Quine argues that the position of the dominant epistemology has failed and we need to reconstruct the traditional view in another way. We should replace epistemology with psychology, because epistemology is asking wrong questions. Instead of “How ought we to arrive at our beliefs?”, the main question should be “How do we arrive at our beliefs?”. We need simply to explain the relationships between input an output, but not to defend our justified beliefs. So, Quine’s strong replacement thesis is to give up the normative epistemology project entirely and to replace it with naturalized epistemology.

Quine argues that foundationalism, which is the core of the traditional epistemology, did not work. According to foundationalism, there are basic beliefs that do not require justification. Quine rejects basic beliefs stating that there are no analytical terms.

A proposition is analytic iff its truth can be determined by meanings of the non-logical terms or by virtue of meanings of logical terms in the proposition. For example, all bachelors are unmarried or p v ∼ p. Analytic proposition is necessarily true (it’s raining or it’s not raining).

A proposition is synthetic iff it is meaningful but not analytic. The truth of synthetic proposition is contingent ( there are non-human animals).

AnalyticSynthetic
a priori
appeal by reason		2+2=4
All bachelors are unmarried.
p v ∼ p
a posteriori
5 senses		H2O ( There must be some observation to arrive at necessary truth)Chalk exists.
University is expanding.
There are non-human animals.

For Quine, science is contingent, so there are no analytic a priori statements. There are only synthetical a posteriori propositions.

Synthetic
a posteriori
5 senses		Chalk exists.
University is expanding.
There are non-human animals.
2+2=4
All bachelors are unmarried.
p v ∼ p
H2O ( There must be some observation to arrive at necessary truth)

So, Quine rejects the distinction between synthetic and analytic propositions. He wants to defend empiricism except of coherentism and fight against meaningfulness of Carnap.

Kim’s Critique of strong replacement

Jaegwon Kim criticizes Quine for rejecting all epistemology on the basis of the rejection of one brand account, namely Cartesian account which raises 2 questions:

  • What beliefs are we justified in accepting?
  • What beliefs are justified to be true?

Quine wants to replace the epistemological project with the descriptive project, but naturalizing epistemology means to give up epistemology. There is no reason to give up on that project, even if one of its accounts fails. There are a number of alternative theories. Among them are:

  • Coherentism
  • Weak Foundationalism

In reply to this critique, Quine denies that he replaces epistemology with psychology. He wants to utilize psychology in order to do good science. It is public and its results are repeatable. So, Quine rejects that he defends a strong replacement thesis. He just wants to reject the analysis of knowledge (beliefs that we possess) and focus on how we should pursue inquiry.

Bibliography:

  • Quine, W. V. 1969. Ontological relativity and other essays. New York: Columbia U P.