Il buono, il brutto e il cattivo. Disambiguare il naturalismo di Quine

Abstract

- Quine's ‘epistemology naturalised' has been profoundly influential, but it is also highly ambiguous. Quine seems at times to claim only that epistemology is not a purely a priori enterprise but an empirical study, continuous with the sciences of cognition; at others, that epistemological questions can be turned over to the sciences to resolve; and on other occasions, that epistemological questions are misconceived and should be replaced by scientific investigation into cognition. What is argued here is that the first and most modest version of Quine's epistemological naturalism is potentially fruitful, the second and more ambitious indefensible, and the third and most ambitious not only false but disastrous.