Can a localist naturalism avoid dogmatic foundations

Abstract

It is argued that epistemological naturalism is the result of a holistic thesis plus a high valuation of empirical science. Epistemological naturalism criticizes the sceptic for entertaining unjustified global doubts and naturalism tries to avoid scepticism by taking for granted as non-problematic our background scientific knowledge and by recommending only a localist or piecemealist mending of our corpus of knowledge; an approach which accepts only limited and justified questions. It is argued: 1) that the epistemological naturalist cannot justify without vicious circularity the most basic methods of science nor epistemological naturalism's localist recommendation; 2) That if epistemological naturalism intends to be a description of genuine scientific methods then naturalism tacitly takes for granted, i.e., without justification, some epistemic norms; 3) That natural science itself (evolutionary biology) produces traditional sceptical doubts, and therefore epistemological naturalism cannot avoid scepticism; 4) That naturalism can neither avoid sceptical doubts by substituting an argumentative theory of justification with a reliabilist theory.