5. Our uneasy relationship to tradition

When we began to study epistemology in graduate school, it seemed so full

of promise. Who wouldn’t want to divine the structure of knowledge? But somewhere around the third epicycle on a counterexample involving reliable

clairvoyants, back-up electrical generators, or an environment full of

objects that are phenomenologically identical but ontologically distinct,

SAE jumped the shark. (‘‘Jumping the shark’’ is a specific allusion to the

episode—indeed, the moment—when Fonzie jumped the shark on the

sitcom Happy Days, in a shameless effort to resuscitate the failing sitcom.

It is a generic reference to any such moment in any TV series when it

becomes clear that the show is done for. People can disagree about when

or even whether a TV series has jumped the shark. The same goes for

advocates of particular philosophical movements.) At some point, we (and

we suspect at least some of our contemporaries) came to an uneasy and

perhaps not fully articulated realization that SAE is not what we signed up

for. It has taken us some time to put our finger on what we think the real

problem is. We think that the main problem with SAE is methodological:

its goals and methods are beyond repair. They guarantee that SAE will

never provide effective normative guidance, and so it will never achieve

the positive, practical potential of epistemology. In fact, we sometimes

despair about whether most contemporary epistemologists have lost sight

of this potential—and, indeed, of our obligation to seek it. We should

admit, however, that reliabilism has achieved some of epistemology’s

reason-guiding potential. But as long as reliabilism remains wedded to the

goals and methods of SAE, it is doomed. That’s because the real virtue of

reliabilism is not that it provides a perspicuous account of our concept of

justification. The real virtue of reliabilism lies in its reason-guiding (and

therefore action-guiding) potential.

Our perspective is uncompromisingly naturalistic. The standard philosophical

literature is full of questions and concerns about naturalism:

What is the appropriate way to formulate it? Does it entail that all

knowledge is third person? Does naturalism undermine first-person authority?

Is a fully naturalistic epistemology compatible with internalism, or

with externalism? Does it rule out epistemology’s normative function? Is

naturalistic epistemology even possible? Inevitably, these issues get integrated

with metaphysical ones: Does naturalism entail materialism? Does

it entail reductionism? In the face of these worries, we can do no better

than to quote Elliott Sober: ‘‘Mark Twain once said that the trouble with

the weather is that everyone talks about it, but no one does anything about

it. I have had a similar gripe, from time to time, about the current vogue

for naturalism in philosophy’’ (1997, 549). In putting forth our positive

views, we intend to ignore concerns raised about naturalism except when

it suits our theoretical or narrative purposes. Questions about the nature of naturalism are at this point premature. The right approach is to first

build a naturalistic theory (or lots of them) and then noodle over what

epistemological naturalism is like and what it entails.

There are a number of arguments from SAE that purport to show that

naturalismin epistemology is impossible or self-refuting or self-undermining.

We propose to ignore these arguments in putting forth our theory (although

we do consider some of them in the Appendix). Some philosophers

might wonder, with perhaps more than a hint of outrage, how we can justify

blithely ignoring serious worries about our approach. Our decision to

ignore such worries is a strategic one. Consider two points. First, arguments

for rejecting a naturalistic approach to epistemology provide a positive

reason for avoiding naturalism only if there is an alternative approach to

epistemology that is more promising. But we contend that SAE embodies

an approach that cannot fulfill the legitimate and essential practical

ambitions of epistemology. In fact, given the failure of nonnaturalistic

theories to offer anything in the way of useful reason guidance, it is high

time to try something different. Our second point is that the history of

science suggests that it is a mistake to wait for all objections to be met

before proposing and defending a new, minority or unpopular theory.

Naturalistic epistemology really is doomed if naturalists insist on attempting

to defeat the Hydra-headed arguments for why it is doomed. When you’re

outnumbered and you want to show your theory is possible, proposing an

actual theory is the best and probably only way to do it.

When we began to study epistemology in graduate school, it seemed so full

of promise. Who wouldn’t want to divine the structure of knowledge? But somewhere around the third epicycle on a counterexample involving reliable

clairvoyants, back-up electrical generators, or an environment full of

objects that are phenomenologically identical but ontologically distinct,

SAE jumped the shark. (‘‘Jumping the shark’’ is a specific allusion to the

episode—indeed, the moment—when Fonzie jumped the shark on the

sitcom Happy Days, in a shameless effort to resuscitate the failing sitcom.

It is a generic reference to any such moment in any TV series when it

becomes clear that the show is done for. People can disagree about when

or even whether a TV series has jumped the shark. The same goes for

advocates of particular philosophical movements.) At some point, we (and

we suspect at least some of our contemporaries) came to an uneasy and

perhaps not fully articulated realization that SAE is not what we signed up

for. It has taken us some time to put our finger on what we think the real

problem is. We think that the main problem with SAE is methodological:

its goals and methods are beyond repair. They guarantee that SAE will

never provide effective normative guidance, and so it will never achieve

the positive, practical potential of epistemology. In fact, we sometimes

despair about whether most contemporary epistemologists have lost sight

of this potential—and, indeed, of our obligation to seek it. We should

admit, however, that reliabilism has achieved some of epistemology’s

reason-guiding potential. But as long as reliabilism remains wedded to the

goals and methods of SAE, it is doomed. That’s because the real virtue of

reliabilism is not that it provides a perspicuous account of our concept of

justification. The real virtue of reliabilism lies in its reason-guiding (and

therefore action-guiding) potential.

Our perspective is uncompromisingly naturalistic. The standard philosophical

literature is full of questions and concerns about naturalism:

What is the appropriate way to formulate it? Does it entail that all

knowledge is third person? Does naturalism undermine first-person authority?

Is a fully naturalistic epistemology compatible with internalism, or

with externalism? Does it rule out epistemology’s normative function? Is

naturalistic epistemology even possible? Inevitably, these issues get integrated

with metaphysical ones: Does naturalism entail materialism? Does

it entail reductionism? In the face of these worries, we can do no better

than to quote Elliott Sober: ‘‘Mark Twain once said that the trouble with

the weather is that everyone talks about it, but no one does anything about

it. I have had a similar gripe, from time to time, about the current vogue

for naturalism in philosophy’’ (1997, 549). In putting forth our positive

views, we intend to ignore concerns raised about naturalism except when

it suits our theoretical or narrative purposes. Questions about the nature of naturalism are at this point premature. The right approach is to first

build a naturalistic theory (or lots of them) and then noodle over what

epistemological naturalism is like and what it entails.

There are a number of arguments from SAE that purport to show that

naturalismin epistemology is impossible or self-refuting or self-undermining.

We propose to ignore these arguments in putting forth our theory (although

we do consider some of them in the Appendix). Some philosophers

might wonder, with perhaps more than a hint of outrage, how we can justify

blithely ignoring serious worries about our approach. Our decision to

ignore such worries is a strategic one. Consider two points. First, arguments

for rejecting a naturalistic approach to epistemology provide a positive

reason for avoiding naturalism only if there is an alternative approach to

epistemology that is more promising. But we contend that SAE embodies

an approach that cannot fulfill the legitimate and essential practical

ambitions of epistemology. In fact, given the failure of nonnaturalistic

theories to offer anything in the way of useful reason guidance, it is high

time to try something different. Our second point is that the history of

science suggests that it is a mistake to wait for all objections to be met

before proposing and defending a new, minority or unpopular theory.

Naturalistic epistemology really is doomed if naturalists insist on attempting

to defeat the Hydra-headed arguments for why it is doomed. When you’re

outnumbered and you want to show your theory is possible, proposing an

actual theory is the best and probably only way to do it.