Pragmatism (and naturalism) from the Quinean point of view

"Ontological questions, under this view, are on a par with questions of natural science. Consider the question whether to countenance classes as entities. This, as I have argued elsewhere, is the question whether to quantify with respect to variables which take classes as values. Now Carnap has maintained that this is a question not of matters of fact but of choosing a convenient language form, a convenient conceptual scheme or framework for science. With this I agree, but only on the proviso that the same be conceded regarding scientific hypotheses generally. Carnap has recognized that he is able to preserve a double standard for ontological questions and scientific hypotheses only by assuming an absolute distinction between the analytic and the synthetic; and I need not say again that this is a distinction which I reject. Some issues do, I grant, seem more a question of convenient conceptual scheme and others more a question of brute fact. The issue over there being classes seems more a question of convenient conceptual scheme; the issue over there being centaurs, or brick houses on Elm Street, seems more a question of fact. But I have been urging that this difference is only one of degree, and that it turns upon our vaguely pragmatic inclination to adjust one strand of the fabric of science rather than another in accommodating some particular recalcitrant experience. Conservatism figures in such choices, and so does the quest for simplicity. Carnap, Lewis, and others take a pragmatic stand on the questin of choosing between language forms, scientific frameworks; but their pragmatism leaves off at the imagined boundary between the analytic and the synthetic. In repudiating such a boundary I espouse a more thorough pragmatism. Each man is given a scientific heritage plus a continuing barrage of sensory stimulation; and the considerations which guide him in warping his scientific heritage to fit his continuing sensory promptings are, where rational, pragmatic."

Quine, Willard Van Orman, 1951, Main Trends in Recent Philosophy: Two Dogmas of Empiricism, p. 43.

Naturalism from Churchland's point of view

"It is within this context that certain intriguing problems arise- problems concerning how to study the brain, how to conceive of what it is up to, and how our commonsense conceptions of ourselves might fit or fail to fit with what we discover. Some of these have traditionally been recognized as philosophical problems. For example: Are mental states identical to brain states? Are mental states reducible to brain states? What sort of business is reduction? What are emergent properties and are there any? What, if anything, is special about the subjective point of view? Are conscious experiences physiologically understandable? What are representations and how can a brain represent the world outside itself? Such philosophical questions are synoptic in character, in the sense that they are very general and very broad. But they are not of an entirely different nature from synoptic problems traditionally characterized as empirical: How is color vision produced? How does the brain learn and how does it store information? What are representations and how does a brain represent the world outside itself? Is the human brain more complicated than it is smart? The questions, whether asked by philosophers or by neuroscientists, are all part of the same general investigation, with some questions finding a natural home in both philosophy and neuroscience. In any case it is the same curiosity that bids them forth, and it is perhaps best to see them all simply as questions about the brain and the mind - or the mind-brain - rather than as questions for philosophy or for neuroscience or for psychology. Administrative distinctions have a purpose so far as providing office space and salaries is concerned, but they should not dictate methods or constitute impedimenta to easy exchange. This is not to deny that there are divisions of labor indeed, within neuroscience itself there are divisions of labor- but it is to argue that such divisions neither imply nor justify radical differences in methodology."

Patricia Smith Churchland, Neurophilosophy: toward a unified science of the mind-brain (MIT Press, 1986), p. 2.

See also: http://patriciachurchland.com/