Robert Sinclair

Jerry Fodor and Ernest Lepore have recently criticized Davidson's methodology of radical interpretation because of its apparent failure to reflect how actual interpretation is achieved. Responding to such complaints, Davidson claims that he is not interested in the empirical issues surrounding actual interpretation but instead focuses on the question of what conditions make interpretation possible. It is argued that this exchange between Fodor and Lepore on one side, and Davidson on the other, cannot be viewed simply as a naturalist reaction to non-naturalist philosophical inquiry. Through a careful excavation of the hidden assumptions and commitments underlying this debate, we recognize a more serious disagreement over the intellectual obligations of naturalism; a position with a firm hold on current philosophical imaginations. In the process, we gain a new appreciation for how such commitments shape these naturalist positions, and recognize that any resolution to this specific debate will require careful attention to the divergent commitments that are its real source

In comparing his conception of empiricism with that of other like-minded philosophers at the end of his 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism,' W. V. Quine famously emphasized the broader scope of his pragmatist commitment in these terms:Carnap, Lewis, and others take a pragmatic stand on the question of choosing between language forms, scientific frameworks; but their pragmatism leaves off at the imagined boundary between the analytic and the synthetic. In repudiating such a boundary I espouse a more thorough pragmatism.Such remarks have resulted in Quine's work being associated with the American pragmatist tradition, where he is viewed as either continuing or reviving some of the main themes and issues representative of..

Recent trends in philosophical naturalism have their chief source in Quine's influential call to 'naturalize' epistemology, which recommended that philosophical concerns be seen as simply one part of a scientifically informed attempt to understand the natural world. The result is the view described as 'scientific naturalism' where philosophy now must defer to science when addressing questions of knowledge, meaning and existence. This naturalist turn is sometimes portrayed as a novel and radical transformation of philosophy, one that holds the promise of genuine philosophical progress. However, there have been many other twentieth century American philosophers trained in different contexts and issues who have been..

This essay reconsiders Davidson's critical attribution of the scheme‐content distinction to Quine's naturalized epistemology. It focuses on Davidson's complaint that the presence of this distinction leads Quine to mistakenly construe neural input as evidence. While committed to this distinction, Quine's epistemology does not attempt to locate a justificatory foundation in sensory experience and does not then equate neural intake with evidence. Quine's central epistemological task is an explanatory one that attempts to scientifically clarify the route from stimulus to science. Davidson's critical remarks wrongly assign concerns to Quine's view that it does not have and further obscures the status of his naturalized conception of epistemology.

This essay reconsiders the place of meaning within Quine’s naturalism. It takes as its point of departure Davidson’s claim that Quine’s linguistic behaviorism entails a form of semantic externalism. It then further locates this claim within the Davidson-Quine debate concerning whether the proximal or distal stimulus is the relevant determinant of semantic content. An interpretation of Quine’s developing views on translation and epistemology is defended that rejects Davidson’s view that Quine be read as a proto-externalist. Quine’s empirical evaluation of translation entails no positive theoretical doctrine concerning how meaning is determined, but concludes that communication is a theoretically unquantifiable practical art or skill. Moreover, his ongoing epistemological development highlights theoretical concerns that diverge in fundamental ways from Davidson’s interest in semantics. Quine then hasreasons for resisting the entailment to semantic externalism that Davidson finds in his work. These reasons should have also ledhim to question the scientific legitimacy of Davidson’s concern with content determination

Donald Davidson has emphasized the importance of what he calls “triangulation” for clarifying the conditions that make thought possible. Various critics have questioned whether this triangular causal interaction between two individuals and a shared environment can provide necessary conditions for the emergence of thought. I argue that these critical responses all suffer from a lack of appreciation for the way triangulation is responsive to the philosophical commitments of Davidson's naturalism. This reply to Davidson's critics helps clarify several metaphilosophical issues concerning the overall significance of this use of triangulation. I illustrate how the network of commitments that make up Davidson's conception of non‐reductive naturalism inform the respective problems and issues that triangulation is introduced to address. This then serves as an example of the way metaphilosophical considerations are useful in clarifying the status of a respective philosophical position and for understanding the philosophical debates surrounding it.

This article explores the conflict between those who find value in religious commitment and others who recommend the complete abandonment of religion. It examines John Dewey's reflections on religion in order to assess its possible resources for addressing this specific conflict. Dewey's discussion highlights deep human impulses that a secular perspective should address. But this should be accomplished not through his proposed broadening of religious life, but by promoting these impulses and the community life that responds to them as shared human needs and ideals that go beyond religious commitment

This essay explores the tension between those who find value in the example of the religious life and others who take the intellectual bankruptcy of religious doctrines as recommending the complete abandonment of religion. It briefly describes John Dewey’s attempt to overcome this tension through a rethinking of the religious life and the sources of its continuing value and purpose. Dewey responds to this conflict over religion by attempting to emancipate its fundamental valuefrom the constraints of any supernatural affiliation. He thereby suggests a more inclusive conception of the religious experience that permeates all aspects of social life. It is argued that Dewey’s attempt to find alternative outlets for religious values within our larger social community provides a better platform for dialogue across social divisions, since it does not begin from a secular standpoint that simply rejects the import of any sort of religious value.

Quine’s references to his “pragmatism” have often been seen as indicating a possible link to the American pragmatism of Peirce, James, and Dewey. In Quine, Conceptual Pragmatism, and the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction, I argue that the influence of pragmatism on Quine’s philosophy is more accurately traced to C.I. Lewis’s conceptual pragmatism. Quine’s epistemology shares many affinities with Lewis’s view, which depicts knowledge as a conceptual system pragmatically revised in light of future experience. This claim is defended through an examination of several key episodes in Quine’s philosophical development, including his graduate work for Lewis, critical transition in the 1940s, midcentury criticisms of analyticity, and later turn to naturalized epistemology. This historical account highlights an underappreciated element of the epistemological background to Quine’s criticism of the analytic–synthetic distinction. It is further argued that Lewis’s view provides the central epistemological framework for understanding the form and content of Quine’s later naturalized epistemology.

In this book, W. V. Quine’s Immanuel Kant Lectures entitled Science and Sensibilia are published for the first time in English. These lectures represent an important stage in the development of Quine’s later thought, where he is more explicit about the importance of physicalist constraints in his account of the steps from sensory stimulation to scientific theory, and in further using them to assess the extent to which mental vocabulary is defensible. Taken as a unit, these lectures fill an important gap in our understanding of his philosophical development from his 1973 work The Roots of Reference to his later work. The volume further contains an introduction that outlines the content and philosophical significance of the lectures. In addition, several essays written by leading scholars of Quine’s philosophy provide further insight into the important issues raised in the lectures.