World Without Design: The Ontological Consequences of Naturalism

Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK (2002)
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Abstract

Philosophical naturalism, according to which philosophy is continuous with the natural sciences, has dominated the Western academy for well over a century; but Michael Rea claims that it is without rational foundation, and that the costs of embracing it are surprisingly high. Rea argues compellingly to the surprising conclusion that naturalists are committed to rejecting realism about material objects, materialism, and perhaps realism about other minds. That is surely a price that naturalists are unwilling to pay: this philosophical orthodoxy should be rejected.

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Chapters

The Discovery Problem

Begins the second part of the book, in which the author argues that commitment to the naturalistic research programme precludes one from accepting realism about material objects and materialism. The argument turns on the prospects (or lack thereof) that naturalists have for solving what th... see more

Intuitionism

Begins the third part of the book, in which the author discusses two important alternatives to naturalism. The alternative that is discussed is intuitionism, a research programme that takes the methods of natural science and rational intuition, but nothing else, as basic sources of evidenc... see more

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Michael Rea
University of Notre Dame

Citations of this work

Ordinary objects.Daniel Z. Korman - 2011 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Debunking Arguments in Metaethics and Metaphysics.Daniel Z. Korman - 2019 - In Alvin Goldman & Brian McLaughlin (eds.), Metaphysics and Cognitive Science. Oxford University Press. pp. 337-363.
Non-Descriptivism About Modality. A Brief History And Revival.Amie Thomasson - 2008 - The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication 4:8.
Truths that Science Cannot Touch.René van Woudenberg - 2011 - Philosophia Reformata 76 (2):169-186.

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