Willard Van Orman Quine

30 robert j. fogelin
Yet even if he attacked logical empiricism in fundamental ways, he
still accepted (or fell in with) some of its most important features.
The underlying shared thought is that empirical science is a linguistic
structure. Thus for Quine, as for the logical empiricists, the
philosophy of empirical science is the study of the language of empirical
science. Not only does this assumption underlie Quine’s practice
in dealing with empirical science, it is also a doctrine that he states
explicitly in a number of places. For example, in “The Nature of Natural
Knowledge,” Quine remarks, “Science is a ponderous linguistic
structure, fabricated of theoretical terms linked by fabricated hypotheses,
and keyed to observable events here and there” (NNK 71).
The central point of this passage is that science is, except for its observational
content, a human fabrication. We will return to this point
shortly. It is, however, worth pausing over the claim that science is
a linguistic structure. This seems to be stronger than the claim that
science employs linguistic structures. Bowling, for example, employs
linguistic structures – score sheets – yet no one would say that bowling
is a linguistic structure. In saying that science is a linguistic
structure, Quine seems to be identifying science with its theories.
Treating science (or a scientific theory) as a linguistic structure is
common ground between Quine and the logical empiricists. Among
other things, this explains why the methods of logic are important
to both and why Quine’s constructive work often shadows Carnap’s.
Their differences have already been spelled out. For Quine, a naturalized
empiricism was made possible by a set of interlocking considerations.
By abandoning the project of validating science, Quine
evades the charge of circularity. By rejecting the analytic-synthetic
distinction, he undercuts the purely conceptual programs it made
possible. By arguing for a wide range of indeterminacies, he deprives
the logical empiricists of their chief employment: the production of
reductive analyses. For Quine, these changes yield a form of empiricism
more empirical than logical empiricism itself.
In summary, depending on the context, Quine’s naturalism with
respect to epistemology operates on at least three levels:
� Naturalized epistemology. This is broad view that epistemological
questions are factual questions to be addressed using
the results and methods of empirical science.
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