Via The Maverick PhilosopherNaturalism staggers back and forth between physicalism (materialism) as a general ontology or first philosophy, and outright physicsism or scientism (which need not take the form of physicsism)--often, though not always, trying to derive physics-ism from scientism and then physicalism from physics-ism. This continues up to the present.
In a recent review Patricia Kitcher chides Stephen Stich for "philosophical Puritanism" when he takes Naturalism to hold that the only real entities are physical. (In her review of Stich's Deconstructing the Mind, in The Journal of Philosophy, 95 (December 1998), 641-644, pp. 641-642) Such a position apparently has now led Stich to give up Naturalism "in favor of an open-ended pluralism." Pluralism, as he takes it, is a position that counts as legitimate all properties "invoked in successful scientific theories." But for Kitcher, it seems, such "Pluralism," tied to "successful science," is just the Naturalism we want. She points out how "the obvious authorities" on naturalistic epistemology (Quine, Goldman) counsel us to "make free use of empirical psychology" and to "reunite epistemology with psychology." (Kitcher, p. 642) Forget physicalism, her point seems to be. A loose scientism is enough to secure Naturalism for us. Indeed, many of the "generous" Naturalists of the mid-20th century gathered around Dewey and Sidney Hook identified Naturalism precisely with acceptance of science and only science as the arbiter of truth and reality, and seemed, at least, to accept whatever came out the end of the pipe of "scientific inquiry" as knowledge and reality.
But if the points made above about science, even "successful science," and about psychology in particular, are true, Kitcher's advice--similar to the advice of a Dewey or Hook--simply cannot be followed. It is vacuous in practice, for there is no way of identifying and accessing the "successful science" which is proposed as defining Naturalism. At most you get "science now," which is really only "some scientist(s) now." And certainly no science (including psychology) that was not Naturalistic in some strongly physicalistic or at least Empiricist sense would be accepted as "successful" by those inclined to Naturalism. Then we are back in the circle: Naturalism in terms of science--but, of course, naturalistic science.
For these reasons I take it that the appeal to science cannot serve to specify naturalism. There are, then, good reasons to be a "Puritan" if you want to advocate Naturalism. Naturalism has to be an honest metaphysics; and that metaphysics has to be "unqualified physicalism" as referred to above. But then a thinker who would be naturalist would feel pressure to have recourse to some specific a priori analyses to render his ontological specification of Naturalism plausible. Short of that one simply can find no reason why naturalistic monism with respect to reality, knowledge or method should be true: no reason why there should not be radically different kinds of realities with correspondingly radically different kinds of knowledge and inquiry. Why a priori should one suppose the sciences could be "unified"? And why should we think that the identifiable sciences together could exhaust knowledge and reality? It is simply a hope that some people have shared. ... In addition to the difficulty of coming up with the required a priori analyses, however, to turn to such inquiry as might produce them would (as I have already indicated) be to break with the epistemological monism essential to Naturalism and introduce something like a "first philosophy." This would be discontinuous with the empirical methods of the sciences. In showing its justification through a priori analysis, Naturalism would simply give up the game.
Back to weightier things.
I found this essay by Dallas Williard and I'm certain it will bore the heck out of my non philosophically inclined readers, but I think this is a very important point: naturalism is inconsistent with any kind of ethics. The best it can do is Utility, and in that scenario anything can be justified "if it works." Nothing is out and out wrong. In practice I think few people actually subscribe to this, even when they say otherwise. If you were to rob or hurt them to better yourself, or even if you gave the money or property to widows and orphans, I think it is almost certain that people claiming ethical utility would be outraged.
I've used emphasis to help anyone skimming to find the key points quickly.
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