50%
Confidence
Belief overview
Naturalized epistemology
Human knowledge is studied as natural, historical, and cognitive phenomenon.
2
Supportive
1
Contrary
0
Neutral
What it is: In some currents, naturalism applies its theses also to the study of knowledge itself.
How the position understands it: Beliefs, perception, language, and justification can be analyzed with support from psychology, biology, linguistics, and cognitive sciences.
Basis and context: The formulation is associated above all with contemporary debates in analytic epistemology.
Debates and variations: There is discussion about how far epistemological normativity can be fully naturalized.
Documentary evidence
Supportive
W. V. O. Quine, Epistemology Naturalized
A central text of naturalized epistemology.
Reference: W. V. O. Quine, essay Epistemology Naturalized.
Content: Quine proposes treating human knowledge as part of the natural world and investigating it with empirical support.
Use in debate: It is a decisive source for naturalized epistemology.
Wilfrid Sellars, Philosophy and the Scientific Image
Integration between the manifest image and the scientific image.
Reference: Wilfrid Sellars, Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man.
Content: The essay discusses how philosophy and science articulate different levels of description of the human being and the world.
Use in debate: It is important for continuity between the human and nature without immediate simplification.
Contrary
Alvin Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies
A strong philosophical critique of naturalism.
Reference: Alvin Plantinga, Where the Conflict Really Lies.
Content: Plantinga argues against combining naturalism with cognitive reliability in his well-known formulations of the evolutionary argument against naturalism.
Use in debate: It is one of the best-known contemporary critiques of metaphysical naturalism.