A cognitive scientist discovers that humans systematically overestimate the probability of vivid, easily recalled events. Quine's radical naturalist concludes: 'This shows we reason badly and should reason differently.' What is the strongest objection to this move?
ACognitive science is not reliable enough to yield philosophical conclusions
BAn empirical description of how we do reason cannot by itself tell us how we ought to reason — the normativity problem
CQuine's replacement thesis only applies to foundationalism, not to applied epistemology
DThe finding is irrelevant because Quine denies that reasoning has norms at all
This is the normativity problem: epistemology is supposed to be normative — it tells us how we *should* reason, not merely how we do. An empirical finding that describes a bias does not by itself prescribe a correction without already assuming some standard of good reasoning. Quine's radical proposal collapses the is/ought distinction at the heart of epistemology. Option D misrepresents Quine: his replacement thesis is disputed precisely because it seems to eliminate normativity, not because he explicitly denies norms — and moderate naturalizers like Goldman explicitly retain norms while using empirical findings.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
Why did Quine argue that traditional epistemology's foundationalist project had to be abandoned?
ABecause a priori knowledge is impossible — all knowledge comes from the senses
BBecause Hume's problem of induction and Duhem's holism show that individual statements cannot be separately grounded in or refuted by sensory experience
CBecause psychology had already answered the questions epistemology was asking
DBecause justification is a social, not individual, phenomenon
Quine's diagnosis had two prongs: Hume showed that induction cannot be logically justified (no finite past experience guarantees any future claim), and Duhem's holism showed that statements face experience as a 'corporate body' — any statement can be retained in the face of contrary evidence by adjusting other beliefs. Together these mean the foundationalist project — anchoring each statement to experience one at a time — cannot succeed. This is what motivates replacing justification-seeking epistemology with descriptive psychology of belief formation.
Question 3 True / False
Moderate naturalists like Goldman and Kornblith agree with Quine that epistemology should become a branch of descriptive psychology, abandoning normative questions about justification.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
This conflates Quine's radical replacement thesis with the moderate naturalist position. Moderate naturalizers retain the normative dimension of epistemology — they want to answer 'how should we reason?' and 'what counts as justified belief?' — but insist that empirical findings from cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, and the study of reasoning biases must inform those normative answers. Goldman's reliabilism, for example, defines justified belief in terms of reliable cognitive processes — a normative concept that requires empirical investigation to apply.
Question 4 True / False
Quine's proposal that epistemology become a chapter of psychology is simply a call for philosophy to take empirical science more seriously.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
This understates the radicalism of the replacement thesis. Quine is not merely suggesting that philosophers consult scientific findings. He is arguing that the traditional project — providing a non-circular, a priori justification for empirical knowledge — is unachievable and should be replaced entirely by empirical study of how humans form beliefs, with no remainder of normative justification-seeking. This is categorically different from moderate naturalism. The replacement thesis eliminates the normative core of epistemology; the 'take science more seriously' reading would merely supplement it.
Question 5 Short Answer
What is the 'normativity problem' for Quine's replacement thesis, and how does Quine attempt to answer it?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: The normativity problem is that epistemology aims to tell us how we *should* reason and what *justifies* belief — but an empirical description of how humans actually form beliefs (including cognitive biases and motivated reasoning) describes epistemic failure as much as success. There is no clear move from 'this is how we reason' to 'this is how we ought to reason.' Quine's response is that science itself embeds norms of evidence and rational revision, so by studying the scientific process empirically, we inherit those norms without needing a separate philosophical foundation for them.
The normativity problem is widely considered the most serious objection to radical naturalism. Quine's answer — that science's own internal norms suffice — is disputed because it seems to presuppose the very rational authority of science that the epistemological project was supposed to establish. This circularity is what drives many philosophers toward moderate naturalism instead: keep normative epistemology, but let empirical findings about human cognition inform which norms are realistic and which processes are actually reliable.