Quine on psychology
pp. 259-290
in: Abner Shimony, Debra Nails (eds), Naturalistic epistemology, Berlin, Springer, 1987Abstract
"Epistemology," Quine (1969, p. 69) says at the beginning of "Epis-temology Naturalized' (EN), "is concerned with the foundations of science". That is, the fundamental epistemological questions ask: "What is the nature of (scientific) evidence?' and "How are (scientific) claims confirmed?' There are two approaches one can take in seeking answers to these questions: the a priori approach and the empirical approach. The former Quine refers to as the project of "rational reconstruction'. The latter is just that part of psychology which explains the behavior, exhibited by so-called "rational' creatures, of theory construction and confirmation. The burden of EN is to argue for the second approach. Thus, on Quine's view, epistemology is a field of natural science, itself the activity epistemology is supposed to explain.
