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Philosophy Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [naturalism]

78 questions
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What is the difference between naturalism and materialism?

What is the difference between naturalism and materialism, if any? I see definitions of naturalism that say, in effect, it is the belief that there is no supernatural. But what is the supernatural other than that which is not natural, which seems…
David Lewis
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Is naturalism falsifiable?

From Wikipedia: In philosophy, naturalism is the idea or belief that only natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the universe.[1] Naturalism is not so much a special system as a point of view or tendency common to a…
user48437
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Why is it an unpopular view, among philosophers and religious people, that a human being has a supernatural, spiritual soul?

I used to believe that a human being has a supernatural, spiritual soul and that it is obvious for the reasons stated below. I was very surprised to find out that not only secular philosophy, but even Catholic academic theology seem to reject this…
gaazkam
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Adequate Animal Housing and the Naturalistic Fallacy

Many animal rights activists claim that adequate animal housing should be geared towards the natural environment of animals. For example, they claim that monkeys should be not kept within human's houses because their natural environment is the…
Bob
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Is it possible to define "the supernatural"?

From a naturalistic perspective, it is possible to argue that the supernatural not only doesn't exist, but cannot even be defined. The reasoning goes that anything which "appears" to be supernatural, is simply misunderstood or conforms to laws of…
LightCC
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Could there ever be evidence for an infinite being?

The God of Anselm is understood as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived." From this definition, God can be presumed to be omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, perfectly free, uncaused, eternal, morally perfect, etc. God is fashioned as…
Bryson S.
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Quine and the Myth of the Given

To give you some background details about myself: I have a deep interest in Quine's work and Naturalism in Philosophy; I have been independently studying and reading Quine's work and his relation to other philosophers, in particular the relation…
Leucippus
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What is the difference between Naturalism and Physicalism?

I am trying to figure the difference between Naturalism and Physicalism. As far as I could tell, they were the same thing, except that physicalism (physicalist vs dualist) was the term used when discussing philosophy of mind and naturalism was the…
Alexander S King
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Is G.E Moore's notion of goodness widely held and defended by contemporaneous philosophers?

I was wondering whether the idea that goodness cannot be defined and is just intuitively recognisable when observed, still holds significant weight? It seems somewhat similar to Plato's idea of goodness in the sense that we know it when we see it…
Jim stoke
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Are artificially synthesized chemical elements natural?

Humans have synthesized elements that do not exist in nature, at least not around here. This strikes me as a serious philosophical hairball: where does a philosophical naturalist put these critters? On the one hand, they are arguably a product of…
user20153
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Is philosophical naturalism circular reasoning?

I'm a steadfast proponent of science and logic, but it's been occurring to me lately that this belief in the veracity of science may be just that, a belief---no different than a theist's beliefs in God. It seems that this idea that the universe…
brianmearns
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Where can one find the most fully developed version of EAAN with the four-part defense of premise 1?

Having just completed Alvin Plantinga's book Where the Conflict Really Lies, I was a bit surprised to learn that he now takes a different approach to defending premise 1 of the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN) than he has in the past.…
DicePower
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Is naturalism the null hypothesis?

If one is not able to come up with a reason to believe anything supernatural, should one “by default” assume naturalism to be true? Or should one remain completely agnostic? If I see a person hitting a baseball, should I by default assume that…
thinkingman
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Barring miracles, can anything in principle ever establish the existence of the supernatural?

Before moving on with my question, I want to note that by supernatural I mean anything that would be considered a cause not known to be operating under known natural laws. Sure, if pigs started flying tomorrow, there may be an unknown natural…
thinkingman
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Is my objection to naturalism popular or fringe in contemporary philosophy?

I have a line of thought that strict naturalism (in the most extreme case, the belief that only particle physics is an accurate description of reality) is self-defeating. I say this because notions like intentionality, reference and semantic truth…
Noah Mancino
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