B - AMUNDSON,R.(1983) - The Epistemological Status of a Naturalized Epistemology

8/9/2019 B - AMUNDSON,R.(1983) - The Epistemological Status of a Naturalized Epistemology

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The pistemological Status

o

a

Naturalized pistemology

Ron Amundson

University

of

Hawaii, Hilo

Philosophically inclined psychologists and psychologically inclined

often hold that the substantive discoveries

of

psychology can prov

foundation for epistemology.

n

this paper it is argued that the am

epistemology empirically faces certain unnoticed difficulties. Emp

concerned with knowledge-gaining abilities have been hist

or

ically

specific epistemological views such that the epistemology gives pr

to the substantive theory, while the theory empirically supports th

Theories attribute to the subject just those epistemic abilities whi


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334

Ron

mundson

standard text in the history of psychology. Typically about a

volume s devoted to pre-scientific (i.e. pre-Wundt) psycholo

of

this refers to classical philosophical epistemologists.

Contemporary epistemology shows strong interest in rel

mology to the substantive discoveries

of

psychology. This in

from several influences.

One

important influence s many epi

loss of the Cartesian ambition to provide an epistemologica

for non-philosophical (including scientific) knowledge.

s

lon

was epistemically to support the sciences, we would be begg

were we

to

use the results of scientific inquiry in constructi

foundation. Such circularity s not encountered in the ta

describing human epistemic processes. This kind of descripti

a part,

but

only a

part

,

of

classical epistemology.

The

othe


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Neutralized Episte

the substantive theories from these observations. I will argue a

position. I will suggest that empirically based epistemolog

common in the history

of

the cognitive sciences. I will argu

that this congruence of epistemology and substantive theory (1

the rational support of any naturalized descriptive epistemol

s to some extent counterproductive to progress in the cognit

t is widely recognized that the cognitive scientist s himse

cognitive systems which are the object of his study. This dual

scientist, as investigator and as exemplar

of

cognition , opens th

that, as his science advances, he will increasingly come to und


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336 Ron

Amundson

discovered facts about cognition. The epistemologist can trust

because, it

s

supposed, if it weren t based on a good epi

would have produced results which would have shown the

to be in error. Perhaps this is enough. Perhaps not.

Consider scientific theory T and the epistemology E with

developed. The following

s

a General Significance Criterion

A theory

T

based on epistemology

E

s

significant to th

it is possible for

E

together with some observations to

T

in conflict with

T

This trivial criterion requires only that a theory must have m

content

than

its ancestor epistemology. Any theory, cognitive

fails this criterion ought

not

to be considered a substantive


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generated from within the theory s cognitive paradigm. The

and the substantive theory seem to come in a package, an

mology s rejection occurs only through a paradigm change

the theory along with the epistemology. (Cases to be noted

epistemologies/methodologies of the cognitive sciences se

exerted powerful constraints on the epistemological specifics o

ated

th ori s

constraints which protect the epistemology agai

attack. Again, the problem

is

not that

no

empirical discoveri

that nothing surprises the scientists working within the paradig

is only that there are no epistemological surprises. The desc

temology which comes out of a cognitive paradigm is very, ve

the one which went in. Ideally, one would expect to find a

psychologist discovering that the facts of cognition show his ep


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Ron mundson

as motives, desires, anxiety, and so on. But: A disturbance

is

not explained by relating it to felt anxiety until that anxiet

been explained.

10

Skinner surely does not intend this pri

universally applied -

ll

explanations would await the expla

Big Bang. The reason anxiety cannot serve as an explanans w

being an explanandum

is

that anxiety

is

not an observed fe

world.

On

Skinner s view, an explanation of behavior mus

deducibility of a behavior (or behavior-probability) from prio

conditions. This is an epistemological principle, guiding Skinn

endeavors.

Here

is

a question for empirical psychology:

Do

intern

representations of unobserved events play a part in hum

activity? To this question behaviorists answer No and cogn

Here is a question for epistemology: re explanations by


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IV

I would urge on these grounds that the dual aspect

of

the cogn

has reactionary, not progressive, effects. The effects are sim

which methodological commitment has been claimed to h

sciences. They are, if anything, more insidious in the cognit

Among the deepest epistemological debates

are

those betw

positivist, and conventionalist interpretations

of

science. A

to a version

of

one

of

these epistemologies constrains

the

i

one might

put

on a given theory in

the

physical sciences,

bu

dictate theory choice itself. In contrast, an epistemology seem

constrain even theory choice in cognitive science Machian p

not legislate between nineteenth-century physical atomism a


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Ron

mundson

operationalism . Unlike the positivisms

of

Skinner and Ti

allowed logical constructs which were

not

directly observed,

from and defined in terms of observable stimuli and resp

psychological subject. One special feature

of

neobehaviorism

attributed mediating responses to the subject. These were

inferred responses which themselves served as stimuli for furthe

overt responses. Mediating responses obeyed the same laws of

as overt responses. Clearly the logical positivist (and not t

view

of

theoretical terms was necessary to warrant the use

of

th

response concept. ut in addition, consider the application

iorist theory to the behavior of the scientist. The psycholo

construct is defined in terms of his observations (stimuli?) s

involving his active experimentation. This construct sounds


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anti-cognitivism, stripped

of

positivist epistemology,

is

pitiful

to realist/cognitivist criticism. Fodor did not note that, if one

w

a robust behaviorist account

of

the behavior of scientists, re

be a singularly implausible epistemology.

v

My purpose

is

only

to

provide a prima facie case for the n

self-supporting epistemology/ substantive theory paradigm in

sciences. I take it

that the

cases I have mentioned show

congruence between descriptive aspects

of

an epistemology an


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342 Ron

mundson

empirical science. The cognitive scientist s dual aspect

is

not

is a disguised burden.

One

objection to the present view may be that it makes ep

change in the cognitive sciences impossible, or at least inexp

changes

do

occur, and in response to the success or lack

of

s

associated paradigm. This is true, but consistent with the p

Such support (or stimulus for change) is not simply the asserti

of

the

epistemological arm s validity by the substantive arm

o

Such an endorsement

is

a matter of course, and should carr

(As for the possibility of a challenge, I know of no such case

is

not a matter of course

is

the substantive arm s success in th

outside the paradigm. The epistemology may insulate the sub

to some extent, but it cannot fully isolate it from contact with o


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paradigms until we begin to grant the same respect to th

psychology (and other cognitive sciences) which we now grant

of the physical sciences. Until this happens the most reason

for a given epistemological position will come not from its d

logical endorsement, but from its ability to cope with relat

troversial epistemic achievements - for example those which

the physical sciences.

22

NOTES

1 I will use the term cognitive science in a very broad sense, to includ

science addressing as its topic the acquisition of knowledge. These w

cognitivist behaviorist learning theories. Cognitivism will refer to the

psychological schools. I apologize for this terminological puzzle .


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Ron Amundson

of epistemology in the debates of the period are the topic of 'Place vers

epistemology

of

a pseudoproblem' , in preparation.

17 Cf. 0. Mowrer,

Learning Theory and the Symbolic Processes

Wiley, New

C. Osgood, 'Motivational Dynamics of Language Behavior', Nebraska

Motivation 1957, pp. 348-424.

18 Pertti J. Pelto and Greta H. Pelto, Anthropological Research 2nd ed.,

versity Press, New York 1978, p. 13

19

Ron Amundson, 'Science, Ethnoscience, and Ethnocentrism', Philosophy

49

(1982), pp. 236-50.

20

Jerry Fodor,

Psychological Explanation

Random House, New Y

ark

1968;

'Psychology in Physical Language' , reprinted in A

J

Ayer (Ed.), Logical

Press, New York 1959.

21 Bertrand Russell, 'What There Is , reprinted in Robert Ammerman (E

Analytic Philosophy

McGraw Hill, New York 1965, p. 33

22

I owe special thanks to Dudley Shapere, and to participants in his NEH S

during 1980 , for insights on this project. Research was also supported by

the summer of

1981

, and

by

the University of Hawaii Office of Research

Documents

B - AMUNDSON,R.(1983) - The Epistemological Status of a Naturalized Epistemology