Temporal naturalism

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 52 (Part A):86-102 (2015)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Two people may claim both to be naturalists, but have divergent conceptions of basic elements of the natural world which lead them to mean different things when they talk about laws of nature, or states, or the role of mathematics in physics. These disagreements do not much affect the ordinary practice of science which is about small subsystems of the universe, described or explained against a background, idealized to be fixed. But these issues become crucial when we consider including the whole universe within our system, for then there is no fixed background to reference ob- servables to. I argue here that the key issue responsible for divergent versions of naturalism and divergent approaches to cosmology is the conception of time. One version, which I call temporal naturalism, holds that time, in the sense of the succes- sion of present moments, is real, and that laws of nature evolve in that time. This is contrasted with timeless naturalism, which holds that laws are immutable and the present moment and its passage are illusions. I argue that temporal naturalism is em- pirically more adequate than the alternatives, because it offers testable explanations for puzzles its rivals cannot address, and is likely a better basis for solving major puz- zles that presently face cosmology and physics. This essay also addresses the problem of qualia and experience within naturalism and argues that only temporal naturalism can make a place for qualia as intrinsic qualities of matter.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Religious naturalism and its rivals.Mikael Stenmark - 2013 - Religious Studies 49 (4):529-550.
Three sorts of naturalism.Hans Fink - 2006 - European Journal of Philosophy 14 (2):202–221.
Temporal predication with temporal parts and temporal counterparts.Thomas Sattig - 2003 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 81 (3):355 – 368.
A puzzle about naturalism.Alexander Paseau - 2010 - Metaphilosophy 41 (5):642-648.
The Best Argument Against God.Graham Robert Oppy - 2013 - New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.
Introduction - the nature of naturalism.David Macarthur & Mario De Caro - 2004 - In Mario De Caro & David Macarthur (eds.), Naturalism in Question. Harvard University Press. pp. 1-20.
Phenomenology and naturalism: a hybrid and heretical proposal.Jack Reynolds - 2016 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 24 (3):393-412.
Naturalism.Charles Pigden - 1991 - In Peter Singer (ed.), A Companion to Ethics. Blackwell. pp. 421-431.
Naturalism and the problem of intentionality.Michael Tye - 1994 - Midwest Studies in Philosophy 19 (1):122-42.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-09-03

Downloads
50 (#282,559)

6 months
6 (#202,901)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Lee Smolin
University of Toronto, St. George Campus

Citations of this work

Beyond Combination: How Cosmic Consciousness Grounds Ordinary Experience.Itay Shani & Joachim Keppler - 2018 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 4 (3):390-410.
What Price Changing Laws of Nature?Olivier Sartenaer, Alexandre Guay & Paul Humphreys - 2020 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 11 (1):1-19.
Quantum Mechanics and the Principle of Maximal Variety.Lee Smolin - 2016 - Foundations of Physics 46 (6):736-758.

View all 10 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Time and physical geometry.Hilary Putnam - 1967 - Journal of Philosophy 64 (8):240-247.
The Mathematical Universe.Max Tegmark - 2007 - Foundations of Physics 38 (2):101-150.
Intellectual Autobiography.Rudolf Carnap & Paul Arthur Schilpp - 1971 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 36 (1):178-179.
real naturalism.Galen Strawson - 2012 - Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 86 (2).

Add more references