Helmholtz’s cognitive psychology and quinean epistemological naturalism : Is Hermann von Helmholtz an epistemological naturalist?

Abstract

As a scientist and philosopher writing in the nineteenth century, Hermann von Helmholtz attempts to use the emerging findings of physiology and his own theories of learning, memory, and perception (what we would now call cognitive psychology) to answer questions of epistemology. In his theories of cognitive psychology, Helmholtz concludes that our understanding ultimately operates by representing causal structure. Through this claim, Helmholtz attempts to justify a principle of causation that warrants our entitlement to inductive inference. Not widely popularised in epistemological discussion until the latter half of the twentieth century, <i>epistemological naturalism</i> is the view that science is a legitimate and autonomous discipline that does not need a grounding in a <i>priori first philosophy</i>. According to the epistemological naturalist, explaining the phenomena of <i>knowing</i> using the tools of science itself (in particular, through the use of psychology) is the true role of the epistemologist. This paper tries to answer whether or not Helmholtz’s use of cognitive psychology to answer questions of epistemology makes him an epistemological naturalist. In particular, I characterize epistemological naturalism according to Willard Van Orman Quine’s formulation in his widely read and canonical “Epistemology Naturalized.” The paper concludes that Helmholtz is in fact a thoroughgoing epistemological naturalist.