Representation, language and interpretation take place in the world. Some recent theories of meaning, such as situation semantics, take this as their starting place. As a result, they firmly place meaning in the world. John will examine the consequences of this naturalizing shift of the locus of meaning from the mind to the world on some traditional issues in epistemology.

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NATURALISM AND EPISTEMIC NORMS

1. What is naturalism?
Norms, Naturalism and Epistemology, chapter 1
Non-scientific naturalism?

2. Does a naturalised epistemology need norms?
Norms, Naturalism and Epistemology, chapter 4
Can we give a foundationalist, non-psychologistic naturalized epistemology?
Naturalised epistemology without norms

3. Epistemic obligation
Epistemic obligation

Evolutionary epistemology is a naturalized epistemology. Reaching way back to the 19th century (Darwin, Spencer), it has been based on the assertion that cognition/knowledge is an outcome of evolution by natural selection. In the late 19th and early 20th century it found clear expressions in the works of physicist-philosophers Mach and Boltzmann and, later, Campbell, Lorenz, Popper, and others. In this paper I will give a short historical sketch and discuss the present status of evolutionary epistemology and its philosophical ramifications. It will be argued that there are different versions of evolutionary epistemology and that a synthesis is needed. However, this kind of epistemology is to be considered as integral part of any naturalistic worldview.

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How do we identify tools? A philosophical and cognitive hypothesis

What I want to discuss is: how do we identify a tool? Is it a result of a purely perceptual process consisting in identification of the typical physical properties of an object, or is it a result of a detection of affordances propagated by objects and picked up by a perceiver, or is it a process of a different kind? I will expose this problem in the following steps: first, it will be argued why the standard computational approach to perception cannot account for the identification of a tool. Second, the Gibsonian solution to this problem will be discussed and its deficiencies exposed. Third, Heidegger's formulation of this problem will be introduced and certain interpretation of it proposed. Fourth, the rough sketch of the suggested answer to this question will be offered.