Abstract
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.
Highlights
Different versions of naturalism arguably constitute a majority view in current Anglophone, analytic philosophy
This paper draws on 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
Perhaps some evidence for this claim can be provided. Both Richard Rorty and Brian Leiter agree that the opposition between naturalism and Wittgensteinian quietism is the “deepest and most intractable difference of opinion within contemporary Anglophone philosophy”, their loyalty being to different sides of this fault-line (Rorty 2010, 57)
Summary
Different versions of naturalism arguably constitute a majority view in current Anglophone, analytic philosophy. Some naturalists, Ney (2008) and Rea (2002), have developed a defence against Hempel’s dilemma and the coherence problem that requires naturalism to be reformulated as a stance, attitude, or “oath” Apart from this debate whether naturalism can be reconceived in this manner as a stance, attitude or project, there has been an almost implicit acknowledgment by some influential authors that naturalism is a Weltanschauung (or some of its linguistic cognates). It is clear that Sellars is on the right rack in using the term “image” to denote our view of the world as it is fashioned by the sciences, implicitly acknowledging that having an “image” of the world is something other than merely holding a certain belief or endorsing a set of propositions These aspects are arguably part of the scientific image too, but there seems to be a surplus Sellars (and other analytic philosophers) using such terms aim to convey, yet not make explicit. The following section aims at teasing out that surplus conveyed by terms like “image”, “ideology”, and “Weltanschauung” with the help of Dilthey and Jaspers
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