Bealer argues that the kind of naturalistic view which Quine holds will rob him of the ability to … - Hilary Kornblith

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In the last few years everything I'd done up to sixty or so has seemed very childish.

Hilary Kornblith

Bealer argues that the kind of naturalistic view which Quine holds will rob him of the ability to make the normative claims which (many) naturalists wish to make in epistemology. I don't think this is right about Quine, but I'm certain it's not right about my own view. To the extent that I can show that talk of knowledge is firmly rooted within empirical theories where it plays an important explanatory role, I thereby demonstrate its naturalistic credentials.

Knowledge, Naturalists, Play, Thereby, Thinking, Views

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Chemists in earlier centuries were quite interested in the nature of acids. They had no interest in analysing their concept of acid. After all, they knew that their understanding of acids was at a fairly primitive level, and what they wanted to do was understand something about the world better - the nature of acidity - not something about their own concepts.

Concept, Levels, Quite, Understand, Understanding, World

But there is no doubt that my own views on this are, in quite a number of ways, very different from those of Quine.

Views, Numbers, Doubt, Quite, Different

Bealer has a number of reasons for thinking that a naturalistic epistemology is self-undermining. Let me focus on one of these. (I've tried to take on all of them in the first chapter of Knowledge and Its Place in Nature. )

Bealer, Epistemology, Number, Numbers, Self, Thinking

In my view, since the case can be made that knowledge too is a natural kind, the role of pretheoretical intuitions is similarly diminished in epistemology.

Epistemology, Intuition, Knowledge, Pretheoretical, Roles, Views

No one would suggest that we can adequately investigate what makes something an acid, or what makes something aluminum, by bringing our pretheoretical intuitions about these things into reflective equilibrium by way of armchair theorising.

Acid, Adequately, Aluminum, Intuition, Intuitions, Way