Abstract

A common objection raised against naturalism is that a naturalized epistemologycannot account for the essential normative character of epistemology. Following ananalysis of different ways in which this charge could be understood, it will be argued thateither epistemology is not normative in the relevant sense, or if it is, then in a way whicha naturalized epistemology can account for with an instrumental and hypothetical modelof normativity. Naturalism is here captured by the two doctrines of empiricism and gradualism.Epistemology is a descriptive discipline about what knowledge is and under whatconditions a knowledge-claim is justified. However, we can choose to adopt a standard ofjustification and by doing so be evaluated by it. In this sense our epistemic practices have anormative character, but this is a form of normativity a naturalized epistemology can makeroom for. The normativity objection thus fails. However, in the course of this discussion, asyet another attempt to clarify the normativity objection, such a naturalistic model will becontrasted with Donald Davidson’s theory of interpretation. Even though this comparisonwill not improve upon the negative verdict upon the original objection, it will be arguedthat naturalism cannot accept Davidson’s theory since it contains at least one constitutiveprinciple – the principle of charity – whose epistemic status is incompatible with thenaturalistic doctrine of gradualism. So, if this principle has this role, then epistemologycannot be naturalized.