Is Naturalism Normative? The Function of Epistemic Norms Within Naturalized Epistemology

The topic of the paper is the problem of normativity within naturalized epistemology. The question I pose is whether naturalism can be conducted as a normative enterprise or whether it is merely descriptive as traditional epistemologists maintain. If they are to be faithful to their philosophical presuppositions naturalists cannot deliver traditionally understood substantive account of normativity. This is the reason why naturalism is often conceived as a merely descriptive enterprise. Nevertheless, naturalists do not reject normativity they just understand it differently. The numerous misunderstandings between traditional and naturalistic epistemologists is rooted in the difference in the attitudes to the naturalistic fallacy taken by these two sides. Naturalists treat this “fallacy” as unavoidable, which profoundly influences their account of normativity. In my paper, I show that the main problem with naturalizing epistemic norms could be expressed by asking, What is the substantial difference between epistemic norms derived from descriptive statements and those statements? What does this derivation really mean? My thesis is that naturalistic epistemic norms are actually descriptions of empirical phenomena which are expressed in a normative form for the sake of everyday life and scientific practice. To justify this argument I firstly recall the traditional meaning of “normativity” in the work of Descartes and the post-Cartesian internalists. Secondly, I present how and why the meaning of “epistemic norm” and “justified belief” change within naturalism with reference to Quine’s and Goldman’s Paper presented at the 2nd Philosophy Graduate Conference, CEU, March 29-30, 2008. Submitted: 10.31.2007; Revised: 04.20.2008; Published: 05.09.2008 Article c © 2008 Barbara Trybulec Stable URL: http://www.personal.ceu.hu/percipi/archive/200802/02_bt.pdf