Completing Kornblith’s Project

Abstract

In his Inductive Inference and Its natural Ground: An Essay in Naturalistic Epistemology, Hilary Kornblith presents an argument for the justification of induction that is bold, brilliant, and plausible, but radically incomplete. In the development of this position, Kornblith relies heavily on the philosophical work of Richard Boyd as well as on some empirical psychological studies. As Kornblith sees it, the philosophical position entailed by his proposed solution to the problem is a thoroughgoing realistic, scientific materialism. I will argue that the brand of realism that Kornblith's solution to the problem of induction presupposes is inexplicable within the context of the non-reductive material- ism that he espouses. Although Kornblith provides us with valuable elements for a solution to the problem of induction, it needs to be supplemented with something like a renovated Aristotelian notion of form in order for the solution to be plausible. A LTHOUGH IT WAS originally suggested by Quine, Hilary Kornblith has become the standard-bearer of naturalized epistemology, and in Inductive Inference and Its Natural Ground: An Essay in Naturalistic Epistemology 1 he proposes the outline of a solution to the problem of the justification of induction that is bold, brilliant, and plausible but radically incomplete. In the development of this posi- tion, he relies heavily on the philosophical work of Richard Boyd as well as on some empirical psychological studies. As Kornblith sees it, the philosophical posi- tion entailed by his proposed solution to the problem of induction is a thoroughgoing, realistic, scientific materialism. However, in this paper, I will argue that the brand of realism that Kornblith's solution to the problem of induction presupposes is inexplicable within the context of the non-reductive materialism he espouses. I will argue that although Kornblith provides us with valuable elements for a solu- tion to the problem of induction, it needs to be supplemented with something like a renovated Aristotelian notion of form in order for the solution to be plausible. In order to defend the appeal to the Aristotelian conception of form and formal causality and yet be consistent with the spirit of naturalized epistemology, I will rely upon the ecological theory of perception of James J. Gibson. Gibson's work makes possible—in fact it cries out for—a naturalized epistemological renovation of form. Although I see my project here as being within the general contours of naturalized epistemology, one of the global implications of the position I propose