This book proposes a radically evolutionary approach to biolinguistics that consists in considering human language as a form of species-specific intelligence entirely embodied in the corporeal structures of Homo sapiens. The book starts with a historical reconstruction of two opposing biolinguistic models: the Chomskian Biolinguistic Model (CBM) and the Darwinian Biolinguistic Model (DBM). The second part compares the two models and develops into a complete reconsideration of the traditional biolinguistic issues in an evolutionary perspective, highlighting their potential influence on the (...) paradigm of biologically oriented cognitive science. The third part formulates the philosophical, evolutionary and experimental basis of an extended theory of linguistic performativity within a naturalistic perspective of pragmatics of verbal language. The book proposes a model in which the continuity between human and non-human primates is linked to the gradual development of the articulatory and neurocerebral structures, and to a kind of prelinguistic pragmatics which characterizes the common nature of social learning. In contrast, grammatical, semantic and pragmatic skills that mark the learning of historical-natural languages are seen as a rapid acceleration of cultural evolution. The book makes clear that this acceleration will not necessarily favour the long-term adaptations for Homo sapiens. (shrink)

This book explores Nietzsche's philosophical naturalism in its historical context, showing that his position is best understood against the background of encounters between neo-Kantianism and the life sciences in the nineteenth century. Analyzing most of Nietzsche's writings from the late 1860s onwards, Christian J. Emden reconstructs Nietzsche's naturalism and argues for a new understanding of his account of nature and normativity. Emden proposes historical reasons why Nietzsche came to adopt the position he did; his genealogy of values and his account (...) of a will to power are as much influenced by Kantian thought as they are by nineteenth-century debates on teleology, biological functions, and theories of evolution. This rich and wide-ranging study will be of interest to scholars and students of Nietzsche, the history of modern philosophy, intellectual history, and history of science. (shrink)

This paper is an invitation to reflect on the advisability of analysing philosophy from a naturalistic perspective. That is, from a perspective that considers philosophy as if it was one more cultural object, which can be studied using the tools that we have available to us today and that are provided by disciplines such as evolutionary psychology or anthropology oriented by a distinctly cognitivist approach. A central concept in the analysis is that of “intuitive ontology” – closely linked (...) to intuitive (or folk-) philosophy or the spontaneous, naïve (natural) way of thinking that is associated with common sense – which is a result of the evolutionary process and a source of metaphysical prejudices such as dualism. A metaphilosophical reflection, such as that proposed here, identifies the “natural” character of a transcendent metaphysics that is still too close to intuitive philosophy, and the interest of constituting a naturalistic philosophy that is fully conscious of its “unnatural” or “counterintuitive” character. (shrink)

Naturalism in the philosophy of science has proceeded differently than the familiar forms of meta-philosophical naturalism in other sub-fields, taking its cues from “science as we know it” (Cartwright in The Dappled World, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999, p. 1) rather than from a philosophical conception of “the Scientific Image.” Its primary focus is scientific practice, and its philosophical analyses are complementary and accountable to empirical studies of scientific work. I argue that naturalistic philosophy of science is nevertheless (...) criterial for other versions of meta-philosophical naturalism; relying on a conflicting conception of scientific understanding would constitute a “first philosophy” imposed on the sciences. Moreover, naturalistic philosophy of science provides the basis for a “radically” naturalistic alternative to the familiar forms of orthodox or liberal naturalism. Goodman, Sellars and Hempel had previously challenged empiricist scruples against causal connections or nomological necessity by arguing that scientific concepts already had modal import. The radical naturalism I defend similarly challenges meta-philosophical naturalists’ conception of the Scientific Image as anormative, and instead shows how the normativity of scientific understanding in practice is a scientifically intelligible natural phenomenon. This account then provides a basis for naturalistic reflection on how other practices and normative concerns fit together with the best scientific understanding of human ways of life. (shrink)

Christian Emden’s book is a contribution to the current debates in the English-language literature over Nietzsche’s “naturalism.” Emden regards this subject as “crucial to any understanding of Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical thought”, claiming that the “central task of Nietzsche’s philosophical project” is to “translate humanity back into nature,” as Nietzsche himself puts it in BGE 230. However, Emden does not undertake to demonstrate this thesis as such. Rather, he aims to interpret Nietzsche’s naturalism in terms of the “problem of normativity”, that (...) of how the sources of normativity can be understood without appealing to a normative standard independent of us as natural beings.... (shrink)

In this paper, I will discuss and characterize transcendental and salvational aspects of two naturalistic philosophical projects, those of Robert Corrington, a contemporary American Naturalist and George Santayana, the first identifiable American Naturalist. I am considering here soteriological pathways available for transformation or transfiguration of the self toward a state of spiritual optimization in an imminent natural cosmos where all but limited gains seem to be out of human hands. The individual, imbedded in Nature, is caught up in (...) an unteleological stream of Nature's own formation. In my consideration of this subject in relation to Robert Corrington's work, I have found a helpful and insightful .. (shrink)

Creative approaches in recent work in science studies can be usefully connected with ideas from the pragmatic tradition. This article both criticizes and builds on the contemporary pragmatic views of Hacking, Stich, and others. It selects a theme from the work of James and Dewey as a heuristic for a new, and necessary, pragmatic epistemology of science.

This book completes medical care by adding the comprehensive humanistic perspectives and philosophy of medicine.

Naturalistic philosophers rely on literature search and review in a number of ways and for different purposes. Yet this article shows how processes of literature search and review are likely to be affected by widespread and systematic biases. A solution to this problem is offered here. Whilst the tradition of systematic reviews of literature from scientific disciplines has been neglected in philosophy, systematic reviews are important tools that minimize bias in literature search and review and allow for greater reproducibility (...) and transparency. If naturalistic philosophers wish to reduce bias in their research, they should then supplement their traditional tools for literature search and review by including systematic methodologies. (shrink)

This paper argues that naturalistic philosophy does not meet its own empiricist mandate. It argues from an empiricist perspective. Naturalists either claim that philosophy is like science in significant ways, or they claim that philosophy ought to be like science. This paper, being chiefly focused on the former claim, argues that naturalistic philosophy is nothing like science. Using Papineau’s markers for the similarities between naturalistic philosophy and science, I argue, counter Papineau, that the method employed (...) in naturalistic philosophy is not a posteriori and its claims are certainly not synthetic in the same way as that of science. This methodological distinction between science and philosophy is one made by Carnap. To show how the methods are distinct I compare two papers; I compare the method employed by Andy Clark in his philosophical paper on the brain as a prediction error minimisation machine with that employed by Rees and Haynes in their neuroscientific paper on mental content. (shrink)

This is the first of two articles in which I reflect on “generalized Darwinism” as currently discussed in evolutionary economics. I approach evolutionary economics by the roundabouts of evolutionary epistemology and the philosophy of biology, and contrast evolutionary economists’ cautious generalizations of Darwinism with “imperialistic” proposals to unify the behavioral sciences. I then discuss the continued resistance to biological ideas in the social sciences, focusing on the issues of naturalism and teleology. In the companion article (Callebaut, Biol Theory 6. (...) doi: 10.1007/s13752-013-0087-1, 2011, this issue) I assess generalized Darwinism, concentrating on the roles of theory and model building, generative replication, and the relation between selection and self-organization; and I point to advances in biology that promise to be more fruitful as sources of inspiration for evolutionary economics than the project to generalize Darwinism in its current, “hardened Modern Synthesis” form. (shrink)

The question “What is the relationship between the self and mental disorder?” is especially important for mental health professionals interested in understanding and treating patients, as most mental disorders are intimately tied to self‐related concerns, such as loss of self‐esteem and self‐control, or diminished agency and autonomy. Philosophy, along with the cognitive and behavioral sciences, offers a wealth of conceptual and empirical resources to answer this question, as the concepts of the self and psychopathology have occupied a central place (...) in these fields since their inception. Interestingly, and unfortunately, however, scientific psychiatry, in its approach to mental disorder as primarily a cluster of signs and symptoms has been slow in acknowledging the advances in conceptualizing and investigating mental disorders in relation to the self. The article addresses this problem and offers solutions for better cross‐fertilization between empirical and philosophical inquiry into the self and psychiatric research on mental disorders. The first part evaluates what empirically informed philosophical inquiry and philosophically informed empirical inquiry offer to the examination of the relationship between the self and mental disorders. The second part argues that scientific psychiatry has missed opportunities to find effective treatments for mental disorders because of its insularity from debates in naturalistic philosophy and cognitive and behavioral sciences. Psychiatry has much to gain from the conceptual, scientific, and clinical resourcefulness of philosophy's collaboration with the cognitive and behavioral sciences. (shrink)

The notion of causal explanation is an essential element of the naturalistic world view. This view is typically interpreted to claim that we are only licensed to postulate entities that make a causal difference , or have causal power . The rest are epiphenomena and hence eliminable from the correct view of reality. The worry that some entities and phenomena that we take for granted mental properties in particular turn out to be epiphenomenal, can be seen as stemming from this (...) sort of naturalistic attitude. This thesis reviews the issue of causal explanation within the context of the naturalistic philosophy of mind. It is argued that there is no single monolithic, unanimously accepted notion of causation that the naturalist should be committed to. Views vary on what this notion amounts to exactly, and fields of science vary with respect to their causal commitments. However, the naturalist can still presume that a scientifically informed philosophical account of causation exists, an account that is fundamentally philosophical, but also sensitive to actual scientific practice and its view of reality. The central issue of the current naturalistic philosophy of mind is the so-called problem of causal exclusion. According to this, the assumption that mental states could have genuine and autonomous effects on the physical world is inconsistent with physical commitments, namely the idea that mental states are necessarily neurally based and the idea that the physical world is causally complete. The causal exclusion argument claims that mental causes must be reduced to physical causes, as there remains no role for independent mental causes. The thesis reviews some central responses to the causal exclusion argument. It is shown that within the context of the interventionist notion of causation, inter-level causation can be ruled out. The causal exclusion argument would thus find support, contrary to what the proponents of the interventionist view typically claim. However, the result is also shown to have the corollary that purely higher-level, mental-to-mental causation is possible. The thesis suggests that this offers a consistent view of mental causation for a naturalist to hold. (shrink)

It is argued that the only response to the mereological objections of the ordinary language philosopher available to the scientistic philosopher of mind requires the adoption of the view that ordinary psychological talk is theoretical and falsified by the findings of brain science. The availability of this sort of response produces a kind of stalemate between these opposed views and viewpoints: the claim that attribution of psychological predicates to parts of organisms is nonsense is met with the claim that it (...) is only nonsensical if our ordinary ways of talking are – naively – taken to be sacrosanct. The aim of the paper is to show that the ordinary language philosopher has a reply here that the scientistic philosopher is not in a position to ignore. Namely, that the only way to resist mereological objections is to adopt conceptions of personhood that are inimical to naturalistic accounts of mentality. (shrink)

In this article I offer a naturalistic defence of semantic externalism. I argue against the following: (1) arguments for externalism rest mainly on conceptual analysis; (2) the community conceptual norms relevant to individuation of propositional attitudes are quasi-analytic; (3) externalism raises serious questions about knowledge of propositional attitudes; and (4) externalism might be OK for “folk psychology” but not for cognitive science. The naturalist alternatives are as follows. (1) Community norms are not anything like a priori; sometimes they are (...) incoherent. (2) Often propositional attitudes lack determinate content: we do not know the content of thoughts or sentences because there is no fully definite content to be known. (3) Often achieving determinate content is a major socially mediated cognitive achievement that depends on just the factors of social and environmental embedding posited as individuative by externalists, so (4) externalism explains how people can, sometimes, come to have, and to know, determinate attitude contents. (5) Reference and content, for both thought and language, are determined by complex and messy dialectical relations involving many such environmental and social factors; consequently, determinate reference, truth-conditions, etc., are somewhat uncommon outcomes. (6) The basic semantic relation is (typically imperfect) socially mediated accommodation between perceptual, cognitive, linguistic, classificatory and inferential dispositions and relevant causal structures in the environment. (7) This accommodation explains how concepts, language, taxonomies, etc., contribute to individuals' rational inductive, explanatory and practical achievements. (8) So externally individuated propositional attitudes are required for cognitive science explanations of individual human rationality and its inductive and explanatory achievements. “Individual rationality ain't (entirely) in the individual head.”. (shrink)

Many philosophers these days consider themselves naturalists, but it's doubtful any two of them intend the same position by the term. In Second Philosophy, Penelope Maddy describes and practices a particularly austere form of naturalism called "Second Philosophy". Without a definitive criterion for what counts as "science" and what doesn't, Second Philosophy can't be specified directly ("trust only the methods of science" for example), so Maddy proceeds instead by illustrating the behaviors of an idealized inquirer she calls (...) the "Second Philosopher". mhis Second Philosopher begins from perceptual common sense experimentation, theory formation and testing, working all the while to asses, correct and improve her methods as she goes. Second Philosophy is then the result of the Second Philosopher's investigations. Maddy delineates the Second Philosopher's approach by tracing her reactions to various familiar skeptical and transcendental views (Descartes, Kant, Carnap, late Putnam, van Fraassen), comparing her methods to those of other self-described naturalists (especially Quine), and examining a prominent contemporary debate (between disquotationalists and correspondence theorists in the theory of truth) to extract a properly second-philosophical line of thought. She then undertakes to practice Second Philosophy in her reflections on the ground of logical truth, the methodology, ontology and epistemology of mathematics, and the general prospects for metaphysics naturalized. (shrink)

Many philosophers claim to be naturalists, but there is no common understanding of what naturalism is. Maddy proposes an austere form of naturalism called 'Second Philosophy', using the persona of an idealized inquirer, and she puts this method into practice in illuminating reflections on logical truth, philosophy of mathematics, and metaphysics.

Examining James M. Gustafson's views on the relationships between the sciences, theology, and ethics from a scientifically based naturalistic philosophical perspective, I concur with his rejection of separatist and antagonistic interactionist positions and his adherence to a mutually supportive interactionist position with both descriptive and normative features. I next explore three aspects of this interactionism: religious empiricism, the connections between facts and values, and the centering of objective values in the divine. Here I find much accord between Gustafson's theocentrism and (...) a scientifically based naturalistic philosophical account of the relationships between the sciences, theology, and ethics. (shrink)

A reassessment of the influence of John Dewey's mature work, especially "Experience and Nature" on recent trends in cognitive science.

Experimental philosophy is one of the most exciting and controversial philosophical movements today. This book explores how it is reshaping thought about philosophical method. Experimental philosophy imports experimental methods and findings from psychology into philosophy. These fresh resources can be used to develop and defend both armchair methods and naturalist approaches, on an empirical basis. This outstanding collection brings together leading proponents of this new meta-philosophical naturalism, from within and beyond experimental philosophy. They explore how (...) the empirical study of philosophically relevant intuition and cognition transforms traditional philosophical approaches and facilitates fresh ones. Part One examines important uses of traditional "armchair" methods which are not threatened by experimental work and develops empirically informed accounts of such methods that can potentially stand up to experimental scrutiny. Part Two analyses different uses and rationales of experimental methods in several areas of philosophy and addresses the key methodological challenges to experimental philosophy: Do its experiments target the intuitions that matter in philosophy? And how can they support conclusions about the rights and wrongs of philosophical views? Essential reading for students of experimental philosophy and metaphilosophy, _Experimental Philosophy, Rationalism, and Naturalism_ will also interest students and researchers in related areas such as epistemology and the philosophies of language, perception, mind and action, science and psychology. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophy’s three main naturalisms are methodological, ontological and epistemological. Methodological naturalism states that the only authoritative standards are those of science. Ontological and epistemological naturalism respectively state that all entities and all valid methods of inquiry are in some sense natural. In philosophy of mathematics of the past few decades methodological naturalism has received the lion’s share of the attention, so we concentrate on this. Ontological and epistemological naturalism in the philosophy of mathematics are discussed more (...) briefly in section 6. (shrink)

Kant's introduction of a distinctive form of philosophical investigation and proof, known as transcendental, inaugurated a new philosophical tradition. Transcendental Philosophy and Naturalism assesses the present state and contemporary relevance of this tradition. The contributors aim to understand the theoretical structures involved in transcendental explanation, and to assess the contemporary relevance of the transcendental orientation, in particular with respect to contemporary philosophical naturalism. These issues are approached from both naturalistic and transcendental perspectives.

First, The doctrine of naturalism, That reality is spatio-Temporal, Is defended. Second, The doctrine of materialism or physicalism, That this spatio-Temporal reality involves nothing but the entities of physics working according to the principles of physics, Is defended. Third, It is argued that these doctrines do not constitute a "first philosophy." a satisfactory first philosophy should recognize universals, In the form of instantiated properties and relations. Laws of nature are constituted by relations between universals. What universals there are, (...) And what relations hold between them, Must be discovered "a posteriori" by scientific investigation. (shrink)

This chapter considers how Liberal Naturalism interacts with the main problems and theories in the philosophy of perception. After briefly summarising the traditional philosophical problems of perception and outlining the standard philosophical theories of perceptual experience, it discusses whether a Liberal Naturalist outlook should incline one towards or away from any of these standard theories. Particular attention is paid to the work of John McDowell and Hilary Putnam, two of the most prominent Liberal Naturalists, whose work was also (...) very influential in the philosophy of perception. There is also a section focusing on colour, an especially important topic not only for debates about perceptual experience but also for debates concerning how our ‘manifest image’ of the natural world relates to our best theories in the physical sciences. (shrink)

The prescriptive force of methodological rules rests, I argue, on the acceptance of scientific theories; that of the most general methodological rules rests on theories in the philosophy of science, which differ from theories in the several sciences only in generality and abstraction. I illustrate these claims by reference to methodological disputes in social science and among philosophers of science. My conclusions substantiate those of Laudan except that I argue for the existence of transtheoretical goals common to all scientists (...) and concrete enough actually to have bearing on methodology. And I argue that Laudan is committed to such goals himself, willy nilly. (shrink)

It is the continuity between epistemology and empirical science that the naturalism in contemporary philosophy of science emphasizes. After its individual and social dimensions, the philosophy of scientific practice takes a stand on naturalism in order to observe complex scientific activities through practice. However, regarding the naturalism’s problem of normativity, the philosophy of scientific practice today has deconstructed more than it has constructed.