QUINE’IN FELSEFESİNDE SÜREKLİLİK TEZİNİN GERÇEK ANLAMI NEDİR?

Abstract

The continuity thesis (CT) does not suggest that the similarities between science, common sense, and philosophy are much more than its opponents might claim. Under its Quinean motivation, CT is used to suggest a normative idea concerning how to do philosophy; it is not a descriptive thesis about the actual relationships between philosophy, common sense, and science, except the historical and developmental origins of them. CT is not primarily a descriptive thesis on the similarities between science and non-science. It is, however, based upon another descriptive, closely related thesis: starting from the middle. All thought, human and animal, scientific or not, begins from an inherited mass of knowledge, assumptions, and a surrounding general framework. There is no cosmic exile, Archimedean point, and “view from nowhere.” This is an observation for Quine and underlies his attack against the analytic and the synthetic distinction; his defense of holism and of empiricism which in combination yields Quinean naturalism. Thus, CT should be considered as the ultimate expression of Quinean naturalism and cannot be invalidated by showing the vast differences, even occasionally outright opposition, between science, common sense, and philosophy. Neither does it imply that philosophy must be assimilated into science without a substantial shift in the present notion of science.