The Space of Reasons 2007-07-26

Naturalised Epistemology: Quine vs Stroud (Part 2)

In his notoriously laconic reply to Stroud, Quine treats Stroud's dilemma as merely an instantiation of the sceptical worry that reality might be very different from how we perceive it to be. If the first horn of the dilemma, that science is wrong, obtains then it naturally follows that reality is not as we perceive it to be. If the second horn of the dilemma, that all our theories are merely unverifiable posits, obtains then there is no way for us to rule out the possibility that reality is not as we perceive it to be. Both horns of Stroud's dilemma, then, amount to the sceptical worry. I take this conclusion to be uncontroversial, and I will therefore treat a successful reply to the sceptical worry as a successful reply to Stroud's dilemma.Quine maintains that the meaning of words is ...

read more   

more posts from The Space of Reasons