The two fundamentaltenets of Quine’s naturalized epistemology are: skepticism about a priori knowledge, and psychology – theidea psychological?processes thatgenerate and sustain a belief are relevant to its justification.  &*)(^$$Quinedenies that we can know any epistemological principles a priori.

Naturalists are dubious about the a priori for a variety of reasons. Quine argues?thatthe analytic/synthetic distinction is unsupportable. Previous generations of philosophersbelieved that it was possible to make a sharp distinction between truths ofmeaning and truths of fact. Analytic?truths were?held to be known apriori, synthetic truths a posteriori.If we share Quine’s assumption that analytic truths are truths of?meaning, and that language is the vehicle of meaning,then?details of language?acquisitiontake on philosophical?significance.According to?Quine, sensory evidence is all theevidence there is for the?meanings of words. Quine argues that all of our knowledgeis an inseparable combination of aposteriori and a priori truth.

_)(*&[email protected]$#%            Unlike logical empiricists, Quine does not believe thatevery meaningful expression is keyed?directly toobservable experience. Some phrases are?inculcated byexplicit?definition, but others are inferred?or projected beyond observational data.<>?:”{}_()            Quine believes that learning of a language?is a form of scientific?discovery.Every?infant learns their?nativetongue by observing the?behavior of adultspeakers in their environment.

The infant learns to associate?phrases with publicly observable objects. She mustextrapolate general principles from a small number of observations. )(*&_____________(*            Some of these?children will growup to be?philosophers. If they are?trained in the Anglo-American tradition, they?will go on to analyze these empirically-generatedconcepts. Traditional epistemologists argue that this activity is a unique?philosophical method that separates philosophicalinquiry from?empirical inquiry. On the traditionalview, the philosopher is engaging in apriori reflection on a concept in order to extract?analytictruths about that concept. But according to the?naturalizedepistemologist, the?philosopher is not?engaging in a pure apriori reasoning. Instead, she is reflecting on an empirically-based theory– the theory she developed datum-by-datum?in the course oflanguage?learning.

If all of our concepts arealready assembled from experience, then it seems foolish to restrict ourselvesto an?arbitrary subset of so-called a priori truths. $&(&()*_)+_((&            Psychology, the second fundamental.principle of Quine’s!naturalizedepistemology, is the idea that beliefs are justified by the psychologicalprocesses that generate and”sustainthem. Weak}psychology}holds that the concepts}and the?findings of empirical psychology are relevant. 709808^&(%&            It is clear from|Quine’s description of!his program that|he is a(strong|psychologist:            “Naturalized epistemology studies a natural phenomenon,viz.

a physical human subject. This human subject is accorded experimentallycontrolled input—certain patterns of irradiation in assorted frequencies, forinstance—and in the fullness of time the subject delivers as output adescription of the three dimensional external world and its history. Therelation between the meager input and the torrential output is a relation thatwe are prompted to study for somewhat the same reasons that always promptedepistemology; namely in order to see how evidence relates to theory, and inwhat ways one’s theory of nature transcends any available evidence” (Quine,275) #%$&^&([email protected]’s?Naturalized?Epistemology            Quine|states?that epistemology?is about the?foundations of science.?Forhim, the foundations of?science are the|foundations?of our|knowledge of the?external}world.|||||||| #$^%(            |Quine?identifies|two?sub-projects?within?traditional|epistemology: thedoctrinal?andtheconceptual.?Doctrinalepistemologyistheattemptto?deriveour?knowledgeof theworldfrom immediate|experience. Conceptual?inquiriesclarifyour?epistemicconceptsby|defining lessobvious|ones in|terms of?more|obvious?ones. @#$^?%)*&^&([email protected]’s?Naturalized?Epistemology            Quine|states?that epistemology?is about the?foundations of science.

?Forhim, the foundations of?science are the|foundations?of our|knowledge of the?external}world.|||||||| #$^%(            |Quine?identifies|two?sub-projects?within?traditional|epistemology: thedoctrinal?andtheconceptual.?Doctrinalepistemologyistheattemptto?deriveour?knowledgeof theworldfrom immediate|experience. Conceptual?inquiriesclarifyour?epistemicconceptsby|defining lessobvious|ones in|terms of?more|obvious?ones.

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