constituted and environed you might also have an ability to track over a certain range when appropriately related to facts in that range. Good eye- sightcan so relate you to a facing surface’s color and shape (when it is not too far, well enough lit, unoccluded, etc.) that with respect to any relevant proposition (cid:2)p(cid:3)about the color or shape of the surface, you would believe (cid:2)p(cid:3)iff it were so that p.2Often there is more than one way to track a truth: you might hear the bells toll, for example, without seeing them, or you might see them toll without hearing them. If I see that a bird flies by, but only because I happen to look out the window, which I might easily not have done, am I then in a condition where the bird would now be flying by iff I believed it? Obviously I am not. Might not the bird easily have flown by without my taking any note of that fact, because I was then looking in another direction? Even when I am in fact looking in the right direction, so long as I might too easily have looked in another direction, it remains too easily possible that the bird might have flown by without my seeing it; in which case I do know about the bird as I look out the window despite the fact that it might easily have been there unnoticed. Outright tracking therefore cannot be a necessary condition for knowing. It might be thought that we avoid our problem through strategic relativizing. Thus the knower wouldbelieve that p if (cid:2)p(cid:3)were a fact to which he was suitably 1 This is Cartesian tracking, not the Nozickian tracking which requires, not that one would believe that p only if it were so that p, but rather that if it were not so that p then one would not believe it. It is defended in my “Postscript to ‘Proper Functionalism and Virtue Epistemology’,” in J. Kvanvig (ed.), Warrant in Contemporary Epistemology(Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996), pp. 271–280. 2 Here and in what follows ‘(cid:2)p(cid:3)’abbreviates ‘the proposition that p’.