Michael Shepanski

What explains evidence-gathering? Some say desire for knowledge, or desire for true belief, or desire for belief that has some other feature. These answers are alike insofar as each ascribes to the agent a propositional attitude (desire) about her own propositional attitudes (knowledge or belief). Others say that what explains evidence-gathering is desire for a non-attitudinal outcome, such as obtaining food. That is the gist of an equation at the heart of I. J. Good’s Value of Information Theorem. But Good’s proof assumes that the agent believes that she will choose a future act that maximizes her future subjective expected utility; which suggests that it, too, ascribes to the agent a propositional attitude (belief) about her own propositional attitudes (future desires and beliefs). This paper seeks to explain evidence-gathering without ascribing to the agent any propositional attitudes about her own propositional attitudes. This is necessary, if we are ever to explain the evidence-gathering behaviour of non-self-aware animals. For some cases we can stay close to Good, although taking care to sidestep any ascriptions of second-order attitudes. For other cases, however—cases in which individual cognition does less work and evolved dispositions do more—we must diverge further from Good; and for some of them we need a new type of explanation, according to which acts of evidence-gathering are neither desired as means nor desired as ends, but desired nonetheless.

Contemporary philosophy often chants the mantra, ‘Philosophy is continuous with science.’ Now Shepanski gives it a clear sense, by extracting from W. V. Quine’s writings an explicit normative epistemology – i.e. an explicit set of norms for theorizing – that applies to philosophy and science alike. It is recognizably a version of empiricism, yet it permits the kind of philosophical theorizing that Quine practised all his life. Indeed, it is that practice, more than any overt avowals, that justifies attributing this set of norms to Quine. The Quinean epistemology is supported by a metaphilosophy that judges epistemologies by the tenability of their consequences. Shepanski explores the Quinean epistemology’s consequences for inductive and abductive inference, for mathematical entities, for science and for common sense. Moreover, he finds that it continues to be fruitful, as illustrated by a case study in which Quinean methods lead to a new formal treatment of the propositional attitudes. Finally, there is critical discussion of popular alternative views, including foundationalism, the centrality of knowledge, and Quine’s own epistemological naturalism. By focusing on Quine’s normative epistemology, Shepanski illuminates a part of Quine’s thought that has hitherto been insufficiently discussed, and provides a tractable starting point for readers who are new to Quine. Most importantly, he isolates the part of Quine’s thought that has the greatest potential impact outside epistemology, outside philosophy of language, and even outside philosophy.