Quine writings founded the discipline of naturalistic epistemology. While this approach was opposed to all traditional epistemological perspectives it was most especially opposed to Cartesian rationalism. While Quine virtually never mentions apriority it is clear that he is committed to opposing the view that some epistemic justification is apriori, or independent of sensory experience. Finally, rationalism is inextricably bound up with the idea that some substantial portion of our justified beliefs and knowledge are apriori. Quine argues that epistemology is continues with the natural sciences. This is an empiricist view that is diametrically opposed to rationalism. Quine’s view will be presented, and an objection will be presented. Finally, it will be argued that Quine cannot, and certainly does not, overcome the objection.
Two lines of argument for Quine view can be found in two of his most famous articles. In “Epistemology Naturalized” Quine takes himself to refute rationalism, with some hasty remarks about Descartes that will be discussed presently. In the very first sentence of the article, however, Quine makes an assumption that is quite contrary to the spirit of rationalism; and indeed of traditional epistemology in general. He states without argument that “Epistemology is concerned with the foundations of science” (1969, p. 69). Even if we take a broad, traditional view of science as encompassing what used to be called the “mathematical” and the “logical” sciences, this assumption is not something Quine has a right to. It excludes a paradigm example of apparent apriori justification—Descartes’s cogito. Nevertheless, having made the assumption Quine has little problem in showing that it leads to the conclusion that we should simply equate epistemology with a part of science. His central argument is that Carnap’s attempt to provide a traditional philosophical foundation for empirical science in terms of protocol sentences and sense data does not succeed.
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"Epistemology, Quine’s Naturalism, and A Priori Knowledge".
With Carnap out of the way Quine has only to do with Descartes. He does so in a single paragraph. Quine claims that the “Cartesian quest for certainty” has been seen to be a lost cause. We then get the following sentence, which is all the argument Quine provides on the matter. “To endow the truths of nature with the full authority of immediate experience was as forlorn a hope as hoping to endow the truths of mathematics with the potential obviousness of elementary logic” (1969, p. 74). None of this has much to do with Descartes. The first forlorn hope Quine mentions is the failure of positivism to isolate certain sentences that themselves have predictive implications. We can set this aside. The second hope has at least more to do with Descartes, in the sense that Descartes did think that at least some knowledge was obvious in an epistemically special sense. However, endowing truths of mathematics with the potential obviousness of elementary logic has nothing to do with why Descartes views are mistaken, if they are.
Now, Quine was assuming the results of some of his earlier writing. In “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” (1951) Quine gave an argument that no sentences are analytic. Since Quine buys the positivist view that apriority simply is analyticity (if it is anything), this is crucial for our topic—for since apriority is crucial to rationalism, and Quine has an argument that no sentences are analytic, this view can be combined with Quine’s argument to refute rationalism, including Descartes’s rationalism.
The main argument is this: Meaning is, if anything, confirmation conditions; but sentences do not have individual confirmation conditions; therefore, no individual sentences could be true solely in virtue of their meanings (1951, section V). The argument is certainly valid. The second premise, sometimes called the “Quine-Duhem Thesis”, is also undoubtedly true. What is not clearly true is the first premise, that meaning is confirmation conditions if it is anything at all. There are too many problems with this premise than there is space to go into here. Two problems will be mentioned, however. One is that some sentences are not confirmable. An example is “A house will never be built on this geographical plot”. This would seem not to be confirmable but it is clearly meaningful. Another problem is that in many cases the meaning of expressions in sentences depends upon causal relations that tokens of the sentences containing the expression bear to the subject matter of the sentences or expressions. For example, part of what it is for a token of a sentence type that includes the word “water” is to be causally related to an environment that contains water, or something else that could provide one with the concept of water.
A final problem with Quine’s position in this area is his assumption that apriority just is analyticity. Descartes’s cogito is a counterexample. “I am thinking, therefore I exist” is not analytic on any reasonable conception of analyticity. For one thing, analytic truths are necessarily true. I can know apriori that I exist, but my existence is certainly not necessary. Of course, Quine has much more to say about analyticity in “Two Dogmas” than has been covered here. However, he says nothing about apriority. Quine, indeed, has nothing to say about apriority, except that it is if anything analyticity. Since all significant rationalist philosophers have accepted a notion of apriority that does not simply reduce to analyticity, Quine’s arguments seem to be irrelevant to the evaluation of rationalism.
Quine does seem to hold that any apriori sentence would have to be empirically non-disconfirmable. And of course he holds that no sentence is immune to revision. However, rationalists need not concede that apriori truths are empirically disconfirmable. The most significant current rationalist positions do not make this concession.
- Quine, W.V. (1951). Two dogmas of empiricism. The Philosophical Review, 60, 20-43.
- Quine, W.V. (1969). Epistemology naturalized. In his Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, New York: Columbia University Press.
