The general thesis of cooperative naturalism is that traditional epistemology can benefit in its inquiry by using the knowledge we have gained from cognitive sciences.
Objections to naturalized epistemology have targeted features of the general project as well as characteristics of specific versions.
Several other objectors have found fault in the inability of naturalized methods to adequately address questions about what value forms of potential knowledge have or lack.
W. V. O. Quine's version of naturalized epistemology considers reasons for serious doubt about the fruitfulness of traditional philosophic study of scientific knowledge.
[1] These concerns are raised in light of the long attested incapacity of philosophers to find a satisfactory answer to the problems of radical scepticism and, more particularly, to David Hume's criticism of induction.
But also, because of the contemporaneous attempts and failures to reduce mathematics to pure logic by those in or philosophically sympathetic to The Vienna Circle.
Quine concludes that studies of scientific knowledge concerned with meaning or truth fail to achieve the Cartesian goal of certainty.
The failures in the reduction of mathematics to pure logic imply that scientific knowledge can at best be defined with the aid of less certain set-theoretic notions.
[1] In order to understand the link between observation and science, Quine's naturalized epistemology must be able to identify and describe the process by which scientific knowledge is acquired.
[3] If Chisholm is correct, naturalized epistemology cannot account for these epistemic principles and, as a result, would be unable to wholly describe the process by which knowledge is obtained.
[5] Without the normative to dictate how one should proceed or which methods should be employed, naturalized epistemology cannot determine the "right" criteria by which empirical evidence should be evaluated.
Jaegwon Kim, another critic of naturalized epistemology, further articulates the difficulty of removing the normative component.
This notion of truth rests solely on the conception and application of the criteria which are set forth in traditional and modern theories of epistemology.
Kim further explains how the notion of "justification" (alongside "belief" and "truth") is the defining characteristic of an epistemological study.
To remove this aspect is to alter the very meaning and goal of epistemology, whereby we are no longer discussing the study and acquisition of knowledge.