Since Evers and Lakomski’s seminal book, Knowing Educational Administration, was published in 1991, their philosophical machinery, labelled "Australian Naturalism" (Haldane, 1989) has been the subject of theory debates in educational administration. It is notable that Evers and Lakomski were invited to present to Division A (Educational Administration) of the 1995 American Educational Research Association Conference. And, in his editorial of a special issue of Educational Management and Administration, Ribbins (1993) also acknowledged the theoretical importance of "Australian Naturalism" to the field: "Knowing Educational Administration is a book which merits close examination and will amply repay the efforts of the determined reader" (p. 138).

Such accolades have been complemented with criticisms raised by leading scholars in the field of educational administration (eg. Bates, 1993; Gronn and Ribbins, 1993; Haynes, 1991; Hodgkinson, 1993; Maddock, 1994; Scheurich, 1994; Willower, 1993; Young and Mackenzie, 1995). Though these critics raised many valuable questions relating to the concept and criteria of coherentism, the naturalistic fallacy, the questions of foundations and reductionism (for more details, see Park, 1997), there seems to be more criticisms able to be raised against Australian naturalism based on the recent developments in epistemology and philosophy of mind. Could there be alternatives to coherentism? Could coherentism be a form of foundationalism? What about the distinctions between weak and strong versions of naturalism? These three issues will now be attended to in turn.

The rejection of traditional foundationalism needs not necessarily entail the acceptance of coherentism. In the field of epistemology, there are other alternatives when foundationalism is rejected. Reliabilism, for example, could be an option. Further, in order to understand this argument concerning the distinction between foundationalism and coherentism there is another approach to accounts of epistemic justification and accounts of knowledge. This is the distinction between internalism and externalism. Though this distinction tends to be used in epistemology without explicit explanations, BonJour (1992, p. 132) defined it as follows:

By this definition, most traditional theories in epistemology, such as foundationalism and coherentism, are internalist accounts since they hold the view that "the justification-making properties of any justified belief must be epistemically internal to the mind of the subject who holds that belief" (Sosa, 1985, p. 4). On the other hand, more radical theories in epistemology such as naturalised epistemology and reliabilism are externalist accounts, since they hold a naturalistic notion of justification. Externalistic theories of justification, especially reliabilism, emphasise the relevance of psychology to epistemology since they are concerned with how the epistemic justification of belief arises.

Though there is a group of scholars (eg. Armstrong, Nozick) that has proposed theories for reliabilism, this position has been championed mostly by Goldman (1986, 1992) (1). According to Goldman (1992, p. 433), reliabilism is the view that a belief acquires favourable epistemic status by having some kind of reliable linkage to the truth. Goldman (1992, p. 435) explained the possibility of theoretical contribution of reliabilism to epistemology as follows:

Despite the fact that the status of reliabilism in epistemology is not far below that of many other traditional theories (see Dancy, 1985; Pollock, 1986), Australian naturalists did not mention it at all in Knowing Educational Administration. They proceeded as if there are only two major theories, foundationalism and coherentism, in the field of epistemology (though they did mention scepticism). They took a rather restrictive view that "Coherence justification, because of its global character, is just a more intricate and difficult business than foundational justification. However, since foundationalism is mistaken, there is no serious alternative" (Evers and Lakomski, 1991, p. 9). Yet there are alternatives, such as scepticism, naturalised epistemology and reliabilism available to epistemology when refuting foundationalism (2). Given that reliabilism has its own problems (Haack, 1993, Ch. 7; Pollock, 1986, pp. 114-122, Sturgeon, 1995), and that BonJour (1985, Ch. 3) (one of the intellectual mentors to Australian naturalists in their use of coherence theory), discussed some problems of reliabilism, the omission of reliabilism in Australian naturalists’ systematic treatment of epistemological theories (chapter 2 in Knowing Educational Administration) might be thought trivial. But if we consider that Australian naturalists themselves combined an internalistic theory of justification (coherentism) with an externalist theory of justification (naturalised epistemology), with only a relatively brief explanation (Evers and Lakomski, 1991, pp. 8-9, pp. 40-41), and that reliabilism also counts as a form of naturalism in epistemology, the exclusion of reliabilism from their treatment of theories of knowledge seems to be odd.

There are other points that need to be noted. Some naturalists (eg. Kornblith, 1980, 1985, 1989, 1993) denied coherence theories of justification since they assumed that the coherence cannot provide any possible answers to the naturalists’ concerns, such as ‘How do we arrive at our belief?’. Quine (1990, p. 128) himself acknowledged a foundationalist base to his naturalism (or coherentism) as follows:

Given these points, the dichotomy between foundationalism and coherentism might not be as sharp and clear as the Australian naturalists have assumed. Indeed, it can be argued that coherentism can even be seen as a form of foundationalism.

It has been said that foundationalism is dead in the field of philosophy, especially in epistemology. Some philosophers, most notably BonJour (1985), Williams (1977, 1980) and Lehrer (1990), have provided extensive criticisms of foundationalism. However, there have been also considerably modified versions of foundationalism evident in the recent work of philosophers such as Alston (1989) and Audi (1993). Internalistic coherence theories of justification proposed by Lehrer and BonJour have been discussed critically by a number of philosophers (see Bender, 1989). Given that a variety of approaches, including foundationalism, are flourishing now in epistemology, the dismissal of foundationalism from the current debate is premature (Triplett, 1990).

Australian naturalists hold to a clear distinction between foundationalism and coherentism claiming that the first should be refuted, and that the second should play the major role in the justification of theories. In contrast, some epistemologists (eg. Audi, 1993; Fritzman, 1992) maintain that coherentism can be seen as just another form of foundationalism, arguing that coherence and foundationalism are the same in kind, but differ in degree. Their arguments can be summarised as follows:

• Coherentism does not represent a radical rejection of foundationalism, but remains covertly complicitous with it. By disallowing the interrogation of the entire set of beliefs, coherentism privileges the belief set. ... Whereas traditional foundationalism maintains that the justificatory foundations for nonbasic beliefs are properly basic beliefs, for coherentism the justificatory foundation for any belief is the belief set. ... Put otherwise, Coherentism is a foundationalism where the belief set serves as a foundation during a prospective belief’s entrance examination (Fritzman, 1992, p. 184).

• Coherentism does posit a kind of foundation for justification and knowledge: namely, coherence. But so long as coherentists deny that justification and knowledge can be non-inferentially grounded in experience or reason, this point alone simply shows that they take justification and knowledge to be based on something ... (Audi, 1993, p. 140).

The argument that coherentism is another form of foundationalism also might be thought trivial, when considering the holistic nature of Australian naturalists’ coherentism. Following Quine, Australian naturalists believe that knowledge should be a seamless web rather than a partitioned set (Walker and Evers, 1984, p. 30) and that knowledge claims should be judged by the degree to which they cohere with the whole of our current knowledge (Walker, 1987, p. 15). This means that there is no basic belief or foundation for the justification of knowledge. Granted that knowledge should be part of a coherent web of belief, it is still assumed, however, that the starting point (a foundation) for knowledge such as empirical input (eg. sensory evidence), as Quine (1990) argued, is needed for theory development. Yet it can be argued that even if we accept holistic coherentism, this is something that can function as a foundation. For example, it might be argued that Australian naturalists themselves depend on some philosophical ideas (eg. scientific realism, naturalism, eliminative materialism) that can be interpreted as foundational bases in favour of their holistic coherentism. This suggests that the notion of coherence might be articulated further. Fritzman’s statement appears very suggestive: "Coherence is a particular ‘moment’ in the ongoing process of inquiry, but not its end" (1992, p. 189).

Of the many philosophical ideas that Australian naturalists embrace, the most essential tenet is naturalism (see Evers, 1987, 1993). Although it can be said that there are diverse types in naturalism (see, Almeder, 1990; Haack, 1990; Maffie, 1990), generally naturalism can be divided into weak and strong variants over the issue of how far philosophy (or epistemology) should be naturalised. The distinction between weak naturalism and strong naturalism has been identified as a matter of:

The Australian naturalists’ stance on this matter is not clear. There is no distinction made between weak naturalism and strong naturalism in Evers and Lakomski’s Knowing Educational Administration. Instead they appear to employ both kinds of naturalism, which can be very different in degree. The theorists who have influenced most substantially the work of Australian naturalists are Quine and the Churchlands (see Evers and Lakomski, 1991, p. ix), who, it is said, hold to a strong naturalism. The Churchlands have taken a radical philosophical stand called ‘eliminative materialism’. According to Patricia Churchland (1986, p. 396), eliminative materialism is the view that holds "(1) that folk psychology is a theory, (2) that it is a theory whose inadequacies entail that it must eventually be substantially revised or replaced outright (hence ‘eliminative’), and (3) that what will ultimately replace folk psychology will be the conceptual framework of a matured neuroscience (hence ‘materialism’)" (3).

From the point of view of eliminative materialism, the Churchlands (P.S. Churchland, 1986; P.M. Churchland, 1989) maintain that traditional epistemology may be revised substantially or even replaced by a natural science such as neuroscience, because the traditional account of knowledge (eg. justified true belief) that has been expressed in sentences or propositions is associated with folk psychology (see Park, 1995). According to Paul Churchland (1994b), folk psychology is a theory to be judged empirically false, for three major reasons:

It is a reasonable surmise, given the substantial influence of the Churchlands on Australian naturalism (see Evers, 1990, 1991, 1994a; Evers and Lakomski, 1995b; Lakomski, 1991; Walker, 1991), that Australian naturalists would accept the Churchlands’ argument that folk psychology must be replaced ultimately by neuroscience. In fact, however, they have hesitated to accept this argument about folk psychology. In contrast with the Churchlands, Australian naturalists are very optimistic about the possibility of folk psychology acquiring the status of empirical theory (4).

In Knowing Educational Administration, Australian naturalists associated Greenfield’s subjectivism with folk psychology (Evers and Lakomski, 1991, Ch. 4) and argued that "this [folk psychology] may explain its large measure of empirical adequacy. On the other hand, if humans are complex physical systems, and physical science is true ... then if the fundamental theoretical categories of folk theory are not found in physical science, folk theory may actually be false. That is, folk theory may be both empirically adequate and false" (Evers and Lakomski, 1991, p. 91). They expected that explanatory frameworks in natural science, such as a neuroscientific account of human cognition, could provide the folk psychology of Greenfieldian subjectivism with more explanatory power: "Treat the theory [folk psychology] as false but empirically adequate and give a naturalistic scientific account of its empirical adequacy" (Evers and Lakomski, 1991, p. 95).

From these passages, extensive differences between the Australian naturalists and the Churchlands can be found. While the Churchlands argued that folk psychology is empirically false so it must be replaced or eliminated by a matured natural science such as neuroscience, Australian naturalists maintained that folk psychology could be empirically adequate so its empirical power can be complemented or supplemented by neuroscience. This means that Australian naturalists have been implicitly adopting both the position of strong naturalism (eg. the Churchlands’ argument with regard to reductionism in the philosophy of mind and their neural network model for human cognition) and the position of weak naturalism (eg. Australian naturalists’ view with regard to folk psychology). Though they did not explain the reasons for the ambiguous use of both naturalisms in Knowing Educational Administration, two possible explanations can be provided from their later works.

The first explanation for the existence of both weak and strong naturalisms in the works of Australian naturalists is that they have been aware of the problematic nature of folk psychology (eg. Evers, 1994a, p. 268). In the field of philosophy of mind, the view of eliminative materialists such as the Churchlands on folk psychology has been the subject of ongoing debate (see Christensen and Turner, 1993; Hannan, 1993) (5). Secondly, as a result, Australian naturalists appear to take an instrumentalist view of folk psychology as a methodological strategy to combine folk psychology and neuroscience: "Adopt an instrumentalist stance towards the categories of folk theory, freely utilising them where they enjoy most empirical success, but see the real story as being given by the developing theoretical machinery of natural science" (Evers and Lakomski, 1993, p. 146, see also Evers and Lakomski, 1991, p. 42; Evers, 1994b, pp. 13-15). These two reasons can be examined further.

It seems to me that Australian naturalists want to synthesise both symbolic and non-symbolic accounts of knowledge despite the problematic nature of folk psychology. Though they provided some explanations, such as "language is essential for thought" (Evers, 1994a, p. 273; Evers, 1994b, p. 14) and "symbols have the advantage of being public" (Evers and Lakomski, 1995b, p. 106), for synthesising both accounts of knowledge, probably the main explanation is that their naturalistic coherentism is also intended to deal with traditional epistemology (sentential accounts of knowledge). This means that if Australian naturalists deny the folk psychology that is associated with traditional accounts of knowledge, their naturalistic coherentism is self-referentially refuted. Therefore, they had to hold the view that "it is important to maintain all sorts of possibilities for learning" (Evers and Lakomski, 1995b, p. 106) ranging from the symbolic to the non-symbolic accounts of knowledge. In order to achieve a synthesis between the two accounts of knowledge, Australian naturalists have adopted a methodological instrumentalist approach.

However, given that Australian naturalists have been adopting the argument of the Churchlands with regard to reductionism and are as much scientific realists as the Churchlands, the instrumentalist view of Australian naturalists on folk psychology seems to be out of place (6). The Churchlands, as strong naturalists, maintain that the brain causes the subjective states of humans such as consciousness and intention and that the emerging account of how brains embody information has nothing to do with sentences (folk psychology) (P.M. Churchland, 1994b, p. 314; P.S. Churchland, 1996). If we follow folk psychology, they argue, we may misconceive or misunderstand those mental states of humans. Through the dynamics of reductionism, folk psychology must be reduced to a matured natural scientific view of human cognition or, if it fails to be reduced to natural science, then it must be eliminated or replaced by a better natural scientific view of human cognition. To the Churchlands, there is only one real kind of phenomenon (eg. the brain causes human subjectivities) that can be described by many sorts of theories (eg. folk psychology, scientific realistic theory etc.) and a better theory (eg. a neural network model as a realistic account of human subjectivity) from natural science can bring us a closer look to a real kind of phenomenon.

This is precisely the idea that Australian naturalists have promoted with their naturalistic coherentism in educational administration. Given their expectation of a physical version of coherence from neuroscience and their recent application of a neural network model termed connectionism, largely based on the Churchlands’ critical argument of sentential accounts of knowledge (folk psychology), to the major concerns of administration theory (see Evers, 1994a, 1994b; Evers and Lakomski, 1995a, 1995b, 1995c), the instrumentalistic view of Australian naturalists toward folk psychology seems to be incoherent. Trigg suggested that one should scrutinise the success of science and ask what must be true to explain this success rather than accept pragmatic justifications of science on the basis that ‘it works’ or that ‘it has been successful’ (Trigg, 1993, p. 40, p. 53).

The key point here is that Australian naturalists need to make their position between strong naturalism and weak naturalism clear. Probably the most plausible interpretation of Australian naturalism is that philosophy (or epistemology) needs to be continuous with our best scientific accounts of human cognition (Bechtel and Abrahamsen, 1991, 1993).

There are useful ideas in the field of philosophy of science that Australian naturalists might wish to consider. Haack's (1993) recent book, Evidence and Inquiry: Towards Reconstruction in Epistemology, analysed critically the work of most contemporary leading scholars (eg. Lewis, BonJour, Popper, Quine, Goldman, the Churchlands, Stich) in epistemology and launched her own theory entitled 'foundherentism'. It was based on a weak version of naturalism and combined the merits of foundationalism and coherentism.

Since it deals with most contemporary theories in epistemology I will merely outline the main points of her theory that might be useful to Australian naturalism. Haack claims that the distinction between weak naturalism and strong naturalism should be made. It is, she argued, crucial to examine the question of the epistemic nature of science; naturalists will have to reply eventually to the question: 'Does science have a special privileged epistemic status?'. She maintained, however, that most naturalists have used the two versions of naturalism ambiguously, and that Quine, who is credited most for his development of naturalism in the philosophy of science, was himself involved in this unclear use of both naturalisms. According to Haack (1993, Ch. 6), Quine used science in the two ways. The first is 'SCIENCE' that is for the broader usage of science referring to our empirical beliefs including commonsense, history, etc., The second is 'science' that is for the narrower usage of science referring to the natural sciences such as psychology, physics and biology. This, she argued, is the basic source of the naturalists’ equivocation, including Quine, with regard to the two versions of naturalism. She does not disagree with naturalists that philosophy needs to be continuous with science, but from this, she argued, it does not follow that there is no difference of degree between philosophy and science (Haack, 1993, p. 126). Rather, she argued that science (natural science) has a distinguished epistemic standing, but not privileged status:

The upshot of her argument is that we need to adopt a much weaker version of naturalism that can embrace a traditional philosophy. It also seems to me that Australian naturalists have been aware of this key question of naturalism, 'Does science have a special privileged epistemic status?'. Like Haack, they appear to decide in the negative concerning the privileged nature of science since it might be interpreted as an epistemic foundation. And yet, from Quine's holism, they also appear to decide the positive with respect to the special nature of naturalism (see, Evers, 1993. p. 39; Evers and Lakomski, 1995c, p. 7). Since Quine made ambivalent usage of weak naturalism and strong naturalism, stemming from the unclear distinction between SCIENCE and science, it might be fair to assume that Australian naturalists have inherited the problem. However, given that their naturalistic coherentism is also partly to deal with the limits of traditional epistemology, there is little option for Australian naturalists to do other than adopt a weak version of naturalism. Therefore, one possible idea Australian naturalists might take from Haack's view of science is that they need to make a clear distinction between weak naturalism and strong naturalism and adopt a weak form of naturalism. I believe that this strategy will also resolve the Australian naturalists' problematic adoption of folk psychology.

On the basis of a weaker version of naturalism, Haack proposed 'foundherentism'; a blend of foundationalism and coherentism. She admitted that Quine's acknowledgment of the combination of foundationalism and coherentism in his theory influenced her development of a foundherentist account (1993, pp. 129-130). Quine (1990, p. 128) argued that the checkpoints of belief are sensory evidence and that no empirical belief can be justified independently of experience.

According to Haack (1993, p. 3), the traditionally rival theories of foundationalism and coherentism have failed adequately to account for the relevance of experience to empirical justification: coherentism can accord no role to experience (see Lehrer, 1992, p. 69). On the other hand, foundationalism allows only a forced and unnatural role (see Evers and Lakomski, 1991, Ch. 2). She argued that we need a theory of justification which can embrace the merits of both foundationalism and coherentism. Foundherentism, she maintained, is a theory that can show the relevance of experience to empirical justification as well as permit pervasive mutual support among beliefs to a theory of empirical justification (Haack, 1993, p. 73).

Australian naturalists' naturalistic coherentism combined a coherence theory of justification with strong naturalism. Haack's argument for foundherentism might be thought of as similar to their version of naturalistic coherentism. There is, however, an important difference. While Haack's foundherentism allowed empirical input, such as sensory experience, to empirical justification, naturalistic coherentism does not acknowledge explicitly the empirical foundation of coherence theory. This has lead some scholars in the field of educational administration (eg. Scheurich, 1994; Willower, 1993) pointing out that the super-empirical virtues of naturalistic coherentism have no empirical foundation or little empirical components. Australian naturalists might, therefore, consider how Haack established the relevance of empirical experience to a coherence theory of justification. It also seems appropriate that Australian naturalists explain more clearly the learnabiliy of the super-empirical virtues of coherentism, since this acts as a link between their coherentism (theory) and naturalism (empirical evidence).

In this paper, some criticisms of Australian naturalism not drawn by its critics have been noted. Reliabilism, it has been suggested, could provide an alternative to the traditional dispute between foundationalism and coherentism. Coherentism can also be seen as a version of foundationalism. Australian naturalists’ adoption of folk psychology in their naturalistic coherentism seems to be at odds with their scientific realism. Finally, they have yet to make a clear distinction between weak naturalism and strong naturalism.

The dichotomy between coherentism and foudationalism might not be as clear as Australian naturalists have thought. Haack’s recent proposal termed ‘foundherentism’, which is based on a weak version of naturalism, might offer Australian naturalists benefits. They might also stress the empirical components of their naturalistic coherentism and adopt a version of weak naturalism to deal with the problematic acceptance of folk psychology.

Whatever these possible weaknesses of Australian naturalism, however, they do not detract from the enormous theoretical contribution that Australian naturalists have made to the field of educational administration. They have offered fresh and rigorous ways to unravel the way the world is, while conceding that all theories are bound to be fallible. I believe that Australian naturalism is still the most sophisticated theory framework available to date for explaining how we can build a better knowledge base in educational administration theory.

1. The difference between various versions of reliabilism will be disregarded here, though Goldman’s theory has been known as process reliabilism (see Pollock, 1986).

2. I will not explore the position of scepticism as an alternative to the distinction between foundationalism and coherentism. There are many good treatments of scepticism in philosophy (eg. Gibson, 1989; Quine, 1981; Stroud, 1984; see also Evers and Lakomski, 1991, Ch. 2).

3. In the field of philosophy of mind, folk psychology refers to the prescientific, common-sense conceptual framework that all normally socialised humans deploy in order to comprehend, predict, explain, and manipulate the behaviour of humans and the higher animals (P.M. Churchland, 1994b, p. 308).

4. Jim Walker, one of the Australian naturalists, has not made his position on folk psychology clear.

5. In the field of cognitive science, with regard to eliminative materialism and folk psychology, there is an interesting event to be noted. Stich, once a strong proponent of eliminative materialism and strong naturalism, has moderated his position to one of weak naturalism and simulation theory (see Stich, 1993; Stich and Ravenscroft, 1994). He believes that simulation theory might replace folk psychology as an appropriate model for human cognition.

6. It might be argued that ‘methodological instrumentalism’ can be distinguished from ‘philosophical instrumentalism’. There is no contradiction between ‘methodological instrumentalism’ and ‘scientific realism’ of Australian naturalists given the pragmatic side in Australian naturalism. Folk psychology (associated with Greenfield’s subjectivism) has been very ‘useful’ to predict and explain human’s behaviour, so its use can be compatible with our best natural science until more evidence is available (see Evers and Lakomski, 1991, p. 90-91). Two problems can be noted. The first is that the word ‘useful’ appears problematic. As seen in the history of science, science explained more accurately the structure of reality than other theories (eg. folk psychology) and it turned out to be more ‘useful’ in production of sophisticated and powerful theories (Farber and Churchland, 1995, see also Churchland, 1994a). Granted the difference between the two instrumentalisms, as Mackenzie (1995, November) argued, it is hard to find where Australian naturalists remarked that some legitimate epistemological questions cannot be resolved by science. After all, they reject folk psychology as ‘false’.

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