According to Quine, the way the term 'philosophy' is usually used does not delimit philosophy as a relatively homogeneous and cohesive domain of inquiry. In fact, any piece of inquiry which does not belong to some mature branch of science is readily classified as 'philosophical'. However, there is a way in which philosophy can be conceived that makes it continuous with science as its branch, in which the methods, language and tasks of science are studied. Such concept of philosophy found Quine's approval. His own contribution to philosophy consists in: disproving of some dogmas of the earlier stages of empiricism (concerning the concept of empirical content and analytic-synthetic distinction), recognizing the nature of the fundamental problem of ontology (as decided in the frame of a given theory by stipulating a set of quantified variables), and 'naturalizing' epistemology (by the thesis that the main tasks of epistemology are empirical ones and belong to cognitive psychology). But it seems questionable to assume that Quine's reluctance to develop philosophy as a normative or aprioristic discipline led him to adopt a pragmatic point of view.
W.V.O. Quine declared more than once that he was a naturalist. This claim must not be limited to one or another field of philosophy but should be understood as pertaining to every possible aspect philosophy. In ontology Quine wrote about 'ontological commitments of theories', in philosophy of logic he spoke of 'existence being a value of a variable', in semantics he opted for 'semantic behaviorism', and in epistemology he urged to 'make do with psychology'. The author concentrates on Quine's epistemology and shows how his views were different from other positions held in that field. The common key is naturalization. This view is supported by showing how Quine responded to his critics. To fend off skeptical doubts he argues that sceptical doubts are to be placed within science and not used as an external criterion of its results. When defending himself against the acusation that he eliminated all normative claims from science, Quine argued that axiological investigation have ultimately a scientific character. Finally when he proposed to naturalize epistemology his justification was based on the concept of holism, which was to be construed as one more plank in the naturalisatic boat that must be repaired at open sea, in his favorite metaphore invented by Neurath.
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