Constructive analysis: A study in epistemological methodology

Abstract

Traditional philosophical analysis, tracing back to the Socratic method, often assumes that concepts are best defined through necessary and sufficient conditions revealed via armchair intuitions. However, empirical psychological evidence regarding prototype structures and cognitive limitations undermines this classical model. A more viable framework, termed constructive analysis, integrates descriptive meaning analysis with an ameliorative evaluation of a concept’s purpose. This methodology prioritizes the reconstruction of epistemic tools over the exhaustive description of current usage. When applied to epistemic justification, traditional deontological and internalist accounts prove tenable only under the false assumptions of doxastic voluntarism or introspective transparency. Instead, justification is more effectively reconstructed as a function of effective heuristics—reasoning strategies and processes that strike an optimal balance between reliability and power in the pursuit of significant truths. This approach allows epistemology to fulfill its guidance function by incorporating empirical findings from cognitive science into the development of sound reasoning strategies for prediction, diagnosis, and information retention. Ultimately, justification is characterized as a natural phenomenon pertaining to the track records of belief-forming mechanisms, providing a normative basis for improving actual inquiry in naturalistic settings. – AI-generated abstract.