Philosophical naturalism
Overview
Philosophical naturalism (also metaphysical or ontological naturalism) is the view that the natural world is all there is: everything that exists is part of nature and behaves according to natural regularities, and there are no supernatural beings, forces, or realms. It is to be distinguished from methodological naturalism, which is the weaker working rule that science investigates natural causes only, whatever may or may not exist beyond them.
Notes
- I hold the philosophical version, but as a conclusion rather than a presupposition. The argument is simple: every phenomenon that has ever been explained has turned out to have a natural explanation, no phenomenon has ever been shown to have a supernatural one, and appeals to the supernatural have no explanatory power in any case. "God did it" does not explain anything; it relocates the mystery and gives it a name. See God.
- Naturalism does not say that everything is currently explained. It says that the unexplained is unexplained, not supernatural. To infer the supernatural from a gap in knowledge is the Appeal to Ignorance.
- Naturalism is compatible with the laws of logic and with mathematics, which are not physical objects but are not supernatural either; see My Presuppositions and the Transcendental Argument for why I do not think they require a lawgiver.
- The commitments that follow from it in this vault: the mind is the brain (Consciousness, Mind-body dualism), death is the end (Life After Death), life is the product of evolution, and morality is a natural phenomenon.