Define “natural world” so that it’s clearer how the above is non-tautological.
(this is not to be confused with a dualistic opposition to anything “supernatural”;
If you aren’t denying or opposing anything, then what work is “only” doing in the sense “the natural world is the only world”?
the supernatural is simply ruled out as an option)
What does it mean in this context to ‘rule out as an option’ something? How does this differ from ‘opposing’ an option?
and ii) that science is a preferred means of obtaining knowledge about said world.
Define ‘science,’ while you’re at it. Is looking out the window science? Is logical deduction science? Is logical deduction science when your premises are ‘about the world’? Same question for mathematical reasoning. I’d think most scientists in their daily lives would actually consider logical or mathematical reasoning stronger than, ‘preferred’ over, any scientific observation or theory.
I realize that’s less clear than you may want, but the vagueness of the term is part of why I found it objectionable to treat is as instilling “bad habits”.
The vagueness of the term ‘naturalism’ is the primary reason it’s a bad habit to define your methods or world-view in terms of it.
And ethics/meta-ethics, moral theory, social theory, aesthetics...all of these are, at least in part, beyond the realm of the empirical
I don’t know what you mean by ‘beyond the realm of the empirical.’ Plenty of logic and mathematics also transcends the observable. I think we’d get a lot further in this discussion if we started defining or tabooing ‘science,’ ‘philosophy,’ ‘empirical,’ ‘natural,’ etc.
This is part of why we need naturalistic philosophy, because without it you wind up with unabashed scientism like this, which sits right on the precipice of “ethical” choices which can be monstrous.
To be honest, this sentence here pretty much sums up what I think is wrong with modern philosophy. There is virtually no content to ‘naturalism’ or ‘scientism,’ beyond the fact that both are associated with science and the former has a positive connotation, while the latter has a negative connotation. Thus we see much of the modern philosophical (and pop-philosophical) discourse consumed in hand-wringing over whether something is ‘naturalistic’ (goodscience! happy face!) or whether something is ‘scientistic’ (badscience! frowny face!), and the whole framing does nothing but obscure what’s actually under debate. Any non-trivial definition of ‘naturalism’ and ‘scientism’ will allow that a reasonable scientist might be forced to forsake naturalism, or adopt scientism, in at least some circumstances; and any circular or otherwise trivial one is not worth discussing.
If you aren’t denying or opposing anything, then what work is “only” doing in the sense “the natural world is the only world”?
In that there is “no more than”, in ontological terms, there are no other fundamental categories of being. I don’t have to explicitly deny that unicorns exist in order to rule them out of any taxonomy of equine animals.
If you’ve presupposed a worldview that allows for “supernatural” or “mystical” or Cartesian mind-substance or what have you, then of course the opposition seems obvious, but modern analytical naturalism as it stands makes no such allowance. This is why we cannot take our presuppositions for granted.
Define ‘science,’ while you’re at it.
You don’t have the space on this forum for that debate. However, for pragmatic purposes, let’s (roughly) call it the social activity of institutionalized formal empirical inquiry, inclusive of the error-correcting norms and structures meant to filter our systematic errors.
The vagueness of the term ‘naturalism’ is the primary reason it’s a bad habit to define your methods or world-view in terms of it.
Maybe if you didn’t take flippant comments and run with them you wouldn’t encounter this problem. I brought up naturalism because I found it hilarious that “even modern analytic philosophy” teaches these laughably vague “bad habits”—which you still seem surprisingly unconcerned with, given the far more serious issues there—and contemporary naturalism as practiced by many philosophers in the English-speaking world is as pro-science a set of ideas as you’ll find.
Spiraling it out into this protracted debate about whether we can accurately define naturalism—on your terms, no less—is not the point of the exercise (and I suspect it’s only happened to take the focus off the matter at hand: that there is no adequate account of these “bad habits” and we’re seeing an interference play to keep eyes off it).
There is virtually no content to ‘naturalism’ or ‘scientism,’ beyond the fact that both are associated with science and the former has a positive connotation, while the latter has a negative connotation.
Yes I’m well aware of the dislike of anything intrinsically opposed to the formal and computable around these parts, and I also find that position to be laughable (and a shining example of why you folks need to engage with philosophy rather than jumping head-first into troubling [and equally laughable] moral-ethical positions).
But, as per the thread, there is a more interesting and proximate criticism: your intuitions on such are unreliable, by your own lights, so you’ll pardon me if I am hardly persuaded by your fiat declaration that i) there is “no content” to a whole wide-ranging debate (of which you seem barely familiar with, at that, with your introduction of yet another nonsensical opposition that might as well be fiction for all it reflects the actual process*) and ii) that we should—again by decree—paint as “useless” the tools and methods used to engage in the debate.
We are only fortunate that the actual intellectual world doesn’t conduct itself like a message board.
PS There is no serious debate “between” naturalism and scientism. The latter isn’t even a “position” as such, even less so than naturalism could be.
Define “natural world” so that it’s clearer how the above is non-tautological.
If you aren’t denying or opposing anything, then what work is “only” doing in the sense “the natural world is the only world”?
What does it mean in this context to ‘rule out as an option’ something? How does this differ from ‘opposing’ an option?
Define ‘science,’ while you’re at it. Is looking out the window science? Is logical deduction science? Is logical deduction science when your premises are ‘about the world’? Same question for mathematical reasoning. I’d think most scientists in their daily lives would actually consider logical or mathematical reasoning stronger than, ‘preferred’ over, any scientific observation or theory.
The vagueness of the term ‘naturalism’ is the primary reason it’s a bad habit to define your methods or world-view in terms of it.
I don’t know what you mean by ‘beyond the realm of the empirical.’ Plenty of logic and mathematics also transcends the observable. I think we’d get a lot further in this discussion if we started defining or tabooing ‘science,’ ‘philosophy,’ ‘empirical,’ ‘natural,’ etc.
To be honest, this sentence here pretty much sums up what I think is wrong with modern philosophy. There is virtually no content to ‘naturalism’ or ‘scientism,’ beyond the fact that both are associated with science and the former has a positive connotation, while the latter has a negative connotation. Thus we see much of the modern philosophical (and pop-philosophical) discourse consumed in hand-wringing over whether something is ‘naturalistic’ (goodscience! happy face!) or whether something is ‘scientistic’ (badscience! frowny face!), and the whole framing does nothing but obscure what’s actually under debate. Any non-trivial definition of ‘naturalism’ and ‘scientism’ will allow that a reasonable scientist might be forced to forsake naturalism, or adopt scientism, in at least some circumstances; and any circular or otherwise trivial one is not worth discussing.
In that there is “no more than”, in ontological terms, there are no other fundamental categories of being. I don’t have to explicitly deny that unicorns exist in order to rule them out of any taxonomy of equine animals.
If you’ve presupposed a worldview that allows for “supernatural” or “mystical” or Cartesian mind-substance or what have you, then of course the opposition seems obvious, but modern analytical naturalism as it stands makes no such allowance. This is why we cannot take our presuppositions for granted.
You don’t have the space on this forum for that debate. However, for pragmatic purposes, let’s (roughly) call it the social activity of institutionalized formal empirical inquiry, inclusive of the error-correcting norms and structures meant to filter our systematic errors.
Maybe if you didn’t take flippant comments and run with them you wouldn’t encounter this problem. I brought up naturalism because I found it hilarious that “even modern analytic philosophy” teaches these laughably vague “bad habits”—which you still seem surprisingly unconcerned with, given the far more serious issues there—and contemporary naturalism as practiced by many philosophers in the English-speaking world is as pro-science a set of ideas as you’ll find.
Spiraling it out into this protracted debate about whether we can accurately define naturalism—on your terms, no less—is not the point of the exercise (and I suspect it’s only happened to take the focus off the matter at hand: that there is no adequate account of these “bad habits” and we’re seeing an interference play to keep eyes off it).
Yes I’m well aware of the dislike of anything intrinsically opposed to the formal and computable around these parts, and I also find that position to be laughable (and a shining example of why you folks need to engage with philosophy rather than jumping head-first into troubling [and equally laughable] moral-ethical positions).
But, as per the thread, there is a more interesting and proximate criticism: your intuitions on such are unreliable, by your own lights, so you’ll pardon me if I am hardly persuaded by your fiat declaration that i) there is “no content” to a whole wide-ranging debate (of which you seem barely familiar with, at that, with your introduction of yet another nonsensical opposition that might as well be fiction for all it reflects the actual process*) and ii) that we should—again by decree—paint as “useless” the tools and methods used to engage in the debate.
We are only fortunate that the actual intellectual world doesn’t conduct itself like a message board.
PS There is no serious debate “between” naturalism and scientism. The latter isn’t even a “position” as such, even less so than naturalism could be.