Abstract: Empiricism abhors mysteries, and insists on the natural, causal origin of human knowledge, its experiential justification and its fallible and defeasible character. The classical notion of a priori knowledge, and the view that our intuitions provide such knowledge, assumes that some knowledge is, for its justification, independent from experience. Since this view sins against the demands listed, Quine was very much right in having rejected it. In this paper I want to defend a version of empiricism about justification that I take to capture the gist of Quine's message. Some defense might be needed in view of the recent revival of interest in apriorism accompanied by criticism of the empiricist program (Bealer, 1992; Bonjour, 1992). Moreover, some prominent empiricists like E. Sober (in his paper (1993)) have come to question the fundamental tenets of Quine's view. In these paper I wish to defend the tenability of empiricism against some of the charges, focusing upon Sober's criticism, but mentioning others along the way. Sober discusses the universal truths of mathematics. There are four kinds of reasons why one should demand empirical test (warrant) for logical and mathematical beliefs:
Publication Year: 2000
Publication Date: 2000-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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