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HandWiki. Naturalism. Encyclopedia. Available online: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/36519 (accessed on 28 September 2026).
HandWiki. Naturalism. Encyclopedia. Available at: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/36519. Accessed September 28, 2026.
HandWiki. "Naturalism" Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/36519 (accessed September 28, 2026).
HandWiki. (2022, November 25). Naturalism. In Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/36519
HandWiki. "Naturalism." Encyclopedia. Web. 25 November, 2022.
Naturalism
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In philosophy, naturalism is the idea or belief that only natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the universe. According to philosopher Steven Lockwood, naturalism can be separated into an ontological sense and a methodological sense. "Ontological" refers to ontology, the philosophical study of what exists. On an ontological level, philosophers often treat naturalism as equivalent to materialism. For example, philosopher Paul Kurtz argues that nature is best accounted for by reference to material principles. These principles include mass, energy, and other physical and chemical properties accepted by the scientific community. Further, this sense of naturalism holds that spirits, deities, and ghosts are not real and that there is no "purpose" in nature. This stronger formulation of naturalism is commonly referred to as metaphysical naturalism. On the other hand, the more moderate view that naturalism should be assumed in one's working methods as the current paradigm, without any further consideration of whether naturalism is true in the robust metaphysical sense, is called methodological naturalism. With the exception of pantheists—who believe that Nature is identical with divinity while not recognizing a distinct personal anthropomorphic god—theists challenge the idea that nature contains all of reality. According to some theists, natural laws may be viewed as secondary causes of God(s). In the 20th century, Willard Van Orman Quine, George Santayana, and other philosophers argued that the success of naturalism in science meant that scientific methods should also be used in philosophy. According to this view, science and philosophy are not always distinct from one another, but instead form a continuum.

ontology naturalism materialism

References

  1. Chatterjee, A (2012). "Naturalism in Classical Indian Philosophy". in Zalta, Edward N.. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/naturalism-india/. 
  2. Riepe, Dale (1996). Naturalistic Tradition in Indian Thought, Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 227–246. ISBN 978-8120812932. 
  3. Leaman, Oliver (1999). Key Concepts in Eastern Philosophy. Routledge. p. 269. ISBN 978-0415173629. 
  4. O'Keefe, Tim (2010). Epicureanism. University of California Press. pp. 11–13. 
  5. See especially Physics, books I and II.
  6. Hankinson, R. J. (1997). Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought. Oxford University Press. p. 125. ISBN 978-0-19-924656-4. https://books.google.com/books?id=iwfy-n5IWL8C. 
  7. William Edward Morris, "David Hume", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (21 May 2014), Edward N. Zalta (ed.) https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/
  8. Immanuel Kant. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2020. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/. 
  9. Hanna, Robert, Kant, Science, and Human Nature. Clarendon Press, 2006, p. 16.
  10. Frederick C. Beiser(2002), German Idealism: The Struggle Against Subjectivism 1781-1801, Harvard university Press, p. 506.
  11. Axel Honneth, Hans Joas, Social Action and Human Nature, Cambridge University Press, 1988, p. 18.
  12. See Georgi Plekhanov, "For the Sixtieth Anniversary of Hegel's Death" (1891). See also Plekhanov, Essays on the History of Materialism (1893) and Plekhanov, The Development of the Monist View of History (1895).
  13. Owen Chadwick, The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 165: "During the 1850s German ... scientists conducted a controversy known ... as the materialistic controversy. It was specially associated with the names of Vogt, Moleschott and Büchner" and p. 173: "Frenchmen were surprised to see Büchner and Vogt. ... [T]he French were surprised at German materialism".
  14. The Nineteenth Century and After, Vol. 151, 1952, p. 227: "the Continental materialism of Moleschott and Buchner". https://books.google.com/books?id=8-VXAAAAIAAJ&q=
  15. Papineau, David "Naturalism", in "The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/
  16. Papineau, David (2011). "The Rise of Physicalism". in Gillett, Carl; Loewer, Barry. Physicalism and its Discontents. Cambridge. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511570797. ISBN 9780521801751. http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9780511570797. 
  17. Papineau 2007.
  18. Quentin Meillassoux (2008), After Finitude, Bloomsbury, p. 90.
  19. Nick Matzke: On the Origins of Methodological Naturalism . The Pandas Thumb (March 20, 2006) http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/03/on_the_origins.html
  20. "ASA March 2006 – Re: Methodological Naturalism". http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/200603/0501.html. 
  21. Schafersman 1996.
  22. Sagan, Carl (2002). Cosmos. Random House. ISBN 9780375508325.  https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random%20House
  23. Danto 1967, p. 448.
  24. Stone 2008, p. 2: Personally, I place great emphasis on the phrase "in principle", since there are many things that science does not now explain. And perhaps we need some natural piety concerning the ontological limit question as to why there is anything at all. But the idea that naturalism is a polemical notion is important"
  25. Strahler 1992, p. 3.
  26. (Plantinga 2010)
  27. Priddy, Robert (1998). "Chapter Five, Scientific Objectivity in Question". Science Limited. http://robertpriddy.com/lim/5.html. 
  28. Whitehead 1997, p. 135.
  29. Boldman, Lee (2007). "Chapter 6, The Privileged Status of Science". http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p98831/pdf/ch0615.pdf. 
  30. Papineau, David "Naturalism", in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, quote, "The great majority of contemporary philosophers would happily... reject 'supernatural' entities, and allow that science is a possible route (if not necessarily the only one) to important truths about the 'human spirit'." http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/
  31. Heilbron 2003, p. vii.
  32. Chen 2009, pp. 1–2.
  33. Durak 2008.
  34. Vaccaro, Joan. "Reality". http://www.ict.griffith.edu.au/joan/atheism/reality.php. 
  35. Vaccaro, Joan. "Objectiveism". http://www.ict.griffith.edu.au/joan/atheism/objectivism.php. "Objective reality exists beyond or outside our self. Any belief that it arises from a real world outside us is actually an assumption. It seems more beneficial to assume that an objective reality exists than to live with solipsism, and so people are quite happy to make this assumption. In fact we made this assumption unconsciously when we began to learn about the world as infants. The world outside ourselves appears to respond in ways which are consistent with it being real. The assumption of objectivism is essential if we are to attach the contemporary meanings to our sensations and feelings and make more sense of them." 
  36. Sobottka 2005, p. 11.
  37. Gauch 2002, p. 154, "Expressed as a single grand statement, science presupposes that the physical world is orderly and comprehensible. The most obvious components of this comprehensive presupposition are that the physical world exists and that our sense perceptions are generally reliable."
  38. Gould 1987, p. 120, "You cannot go to a rocky outcrop and observe either the constancy of nature's laws or the working of known processes. It works the other way around." You first assume these propositions and "then you go to the outcrop of rock."
  39. Simpson 1963, pp. 24–48, "Uniformity is an unprovable postulate justified, or indeed required, on two grounds. First, nothing in our incomplete but extensive knowledge of history disagrees with it. Second, only with this postulate is a rational interpretation of history possible and we are justified in seeking—as scientists we must seek—such a rational interpretation."
  40. Gould 1965, pp. 223–228.
  41. Gould 1984, p. 11.
  42. Hooykaas 1963, p. 38.
  43. "Simple Random Sampling". http://betterevaluation.org/evaluation-options/simplerandom. "A simple random sample (SRS) is the most basic probabilistic option used for creating a sample from a population. Each SRS is made of individuals drawn from a larger population, completely at random. As a result, said individuals have an equal chance of being selected throughout the sampling process. The benefit of SRS is that as a result, the investigator is guaranteed to choose a sample which is representative of the population, which ensures statistically valid conclusions." 
  44. Judge John E. Jones, III Decision of the Court Expert witnesses were John F. Haught, Robert T. Pennock, and Kenneth R. Miller. Links in the original to specific testimony records have been deleted here. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/kitzmiller_v_dover_decision2.html
  45. Ecklund, Elaine Howard (2010). Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195392982. 
  46. "Kitzmiller v. Dover: Day 3, AM: Robert Pennock (continued)". http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/day3am2.html. 
  47. Kitzmiller v. Dover: Whether ID is Science
  48. Scott, Eugenie C. (2008). "Science and Religion, Methodology and Humanism". NCSE. http://ncse.com/religion/science-religion-methodology-humanism. 
  49. Scott, Eugenie C. (1996). ""Creationism, Ideology, and Science"". in Gross. The Flight From Science and Reason. The New York Academy of Sciences. pp. 519–520. 
  50. Lynne Rudder (2013). Naturalism and the First-Person Perspective. Oxford University Press. p. 5. ISBN 978-0199914746. https://books.google.com/books?id=9G_bIWzgjFkC&pg=PA5. 
  51. Quine has argued that "Epistemology, or something like it, simply falls into place as a chapter of psychology." The Quinean view that we should abandon epistemology for psychology, however, is not widely accepted by contemporary naturalists in epistemology. See Feldman, Richard (2012). "Naturalized Epistemology". Naturalized Epistemology (Summer 2012 ed.). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2012/entries/epistemology-naturalized/. Retrieved 2014-06-04. "Quinean Replacement Naturalism finds relatively few supporters.". 
  52. Beilby, J.K. (2002). Naturalism Defeated?: Essays on Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. G – Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series. Cornell University Press. p. ix. ISBN 9780801487637. https://books.google.com/books?id=p40tc_T7-rMC&pg=PR9. 
  53. "Gifford Lecture Series – Warrant and Proper Function 1987–1988". http://www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPWAPF&Cover=TRUE. 
  54. Plantinga, Alvin (11 April 2010). "Evolution, Shibboleths, and Philosophers — Letters to the Editor". The Chronicle of Higher Education. http://chronicle.com/article/Evolution-Shibboleths-and/64990/. "...I do indeed think that evolution functions as a contemporary shibboleth by which to distinguish the ignorant fundamentalist goats from the informed and scientifically literate sheep.According to Richard Dawkins, 'It is absolutely safe to say that, if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid, or insane (or wicked, but I'd rather not consider that).' Daniel Dennett goes Dawkins one (or two) further: 'Anyone today who doubts that the variety of life on this planet was produced by a process of evolution is simply ignorant—inexcusably ignorant.' You wake up in the middle of the night; you think, can that whole Darwinian story really be true? Wham! You are inexcusably ignorant.I do think that evolution has become a modern idol of the tribe. But of course it doesn't even begin to follow that I think the scientific theory of evolution is false. And I don't." 
  55. Plantinga, Alvin (1993). Warrant and Proper Function. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chap. 11. ISBN 0-19-507863-2. 
  56. Beilby, J.K., ed (2002). "Introduction by Alvin Plantinga". Naturalism Defeated?: Essays on Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. pp. 1–2, 10. ISBN 978-0-8014-8763-7.  https://books.google.com/books?id=p40tc_T7-rMC&pg=PA1
  57. T., Robert (10 June 2015). "Supernaturalist Explanations...". http://www.msu.edu/~pennock5/research/papers/Pennock_SupNatExpl.html. 
  58. Steiner, Mark (1998). The Applicability of Mathematics as a Philosophical Problem. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. p. 176. ISBN 0674043987. 
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