Naturalizing and interpretive turns in epistemology

International Journal of Philosophical Studies 11 (3):245 – 259 (2003)
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Abstract

In this paper I want to suggest that causal and interpretive approaches to epistemology are in tension with one another. Drawing on the work of hermeneutic writers I suggest that epistemological justification is an interpretive process. The possibility of rational justification requires attention to our locatedness within the domain of reasons, into which we have been culturally initiated. The recognition that there is no transcendent processes of rational justification has to be addressed from within this framework and cannot be resolved in a naturalizing way. The turn to hermeneutics in the context of epistemology allows us to reassign a central role to experience within epistemological justification. Here the very features of experience which render problematic its role in empiricist accounts form the basis of its position in hermeneutic ones. This presents us with an immanent conception of rationality, in place of the transcendent conception which so many writers have problematized.

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Kathleen Lennon
University of Hull

Citations of this work

Pragmatic commitments to naturalized epistemology.Cong Hangqing & Cheng Xiaodong - 2006 - Frontiers of Philosophy in China 1 (3):477-490.
Cooperative naturalism.Wang Huaping & Sheng Xiaoming - 2007 - Frontiers of Philosophy in China 2 (4):601-613.
Pragmatic Commitments to Naturalized Epistemology.Hangqing Cong, Xiaodong Cheng & Haidan Chen - 2006 - Frontiers of Philosophy in China 1 (3):477-490.

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References found in this work

Empiricism and the philosophy of mind.Wilfrid Sellars - 1956 - Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 1:253-329.
Truth and Power (1977).Michel Foucault - 2007 - In Craig J. Calhoun (ed.), Contemporary Sociological Theory. Blackwell. pp. 201--208.
Understanding a Primitive Society.Peter Winch - 1964 - American Philosophical Quarterly 1 (4):307 - 324.
Two types of foundationalism.William P. Alston - 1976 - Journal of Philosophy 73 (7):165-185.

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