Engineering Normativity in Quine's Epistemology

Document Type : Scientific-research

Authors

1 PhD Student in Western Philosophy, Tehran University

2 Associate Professor in Philosophy, Tehran University

3 Assistant Professor in Philosophy, Tehran University

Abstract

One of the serious problems of “Naturalized Epistemology” in Quine philosophy is “Normativity”. Normativity is a prescription for justified true belief and seeks rationality and justification of knowledge. The norms of knowledge in traditional epistemology are defined on the basis of empirical or rational Foundationalism, but Quine was challenged by emphasizing induction and Darwin's Evolution. He introduced in response to the challenges the naturalized epistemology as “normative engineering” and “technology of truth- seeking” or prediction. The challenge became more, however, with the ambiguity of two words “engineering” and “technology”. According to Quine, normativity in the position of controlling hypothesis in the early stages, reveals the falsifiable cases of science and deals with the margins of science instead the context, contrary to traditional epistemology. Moreover, Quine by modifying traditional empiricism and shifting from it to naturalism, introduced the watchword of empiricism, which says, “nihil in mente quod non prius in sensu” as the most important norm of science that which separates science from non-science. Some another norms such as simplicity, conservatism and generality contribute to this norm at the stage of science discovery; but the truth conditions are the work of science itself, and unlike traditional type, the Quine's normativity has no role in justification of science.
          

Keywords

References

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