In this paper we argue for a naturalistic solution to some of the methodological controversies in regulatory science, on the basis of two case studies: toxicology and health claim regulation. We analyze the debates related to the scientific evidence that is considered necessary for regulatory decision making in each of those two fields, with a particular attention to the interactions between scientific and regulatory aspects. This analysis allows us to identify two general stances in the debate: a) one that (...) argues for more permissive standards of evidence and for methodological pluralism, and b) an opposing one that not only defends strict evidence requirements but also stipulates the use of one particular scientific methodologies for data generation. We argue that the real-world outcomes produced by alternative regulatory options are a vital piece of information that allows for the empirical assessment of these two stances. In particular, this information on outcomes makes it possible to analyze which standards of evidence and scientific methods generate the most useful knowledge as input for regulatory decision making. Our conclusion is that instead of an a priori selection of methodologies and standards, such decisions ought to be based on empirical evidence related to real-world outcomes. (shrink)

Writing Science before the Greeks: A Naturalistic Analysis of the Babylonian Astronomical Treatise MUL.APIN. By Rita Watson and Wayne Horowitz. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East, vol. 48. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Pp. xxvi + 222. $137.

Many philosophical naturalists eschew analysis in favor of discovering metaphysical truths from the a posteriori, contending that analysis does not lead to philosophical insight. A countercurrent to this approach seeks to reconcile a certain account of conceptual analysis with philosophical naturalism; prominent and influential proponents of this methodology include the late David Lewis, Frank Jackson, Michael Smith, Philip Pettit, and David Armstrong. Naturalistic analysis is a tool for locating in the scientifically given world objects and properties (...) we quantify over in everyday discourse. This collection gathers work from a range of prominent philosophers who are working within this tradition, offering important new work as well as critical evaluations of the methodology. Its centerpiece is an important posthumous paper by David Lewis, "Ramseyan Humility," published here for the first time. The contributors first address issues of philosophy of mind, semantics, and the new methodology's a priori character, then turn to matters of metaphysics, and finally consider problems regarding normativity. Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism is one of the first efforts to apply this approach to such a wide range of philosophical issues. _Contributors: _David Braddon-Mitchell, Mark Colyvan, Frank Jackson, Justine Kingsbury, Fred Kroon, David Lewis, Dustin Locke, Kelby Mason, Jonathan McKeown-Green, Peter Menzies, Robert Nola, Daniel Nolan, Philip Pettit, Huw Price, Denis Robinson, Steve Stich, Daniel Stoljar The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket. (shrink)

Craig and Moreland present a rigorous analysis and critique of the major varieties of contemporary philosophical naturalism and advocate that it should be abandoned in light of the serious difficulties raised against it. The contributors draw on a wide range of topics including: epistemology, philosophy of science, value theory to basic analytic ontology, philosophy of mind and agency, and natural theology.

_Naturalism_ provides a rigorous analysis and critique of the major varieties of contemporary philosophical naturalism. The authors advocate the thesis that contemporary naturalism should be abandoned, in light of the serious objections raised against it. Contributors draw on a wide range of topics including: epistemology, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind and agency, and natural theology.

Three proponents of the Canberra Plan, namely Jackson, Pettit, and Smith, have developed a collective functionalist program—Canberra Functionalism—spanning from philosophical psychology to ethics. They argue that conceptual analysis is an indispensible tool for research on cognitive processes since it reveals that there are some folk concepts, like belief and desire, whose functional roles must be preserved rather than eliminated by future scientific explanations. Some naturalists have recently challenged this indispensability argument, though the point of that challenge has been blunted (...) by a mutual conflation of metaphysical and methodological strands of naturalism. I argue that the naturalist’s challenge to the indispensability argument, like naturalism itself, ought to be reformulated as a strictly methodological thesis. So understood, the challenge succeeds by showing (1) that we cannot know a priori on the basis of conceptual analysis of folk platitudes that something must occupy the functional roles specified for beliefs and desires, and (2) that proponents of Canberra Functionalism sometimes tacitly concede this point by treating substantive psychological theories as the deliverances of a priori platitudes analysis. (shrink)

Naturalism provides a rigorous analysis and critique of the major varieties of contemporary philosophical naturalism. The authors advocate the thesis that contemporary naturalism should be abandoned, in light of the serious objections raised against it. Contributors draw on a wide range of topics including: epistemology, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind and agency, and natural theology.

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 89, Issue 4, Page 735-738, December 2011.

According to moral realists, ethics concerns matters of fact. According to naturalist moral realists, moral facts just are natural facts. In this book, I provide an in-depth analysis of moral naturalism's ontological, epistemological, semantic and psychological foundations.

Pathologizing ugliness refers to the use of disease language and medical processes to foster and support the claim that undesirable features are pathological conditions requiring medical or surgical intervention. Primarily situated in cosmetic surgery, the practice appeals to the concept of “aesthetic pathology”, which is a medical designation for features that deviate from some designated aesthetic norms. This article offers a two-pronged conceptual analysis of aesthetic pathology. First, I argue that three sets of claims, derived from normativist and naturalistic (...) accounts of disease, inform the framing of ugliness as a disease. These claims concern: (1) aesthetic harms, (2) aesthetic dysfunction, and (3) aesthetic deviation. Second, I introduce the notion of a hybridization loop in medicine, which merges the naturalist and normative understanding of the disease that potentially enables pathologizing practices. In the context of cosmetic surgery, the loop simultaneously promotes the framing of beauty ideals as normal biological attributes and the framing of normal appearance as an aesthetic ideal to legitimize the need for cosmetic interventions. The article thus offers an original discussion of the conceptual problems arising from a specific practice in cosmetic surgery that depicts ugliness as the disease. (shrink)

Review of Craig And Mroeland: *Naturalism: A Critical Analysis*.

Pathologizing ugliness refers to the use of disease language and medical processes to foster and support the claim that undesirable features are pathological conditions requiring medical or surgical intervention. Primarily situated in cosmetic surgery, the practice appeals to the concept of "aesthetic pathology", which is a medical designation for features that deviate from some designated aesthetic norms. This article offers a two-pronged conceptual analysis of aesthetic pathology. First, I argue that three sets of claims, derived from normativist and naturalistic (...) accounts of disease, inform the framing of ugliness as a disease. These claims concern: (1) aesthetic harms, (2) aesthetic dysfunction, and (3) aesthetic deviation. Second, I introduce the notion of a hybridization loop in medicine, which merges the naturalist and normative understanding of the disease that potentially enables pathologizing practices. In the context of cosmetic surgery, the loop simultaneously promotes the framing of beauty ideals as normal biological attributes and the framing of normal appearance as an aesthetic ideal to legitimize the need for cosmetic interventions. The article thus offers an original discussion of the conceptual problems arising from a specific practice in cosmetic surgery that depicts ugliness as the disease. (shrink)

Filozofie ve 20. století ztratila velkou část svých kompetencí a pro svou údajnou neužitečnost se stala terčem kritiky ze strany přírodních vědců. Vztah mezi filozofií a vědou lze řešit pomocí tří stanovisek, kterými jsou antiscientismus, konceptuální analýza a naturalismus. Obsahem článku je charakteristika jednotlivých přístupů a identifikace problémů, s nimiž se musí jejich zastánci potýkat. Autorovi se jako nejslibnější jeví Quinem inspirovaný naturalismus, podle něhož má veškeré poznání povahu syntetických aposteriorních výroků, a filozofie je proto kontinuální s přírodní vědou. Není (...) třeba obávat se zániku filozofie jako samostatné disciplíny, naturalismus může naopak přispět k dořešení mnohých filozofických problémů pomocí metodologie a poznatků přírodních věd. (shrink)

This volume draws together influential work by Hilary Kornblith on naturalistic epistemology. This approach sees epistemology not as conceptual analysis, but as an explanatory project constrained and informed by work in cognitive science. These essays expound and defend Kornblith's distinctive view of how we come to have knowledge of the world.

This article is a response to the proposal, made by Thornton elsewhere in this special issue of PPP, that the "space of reasons" (as defined by the work particularly of Sellars and McDowell) might contain the conceptual resources for naturalizing biological function statements without reducing their ostensibly teleological meanings to the "space of causes". I agree with Thornton, (1) that ordinary reductive naturalism (as in Wakefield's work) is unable to mark the key distinction between a functional system's function(s) and its (...) other properties, and (2) that his proposed non-reductive naturalism (or neo-naturalism) is able to mark this distinction. I disagree with him, though, that neo-naturalism is value-free. The space of reasons certainly contains much that is important for psychopathology (meanings, notably). I argue, though, against Thornton, that neo-naturalism is able to define functions only because the "space of reasons" smuggles into the language of biology an evaluative element of meaning, deeply hidden but still logically operative, in the teleological sense in which biological functions are explanatory. In the final section of the paper, I set Thornton's proposal in a wider historical perspective. (shrink)

In his recent book Warranted Christian Belief (2000), Alvin Plantinga argues that the defender of naturalistic evolution is faced with adefeater for his position: as products of naturalistic evolution, we have no way of knowing if our cognitive faculties are in fact reliably aimed at the truth. This defeater is successfully avoided by the theist in that, given theism, we can be reasonably secure that out cognitive faculties are indeed reliable. I argue that Plantinga’s argument is ultimately based on a (...) faulty comparison, that he is comparing naturalistic evolution generally to one particular model of theism. In light of this analysis, the two models either stand or fall together with respect to the defeater that Plantinga offers. (shrink)

Methodological naturalism arises as a topic in metaethics in two ways. One is the issue of whether we should be methodological naturalists when doing our moral theorising, and another is whether we should take a naturalistic approach to metaethics itself. Interestingly, these can come apart, and some naturalist programs in metaethics justify a non-scientific approach to our moral theorising. This paper discusses the range of approaches that fall under the general umbrella of methodological naturalism, and how naturalists view the (...) role of science in ethics and metaethics. It discusses how naturalism interacts with the use of intuitions, using conceptual analysis, and reflective equilibrium methods. Finally, it discusses some ways using scientific investigation can make distinctive contributions to ethics and metaethics. (shrink)

Despite his commitment to universal explicability, a case can be made that Hegel is better labelled an idealist than a naturalist. As an analysis of his three syllogisms of philosophy reveals, he strictly differentiates between the domains of nature and Geist, suggesting in sequence that Geist replaces nature, Geist comprehends nature and that Geist and nature are comprehended as forms of the metaphysical idea and determine and mediate each other. Since Hegel grounds his accounts of the metaphysical idea (...) and its forms nature and Geist in concept-metaphysics and these include a supernatural notion of undetermined, self-positing universality, Hegel’s entire ontological edifice is ultimately supernatural. This stands in stark contrast to the metaphysics of naturalism, which are based on categories Hegel associates with the logics of being and essence or which fail to sufficiently emancipate universality from its immediate connection to particularity. (shrink)

The account of warrant I propose, utilizing the notion of proper function as it does, is an example of naturalistic epistemology: it invokes no kind of normativity not to be found in the natural sciences; in this chapter and the next, I argue that naturalism in epistemology can flourish only in the context of supernaturalism in metaphysics. To do so, I argue that there is no satisfactory naturalistic explanation or account of the notion of proper function. I consider proposals for (...) such an account that can be drawn from the work of John Pollock, Ruth Millikan, and John Bigelow and Robert Pargetter, but find in each case that the proposed account is inadequate. I then consider the possibility that the notion of proper function should be thought of as useful fictions. After some critical comments about this possibility, I proceed to point out that if one is convinced that there really is such a thing as warrant and that there really is such a thing as proper function, and also thinks that there is no naturalistic analysis of these notions, then one has a powerful argument against naturalism. (shrink)

This chapter -- the first in the edited collection "The Naturalistic Fallacy" (Cambridge University Press 2019) -- locates the naturalistic fallacy within the context of the other claims Moore defends in Principia Ethica. I explore the notions of “definition” and “analysis” as Moore understood them and set out in detail the multiple interpretations of the fallacy and open question argument. I then take a broad view of the influence of the fallacy on the Century of metaethics that came after (...) Moore, covering topics such as the non-cognitivist appropriation of the open question argument, the mid-Century Humean turn in which the inferential form of the fallacy was dominant, and the fallacy’s role – at the end of the Century – in framing new forms of naturalism. Finally, I argue that these multiple strands of influence demonstrate that, to a large extent, contemporary ethics – and metaethics in particular – can be understood through the framing lens of the naturalistic fallacy. (shrink)

I discuss naturalism in the philosophy of science, with a special focus on the issue of scientific realism. After introducing the theme of naturalism in more general terms, I critically assess whether and how the debate over scientific realism lends itself to a naturalistic approach. I then carry out an analogous inquiry with respect to the relationship between metaphysics and science – a careful analysis of which appears to be particularly important from the point of view of the scientific (...) realist. In both cases, I suggest that a naturalistic approach is both possible and potentially fruitful, provided that naturalism is given a “mild” or “liberal” characterization. In the course of the discussion, I offer an overview of existing positions and provide some considerations in favor of a metaphysically engaged scientific realism. (shrink)

It was something of a dogma for much of the twentieth century that one cannot validly derive an ought from an is. More generally, it was held that non-normative propositions do not entail normative propositions. Call this thesis about the relation between the natural and the normative Natural-Normative Autonomy. The denial of Autonomy involves the entanglement of the natural with the normative. Naturalism entails entanglement—in fact it entails the most extreme form of entanglement—but entanglement does not entail naturalism. In a (...) ground-breaking paper “The autonomy of ethics” Arthur Prior constructed some intriguing counterexamples to Autonomy. While his counterexamples have convinced few, there is little agreement on what is wrong with them. I present a new analysis of Autonomy, one which is grounded in a general and independently plausible account of subject matters. While Prior’s arguments do establish shallow natural-normative entanglement, this is a consequence of simple logical relationships that hold between just about any two subject matters. It has nothing special to do with the logical structure of normativity or its relation to the natural. Prior’s arguments leave the fundamental idea behind natural-normative Autonomy intact. I offer a new argument for deep entanglement. I show that in any framework adequate for dealing with the natural and the normative spheres, a purely natural proposition entails a purely normative proposition, and vice-versa. But this is no threat to non-naturalist moral realism. In fact it helps ameliorate the excesses of an extreme non-naturalism, delivering a more palatable and plausible position. (shrink)

In considering the debate about the meaning of ‘disease’, the positions are generally presented as falling into two categories: naturalist, e.g., Boorse, and normativist, e.g., Engelhardt and many others. This division is too coarse, and obscures much of what is going on in this debate. I therefore propose that accounts of the meaning of ‘disease’ be assessed according to Hare’s (1997) taxonomy of evaluative terms. Such an analysis will allow us to better understand both individual positions and their (...) inter-relationships. Most importantly, it will show that it is unlikely that there is a single unique disease-concept at issue. Rather, different authors are, for the most part, considering different concepts. (shrink)

Moral naturalism, as I use the term here, is the view that there are moral facts in the natural world – facts that are both natural and normative – and that moral claims are true or false in virtue of their corresponding or not to these natural facts. Moral naturalists argue that, since moral claims are about natural facts, we can establish the truth about moral claims through empirical investigation. Moral knowledge, on this view, is a form of empirical knowledge.One (...) objection to this metaethical view is that even if moral naturalists are correct in their claims about truth, they cannot answer the question of normativity. Jean Hampton, for instance, argues that it is not enough to explain the conduct's wrongness by showing it to be a property that necessarily supervenes on natural properties. For nothing in this analysis explains the relationship between these properties and us. The question is why should people care about these properties. Christine Korsgaard claims that moral realists take the normative question to be one about truth and knowledge. (shrink)

What is a human being? The twentieth and twenty-first century tradition known as 'philosophical anthropology' has approached this question with unusual sophistication, experimentalism, and subtlety. Such innovations as Arnold Gehlen's description of humans as naturally 'deficient' beings in need of artificial institutions to survive; Max Scheler's concept of 'spirit' (Geist) as the physically and organically irreducible realm of persons and spiritual acts; and Helmuth Plessner's analysis of the way human embodiment transcends spatial locations and limitations ('ex-centric positionality') have inspired (...) generations of European intellectuals. This edited collection from an international network of scholars critically engages the philosophical anthropologies of Scheler, Plessner, Gehlen, Blumenberg, and others in unparalleled detail, showing their applicability to the themes of nature and naturalism, organic life, comparative primatology, cultural anthropology, paleoanthropology, the body, addiction, and death. The volume sets a new standard for Anglophone scholarship on this tradition and will be required reading for specialists in twentieth-century philosophy, history of the human sciences, history of the life sciences, and philosophies of human nature. (shrink)

This book provides a critical philosophical analysis of the claim that contemporary cognitive approaches to religion undermine theistic beliefs. The book argues that such naturalism is not necessary for the cognitive study of religion and develops an alternative philosophical and methodological framework. This unique contribution to discussions regarding the philosophical and theological implications of the cognitive study of religion summarizes the so far fragmentary discussion, exposes its underlying assumptions, and develops a novel framework for further discussion.

The “naturalistic turn” that has swept so many areas of philosophy over the past three decades has also had an impact in the last decade in legal philosophy. Methodological naturalists (M-naturalists) view philosophy as continuous with empirical inquiry in the sciences. Some M-naturalists want to replace conceptual and justificatory theories with empirical and descriptive theories; they take their inspiration from more-or-less Quinean arguments against conceptual analysis and foundationalist programs. Other M-naturalists retain the normative and regulative ambitions of traditional philosophy, (...) but emphasize that it is an empirical question what normative advice is actually useable and effective for creatures like us. Some M-naturalists are also.. (shrink)

This chapter examines the influence of the empirical sciences (e.g., physics, biology, psychology) in contemporary analytic philosophy, with focus on philosophical theories that are guided by findings from the empirical sciences. Scientific approaches to philosophy follow a tradition of philosophical naturalism associated with Quine, which strives to ally philosophical methods and theories more closely with the empirical sciences and away from a priori theorizing and conceptual analysis.

This article starts from the assumption that there are various innate contributions to our view of the world and explores the epistemological implications that follow from this. Specifically, it explores the idea that if certain components of our worldview have an evolutionary origin, this implies that these aspects accurately depict the world. The simple version of the argument for this conclusion is that if an aspect of mind is innate, it must be useful, and the most parsimonious explanation for its (...) usefulness is that it accurately depicts the world. There are a number of important criticisms of this argument. These include the idea that evolutionary justifications are circular, that evolved mental content and principles are not necessarily accurate, and that, if the argument is taken seriously, it has some highly dubious consequences. These criticisms necessitate various qualifications to the initial argument. Nonetheless, it is argued that, in some cases, important conclusions can be drawn about the world from an analysis of evolved contributions to our view of the world. An evolutionary approach cannot provide an ultimate justification for any belief; however, in certain circumstances, it supports the conclusion that a given belief is a reasonable first approximation. To the extent that innate content and principles pertain to topics in metaphysics, they can be viewed as a naturalistic source of metaphysical knowledge. (shrink)

The work of the American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars continues to have a significant impact on the contemporary philosophical scene. His writings have influenced major thinkers such as Rorty, McDowell, Brandom, and Dennett, and many of Sellars basic conceptions, such as the logical space of reasons, the myth of the given, and the manifest and scientific images, have become standard philosophical terms. Often, however, recent uses of these terms do not reflect the richness or the true sense of Sellars original ideas. (...) This book gets to the heart of Sellars philosophy and provides students with a comprehensive critical introduction to his lifes work. The book is structured around what Sellars himself regarded as the philosophers overarching task: to achieve a coherent vision of reality that will finally overcome the continuing clashes between the world as common sense takes it to be and the world as science reveals it to be. It provides a clear analysis of Sellars groundbreaking philosophy of mind, his novel theory of consciousness, his defense of scientific realism, and his thoroughgoing naturalism with a normative turn. Providing a lively examination of Sellars work through the central problem of what it means to be a human being in a scientific world, this book will be a valuable resource for all students of philosophy. (shrink)

In considering the debate about the meaning of ‘disease’, the positions are generally presented as falling into two categories: naturalist, e.g., Boorse, and normativist, e.g., Engelhardt and many others. This division is too coarse, and obscures much of what is going on in this debate. I therefore propose that accounts of the meaning of ‘disease’ be assessed according to Hare's (1997) taxonomy of evaluative terms. Such an analysis will allow us to better understand both individual positions and their (...) interrelationships. Most importantly, it will show that it is unlikely that there is a single unique disease-concept at issue. Rather, different authors are, for the most part, considering different concepts. (shrink)

_Naturalism and Democracy_, first published in German in 2014, presents a long-awaited commentary on Spinoza’s _Political Treatise _. It gives a detailed analysis of Spinoza’s latest theory of State and Law, with special attention to his democratic approach.

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.

According to naturalism, philosophy is part of science. Its aim is thus to acquire synthetic knowledge of the world. Philosophy's methods of discovery – its use of a priori reasoning, conceptual analysis, and thought experiments – are legitimate to the extent that they further this broader scientific aim, naturalists aver. A very different view of philosophy sees it as distinct from science in both aim and methods. Philosophy aims to discover analytic knowledge through a priori reasoning on this competing (...) view. This view of philosophy emphasizes rational intuitions as a source of evidence for the truth of the conclusions attained by a priori reasoning. Naturalism has been criticized as incompatible with realism, the view that the existence and nature of the world are independent of human conceptions of it. What naturalistic sense could be made of the idea that a scientific theory that passed every conceivable observational and theoretical test might yet be false? Isn't such a notion of truth, presupposed by realism, simply at odds with the idea that science is the arbiter of truth? Further, doesn't the attempt to marry naturalism and realism open the door to a radical kind of skepticism, one that makes it impossible to know that all our experiences of the world are not illusory? This chapter explores the nature of philosophy and philosophical theorizing from the perspective of naturalistic realism, arguing that naturalism and realism are compatible in spite of attempts to show they are not. The chapter reviews the leading arguments for incompatibility – Hilary Putnam's model‐theoretic argument (MTA) and the brains‐in‐a‐vat argument – and finds that they do not establish this conclusion. Further, it shows that the view that philosophy is distinct in aim and methods from science – a view that places its faith in the evidential warrant supplied by rational intuition – is at odds with what cognitive science has shown about the nature and reliability of these sorts of intuition. (shrink)

“Interpretive social science” includes a variety of differing epistemological, methodological, and political commitments. It is to the credit of Mark Bevir and Jason Blakely’s Interpretive Social S...

This chapter offers an introduction to naturalist views in contemporary metaethics. Such views attempt to find a place for normative properties (such as goodness and rightness) in the concrete physical world as it is understood by both science and common sense. The chapter begins by introducing simple naturalist conceptual analyses of normative terms. It then explains how these analyses were rejected in the beginning of the 20th century due to G.E. Moore's influential open question argument.

The penultimate chapter of Alvin Plantinga's "Warrant and Proper Function" attacks metaphysical naturalism through an argument which concludes that only a supernaturalistic worldview can accommodate the indispensable concept of proper function. I make the case that this argument, which I dub 'the argument from proper function', suffers from two major flaws. First, it underestimates the naturalist's ability to ground natural proper function ascriptions in the concept of health. Second, it relies upon an overly stringent standard for successful conceptual (...) class='Hi'>analysis; ironically, the naturalist can undercut the argument by adopting Plantinga's own recommended model for analysing concepts. (shrink)

Even among scholars who emphasize Nietzsche’s naturalism (“the naturalists”), what it actually involves is disputed. This article identifies the foundations of Nietzsche’s naturalism and then elaborates on these foundations through a critical analysis of the works of those naturalists who also identify them. Nietzsche is a methodological naturalist, who, epistemically, is a reliabilist, and while he acknowledges the innate limitations of our cognitive inheritance, which is reflected in his perspectivism, he sees no reason to conclude that we cannot (...) grasp the natural world truly. As to the primary issue in scientific explanation, causation, Nietzsche adopts a regularity theory as early as The Gay Science, and, on the basis of this theory, rejects determinism. One consequence of this analysis is that Nietzsche’s naturalism is not as restrictive as the naturalists tend to portray it, and this opens up new possibilities for interpreting many of his other commitments. (shrink)