Implications of Indeterminacy: Naturalism in Epistemology and the Philosophy of Law II
Law and Philosophy 30 (4):453-476 (2011)
| Abstract | In a circulated but heretofore unpublished 2001 paper, I argued that Leiter’s analogy to Quine’s “naturalization of epistemology” does not do the philosophical work Leiter suggests. I revisit the issues in this new essay. I first show that Leiter’s replies to my arguments fail. Most significantly, if – contrary to the genuinely naturalistic reading of Quine that I advanced – Quine is understood as claiming that we have no vantage point from which to address whether belief in scientific theories is ever justified, it would not help Leiter’s parallel. Given Leiter’s way of drawing the parallel, the analogous position in the legal case would be not the Legal Realists’ indeterminacy thesis, but the very different position that we have no vantage point from which to address whether legal decisions can ever be justified. I then go on to address the more important question of whether the indeterminacy thesis, if true, would support any replacement of important legal philosophical questions with empirical ones. Although Ronald Dworkin has argued against the indeterminacy thesis, if he were wrong on this issue, it would not in any way suggest that the questions with which Dworkin is centrally concerned cannot fruitfully be addressed. The indeterminacy thesis is a bone of contention in an ordinary philosophical debate between its proponents and Dworkin. Of course, if the determinacy thesis were true, no one should try to show that it is false, but this triviality lends no support to the kind of replacement proposal that Leiter proposes. I conclude with some general reflections on naturalism and philosophical methodology | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,701 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesMark Greenberg (2011). Naturalism in Epistemology and the Philosophy of Law. Law and Philosophy 30 (4):419-451.
Michael Steven Green (2011). Leiter on the Legal Realists. Law and Philosophy 30 (4):381-418.
Forrai (1999). Are Quine’s Two Indeterminacy Theses Compatible? Acta Analytica 14 (23.):89-99..
Brian Leiter (2007). Naturalizing Jurisprudence: Essays on American Legal Realism and Naturalism in Legal Philosophy. Oxford University Press.
Lawrence B. Solum (1987). On the Indeterminacy Crisis: Critiquing Critical Dogma. University of Chicago Law Review 54:462.
Jay F. Rosenberg (1967). Synonymy and the Epistemology of Linguistics. Inquiry 10 (1-4):405-420.
Günter Abel (1994). Indeterminacy and Interpretation. Inquiry 37 (4):403 – 419.
Itay Shani (2005). Intension and Representation: Quine's Indeterminacy Thesis Revisited. Philosophical Psychology 18 (4):415 – 440.
Peter Pagin (2008). Indeterminacy and the Analytic/Synthetic Distinctions: A Survey. Synthese 164 (1):1 - 18.
Panu Raatikainen (2005). On How to Avoid the Indeterminacy of Translation. Southern Journal of Philosophy 43 (3):395-413.
Brian Leiter (2009). Naturalizing Jurisprudence. In John R. Shook & Paul Kurtz (eds.), The Future of Naturalism. Humanity Books.
Christopher R. Hitchcock (1992). Discussion. Journal of Philosophical Research 17:215-223.
Ian McDiarmid (2008). Underdetermination and Meaning Indeterminacy: What is the Difference? Erkenntnis 69 (3):279 - 293.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2011-08-19Total downloads18 ( #67,593 of 549,124 )Recent downloads (6 months)2 ( #37,390 of 549,124 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
