Methodological and/or ontological naturalism

2006 ◽  
pp. 45-50
Author(s):  
Roberta Corvi
Keyword(s):  
Ontological Naturalism

Naturalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics

Philosophy ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Leng
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Mathematics ◽  
Sole Source ◽  
Indispensability Argument ◽  
Mathematical Truth ◽  
Methodological Naturalism ◽  
Mathematical Objects ◽  
Ontological Naturalism ◽  
Epistemological Challenge ◽  
Genuine Problem

In the context of the philosophy of mathematics, the term “naturalism” has a number of uses, covering approaches that look to be fundamentally at odds with one another. In one use, the “natural” in naturalism is contrasted with non-natural, in the sense of supernatural; in this sense, naturalism in the philosophy of mathematics appears in opposition to Platonism (the view that mathematical truths are truths about a body of abstract mathematical objects). Naturalism thus construed takes seriously the epistemological challenge to Platonism presented by Paul Benacerraf in his paper “Mathematical Truth” (cited under Ontological Naturalism). Benacerraf points out that a view of mathematics as a body of truths about a realm of abstract objects appears to rule out any (non-mystical) account of how we, as physically located embodied beings, could come to know such truths. The naturalism that falls out of acceptance of Benacerraf’s challenge as presenting a genuine problem for our claims to be able to know truths about abstract mathematical objects is sometimes referred to as “ontological naturalism,” and suggests a physicalist ontology. In a second use, the “natural” in naturalism is a reference specifically to natural science and its methods. Naturalism here, sometimes called methodological naturalism, is the Quinean doctrine that philosophy is continuous with natural science. Quine and Putnam’s indispensability argument for the existence of mathematical objects places methodological naturalism in conflict with ontological naturalism, since it is argued that the success of our scientific theories confirms the existence of the abstract mathematical objects apparently referred to in formulating those theories, suggesting that methodological naturalism requires Platonism. A final use of “naturalism” in the philosophy of mathematics is distinctive to mathematics, and arises out of consideration of the proper extent of methodological naturalism. According to Quine’s naturalism, the natural sciences provide us with the proper methods of inquiry. But, as Penelope Maddy has noted, mathematics has its own internal methods and standards, which differ from the methods of the empirical sciences, and naturalistic respect for the methodologies of successful fields requires that we should accept those methods and standards. This places Maddy’s methodological naturalism in tension with the original Quinean version of the doctrine, because, Maddy argues, letting natural science be the sole source of confirmation for mathematical theories fails to respect the autonomy of mathematics.

Rethinking the Fact-Value Split

2020 ◽  
pp. 1996-2013
Author(s):  
R. Scott Smith
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
South America ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Religious Knowledge ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ontological Naturalism ◽  
Religion And Ethics ◽  
Practical Implications

Multicultural, western societies are quite secular, and the secular-sacred divide has been shaped by the fact-value split. But, the fact-value split also influences many other cultures, including in Latin and South America and East Asia. On it, science yields knowledge, but religion and ethics yield opinions and values. Closely related is the public-private split: governments should act on public reasons (ones based on science), and not private ones (ones based on religious and ethical views). Such science is methodologically naturalistic, bracketing anything supernatural or non-physical. This science usually presupposes ontological naturalism: what exists is natural, or physical. But, the author will contend the fact-value split is mistaken; on naturalism, humans cannot have knowledge. At best, people only have interpretations, even in science. However, the author also will argue that people can have moral and religious knowledge. If so, there will be many practical implications for public policy and religious practice.

Naturalism as Metaphysics, Reduction without Fears

2021 ◽  
pp. 218-240
Author(s):  
William Wood
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Global Field ◽  
Methodological Naturalism ◽  
Ontological Naturalism ◽  
Academic Study

Part IV turns to an extended engagement with the academic study of religion, which is often constitutively hostile to any form of theology. Chapter 12 considers the place of “naturalism” and “reductionism” in the academic study of religion. While individual scholars of religion can—and often should—practice methodological naturalism, attempts to justify methodological naturalism as a global, field-defining norm inevitably presuppose controversial metaphysical claims, and thereby collapse into ontological naturalism—a position that I call “ontological naturalism on the cheap.” The chapter concludes that any barriers to including analytic theology in the wider field of religious studies are local and prudential, not global and methodological.

In Defense of Quinean Ontological Naturalism

Erkenntnis ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Dieveney
Keyword(s):  
Ontological Naturalism

ONTOLOGICAL NATURALISM*

2005 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 284-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yvonne Raley
Keyword(s):  
Ontological Naturalism

Rethinking the Fact-Value Split

2016 ◽  
pp. 63-80
Author(s):  
R. Scott Smith
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
South America ◽  
East Asia ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Religious Knowledge ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ontological Naturalism ◽  
Religion And Ethics ◽  
Practical Implications

Multicultural, western societies are quite secular, and the secular-sacred divide has been shaped by the fact-value split. But, the fact-value split also influences many other cultures, including in Latin and South America and East Asia. On it, science yields knowledge, but religion and ethics yield opinions and values. Closely related is the public-private split: governments should act on public reasons (ones based on science), and not private ones (ones based on religious and ethical views). Such science is methodologically naturalistic, bracketing anything supernatural or non-physical. This science usually presupposes ontological naturalism: what exists is natural, or physical. But, the author will contend the fact-value split is mistaken; on naturalism, humans cannot have knowledge. At best, people only have interpretations, even in science. However, the author also will argue that people can have moral and religious knowledge. If so, there will be many practical implications for public policy and religious practice.

scholarly journals The Scientific Weltanschauung: (Anti-)naturalism in Dilthey, Jaspers and Analytic Philosophy

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Spiegel
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Wilfrid Sellars ◽  
Philosophical Naturalism ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
First Order ◽  
Scientific Image ◽  
Ontological Naturalism ◽  
Belief Theory

Abstract Different forms of methodological and ontological naturalism constitute the current near-orthodoxy in analytic philosophy. Many prominent figures have called naturalism a (scientific) image (Sellars, W. 1962. “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man.” In Wilfrid Sellars, Science, Perception, Reality, 1–40. Ridgeview Publishing), a Weltanschauung (Loewer, B. 2001. “From Physics to Physicalism.” In Physicalism and its Discontents, edited by C. Gillett, and B. Loewer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Stoljar, D. 2010. Physicalism. Routledge), or even a “philosophical ideology” (Kim, J. 2003. “The American Origins of Philosophical Naturalism.” Journal of Philosophical Research 28: 83–98). This suggests that naturalism is indeed something over-and-above an ordinary philosophical thesis (e.g. in contrast to the justified true belief-theory of knowledge). However, these thinkers fail to tease out the host of implications this idea – naturalism being a worldview – presents. This paper draws on (somewhat underappreciated) remarks of Dilthey and Jaspers on the concept of worldviews (Weltanschauung, Weltbild) in order to demonstrate that naturalism as a worldview is a presuppositional background assumption which is left untouched by arguments against naturalism as a thesis. The concluding plea is (in order to make dialectical progress) to re-organize the existing debate on naturalism in a way that treats naturalism not as a first-order philosophical claim, but rather shifts its focus on naturalism’s status as a worldview.

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