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Rouse on Two Kinds of Naturalism

I thought this was a provocative way of demarcating two naturalistic tendencies in philosophy, from a review by Joseph Rouse (Wesleyan):

Within the broadly secular practice of contemporary philosophy, two alternative oppositional stances have replaced anti-supernaturalism in defining a naturalistic orientation, leading to at least two divergent strands of philosophical naturalism.  One approach, sometimes characterized as "scientific naturalism" (De Caro and MacArthur 2004), and more often described as "ontological naturalism" in this volume, now might be said to define itself in opposition to humanism rather than theism.  Here lies the motivation for some naturalists’ hostility to folk psychology, freedom, transcendental reason, the irreducibility of consciousness or first-person standpoints, and above all, any conception of normativity as sui generis.  Human beings live in a world indifferent or even hostile to our interests, desires, values, or perspectival priorities, and the sciences provide our primary access to this anthropo-peripheral world to which we must accommodate ourselves.  This anti-humanist strain of naturalism aspires to a hard-headed, resolute commitment to a thoroughly scientific self-understanding that can free us from the residual strands of self-aggrandizing illusion or wishful thinking that still confer disproportionate significance upon our all-too-human preoccupations.

A different, more inclusive conception of naturalism emphasizes a tolerant continuity of philosophy with the natural sciences.  Naturalism has long defined itself in opposition to conceptions of philosophy as autonomous from the natural sciences.  Yet here there has been considerable evolution.  When Frege and Husserl inveighed against psychologism in logic and naturalism in philosophy at the turn of the 20th Century, the naturalists they had in mind often sought to dispense with philosophy altogether; in Germany, the stakes were heightened by the struggles between philosophers and experimental psychologists for university chairs in philosophy.  A century later, naturalism has become an unequivocally philosophical stance toward philosophical issues, which appropriates the resources and/or the authority of natural science for philosophical ends.  If you want to find out about naturalism, you still need to read philosophy journals rather than just the scientific literature.  Within anglophone philosophy, naturalism has thus succeeded empiricism as the primary expression of a scientific orientation within philosophy, by loosening empiricist opposition to metaphysics, causality, and alethic modalities, and replacing formal logic and a priori analysis with cognitive science or evolutionary biology as the preferred basis for philosophical understanding of thought and action.

Differences between these two ways of defining a naturalistic orientation can be expressed in multiple ways.  The anti-humanist strain of naturalism is often radically revisionist, confining philosophical inquiry within the austere constraints of a physicalist ontology, a third-person standpoint, or the domains governed by natural laws.  Many familiar ways of thinking and talking must be reduced, revised, or eliminated to fit these constraints.  More inclusive versions of naturalism are not broadly revisionist in this way, while still providing considerable resources for criticism of specific positions and arguments.  Another way to distinguish the two strains is by considering where the naturalist looks for philosophical guidance.  For many anti-humanist conceptions, nature (as represented in scientific theories) provides the touchstone for philosophical work; for the more tolerant approaches, scientific practices in all their diversity provide the relevant philosophical resources, with no prior commitment to hierarchies among the sciences in their ontological commitments or explanatory resources. 

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6 responses to “Rouse on Two Kinds of Naturalism”

  1. I am a bit skeptical of the distinction between these two kinds of naturalism. The most common argument in the literature for physicalism, or "ontological naturalism," is the so-called argument from causal closure. This argument is based on premises which are thought by proponents of the argument to be pieces of established science (briefly, meta-inductions over the history of physics). Thus, one who seeks a kind of "continuity" between science and philosophy seems to me to be committed to a kind of physicalism, if this argument goes through. This is because at a minimum, naturalists must demand that all extra-scientific theories be consistent with established science, which requires (if the physicalists in question are right) that all such theories be consistent with the premises of the argument from causal closure. So perhaps one could be a naturalist without being a physicalist, but one would then be an inconsistent naturalist, even on the most generous understanding of naturalism.

    There is then a further question as to whether the kind of physicalism that all naturalists are committed to motivates the kinds of hostilities Rouse attributes to the 'anti-humanist'. Here, I think, the issue goes two ways. First, as the SEP article on physicalism notes, the type of physicalism in question need not be completely reductive; non-reductive physicalism is consistent with naturalism. Still, I do think that the irreducibility of consciousness and sui generis normativity do present puzzles even for the minimal physicalist, because even if she cannot reduce these things to physical facts, she should at least be able to understand how they fit into the overall picture of the physical world that natural science offers. It is not obvious how they could fit in, and so it is not surprising that physicalists are often driven to eliminating such things, despite the indifference of some to their irreducibility.

  2. I speak as an outsider, but I'd be surprised if many naturalists were happy with Rouse's distinction. Opposition to "intuition-mongering"–and not just in the philosophy of mind and action theory–has been one of the hallmarks of naturalism from the very beginning. (Well, at least from the point that I identify as the "beginning".) But Rouse's "more inclusive" kind of naturalism seems not to rule that out. Nor does it count people who treat religious experience as a source of evidence among the ranks of non-naturalists. As far as I can tell, there's nothing in that second characterization of naturalism that would count me as a non-naturalist. Well, it's always fun to be able to join the in-crowd, but somehow that seems to be too easy of a way in.

  3. hmh. Why couldn't there be room for humaine/humanist version of scientific/ontological naturalism? That is, it seems to me that one can 'confin[e] philosophical inquiry within the austere constraints of a physicalist ontology, a third-person standpoint, or the domains governed by natural law' AND NOT accept that 'human beings live in a world indifferent or even hostile to our interests, desires, values, or perspectival priorities'.

    I take it that this motivates much of naturalism in metaethics – there are respectable views that find the truth-makers for our normative and evaluative talk from the world as seen by our science. Many of these views even give science a role in discovering what these truth-makers are. Some of these views are even-non-reductivist and the ones that are reductivist are rarely eliminativists or nihilists. This makes me think that Rouse's classification misses much of naturalism in metaethics.

  4. Mike Rea is of course correct that opposition to intuition-mongering and to accepting religious experience as a source of empirical evidence is common ground to almost all philosophical naturalists. Brian quoted a brief introduction to a review, where I was focusing upon the differences between these two tendencies within naturalism, taking many common features for granted.
    Jussi Suikannen is also correct that the broad stance that I was describing as "anti-humanist" has many variations, some of whose proponents would surely dissent from various formulations I chose to highlight the differences between the two strands for the purposes of the review. That is the hazard of attempting broad classifications. I think the distinction is still useful even though qualifications are needed to acknowledge where some positions fall near or across its borders.
    At the risk of self-promotion, I note that I treat these distinctions more extensively, and develop my own constructive discussion of naturalism, in HOW SCIENTIFIC PRACTICES MATTER: RECLAIMING PHILOSOPHICAL NATURALISM (Chicago, 2002).

  5. I think that that is a good way to categorize the different types of naturalism. But I think we would be wise to not forget that it is just a categorization, and that categorization is just a conceptual choice. There are more than two different types of naturalism, and some may naturalist theories may not fit perfectly into either of the categories.

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