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Observationality: Quine and the Epistemological Nihilists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

P. William Bechtel  and
Eric Stiffler
P. William Bechtel
Affiliation:
Northern Kentucky University
Eric Stiffler
Affiliation:
Western Illinois University
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Extract

For several years now Quine has been proclaiming a solution to problems concerning observation sentences and evidence: “The dislodging of epistemology from its old status of first philosophy has loosed a wave … of epistemological nihilism. This mood is reflected somewhat in the recent tendency of Polanyi, Kuhn, and the late Russell Hanson to belittle the role of evidence and to accentuate cultural relativism …. It is ironical that philosophers, finding “the old epistemology untenable as a whole, should react by repudiating a part which has only now [with Quine's account of observation sentences] moved into clear focus.” (pp. 87-88). Attacks on the notion of observationality by the critics of positivism have been : viewed by many (for example Scheffler, Chapter 1) as seriously undermining the objectivity of science. Quine's claim to have solved the problems, therefore, deserves careful consideration and evaluation.

Type
Part III. Observation and Theory
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1978 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1978 , 1978 , pp. 93 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © 1978 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

We dedicate this paper to the late Donald J. Lipkind, our close friend and fellow graduate student at the University of Chicago.

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