Broken-Backed Naturalism

Willem Drees's stated purpose in Religion, Science and Naturalism is to maintain the continuing importance of religion in human life while being honest to the sciences. His preferred way of doing that is an example of what John Dewey once called "broken-backed naturalism." In contrast, Deweyan humanism accomplishes Drees's purpose in a more thoroughly naturalistic way. It does not bifurcate the world into the domain of the sciences—the natural world—and the domain of religion—the provider of answers to limit questions about the world as a whole, which fall outside the scope of the sciences.     

Naturalism Need Not Be "Made Safe": A Response to William Rottschaefer's Misunderstandings

In this article, I respond to William Rottschaefer's analysis of my writings on religion and science, especially my Religion, Science and Naturalism (1996). I show that I am not trying "to make naturalism safe," as Rottschaefer contends, but rather attempting to explore options available when one endorses naturalistic approaches. I also explain why I object to the label "supernaturalistic naturalism" used by Rottschaefer. Possible limitations to naturalistic projects are discussed, not as limitations imposed but rather as features uncovered.     

Discerning the Limits of Religious Naturalism

In response to my "How to Make Naturalism Safe for Supernaturalism: An Evaluation of Willem Drees's Supernaturalistic Naturalism" (Rottschaefer 2001), Willem Drees maintains that I have misunderstood his purpose and views and have failed to make the case against his view that naturalism is intrinsically limited. In this response, I comment on these concerns.     

A Richer or a Poorer Naturalism?

Willem Drees endorses not only minimal naturalism, understood as the rejection of supernatural interruptions of the world's normal causal processes, but also maximal naturalism, with its reductionistic materialism. Besides arguing that this reductionistic naturalism provides the best framework for interpreting science, he believes that it is compatible with religion (albeit of a minimalist sort). The "richer" naturalism advocated by Whiteheadians is, accordingly, unnecessary. Drees's position, however, cannot do justice to a number of "hard-core commonsense notions," which we inevitably presuppose in practice and thereby in science as well as religion. His naturalism is too poor, in particular, to account for subjectivity, freedom, and mathematical, religious, and moral experience.     

Deleuze and Naturalism

Abstract

Against the tendency to regard Deleuze as a materialist and a naturalistic thinker, I argue that his core philosophical writings involve commitments that are incompatible with contemporary scientific naturalism. He defends different versions of a distinction between philosophy and natural science that is inconsistent with methodological naturalism and with the scientific image of the world as a single causally interconnected system. He defends the existence of a virtual realm of entities that is irreconcilable with ontological naturalism. The difficulty of reconciling Deleuze’s philosophy with ontological naturalism is especially apparent in his recurrent conception of pure events that are irreducible to their incarnation in bodies and states of affairs. In the last section of this essay, I canvass some of the ways in which Deleuze’s thought might be reconciled with a more liberal, pluralist and ethical naturalism that he identified in an early essay on Lucretius.     

Biohistorical Naturalism and The Symbol "God"

This article has two parts, as the title suggests. The first sketches what I call biohistorical naturalism, a naturalistic position in which it is emphasized that the historicocultural development of our humanity, particularly our becoming linguistic/symbolical beings, is as central to our humanness as the biological evolutionary development that preceded (and continues to accompany) it. Apart from such a biohistorical emphasis (or its equivalent), naturalistic positions cannot give adequate accounts of human religiousness. The second part suggests that, although it would not be consistent with biohistorical naturalism to continue thinking of God in the traditional supernaturalistic way as "the Creator," it would be quite appropriate to understand God as the ongoing creativity (of truly novel realities) manifest in the long history of the universe, particularly in the evolution of life on Earth.     

Should Religious Naturalists Promote a Naturalistic Religion?

Religious naturalism refers here to a view of reality, and it will be contrasted with versions of supernaturalism and of atheistic naturalism. Naturalistic religion refers to certain varieties of religion, especially some inspired by the universality of science and the need for a global ethics. In this essay I explicate why a religious naturalist need not advocate a naturalistic religion. Rather, a religious naturalist can build upon the heritage of religious traditions and be open to, but at the same time be agnostic about, the idea of a nonnatural ground of reality . The religious naturalism I defend has been criticized from various directions: one reviewer in this journal considered it too much indebted to the traditions, and hence "reactionary" and supernaturalistic; another considered it too minimalist in its religion ("virtually nonexistent") as a consequence of the preference for a too sober version of naturalism. My distinction between religious naturalism and naturalistic religion may answer some of these objections.     

THEISTIC NATURALISM AND "SPECIAL" DIVINE PROVIDENCE

Although naturalistic perspectives are an important component of their accounts of divine action, most participants in the current dialogue between science and theology eschew a purely naturalistic model. They believe that certain events of divine providence require a special mode of divine action, over and above that inherent in naturalistic processes. The analogy of human providential action suggests, however, that a strong theistic naturalism can account for these events. This model does not depend on a particular notion of God's relationship to time and is not inherently implausible from a scientific perspective. Although it can be interpreted deistically, the model also is consonant with a nondeistic theology that may be described as involving a pansacramental or incarnational naturalism.     

Two kinds of naturalism in ethics

What are the conditions on a successful naturalistic account of moral properties? In this paper I discuss one such condition: the possibility of moral concepts playing a role in good empirical theories on a par with those of the natural and social sciences. I argue that Peter Railton’s influential account of moral rightness fails to meet this condition, and thus is only viable in the hands of a naturalist who doesn’t insist on it. This conclusion generalises to all versions of naturalism that give a significant role to a dispositional characterisation of moral properties. I also argue, however, that the epistemological and semantic motivations behind naturalism are consistent with a version of naturalism that doesn’t insist on the explanatory condition. The conclusion is that those naturalists who are attracted to accounts of moral properties such as Railton’s would do better not to insist on this\break condition.     

NATURALISM AND THE CATEGORIES “SCIENCE” AND “RELIGION”: A RESPONSE TO JOSH REEVES

This article is a response to Josh Reeve's “A Defense of Science and Religion.” I begin with the disclaimer that this was not solely my project but a joint enterprise. A common commitment of participants was to make the disciplines of history and theology central to the discussion and explore what new possibilities follows for the field of science and religion. I then address Reeves's two central concerns: first that I am too dismissive of the categories “science” and “religion.” In fact I have not advocated dispensing with these categories, but have insisted than we employ them critically and with a sense of their history. The second concern is that my position on naturalism seems to place me perilously close to advocates of ID or scientific creationism. I deny this, but point out that more work needs to be done, beyond simply invoking methodological naturalism, to clarify the differences between naturalistic and theological approaches to the world.     

Normative Naturalism and the Relativised <Emphasis Type="Italic">A Priori</Emphasis>

Summary  In this paper I address some shortcomings in Larry Laudan’s normative naturalism. I make it clear that Laudan’s rejection of the “meta-methodology thesis”, or MMT is unnecessary, and that a reformulated version MMT can be sustained. I contend that a major difficulty that attends Laudan’s account is his contention that a naturalistic philosophy of science cannot accommodate any a priori justification of methodological rules, and consider what sort of naturalism might best replace Laudan’s. To do this, I discuss Michael Friedman’s account of a relativised a priori and show that it is consistent with naturalistic philosophy of science and that it can help form the basis of a plausible normative naturalism. In particular, this discussion shows that Laudan’s rejection of any a priori justification of methodological rules is unjustified and inconsistent with scientific practice. Finally, I point the way to a version of normative naturalism that includes MMT and accounts for the role of constitutive a priori principles within science.     

Thick Naturalism: Comments on Zygon 2000

The term naturalism arouses strong emotions; religious naturalism even more. In this essay, naturalism is explored in a variety of contexts, in contrast to supernaturalism (in metaphysics), normativism (in ethics and epistemology), and rationalism (in the philosophy of mind). It is argued that religious naturalism becomes a "thick" naturalism, a way of life rather than just a philosophical position. We can discern a subculture with a historical identity, a variety of dialects, stories that evoke attitudes and feelings, as well as more systematic theological elaborations. In this context, religious naturalists are called to thicken further the ways of life that embody their religious and naturalist sensitivities. In order to speak of a naturalist theology in this context, one has to define theology in a way that avoids assumptions regarding the supernatural; this can be achieved by presenting theologies as particular combinations of cosmologies (informed by the sciences) and axiologies (values).     

Normative Naturalism and Epistemic Relativism

In previous work, I defended Larry Laudan against the criticism that the axiological component of his normative naturalism lacks a naturalistic justification. I argued that this criticism depends on an equivocation over the term ‘naturalism’ and that it begs the question against what we are entitled to include in our concept of nature. In this paper, I generalize that argument and explore its implications for Laudan and other proponents of epistemic naturalism. Here, I argue that a commitment to naturalism in the methods and aims of science inevitably entails a kind of epistemic relativism. However, I argue that this should not be interpreted as a reductio of naturalism, since the admission of contextually based standards and aims of science does not result in quietism when it comes to important questions concerning scientific rationality.     

Why Naturalism?

My goal in this paper is to explain what ethical naturalism is, to locate the pivotal issue between naturalists and non-naturalists, and to motivate taking naturalism seriously. I do not aim to establish the truth of naturalism nor to answer the various familiar objections to it. But I do aim to motivate naturalism sufficiently that the attempt to deal with the objections will seem worthwhile. I propose that naturalism is best understood as the view that the moral properties are natural in the sense that they are empirical. I pursue certain issues in the understanding of the empirical. The crux of the matter is whether any synthetic proposition about the instantiation of a moral property is strongly a priori in that it does not admit of empirical evidence against it. I propose an argument from epistemic defeaters that, I believe, undermines the plausibility of a priorism in ethics and supports the plausibility of naturalism.     

Liberal Naturalism: The Curious Case of Hegel

Abstract

My aim in this paper is to defend the claim that the absolute idealism of Hegel is a liberal naturalist position against Sebastian Gardner’s claim that it is not genuinely naturalistic, and also to defend the position of ‘liberal naturalism’ from Ram Neta’s charge that there is no logical space for it to occupy. By ‘liberal naturalism’, I mean a doctrine which is a non-reductive form of philosophical naturalism. Like Fred Beiser, I take the thesis of liberal naturalism to find support in the idealism of Hegel. I begin by first explaining what philosophical naturalism amounts to. I then move on to show, using Finn Spicer’s and Alison Stone’s understandings of philosophical naturalism, how there is a stronger form of philosophical naturalism but also how there is a weaker form as well. Having established the distinction between stronger and weaker variants of philosophical naturalism, I discuss Sebastian Gardner’s recent objections to treating absolute idealism as a genuinely naturalist position. I argue that Gardner is incorrect to claim that absolute idealism is not a genuinely naturalist position on both historical and interpretive grounds, where to do so I bring in features of Hegel’s idealism to show that Hegel was committed to liberal naturalism. In the next section of the paper, I address Ram Neta’s charge that there is no logical space for liberal naturalism. To counter this claim, I offer an Hegelian diagnosis of Neta’s charge and argue that Neta’s concern about the possibility of liberal naturalism is illegitimately motivated.     

The Haunting of the Human Spirit

Understanding the human spirit, the thinking, motivating, feeling aspect of a person, need not entail supernatural reference in any more than a boundary sense. Methodological naturalism accounts for many putatively supernatural experiences in terms of naturalistic and scientific research. Fairy tales have natural functions, naturalistic accounts of miracles can have moral and spiritual power, and neuropsychological research can have value in understanding experiences of ghosts, apparitions, and presences. Even beliefs in personal immortality, at odds with current neurobiology, may serve a range of psychological functions and may raise more moral questions than they answer. Naturalistic accounts can make spiritual explorations possible where supernatural answers provide epistemic barriers.     

An idealist critique of naturalism

ABSTRACT

According to many naturalists, our ordinary conception of the world is in tension with the scientific image: the conception of the world provided by the natural sciences. But in this paper, I present a critique of naturalism with precedents in the post-Kantian idealist tradition. I argue that, when we consider our actual linguistic behavior, there is no evidence that the truth of our ordinary judgments hinges on what the scientific image turns out to be like. I then argue that the best explanation of this result is that the norms and presuppositions operating in ordinary discourse are different from the norms and presuppositions operating in scientific discourse. So naturalistic attempts to undermine the manifest image are illegitimate attempts to critique a practice ‘from the outside’.     

Naturalistic Moral Realism and Moral Disagreement: David Copp’s Account

To enhance the plausibility of naturalistic moral realism, David Copp develops an argument from epistemic defeaters aiming to show that strongly a priori synthetic moral truths do not exist. In making a case for the non-naturalistic position, I locate Copp??s account within the wider literature on peer disagreement; I identify key points of divergence between Copp??s doctrine and conciliatorist doctrines; I introduce the notion of ??minimal moral competence??; I contend that some plausible benchmarks for minimal moral competence are grounded in substantive moral considerations; and I discuss two forms of spinelessness that Copp??s moral naturalism could result in.     

Religious Naturalism and Naturalizing Morality

I first offer some reflections on the term religious naturalism. I then outline how moral thought might be configured in the context of religious naturalism. It is proposed that the goal of morality is to generate a flourishing community and that humans negotiate their social interactions using moral capacities that are cultivated in the context of culture. Six such capacities are considered: strategic reciprocity, humaneness, fair–mindedness, courage, reverence, and mindfulness. Moral capacities are contrasted with moral susceptibilities, fueled by self–interest, and brought to the fore in times of stress and humiliation. The essay is in two parts. I first respond to Jerome Stone's query as to the nature of religious naturalism. This is followed by the text of my presentation at the 2001 AAR meeting.