11.2. No theory of ‘‘our’’ considered epistemic judgments
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We do not begin our epistemological investigations by focusing on our
deeply considered epistemic intuitions about knowledge or justification.
In contemporary epistemology, this view was championed by Stich in The
Fragmentation of Reason (1990) and has found its most forceful defense in
the recent empirical work of Weinberg, Nichols and Stich (2001). In terms
of the number of our fellow travelers, this is perhaps the most radical
aspect of our approach. The diversity findings of Weinberg, Nichols and
Stich suggest that the attempt to provide a traditional account of knowledge
is just anthropology. Once one grants the essentially anthropological
nature of the standard project, one is forced to rethink whether it can lead
to a genuine reason-guiding epistemology. And yet even Goldman, who
for a quarter century has called for a ‘‘scientific epistemology’’ that does
not focus on justification, insists on the traditional project (1992, 2001). It
is time for naturalistically inclined philosophers to reject the traditional
project—epistemology as armchair anthropology—as anathema not only
to science but also to the essentially normative character of epistemology.
We do not begin our epistemological investigations by focusing on our
deeply considered epistemic intuitions about knowledge or justification.
In contemporary epistemology, this view was championed by Stich in The
Fragmentation of Reason (1990) and has found its most forceful defense in
the recent empirical work of Weinberg, Nichols and Stich (2001). In terms
of the number of our fellow travelers, this is perhaps the most radical
aspect of our approach. The diversity findings of Weinberg, Nichols and
Stich suggest that the attempt to provide a traditional account of knowledge
is just anthropology. Once one grants the essentially anthropological
nature of the standard project, one is forced to rethink whether it can lead
to a genuine reason-guiding epistemology. And yet even Goldman, who
for a quarter century has called for a ‘‘scientific epistemology’’ that does
not focus on justification, insists on the traditional project (1992, 2001). It
is time for naturalistically inclined philosophers to reject the traditional
project—epistemology as armchair anthropology—as anathema not only
to science but also to the essentially normative character of epistemology.