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Dewey, Quine, and Pragmatic Naturalized EpistemologyAuthor(s): John CappsSource: Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Fall, 1996), pp. 634-667Published by: Indiana University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27794988 .

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John Capps

Dewey, Quine, and Pragmatic Naturalized Epistemology

This paper reflects an attempt to set the project of naturalizing epistemology back by fifty years. If successful, I hope this will not be due to carelessness on my own part

? though, at the outset, I should

note that I do not attempt to do justice to every version of natural ized epistemology. More importantly, however, I wish to argue for the naturalism of Dewey's 1938 Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, a re turn to which, I maintain, would help clarify the minimal commit

ments of a naturalized epistemology, while also providing a response to the standard objections to such an approach. In doing so I will

engage in some historical reconstruction, arguing that the common

caricature of naturalism as scientistic, reductive and descriptive ? a

caricature that even some defenders of naturalism have promoted ?

can be traced to a particular but by no means obligatory reading of

Quine's celebrated 1968 paper "Epistemology Naturalized". By re

interpreting the significance of this paper (admittedly, in ways that

may go against Quine's own intentions) I hope to undercut many of the commitments of contemporary naturalized epistemology, while at the same time arguing for the centrality of the Deweyan version to debates in this area.

Vaguely, a naturalized epistemology is committed to the conti

nuity, in some sense, of epistemology with science. Naturalism, in

this context, is the rejection of transcendental or "first" philosophy: it looks to our best current methods of inquiry (in a word, science) for insight into typically philosophical questions surrounding the

possibility of having justified, true beliefs.1 Of course, in this formu

Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society Fall, 1996, Vol. XXXII, No. 4



635 John Capps

lation, "continuity" can connote a wide range of conflicting relation

ships ?

anything from the elimination of philosophical concepts in favor of scientific terminology, to the reduction or supervenience of the former on the latter, to a modest "methodological" continuity between the standards and rules that constitute good practice for both philosophers and scientists.2 There is a similar ambiguity with

regard to "science" ? whether we should treat epistemology as con tinuous with only the natural or "hard" sciences (or a subset of these, such as physics), or also explore points of contact with the social or

"soft" sciences, such as sociology and anthropology. In what follows I will argue for a minimalistic form of natural

ism, one that is neither eliminativist nor reductive, and one that does

not, at the outset, discriminate between the kinds of science it will

recognize. "Science", I will maintain, is of use in setting empirical limits to the kinds of questions we can countenance from within our

epistemology (just as epistemology, in turn, can play a critical role with respect to the concepts and commitments of particular scientific

inquiries). More importantly, epistemology can benefit from a famil

iarity with the practical, methodological presuppositions that are part and parcel of scientific practice

? doing so, I claim, limits the force

of skeptical objections that typically provide the background to post Cartesian epistemology. From the perspective of a more robust natu

ralism, admittedly, this project will seem to be nothing more than non-naturalism with a fig-leaf. Part of my case, as a result, will in volve showing that nothing more is needed: that naturalizing episte mology in this minimal manner clears the way for approaching ques tions of truth and justification from a fresh direction, but without

making an unwarranted detour through scientific realism and

reliabilism, as other forms of naturalism are wont to do. I begin, in what follows, with a discussion of Quine's "Episte

mology Naturalized." I will argue that not only does the Quinean diagnosis of epistemology's malaise not justify the subsequent direc tion of naturalism (a turn, admittedly, that Quine himself seems to have prescribed), but that, on another reading, the central aspects of

Quine's account can be found, thirty years earlier, in Dewey's Logic?



Dewey, Quine, and Pragmatic Naturalized Epistemology 636

Before coming to Quine's paper, however, I wish to sketch out

Dewey's thoughts on naturalism. For Dewey, as for all naturalists, continuity is a central concept. "Naturalism" means

on one side, that there is no breach of continuity between

operations of inquiry and biological operations and physical operations. "Continuity," on the other side, means that ra

tional operations grow out of organic activities, without be

ing identical with that from which they emerge. (LW 12:26)

"Continuity" thus describes both the differences between various kinds of inquiry as well as the development of inquiry itself

? as is apparent in Dewey's position that "logical forms... arise within the operation of inquiry" itself (LW 12:11, my emphasis). By speaking of continu

ity in these two senses, Dewey likewise sets two conditions on a theory of inquiry: first, that it treat the differences between various contexts

of inquiry as differences of degree (not of kind), and second, that it

explain the origin of logical forms in terms of the resolution of par ticular, concrete indeterminacies. The first condition is basic to any sense of naturalism; the second, as we will see, prevents Dewey's natu

ralism from being confused with a "chapter" of the natural, descrip tive sciences (as Quine, for example, proposes to do).

Quine's Naturalism

Much of the recent interest in a naturalized epistemology can be

traced back to Quine's seminal paper. Quine's intentions, in "Epis temology Naturalized,"4 are not, however, entirely clear. In this sec

tion I will examine two distinct readings of this paper: I hope in this

way to arrive at the minimal, core commitments of a naturalized epis

temology, even though to do so will involve reading Quine quite charitably, and perhaps even in a way with which he would not agree.

Subsequently, I will argue that this core position is also present in

Dewey's naturalism, though in a form that is much less susceptible to

relativistic, non-normative interpretations.

Quine begins "Epistemology Naturalized" with a pessimistic



637 John Capps

appraisal of the progress made in settling epistemological questions. The "doctrinal" project of justifying "our knowledge of truths about nature" (EN, 71) has made no progress since Hume, and the "con

ceptual" project of clarifying the meaning of our concepts has, appar

ently, degenerated into the Carnapian project of rational reconstruc

tion.5 But this latter project ?

whereby the implication (but not the

definition) of terms is given ? offers no advantage, Quine maintains,

over empirical psychology: it is better, then, "to discover how sci ence is in fact developed than to fabricate a fictitious structure to a

similar effect" (EN, 78). This leads directly to the most infamous

passage of Quine's paper, quotation of which, I am afraid, is almost tie rigueur.

Epistemology, or something like it, simply falls into place as a chapter of psychology and hence of natural science. It studies a natural phenomena, viz., a physical human subject. This human subject is accorded a certain experimentally con trolled input

? certain patterns of irradiation in assorted

frequencies, for instance ? and in the fullness of time the

subject delivers as output a description of the three dimen sional world and its history. The relation between the mea

ger input and torrential output is a relation we are prompted to study for somewhat the same reasons that have always prompted epistemology. (EN, 82-3)

Again, we find the notion of continuity central to a naturalized epis temology. For Quine, this implies that epistemology is a "chapter" of natural science, easily giving rise to the interpretation that he fa vors the elimination, or at least the reduction, of the former to the latter. At the very least there can be no external philosophical stand

point ? no first philosophy

? from which to reconstruct or other wise attempt to ground scientific truths independently of the practice of science itself. Observation sentences are thus relative to a particu lar language, theory, or discipline; what is more, their truth and fal

sity is similarly relative being defined by the condition that "all speak




ers of the same language give the same verdict when given the same concurrent stimulations" (EN, 86-7).6 We are always, from this per

spective, operating from within an antecedent linguistic framework, whether understood simply as a language or as a more sophisticated "theory of the world;"7 it is not possible, as a result, to refer to any thing outside such a framework in order to justify the general ap

proach of a naturalized epistemology. This raises the two standard objections to naturalized epistemol

ogy: first, whether naturalism can respond adequately to philosophi cal skepticism and, second, whether it allows for a sufficient degree of

normativity. With regard to the first question it is not at all clear to what extent Quine even wishes to broach the issue ? he claims, after

all, that "the Humean predicament is the human predicament" (EN, 72). In "The Nature of Natural Knowledge", furthermore, he writes that:

I am not accusing the sceptic of begging the question. He is

quite within his rights in assuming science in order to refute

science; this, if carried out, would be a straightforward argu ment by reductio ad absurdum. I am only making the point that sceptical doubts are scientific doubts. (NNK, 68)

The implication of these remarks is that skepticism is a coherent po sition, albeit one that ? like all theories ? is underdetermined by the available evidence. Elsewhere, however, Quine accuses the cul tural relativist of a fundamental inconsistency:

Truth, says the cultural relativist, is culture-bound. But ifit

were, then he, within his own culture, ought to see his own

culture-bound truth as absolute. He cannot proclaim cul

tural relativism without rising above it, and he cannot rise above it without giving it up.8

Quine, in other words, seems torn between accepting the prima facie

intelligibility of radical assaults on the possibility of knowledge, and



639 John Capps

rejecting such attacks on grounds of incoherence. This, then, raises the question of how best to understand Quine's proposal for a natu ralized epistemology: whether this new approach is continuous with Cartesian (or Humean) epistemology (in which case we would ex

pect an appraisal of skepticism) or whether it in fact reflects an en

tirely new project (in which case it is not clear ifit actually meets our

expectations for a genuine successor project). It seems to me that Quine's naturalism can be read in either way

? as continuous or discontinuous ? and there may well be little

point in attempting to pin down a single "right" reading. Still, I

hope a brief examination of these two competing interpretations might help bring to light the potential problems (and prospects) associated with this approach to epistemology.

If, on the one side, we read Quine as inspired by "the same rea sons that have always prompted epistemology", it is then a question of whether he deals in good faith with these motivating conditions. This gives rise to what I term the "hard" reading of Quine's natural

ism, best expressed by Jaegwon Kim and Barry Stroud.9 There are two parts to this critical reading. First, if skeptical doubts are scien tific doubts, as Quine admits, and if the skeptic is thereby free to

question the authority of science by means of a reductio ad absurdum, then Quine is certainly begging the question by referring to science to support the very possibility of knowledge. What is more, he has

seriously misrepresented the tenor of the skeptic's position. Skepti cism is not, as the above quote would suggest, just another hypoth esis in need of empirical confirmation: it is, as Stroud notes, the more radical position "that none of the competing 'hypotheses' about what is true beyond the data can be known to be true."10 Finally, Quine also seems to misstate the goal of epistemology. If we are

simply to relate "meager input" with "torrential output", then epis

temology is nothing more than a matter of specifying the causal laws

governing belief formation, and thus has nothing at all to do with the

question of whether these beliefs are actually well-justified or true. But this amounts to a form of professional and philosophical suicide: as Kim notes, "for epistemology to go out of the business of justifica




tion is for it to go out of business."11

These are important objections to naturalized epistemology, at

least on one reading of Quine's intentions. The basic insight is this: if we take Quine at his word, that such an approach represents "an

enlightened persistence.. .in the original epistemological question,"12 it then seems that he has wilfully misunderstood the tenor and force of philosophical skepticism. But if we were, on the other hand, to

exempt Quine from such questions it then seems that he has simply deserted epistemology (along with what appear to be compelling

questions concerning the character of truth and justification). On the other side, the second reading I will examine assumes

that Quine is in fact quite interested in such issues, though this is not symptomatic of suicidal tendencies. I call this the "soft" reading of Quine's naturalism. As Peter Hylton puts it,13 the problem, here, is to make sense of Quine's deflationary epistemology, on the one

hand, and his somewhat inflationary ontology, on the other: to de

termine, in other words, the relationship between Quine's natural

ism and an "unregenerate" (and apparently uncritical) realism that is

nothing less than "the robust state of mind of the natural scientist

who has never felt any qualms beyond the negotiable uncertainties

internal to science."14 Viewed from another angle, however, this

realism may convey nothing more than a basic "theory of the world"

that is implicit in the proficient use of any language and therefore

prior to more sophisticated forms of abstract theorizing (such as epis

temology or science).15 Given such a backdrop, one that is both

linguistic and common-sensically realist, Quine has no need, later, for scientific realism or a spectator theory of knowledge. More im

portantiy, with respect to the questions posed within a "hard" read

ing, Quine need only recognize a very attenuated form of skepticism: one that is implicitly committed, like all philosophical positions, to a

basic realism which is inseparable from any theory of the world. For

him to claim that skeptical doubts are scientific doubts is then merely to admit the possibility of a modest fallibilism internal to a particular "theoretical" framework. There is no entirely detached point of view,

consequendy, from which to question the common sense realism



641 John Capps

shared by all such frameworks; these frameworks, as a result, are con

tinuous at least in the sense that each recognizes only a limited range of possible "skeptical" objections.16 Admittedly this is no response to radical or philosophical skepticism: it is a means, instead, of justi fying a pragmatic disinterest in what the skeptic has to say.17

The concerns of a naturalized epistemology, according to this

reading, are thus quite discontinuous with those that characterize much mainstream epistemology. What is still in doubt is whether this reading preserves a sufficient degree of normativity

? a concern

that arguably seems central to any conception of epistemology. I would argue, in response, that a naturalized epistemology ^adequately normative, though in large part due to a reappraisal of the kinds of norms sufficient for justification. In other words, while it is undeni

ably important to be able to give reasons for asserting the truth or

justification of a particular belief in a particular context (leaving aside how best to conceive of "truth" and "justification") I see no immedi ate reason for concluding that anything more general is necessary.18 (Of course, even this degree of normativity is more than Quine al lows for when he speaks simply of measuring "meager input" against "torrential output".) I have in mind, instead, the sort of position that Christopher Hookway has recently articulated: while denying the relevance ofgeneral norms, principles and concepts to our cogni tive activities, a naturalized epistemology concentrates on the "par ticular evaluations that are internal to particular inquiries."19 In spite of Quine's behaviorism (and physicalism), a naturalized epistemol ogy thus need not be limited simply to the specification of causal

nomological rules: rather, naturalism indicates a shift in emphasis toward the local standards applicable within specific contexts of in

quiry.20

Admittedly, a "soft" reading such as this is unlikely to satisfy the

skeptic or one who takes skepticism seriously. What results, however, is a type of naturalized epistemology that takes a minimalist approach both to the basic commitments of a theory of knowledge, as well as to the necessary discontinuities between this and other, more tradi

tional, approaches. While this approach bypasses typical epistemo




logical concerns with skepticism and general normativity, it does not make resort to a caricatured, entirely descriptive scientism. To sum

marize, then, such a naturalized epistemology is committed to the three following basic presuppositions:

(1) That effective language use implies a basic "theory of the world", committed to a pragmatic, common-sensical re

alism.

(2) That some such "theory of the world" is necessarily prior to, and continuous with, more sophisticated forms of theo

rizing.

(3) That, with regard to these latter forms, epistemology is to be regarded as continuous with "science", broadly con

strued.

In what follows I will argue for two further points: first, that these

three presuppositions are also characteristic of Dewey's naturalism, and second, that no more robust naturalism is necessary.

Dewey's Naturalism

As noted earlier, Dewey employs two senses of "continuity" in his Logic, both of which are central to his conception of "natural ism". In one sense, insofar as biological, physical, and rational opera

tions all fit a generalizable "pattern of inquiry", continuity is used to

express the fact that these operations differ only in degree, not in

kind. In addition, it is the continuity between organic and rational

operations that accounts for the origin of logical forms. The idea of

"continuity", as a result, is crucial both in defining the general form

that inquiry takes, as well as in providing the basis for the logical

principles that pardy constitute the content of specific episodes of

inquiry.

My interest, here, is not so much with inquiry per se, as with the situations through which particular inquiries develop. For Dewey inquiry is, in addition to being naturalistic in the sense given above, also a fundamentally social endeavor whose subject matter is deter



643 John Capps

mined operationally and whose principles ? or "forms" ? are pos

tulational (cf. LW 12:21-8). More importantly, Dewey also con

ceives of inquiry in terms of the controlled resolution of indetermi nate situations (LW 12:108). But this gives rise to the familiar ques tions: how does this approach deal with skepticism, and can it pro vide normative insight into belief justification? What, in other words, prevents this account from sliding into a form of idealism or relativ ism? What prevents the resolution of problematic situations from

being largely a matter of perspective or wishful thinking? I thus begin with the central notion of "situation". Clearly, in

order to be compatible with the naturalistic aspects of Dewey's theory of inquiry, the situation must be conceived as at least partly the prod uct of contingent psychological and social factors: as the result of a

biological and cultural background that, at the very least, provides the material and conceptual framework through which problems for

inquiry arise, are classified, and possible solutions advanced. While the situation is dependent on human beings at least to that extent ?

that it occurs as part of a larger setting, the character of which is

partly our own doing ? it also carries a certain existential immediacy

that cannot be reduced entirely to subjective psychological and social factors. As Dewey writes, "it is the situation that has these traits [of uncertainty]. We are doubtful because the situation is inherently doubtful" (LW 12:109). Resolving such a situation thus depends on

operations that are not only "ideational" but also existential: these are both "functions" of inquiry that play a role in the development of a warranted judgment or problem solution.21

In using the concept of a "situation" Dewey is attempting to

escape from a paradigm which views knowledge as the result of a mediated relationship between outer, objective reality and inner, sub

jective thought.22 The "situation," as a result, is reducible neither to what is antecedently there, nor to a psychological or social construc tion. Nor should it be conceived as simply a combination of "objec tive" and "subjective" factors, as if these had a clear-cut meaning. Not only is Dewey attempting to blur the distinction between the mental and the real, between our thoughts and the environment in




which they occur, but he is attempting to develop an approach to

inquiry that relies on a completely different set of presuppositions. The difficulty, of course, lies in finding words to describe the situa tion that do not imply the very distinction that this approach is de

signed to bypass. To the extent, then, that the situation is in a sense

"given" (remembering Dewey's distaste for this term) it is also the result of a sequence of prior operations and intermediate resolutions; to the extent, on the other hand, that the situation depends on social factors ? most prominently language, the "tool of tools" ? for its

development and resolution, it should be emphasized that these fac

tors, too, owe their current importance to prior operational successes.

Indeterminate situations, in other words, arise ?rom more setded "con

textual wholes" that are themselves the resolution of prior indetermi nacies and so on. Far, then, from being merely the external environ ment in which we pursue our inquiries, the situation is also a pro found reflection of who we are, an "environing experienced world"

(LW 12:72, my emphasis) that is the result of a history of interac tions between, for want of better terms, the "self, "culture", and

"nature".23 There is, in other words, no sharp distinction between

the "natural" and the "social", such that it would be possible to lo cate particular objects definitively with respect to one or the other.24

Situations stand both as the occasions and the conclusions of

inquiry. Like the Quinean notion of an inescapable linguistic back

ground that is prior to more sophisticated forms of theorizing, the situation allows Dewey to be generally dismissive toward the claims

of a radical skepticism.

Personal states of doubt that are not evoked by and are not relative to some existential situation are pathological; when

they are extreme they constitute the mania of doubting. (LW 12:109)

Despite the fact that Deweyan naturalism and Pyrrhonian skepticism share a similar distrust of abstract epistemological theorizing,25 the failure of foundationalism and coherentism (for example) to provide



645 John Capps

a compelling account of justification does not lead the naturalist to conclude that all claims to justification are equally unfounded. In

stead, the naturalist would argue that such general conclusions can

not arise from situations that are always indexed to particular inde terminacies. Even if much contemporary epistemology cannot meet

the standards it has set for itself this may mean only that the stan dards need to be rethought, not that the entire project is rotten. We are thus left, again, with at most a modest form of fallibilism, one that is barred from sliding into a deeper or more radical expression of doubt. As with Quinean naturalism, only a very attenuated form of

skepticism can be recognized from within this framework.26

Though a Deweyan naturalism is dismissive toward skeptical ob

jections, it still treats justification as a fundamentally normative con

cept. As we saw in the previous section, it is possible to distinguish between an eliminative, behavioristic naturalism (such as the one that

Quine, at times, seems to propose) and a "minimal" naturalism that instead concentrates on the local ? and therefore relatively contin

gent ?

principles of epistemic justification. A Deweyan naturalism is also minimalistic in this way. From Dewey's perspective, the norma tive force of such principles or forms is due to their having developed

within the course of inquiry itself. These principles, which may ulti

mately take the form of either existential or general propositions, are

supported both holistically in their relationship to one another, as well as by their success in guiding operations toward warrantedly assertible conclusions. Far, then, from being merely contingent, these

principles reflect the generalized results of a series of prior inquiries. These principles express a range of relations between things, quali ties, sub-kinds, kinds, and modes of behavior, together providing an immanent mechanism for the analysis and verification of individual inferences. And again, it is the role played by the situation that pre vents this approach from being confused with a crass form of coherentism or voluntarist pragmatism, that precludes the reduction

of these principles and subsequent judgments simply to construc tions or conventions designed to satisfy our subjective desires and need for order.




I would like also, however, to address one final issue: the ques tion of relativism. While, in one sense, relativism is simply a social

ized variant of skepticism (which, by this point, I hope to have pushed

away), in another sense relativism offers a distinct challenge to natu

ralism. Thus, while skepticism suspends judgment with regard to the

possibility of epistemic norms, relativism is perfectly compatible with such norms so long as these are understood as entirely contingent on

particular social or otherwise idiosyncratic factors ? a position held

by certain social constructivists and proponents of the "strong

programme" in the philosophy of science. Briefly, I would argue that

the relativist's radical claim only makes sense on the presupposition of an equally radical division between an external, objective natural

world and a subjective realm of thought or culture (perhaps medi

ated, in some way, by sense-data or language). But this division is

precisely what the naturalist, or at least the Deweyan naturalist, is

bound to deny. On naturalistic grounds the distinction between na

ture on the one hand and culture on the other poses an unsolvable

problem for a theory of knowledge: rather than give preference to one side of this dichotomy, the naturalist is committed to question

ing its very basis. "Nature" and "culture" are, on this approach,

interdependent terms whose meaning is determined through the reso

lution of prior indeterminate situations, situations that are not reduc

ible either to what is "really" real or socially constructed. "Nature"

and "culture", consequently, are functional notions, not ontological

categories. Again, this is not to deny the contingency of our logical

principles and forms. But, as with the discussion of skepticism, above, such considerations allow us to bypass the concerns of a radical rela

tivism.

Such, I maintain, would be the response of a pragmatic, Deweyan naturalism when confronted with the typical objections to this type of theory. In addition, this approach is committed to the same basic

presuppositions as a Quinean naturalism, at least if the latter is read

charitably. While I would hope that such similarities might support the contention that Dewey, as much as Quine, should occupy a cen

tral position in debates on naturalized epistemology, there are also



647 John Capps

important differences that should be indicated. For example, while both approaches are committed to a prag

matic, common-sensical realism that is the corollary of effective in

quiry, in Quine's case this inescapable backdrop is essentially linguis tic. Thus, it is only through speaking a particular language and being bound, therefore, to a particular theory of the world that one arrives at the common sense realism which then allows one to circumvent radical skeptical objections. I am disturbed, however, by the element of conventionality in this picture: Quine places no limits on a par ticular language beyond the internal consistency sufficient to ensure

that it is learnable, and the minimal commonality of responses by its

speakers to a subset of sentences which anchor it to talk of truth and

falsity (under appropriate stimulus conditions). As it stands, then, Quine's model is compatible with the sort of relativism which, as we saw above, the Deweyan approach is capable of avoiding. On this latter view language is a tool of inquiry or, more precisely, a set of

particular tools matched to particular inquiries. The usefulness of a

particular language, or its applicability to a particular situation, is thus

judged on the basis of its prior instrumental success ? a more strin

gent standard than simply achieving conventional agreement on the truth or falsity of observation sentences. As it stands, then, I would contend that the backdrop supporting Quine's "unregenerate" real ism is still too social in nature, while the Deweyan version, on the other hand, is grounded in a pattern of experimentations and interac tions with a world not entirely of our own making. Despite a similar commitment to common sense realism, it is a Deweyan naturalism

that avoids, at the very outset, the danger of relativism.

A minimal, pragmatic naturalism is committed, second, to treat

ing this inescapable backdrop ? the realistic "theory of the world"

with which we approach indeterminate situations ? as necessarily

prior to, and continuous with, more sophisticated forms of theoriz

ing. For Dewey, as we saw earlier, this is one of the basic senses of

continuity, central to his conception of naturalism. Much of the Logic, in fact, is an attempt to demonstrate that logical forms and epistemo logica! principles can be traced in this way to "organic activities". I




am not so much concerned here with whether Dewey is successful in this project (my sense is that he is), but it is worth noting that Quine gives no explanation at all for how such epistemological principles might develop. This omission on Quine's part is certainly one of the reasons why his approach appears so thoroughly descriptive and non normative: it is completely compatible, furthermore, with his behav iorist talk of "meager input" and "torrential output". In addition, this shortcoming is another symptom of the problem just discussed:

that, as it stands, Quine's naturalism fails to adequately explain its basic presuppositions and principles. While the presumption of con

tinuity between "organic" and "rational" operations allows both

Dewey and Quine to bypass standard skeptical objections, in Dewey's case continuity also functions to explain the origin and basis of logi cal forms (in the resolution of indeterminate situations).

Finally, both forms of naturalism are committed to the continu

ity, in some sense, of epistemology with science. In Dewey's case,

however, there is no suggestion that epistemology could be rendered a "chapter" of the natural sciences. Dewey, first of all, does not share

Quine's physicalist inclinations; moreover, while science represents for Dewey the refinement of common sense methods and means of

inquiry (cf. LW 12:71-2), the goal of science is to provide a measure of security in a contingent and unstable world. Doing so is not obvi

ously compatible with eliminating or reducing epistemological terms

in favor of a more scientific nomenclature, moves which presuppose the objective, independent reality of scientific concepts

? a much

stronger form of realism than that presupposed by a pragmatic natu ralism.

As I see it, epistemology and science are continuous in two ways. First, results drawn from the social and natural sciences may play an

important limiting role on our understanding of epistemic justifica tion. As Hilary Kornblith has noted, answers to the question of how

we do in fact arrive at our beliefs may shed vital light on how we

ought to arrive at our beliefs.27 Certain theories of justification (Baye sian, for example), may under certain interpretations set a standard

that is unattainable for human beings. Second, epistemologists may



649 John Capps

be able to learn from the methods of practicing scientists. I am not

suggesting, here, that scientific methodology can simply be trans

planted from one discipline to another ? recent cultural studies of science would suggest that there is no such thing as "the" scientific

method, and in any case successful science is a result of a range of

contingent, possibly unpredictable factors. I am proposing, how

ever, that a naturalized epistemology pay attention to some of the

methodological presuppositions of doing science, in particular the minimal "entity realism" that also characterizes our everyday inquir ies. This modest, common sensical ? even pragmatic

? realism is

simply a way of circumventing the skeptical problems which are not the concern of the practicing scientist. In other words, the presump tion that one's theoretical entities are in some way "real" is the price of admission to a scientific discipline: the scientist is engaged with the implications of particular entities, not with whether these entities are "really" real (this, traditionally, has been the business of the phi losopher or metaphysician). Even when an area undergoes a Kuhnian

revolution, when the entities or approaches of an earlier paradigm are

rejected, this does not lead to wholesale anti-realism. Rather, a new

paradigm takes hold, one that also demands a certain willing realism on the part of its backers.

Again, I do not wish to become too involved in debates sur

rounding realism, and I do not mean to put forward a tendentious

metaphysical claim. I merely mean to draw attention to what I see as a basic assumption of scientific practice (and everyday inquiry): a

practical, methodological presupposition that should also be conceived of as central to the constitution of a naturalized epistemology. Given the three defining characteristics of a naturalized epistemology, the source of this methodological presupposition can be traced to our most basic interactions with the world; its warrant, on the other hand, is due at least in part to the central role it plays in the practice ofgood science. On this approach, the question of realism in general

?

whether and in what way certain entities are "really" real ? is an issue that neither the scientist nor the epistemologist need (or possi bly can) engage.



Dewey, Quine, und Pragmatic Naturalized Epistemology 650

Again, in this section I have been concerned with sketching the outlines of a minimal, pragmatic naturalism, one that traces its lin

eage to Dewey, not Quine. While there are points of similarity be tween these two figures, there are also important differences. Hence,

while both can be read in terms of the same three defining character

istics, Dewey's approach avoids many of the standard objections to

naturalism: in particular, problems arising from the relationship of this project to other forms of epistemology, its attitude toward skep ticism, and the manner in which it is a normative discipline. In con trast with Quine's version, furthermore, a Deweyan naturalism also

attempts to offer an account of the origin and basis of epistemologi cal principles (preventing any confusion with conventionalism or rela

tivism) while also reconceiving the relationship between epistemol ogy and science along non-reductive lines.

Reliabilism, Realism, and Contemporary Naturalism I take this to be a naturalized epistemology in its minimal form,

committed only to the three presuppositions that I view as central to

any version of naturalism. In what remains, I wish to argue briefly that nothing more elaborate is necessary.

Naturalized epistemology, as both its defenders and detractors conceive of it, is often associated with a constellation of related posi tions. In particular, naturalism generally involves a form of reliabilism

with respect to justification and a realism with respect to some or

other aspect of science. I would like briefly to address these addi tional associations.

The affinity between naturalism and reliabilism is evident, for

example, in the writings of Alvin Goldman and Hilary Kornblith.28 It is no surprise that the reliabilist, or the externalist in general for that matter, might turn to naturalism for support. Reliabilism is

initially attractive as a viable alternative to internalist theories of justi fication and their often demanding standards of epistemic access and

epistemic responsibility (its development over the last 30 years coin cides with attempts to resolve Gettier-type problems). A more plau sible theory of justification, it is argued, would be one that instead



651 John Capps

emphasizes the reliable processes by which particular beliefs come to

be held, regardless of whether one actually has access to, or is able to

reconstruct, these processes. A naturalistic epistemology, one that is

self-consciously continuous with science, then provides the back

ground warrant for bringing justification to rest ultimately on causal laws or mechanisms.

From the perspective of a pragmatic naturalism, however, two

points need to be made. First of all, it is difficult to specify the mean

ing of "reliability" without making reference to pragmatic criteria.

"Reliability," I would claim, can only be conceived relative to par ticular ends: it does not pick out a natural kind among cognitive processes. Basic perceptual or inferential beliefs are not prima facie justified because they are the result of antecedently reliable processes: they are justified

? or warrantedly assertible ? because they are the result of processes which acquired their accreditation as the result of a series of prior inquiries. Second, the failure of foundationalism and coherentism to provide an adequate internalist theory of justification does not leave reliabilism as the only alternative. While the reliabilist is correct to note that is possible to have justification without being able to show one's justification, this does not mean, of course, that the former is always a sufficient condition of justification. In many cases we demand, and demand rightly, that one be in fact able to give the reasons for one's beliefs: this is just to insist on a basic level of

epistemic responsibility. The solution, as any good pragmatist knows

already, is to put forward a contextualist theory of justification, thereby eliminating the need for choosing from among these other initially plausible but ultimately problematic theories of justification. From a

contextualist standpoint, then, what counts as a well-justified belief is a function of local and contingent factors, which, in particular cir cumstances, may be foundationalist, coherentist, or reliabilist in na

ture. But there is no need to expect, or demand, that one sort of factor should take precedence over all others, in all situations.29

To continue, a naturalized epistemology is also generally associ ated with some form of scientific realism. The reason for this, too, is not hard to find. If, as is frequently the case, "continuity" is con




ceived in terms of the elimination or reduction of epistemological terms to concepts drawn from science (as would be the case if "justi fication" were to be reduced to the causal processes responsible for

belief-formation), then these concepts must enjoy some special privi lege over merely mental categories: they must, in other words, pick out some natural kind existing in the world. From the perspective of a pragmatic naturalism, however, understanding the relationship be tween epistemology and science in this way not only ignores the criti cal role that epistemology can play with respect to science, but it also relies on a tendentious appraisal of realism's actual significance.

To begin with, as we have seen, a pragmatic naturalism is com

mitted only to a very minimal form of continuity: science is continu ous with epistemology to the extent that the former may place limits on the sorts of questions and answers which are fathomable within the latter.30 But this does not preclude the possibility of epistemol ogy playing a similarly critical role with respect to science. We do need to be careful here: this is not to call for anything so lofty as a

rational reconstruction of scientific practice, and we must also recog

nize that science can (and does) proceed along perfectly well without

requiring philosophical foundations, at least for the most part. All the same, it would be rash to eliminate epistemological concepts in favor of scientific descriptions: to do so would be also to eliminate much of the critical potential of the former. What I mean to empha size, then, is the centrality of such epistemological notions as "justifi cation", "reasons" and "warrant": here I am in agreement with Kim's

observation that to cease speaking of these would be tantamount to

going out of the epistemology business. Put in slighdy different terms, I would maintain that the critical

potential of epistemology ? like its normative potential

? need not

be eliminated in the shift toward naturalism. This leaves open the

question, of course, of whether epistemology should be critical

(whether in fact it has the capability and prerogative to make mean

ingful observations regarding science), and while I am aware of the

danger of admitting first philosophy through the back door, I am

willing to take it as a methodological presupposition of epistemology



653 John Capps

that it should perform this function. By speaking in this way, again, I

do not mean to suggest that a critical attitude is a transcendentally necessary condition for the possibility of epistemology; I mean in

stead to indicate the contingency, as well as to my mind the inevita

bility (given current conditions) of arrogating to epistemology some

sort of critical function. I suppose that it is conceivable that episte

mology ? even the modest naturalized epistemology understood

here ? may in the end have nothing to contribute to our under

standing of science: perhaps science, in all of its particular manifesta

tions, is simply too unpredictable and open-ended for epistemology to have anything interesting to say. But I am not sure what to make of this proposal: I am not sure that such a state of affairs would even

be recognizable and, in any case, it seems a far cry from how the situation currently stands. Because, then, a critical epistemological

attitude toward science is warranted (or at least not unwarranted), the elimination of epistemological concepts represents an unneces

sary sacrifice of what appears to be a worthy ambition. But this speaks only to an eliminativist project, not to the more

familiar reductivist versions of naturalism. Reductionism, too, de

pends on a realism with respect to the entities of science, a realism

generally stronger than the pragmatic realism defended above. So, for example, Alvin Goldman defends "aim realism" (a form of scien tific realism) and Hilary Kornblith argues for a realism with respect to natural kinds.31 In response I wish to ask what, exactly, these

stronger forms of realism contribute to our scientific understanding: do they provide necessary (and otherwise unavailable) support for scientific practice and scientific progress, or do they amount, as Arthur Fine puts it, to a form of philosophical table-thumping?32

Arguments for scientific realism generally depend on the claim that some cherished aspect of our scientific understanding would ei ther be impossible or illegitimate without the assumption of a wholly

mind-independent reality. Hilary Putnam is famous for once saying that, in the absence of realism, scientific progress could only be un derstood as a miracle; similarly, Kornblith argues that the success of inductive inference can be explained only on the assumption that




there are real natural kinds. But this seems like table-thumping to me (and Putnam, of course, has changed his position to one embrac

ing a "natural realism"), especially given the assumptions of a mini mal naturalized epistemology. The possibility of scientific progress only becomes problematic on the assumption that the relationship between our scientific theories and the natural world is likewise in

doubt, obscurely mediated by sense-data or language (a separation that also gives rise to an ti-realism and social constructivism). But

this, as we saw, is exactly the picture that a minimal, Deweyan natu ralism is bound to deny. By grounding inquiry in situations that defy categorization as either strictly natural or social, and by blurring the distinction between theory and practice, such a pragmatic naturalism sees no mystery in the fact that, over time, we would develop increas

ingly more satisfactory methods of anticipating and controlling our

experience. Such progress is simply a consequence of our always applying the lessons of previous inquiries to new indeterminate situ ations. This, again, is an area where the continuity between "ratio

nal" and "organic" operations ? between scientific and less elabo

rate forms of inquiry ? comes to the fore. Just as there is no ques

tion, from this perspective, as to whether we have become better able now to manipulate objects in our workaday environment, so too there

is no opportunity to launch skeptical or relativistic attacks on the

possibility of theoretical or scientific progress in general. On naturalistic grounds, once we have circumvented the objec

tions lodged by radical skepticism and relativism, there is thus no

need to resort to a robust form of realism in order to establish the overall possibility of scientific progress. Similarly, there is likewise no

need to invoke scientific realism with regard to a particular compo nent of scientific practice, such as natural kinds. What we call natural kinds are, instead, the result of prior episodes of inquiry.33 While

they are not, as a result, wholly independent of the "world" or "na

ture", allegedly "natural" kinds are related to the specific interests and circumstances of particular indeterminate situations. The point is not that these kinds are arbitrary, but rather that they are not ante

cedent to inquiry itself.34 Treating "natural" kinds naturalistically,



655 John Capps

henceforth, is to recognize that they, like other logical forms, "origi nate in operations of inquiry" (LW 12:11); and this does not deni

grate in the least their importance to subsequent investigations or to

"science" in general. I conclude, then, with a question: if, on natu ralistic grounds, it is possible to explain the contribution of natural kinds to scientific progress, what purpose is served by assuming their "real" reality except to engage in bombastic table thumping?

Such remarks are, admittedly, all too brief. All the same, I hope to have at least sketched out the kinds of responses available to a

minimal naturalist when faced with more robust variations on this theme. The identification ? by both defenders and detractors ? of naturalism with both reliabilism and realism contributes to the fre

quently pejorative connotation of this term. By instead emphasizing the minimal commitments of a naturalized epistemology, I hope to

disengage this point of view from such associations, while also locat

ing it more firmly within the tradition of Deweyan pragmatism. That

is, while the continuity between science and epistemology is central to any such position, this commitment need not in any way lead to an uncritical scientism, robust realism, or reliabilist theory of justifica tion. As I hope to have suggested here, a minimal naturalism pro vides the background for a contextualist ???-realist approach to epis temological questions.35

It could perhaps be argued, however, that the project of natural

izing epistemology most needs to look forward, and that such back ward glances to Deweyan pragmatism or instrumentalism are of merely historical or scholarly interest. For this reason I would like to say a few words, prior to concluding this essay, in defense of the particular approach I have taken here. From my perspective, Dewey is a re source that few in the field of naturalized epistemology have adequately taken into account. Contemporary versions of naturalism have not,

despite their common rejection of a priori philosophizing, adequately distanced themselves from the questions and standards which still characterize much analytic, "5 knows that p iff..." epistemology. Dewey thus stands as a reminder, first, that the direction of Anglo American philosophy was historically contingent and, second, that




many of the concerns of this program can be bypassed. With respect to this last point, Dewey is significant for being both a naturalist and a contextualist. So, on the one hand, science does not provide the same sort of grounding for Dewey as it does for many contemporary naturalists. Because inquiry, for Dewey, is always a local, situated

affair, there is neither any need nor temptation to resort to external, reliable processes in order provide the same sort of general theory of

justification as is given by foundationaiist or coherentist accounts.

Dewey's contextualism, in other words, helps prevent the slide to

ward reductivism, scientific realism and reliabilism that characterize

other kinds of naturalism. On the other hand, Dewey's naturalism also plays a supporting

role with regard to his contextualism. As Barry Stroud notes with

regard to Austin, the contextualist tends to accuse the skeptic of toy

ing with our everyday conception of knowledge: but, as Stroud ar

gues, "the force we feel in the sceptical argument when we first en

counter it is itself evidence that the conception of knowledge em

ployed in the argument is the very conception we have been operat

ing with all along".36 I feel that the contextualist will always be open to such objections until the question of philosophical skepticism has

been dealt with in some way. One way of doing so ? without di

rectly engaging the skeptic ? is to ground contextualism in a thor

oughgoing naturalism. From this perspective, it is not "the force we

feel" that matters so much as what we actually do when pursuing both everyday as well as scientific sorts of inquiries. Again, this does

not qualify as a response to the skeptic but rather as a pragmatic impatience with this line of questioning.

Conclusion

I have attempted, here, to develop what I see as the chief advan

tages of a Deweyan naturalized epistemology over other, more con

temporary versions that trace their lineage to Quine. Not only is the

Quinean version difficult to pin down, but, read in a way that seems

to save it from the most obvious objections, it would appear that

Dewey anticipated the crux of Quine's approach by at least thirty



657 John Capps

years. Returning to Dewey thus serves the purpose both of clarifying the basic commitments of a naturalized epistemology as well as of

making the point that nothing more is necessary in order to make sense of our epistemic

? and scientific ? practice.

I would like to make one further remark concerning my appro

priation of Dewey. Admittedly, many of the points I have attempted to make could also have been advanced, more readily, from the di

rection of Dewey's metaphysics ?

particularly through a reading of

Experience and Nature. That I have not taken this route is not, I

hope, evidence of an an ti- metaphysical bias on my part (though I am

mindful of Peirce's observation that "metaphysics is the Paris of the

intellect"). Rather, my intention throughout this sketch has been to

locate Dewey's naturalism more firmly within an epistemological frame work. Doing so, I hope, permits the characterization of the "situa tion" as a methodological presupposition of a particular way of approach ing issues of epistemic justification. I am predisposed to this choice

of words since it captures a certain attitude to foundational ques

tions: an attitude that recognizes the futility of non-question beg ging attempts to ground the aim and scope of epistemology.37 To

put it otherwise, the question of whether to respond to ? or bypass ? the objections of a radical skepticism, for example, can only be broached at a meta-epistemological level. We should not expect this

type of naturalized epistemology to be concerned with responding to the same questions as other epistemological approaches: making this

point explicit ? while outlining the basis of this disinterest ? has

been one of the intentions of this paper. Whether this approach ulti

mately carries the day ?

avoiding the reductive scientism of more

robust naturalisms on the one hand, and the foundationalism,

coherentism, and quest for certainty of more mainstream approaches, on the other ? will not be due entirely to the force of the better

argument. Instead, the debate, like most, will be settled on prag matic grounds: on the understandings and insights this approach allows us to have, and on the questions and issues it allows us to avoid. Again, we may base our expectations on what occurs in more

scientific fields where, despite the infrequent "revolution", old ap




proaches are not so much falsified as abandoned, with attention, sup port, and graduate students diverted to projects that provide new

opportunities for the application of what Dewey called "free intelli

gence" (LW 12: 527). I leave, then, with the words with which

Dewey begins his Logic. At the close of his Preface Dewey writes:

I am convinced that the standpoint is so thoroughly sound that those who are willing to entertain it will in the coming years develop a theory of logic that is in thorough accord with all the best authenticated methods of attaining knowl

edge. My best wishes as well as my hopes with those who

engage in the profoundly important work of bringing logi cal theory into accord with scientific practice. (LW 12:5)38

Northwestern University

NOTES

1. "Naturalism," of course, is a wide-ranging term that identifies

projects in both ethics and metaphysics (and no doubt other areas). My use of

the term in this paper, however, is limited to its meaning within epistemology:

"naturalism", here, is synonymous with "naturalized epistemology".

2. These, and other senses, of "continuity" are discussed by James

Maffie in "Recent Work on Naturalized Epistemology," American Philosophi

cal Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 4 (October 1990), 281-294.

3. John Dewey, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry in The Later Works,

volume 12 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991). Hereafter

LW 12.

4. W.V. Quine, "Epistemology Naturalized," in OntologicalRela

tivity and Other Essays (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), 69-90.

Hereafter EN.

5. Though, as Thomas Ryckman has pointed out to me, this rep

resents an especially wilful misunderstanding of Carnap 's project on Quine's

part.



659 John Capps

6. Again, I owe the formulation of this point to Thomas Ryckman.

Quine makes this argument in "The Nature of Natural Knowledge" (in Mind

and Language, Samuel Guttenplan, ed. [Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1975], 67-81; hereafter NNK). There, Quine suggests that the acquisition of

a language ? or theory of the world, as these amount to the same thing for

Quine (see the following note) ? whether by an infant, student, or linguist,

depends primarily on "innate similarity standards" (NNK, 71). These stan

dards can be partly accounted for on evolutionary grounds as explaining the

formation and confirmation of predictions on the basis of responses made by

speakers of the language. Quine maintains that this support is not circular ?

he is not relying on an inductively justified biological hypothesis in order to

underwrite the possibility of induction itself ? since he claims to be willing

simply to grant the usefulness of induction and cheerfully accept whatever addi

tional (presumably rhetorical) support such Darwinian just-so stories are able

to provide (NNK, 70).

7. In Word and Object (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1960), Quine notes that in the use of language "there emerges something recognizable as talk

of things, and not to be distinguished from truth about the world" (26). In

commenting on this passage Peter Hylton concludes that "a language, for Quine,

is thus not a neutral framework; to speak a language is implicitly to accept a

theory of the world, at least of a very rudimentary sort... .To speak a language is

thus to have implicitly accepted a large body of doctrine ? a large body of

sentences which cannot, on any plausible account, be thought of as analytic or

as non-empirical" (in "Quine's Naturalism" Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Vol

ume XIX, Peter French, Theodore Uehling, Jr., and Howard Wettstein, eds.

[South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994] 261-82, quotation 273).

By supporting this assimilation of languages to theories of the world, I do not

mean to inflate the former to the level of the latter. Rather, I mean to deflate

the notion of theory in a pragmatic spirit: thereby blurring the distinction

between theory and practice.

8. W.V. Quine, "On Empirically Equivalent Systems of the

World", Erkenntnisse (1975), 313-28. The quote is from pages 327-8, and is

cited in Hylton, p. 263.

9. Jaegwon Kim, "What is 'Naturalized Epistemology'?" in Natu

ralizing Epistemology, second edition, Hilary Kornblith, ed. (Cambridge: MIT




Press, 1994), 33-55. Barry Stroud, The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), especially Chapter 6.

10. Stroud, Significance, 233.

11. Kim, 43.

12. W.V. Quine, Roots of Reference (La Salle: Open Court,

1973), 3.

13. Hilton, 261-2.

14. W.V. Quine, Theories and Things (Cambridge: Harvard Uni

versity Press, 1981), 72. This passage is also cited by Hylton, who goes on to

write:

Quine states that "unregenerate realism" is a source of naturalism.

Yet we have seen that in defending his realism he emphasizes the role

of naturalism. Which comes first? The two doctrines, as Quine inter

prets them, are so alike that to cite each in support of the other can

hardly be taken for progress ? if we are indeed looking for reasons

and justification rather than merely for the explanation of an attitude.

(Hylton, 268)

This passage not only sheds light on Quine's own position, but also helps illu

minate the motivations at the bottom of a "soft" reading.

15. Thus, despite Quine's modifiers, this realism may actually be

quite modest, perhaps committed to little more than the instrumental efficacy

of theoretical entities while at the same time making no claim to their extra

theoretic or scientific reality. Of course, this viewpoint would also be compat

ible with many kinds of instrumental anti-realisms as well as with such attitudes

as Hilary Putnam's "natural realism" and Arthur Fine's "Natural Ontological

Attitude". For my purposes here, however, the precise content of Quine's

realism is not as important as the function it plays.

16. The picture, I think, is of a wide range of theoretical frame

works that we occupy as we go about our lives and works. More sophisticated

frameworks are built up from the more basic, and are thus similarly committed

to the fundamental "realism" that grounds our language use (this is where the

notion of continuity enters into Quine's naturalism). This is not to say that

certain frameworks may not be discarded (as, for instance, we can imagine an



661 John Capps

Aristotelian framework being replaced with a Galilean or Newtonian) but that

any such rejection will occur not as a result of free-floating skeptical arguments

but rather from within a more inclusive or alternative framework that is itself

likewise committed to a basic "realism".

17. To this extent Quine's naturalism necessarily begs the ques

tion against skepticism. For this reason, I prefer to view his reliance on an

underlying linguistic background as a methodological or practical presupposi

tion of a particular epistemologica! approach; one which it may be hoped will

prove its worth in rendering our justificatory practices less opaque, not in re

solving age-old philosophical problems. Naturalism, therefore, is perhaps best

understood as a project that runs parallel to traditional epistemology, but that

does not, for all that, attempt either to shift the burden of proof to the skeptic or to accuse her of self-defeating incoherence. Even though this response will

hardly satisfy the skeptic, it is nevertheless important to be clear on the kinds of

strategies that are open (and not open) to the naturalist.

18. Laurence Bonjour ( "Against Naturalized Epistemology" Mid

west Studies in Philosophy, Volume XIX, Peter French, Theodore Uehling, Jr.,

and Howard Wettstein, eds. [South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press,

1994], 283-300) argues for a priori rules of justification on the basis that a

naturalized epistemology is fatally inconsistent: since, "as the naturalist claims,

there are no a priori reasons for thinking anything to be true...the inevitable

result is that we have no reason for thinking that any of our beliefs whose con

tent transcends direct observation are true," it then follows that the claims of a

naturalized epistemology themselves "exclude the possibility of there being any

cogent reason for thinking that those claims are true" (296). This is quite a

strong claim: there are surely some cogent reasons the naturalist can bring forward on her own behalf, though these may of course fail to adequately con

vince the non-naturalist. But, more importantly, it is clear that Bonjour is

making the same demands of naturalism as have been made of more main

stream approaches to epistemology. This, however, only begs the question: and while I also disagree with Quine's behavioristic language, this does not

preclude the possibility of an intermediate position.

19. Christopher Hookway, "Naturalized Epistemology and

Epistemic Evaluation" Inquiry 37 (December 1994), 465-485, quotation 472.

20. This reading is also congruent with Quine's later ? though




still somewhat underdeveloped ? declarations in favor of normativity: hence,

"insofar as theoretical epistemology gets naturalized into a chapter of theoreti

cal science, so normative epistemology gets naturalized into a chapter of engi

neering: the technology of anticipating sensory stimulation" (W.V. Quine,

Pursuit of Truth (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 19). While it

seems that this is a step in the right direction, I would question whether a

reduction to engineering is much of an improvement.

21. To use a Deweyan example, the sudden noise I hear while I

type is, in one sense, simply what it is; and the panic I am thrown into will not

be resolved until I investigate and determine that it was the sound of a backfire ? it is just not the sort of thing that I can ignore or wish away. On the other

hand, this sound has the quality it does because of certain expectations I have

built into my current environment: I am in my (normally quiet) study and not

in a chemistry lab or viewing fireworks.

22. This is an issue that has also recently come to the fore in the

work of two prominent philosophers of mind: John McDowell and Hilary

Putnam. (See McDowell's Mind and World [Cambridge: Harvard University

Press, 1994] and Putnam's Dewey Lectures, published as "Sense, Nonsense,

and the Senses: An Inquiry into the Powers of the Human Mind" Journal of

Philosophy, vol. 91, no. 9 [September 1994], 445-517.)

23. I use the terms in scare quotes advisedly, since I do not want

to suggest that "self or "nature" represent hypostatized entities. I am trying

instead to capture the sense of Dewey 's remarks where he writes, for instance:

"Nature is an environment only as it is involved in interaction with an organ

ism, or self, or whatever name be used" (LW 12:110).

24. As Bruno Latour argues in We Have Never Been Modern (Cam

bridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), rather than attempt to locate what he

calls "quasi-objects" (such as microbes, vacuums, journal articles, etc.) with

regard either to nature or society, the task is instead to trace their development

and trajectory through history. As I understand Latour ? and I believe there

are many affinities between his recent work and Dewey ? he is calling for a new

level of analysis: one that begins with our current, contextual appraisal of "quasi

objects", rather than with an antecedent nature/society framework.

25. See, for instance, Stephen Toulmin's Introduction to John

Dewey, The Quest for Certainty ( Carbondale: Souther Illinois University Press,



663 John Capps

1988), xix-xx. As noted, the affinity between Deweyan pragmatism and

Pyrrhonian skepticism extends little beyond sharing a common target (specta

tor theories of knowledge).

26. I admit that, in discussing skepticism even briefly, I may be

committing a sin in the eyes of a committed pragmatist such as Dewey ? for

whom the less said on this issue, the better. On the one hand, I certainly do not

mean my remarks, here, to constitute an actual response to skepticism: they are

intended, again, to bypass skeptical concerns. On the other hand, and this is my

reason for discussing this issue to the extent that I do, it is important to distin

guish this naturalistic strategy from an approach that simply dismisses skepti

cism for either being incoherent or impractical (as Locke does, for example).

Pyrrhonian skepticism, after all, is a practical standpoint that seeks to limit the

pretensions of abstract theorizing ? much as pragmatism also endeavors to do.

In addition, it is important, I believe, to acknowledge that the skeptic's argu

ments do hold tremendous intuitive appeal ? and any incoherence or paradox

that may result is perfectly in keeping with the skeptic's overall intentions. So,

while I agree that not much should be said in "response" to the skeptic ?

certainly nothing that would amount to meeting the skeptic on her own grounds ? I would argue that the contrasting intuitions underlying skepticism and natu

ralized epistemology need at least to be brought to light.

27. In his "Introduction: What is Naturalistic Epistemology" in

Naturalizing Epistemology, second edition, Hilary Kornblith, ed. (Cambridge:

MIT Press, 1994), 1-14.

28. Especially Goldman, 'Epistemology and Cognition (Cambridge:

Harvard University Press, 1986) and "Naturalistic Epistemology and Reliabilism"

in Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Volume XIX, Peter A. French, Theodore E.

Uehling, Jr., and Howard K. Wettstein, Eds. (South Bend: University of Notre

Dame Press, 1994), 301-320. See also Hilary Kornblith, "Beyond

Foundationalism and the Coherence Theory" in Naturalizing Epistemology, second edition, Hilary Kornblith, ed. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994), 1 SI

M?.

29. "Contextualism" has not yet received the kind of attention

given to foundationalism, coherentism, or reliabilism. Anecdotally, it does not

even warrant an entry in the Blackwell Companion to Epistemology (Oxford:

Basil Blackwell, 1992). The most frequently cited (and anthologized) piece on




contcxtualism is nearly 20 years old: David Annis' "A Contextualist Theory of

Epistemic Justification", American Philosophical Quarterly 5 (1978), 213-19.

Austin's "Other Minds" (in Philosophical Papers [Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1961]) and Wittgenstein's On Certainty (New York: Harper and Row,

1972) are generally considered precursors of contextualism. Michael Williams'

Unnatural Doubts ( Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991) makes room for

contextualism by problematizing the theoretical commitments of philosophical

skepticism.

30. Continuity in this minimal sense is not meant to rule out the

possibility that, in addition to helping set the questions, science might also be

of help in providing the answers. But a minimal naturalism is careful not to

assume too large a role for science at the outset.

31. In Epistemology and Cognition, Goldman admits that he is

"inclined to be a scientific realist as well as a metaphysical realist" (157) though his "aim realism" is intended merely to underwrite the scientist's goal of giving a true theory of the world (130-131; cf 156). I am troubled, first of all, by the

precise connection between aim realism (which I take to be a relatively benign

psychological hypothesis concerning the state of mind of the practicing scien

tist) and a more robust, less plausible scientific realism. Second, even taken on

its own, Goldman conceives of aim realism as committed to a kind of corre

spondence theory of truth: not only does this seem to me unnecessary (I find

a pragmatic theory of truth or warranted assertibility more congenial), but also

empirically unsupported (witness the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum

mechanics).

In Inductive Inference and Its Natural Ground (Cambridge: MIT Press,

1993), Hilary Kornblith maintains that "natural kinds make inductive knowl

edge of the world possible because the clustering of properties characteristic of

natural kinds makes inferences from the presence of some of these properties to

the presence of others reliable" (7). He is committed, furthermore, to the thesis

that "there are real kinds in nature and what they are may be known to us... .Those

who wish to account for the progress which has been made in science cannot

rest content with a position short of [this] full blown realism" (17-18).

Here, I simply wish to emphasize the fact that, despite their differences

in presentation, both Goldman and Kornblith would see scientific practice as

quixotic were it not for the assumption of some form of scientific realism.



665 John Capps

32. Arthur Fine, "The Natural Ontological Attitude" in The Shaky

Game: Einstein, Realism and the Quantum Theory (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1986) 112-135. The reference to "desk-thumping" appears on

page 129.

33. Cf. LW 12:428-432.

34. To illustrate the point I wish to make, Putnam writes in his

Dewey lectures (op. cit.) that: "[T]he world is as it is independently of the

interests of describers....But reflection on human experience suggests that nei

ther the form of all knowledge claims nor the ways in which they are respon

sible to reality is fixed once and for all in advance, contrary to the assumptions

of the traditional realist" (448-9).

35. At times I have been tempted to describe my approach in terms

of advocating a "natural" naturalism ? "natural" in the sense Fine proposes a

"natural ontological attitude": a "California" natural, no additives. But I am

afraid that this proposed turn of phrase is too cute for its own good. As a result

I will continue to refer to a "minimal" or "modest" naturalism, distinguishing

this approach from more reductivist, metaphysically extravagant forms of this

approach. As such, this modest naturalism bears certain similarities and differ

ences to positions recently put forward by Susan Haack and Murray G. Murphey ? and I wish briefly to comment on these.

Like Haack, I support something like the "reformist, a posteriorist natu

ralism" that she outlines in Evidence and Inquiry (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,

1993). I am in accord with her, furthermore, that precisely what is not called

for is the elimination of epistemology in favor of the "natural sciences of cogni

tion" (119). But I do disagree with her theses that "traditional problems of

epistemology can be resolved a posteriori, within the web of empirical belief

and "results from the sciences of cognition may be relevant to, and may legiti

mately be used in the resolution of traditional epistemological questions" (118).

Central to my view of naturalism is precisely the attitude that certain "tradi

tional epistemological questions" ?

notably those having to do with philo

sophical skepticism ? do not seem resolvable in this way, and instead should be

bypassed. This may sound closer to the type of "revolutionary" naturalism that

Haack rejects, though it must be emphasized that the strategy I propose does

not involve then turning these questions over to natural science ? as Haack's

target does. My strategy is simply to maintain that it is not necessary to resolve




or directly respond to these questions before the work of analyzing our

justificatory practices can get underway. So my approach differs from Haack's

precisely in how it conceives of the relationship between "traditional" and natu

ralized epistemology. Thus, Haack's reformist position is continuous with the

tradition to the extent that it preserves the traditional questions. However, as

I have argued above, a plausible naturalized epistemology can be both continu

ous and discontinuous with epistemology as usual: staying in the business, to

be sure, but also aware that the price of admission to this field involves taking

certain attitudes as practical, methodological presuppositions.

Because it does not give prima facie credence to "traditional" questions,

I would maintain that mine is a more "modest" naturalism. This modesty is

due to the fact that it does not treat the continuity of epistemology with science

in terms only of the possible applicability of the latter to the former (as Haack's

version seems to do). Instead, the naturalism I advocate also emphasizes the

genetic and methodological continuity between epistemology and science, trac

ing the development and techniques of these disciplines to a generalizable

Deweyan pattern of inquiry : to, in the end, the identification and resolution of

indeterminate situations. Doing so, as I have indicated above, should also allay

many of Haack's fears that a thoroughgoing contextualism is tantamount to a

form of relativistic conventionalism.

Turning to Murphey's Philosophical Foundations of Historical Knowl

edge (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), I do find myself in

overall agreement with his approach, especially in his discussion of Quine and

in his use of results drawn from studies of child development. These studies

lead Murphey to conclude that "the individuation of the world into enduring

objects is achieved by psychological mechanisms that are hardwired and there

fore universal" (39), in contrast to Quine's claim that this individuation "is

achieved solely through linguistic devices" (38). Of course, this does not mean

that a naively realistic attitude is infallible, just that human beings naturally

perceive and conceptualize the world in certain general ways even before ac

quiring language. This result is in accord with my reservation, above, that

Quine's naturalism, unlike Dewey's, places emphasis on the linguistic at the

expense of the "organic".

Murphey, however, would seem to eschew the language of method

ological presuppositions in favor of speaking of "postulates": hence, "the exist



667 John Capps

enee of a real world is a postulate to explain our experience rather than a pre

supposition of inquiry" (213). And later: "I postulate a definite reality because

scientific theories postulate the existence of such a reality and because I can

think of no other way of explaining certain major features of the development

of science" (254). While I think the distinction between a postulate and a

presupposition is, in this instance, largely semantic (Murphey most of all wants

to avoid metaphysical presuppositions), I am less impressed by the explanatory

force of this postulate or presupposition. Perhaps this is because I do not see

scientific progress standing so much in need of explanation, as if science other

wise would be susceptible to skeptical (or relativistic) attack. Presupposing a

minimal realism, on my account, allows us to move beyond the kinds of skepti

cal questions which have frequently absorbed epistemology, but to no avail.

The significance of this presupposition, in other words, lies not in any response

or explanation it may be capable of giving, but in the fact that it allows us

instead to bypass these questions and get on to more interesting work.

36. Stroud, 71.

37. In Knowing and the Known (in The Later Works, volume 16

(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991 ) Dewey and Bentley are

explicit in their recognition of this circularity:

We have nothing to apologize for in the circularity we choose in pref

erence to the old talk-ways. We observe world-being-known-to-man

in-it; we report the observation; we proceed to inquire into it, circu

larity or no circularity. This is all there is to it. (62)

Also in this work Dewey and Bentley avoid using the term "naturalism",

noting instead that "various current metaphysical or 'substantial' implications

of what is called 'naturalism' are so alien to us that any entanglement with them

would produce serious distortions of our intentions" (74).

38. A previous version of this paper was read in March 1996 at the

annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy in

Toronto. I am indebted to several members of the audience for their responses,

and especially to James Brown for his helpful comments. I must also thank

Thomas A. Ryckman for his thoughtful reading of an earlier draft of this paper,

and for helping me clarify many points of the argument.

