Naturalism - Naturalism commonly refers to the philosophical belief that only natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the world and that nothing exists beyond the natural world

Supernatural - The supernatural or supranatural (Latin: super, supra "above" + natura "nature") is anything above or beyond what one holds to be natural or exists outside natural law and the observable universe

There are phenomena in nature that are not adequately described by our current formulation of physics. Furthermore, physics and many other sciences are heavily dependant on mathematical modeling. A model is not equivalent to something being "factually true" even if it is verified by experiment. See Aaron W.'s thread in SMP. Belief that a model is what is really happening requires another set of unverified assumptions.

Do phenomena that are not adequately/correctly described by science go beyond what is currently understood to be "natural law"? Does that make these phenomena supernatural? If not, why not (refer to my above definitions)? Do we not have to assume current natural law will adequately describe all phenomena at some point in the future to flatly say "supernatural things don't exist"? Given the way science works, the state of modern particle physics and cosmology, and how often physical laws need to be revised at extreme energy scales, isn't this a strange assumption to make?

Help me understand why naturalism is "right".

I wouldnt try and persuade you it's right, but I think the adherent of naturalism is going to distinguish between what we think the laws of physics are and what they actually are. So when we revise our laws of physics, we're not really changing anything other than our best model of what these 'real laws' are.

The naturalist conception (as I understand it) is then merely that these real laws provide a complete description - whether we ever actually get there or not is not the same question.

I think the belief that naturalism is true is an assumption.

So aren't naturalists basically just saying "everything which exists is natural, by definition, therefore supernatural things don't exist"?

Well I'm no expert but I think so - alhough by 'exist' I think they mean with spatio-temporal location and subject to the laws of physics. As such, I dont think it has no consequences. Things like a benevolent, omnipotent, omniscient creator outside of time and space dont really fit in to 'described by the laws of nature'.

I suspect there's a strong correlation between naturalists and empiricists. As I say though, I'm no expert and I'm not sure the terms are well defined.

Cool. I'll have to wait for a naturalist to clarify and try to convince me then I suppose.

Do you think the words are well defined? Would a ghost be supernatural? A previously untheorised subatomic particle? A god who answers prayers?

I don't think they are all that well-defined actually. I think all three of the things you mentioned could be either natural or supernatural depending on what someone means by natural (and whether they really "exist").

I don't know if it's an uninteresting semantics issue, people are equivocating with the words "exist" and "natural", or naturalists are begging the question.

Given the popularity of naturalism on these boards, I was hoping someone could convince me.

Isnt everything that is just is. The natural vs. supernatural, material vs non-material has always confused me. Its all apart of the deal as far as i can tell.

There are two main components of naturalism: an epistemological and an ontological claim. Epistemological naturalists are generally committed to the claim that the methods of natural science are our only way of gaining reliable knowledge about the nature of the world, our selves, or anything else. This means that they will generally regard philosophy as continuous with science, rather than a discipline with a radically different methodology.

Practically speaking, this means that they think that philosophers should not regard themselves as doing an a priori investigation of the nature of reality, morality, language, consciousness, etc. Instead, they should model their investigations of these phenomena on those of the natural sciences.

The second component is an ontological claim. This seems to involve (roughly) at least two ideas. First, it is thought to be the claim that everything that exists is part of spatio-temporal reality. That is, if anything is real, then it is part of the spatio-temporal universe. Second, it involves a causal claim: that the cause or explanation of any event or entity in the spatio-temporal world is itself in or a part of the spatio-temporal world.

A couple comments:

First, notice that naturalism is not the same thing as materialism. Materialism is best contrasted with some kind of mentalism or idealism and is generally understood as the view that only material objects exist, or that there are no mental objects. On the other hand, naturalism should be contrasted with supernaturalism. Here it might be possible to be a kind of naturalist while rejecting materialism, or at least having a sort of modified property dualist materialism (as many contemporary philosophers do).

Second, some people describe themselves as naturalists who accept only some of the views I described above. That is fine--I'm not trying to lay out the necessary and sufficient conditions for naturalism, but rather trying to describe its general features.

Naturalists don't claim that we have an explanation for all natural phenomena. Rather, they claim that the form of a good explanation for anything that is real will only include appeals to events or entities that are part of the spatio-temporal world and will be found or justified by using the tools of science.

I'm not sure I understand why you think that the use of mathematical modeling in science is inconsistent with naturalist priors, so could you expand on this point a bit more?

It seems to me that you are confused about the naturalist view. They are not claiming that the model of the universe accepted in contemporary physics is the correct one. Nor are they claiming that we can currently explain all phenomena in naturalistic terms. Instead, they are claiming that the correct model of the universe will be like the contemporary one in that it only appeals to entities or events in the spatio-temporal world and that the correct explanation of any currently unexplained phenomena will also only appeal to such entities or events.

Thanks for that - I find the whole topic confusing since it seems to me one could be a naturalistic ghost hunter on that account (whereas ghosts seem to me to be fairly squarely in the realm of the supernatural).

What would a naturalist say about the law of gravity? It has no separate existence as an object (despite our grammatical habit) but is rather shorthand for a description of how things behave?

Yeah, I think it is actually quite difficult to state naturalism so that it rules out in a principled way things like ghosts. So here's what I would say about these penumbra cases.

First, many people equate naturalism and materialism, but it would probably be useful to keep them conceptually distinct. If we do so, then although materialism would rule out ghosts, naturalism would not. Naturalism also wouldn't rule out immanent deities or Cartesian souls. Thus, the fact that most naturalists don't believe in ghosts, etc. is more a result of their materialism than their naturalism. Of course, as a matter of fact, most naturalists are materialists and so don't believe in ghosts or deities, but materialism doesn't appear to be a logical implication of naturalism.

However, naturalism would rule out any kind of supernatural behavior by these ghosts or deities. There would be no miracles--all of their behavior would have to be part of the closed causal chain of the spatio-temporal universe. So naturalism is inconsistent with those versions of deities and ghosts which include supernaturalism.

However, many Cartesians view the causal effects of the immaterial soul as being part of the spatio-temporal universe and so this view of the soul still wouldn't be ruled out. Mostly, I don't think that Cartesian souls are ruled out by ontological naturalism. I suspect that the main reason they actually are rejected by naturalists has more to do with the epistemological commitments of naturalism--that Cartesian souls are not part of the scientific investigation of the mind.

I'm not sure I see what the issue is here. Is there something in particular about naturalism that raises a problem in understanding the nature of the laws of science that goes beyond the usual problems?

What I meant was that we speak of the law of gravity as if it's a thing, yet there isnt any sense in which it has a location in time and space (other than perhaps 'everywhere/when') so identifying it as a separate object would seem to me to be contrary to the naturalist view you broadly outlined above. I wonder whether the usual naturalist response is "it's not a separate thing, we just speak of it like that. In fact what we call 'the law of gravity' is really just a concise way of describing how objects in the universe behave.

I could imagine a naturalistic account where objects dont operate under any law of gravity - they move towards one another with an acceleration proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them (modified as necessary to be correct). However there isn't some existent law they are obeying, it is rather just that our theories of gravitation are a succinct way of describing an infinite number of possible events.

If they say the law of gravity has some real existence and anything which exists has spatio-temporal location - where is it supposed to be? If it's 'in our brains' or something, it means gravity didnt exist before intelligent beings did - which contradicts what we see in the universe.

Yeah, I don't think that we actually talk about the laws of nature as if they were separate entities. "The laws of nature" can function as the subject of a well-formed sentence, but it is a mistake (in my view) to think that anything that can function as a subject must be a separate entity.

Some people have argued that in order to make sense of the laws of nature we must posit kind of metaphysical entity in which they are grounded, whether it be a god or some theory of universals. Pretty clearly most naturalists will reject such views. However, this hardly makes them unique--the rejection of such views are one of the characteristics of the rise of modern science and the empiricism that came along with it (especially in philosophy of Hume).

Also, most naturalists accept some version of Hume's view about causation and the laws of nature such that they don't think there is any kind of deep metaphysical necessity about these laws.

Anyway, I don't think I'm adequately answering your question, but I'm still not really clear on the issue. Do you think that naturalists have to accept some kind of Platonic view of language such that the laws of nature must refer to an entity?

As far as bunny's point about gravity being something, this is something that I have asked before. Alan Guth said in an article:

http://discovermagazine.com/2002/apr/cover

And I have heard this from other prominent scientists as well. It seems that some "Laws of Physics" is not merely a description of what we see, but actually something independent of matter, space, or time.

Yeah, I don't think that on naturalism you have to accept the view that the laws of nature are just descriptions of the properties of objects--notice that on the view espoused by Guth these laws will still be part of the spatio-temporal universe.

I agree that materialism doesn't logically follow from naturalism. But what do you guys think about the following relationships?

Does naturalism follow from materialism?
Does reductionism follow from materialism?
Does reductionism follow from naturalism?

P.S. I think this thread should be in SMP.

Thanks for the detailed answer OP. Might have to come back and read your posts more carefully later when I have more time.

So what is the different between epistemological naturalism and empiricism?

This relates to my modeling comment. Namely, where does this "spatio-temporal" restriction come from and why is it justified. I'll clarify below.

Do naturalists claim, as a matter of practicality, that the only things that should be considered in scientific investigations are things which have a physical effect. Or are they making a stronger claim that the only things which exist have a physical effect? If it is the former, I can certainly get behind it. If it is the latter, I don't think I can.

In doing a little digging on "supernaturalism", here's a quote from wiki that kind of sums up my thoughts on the distinction:

"By its own definition, science is incapable of examining or testing for the existence of things that have no physical effects, because its methods rely on the observation of physical effects. Proponents of supernaturalism say that their belief system is more flexible, which allows more diversity in terms of intuition and epistemology."

Just to note I don't know if I'd call myself a "supernaturalist" or not, it just seems to me that naturalism is a rather restricted view on how to look at things and thus incomplete by itself.

I don't think it's inconsistent. I'm wondering why, given the nature of models, naturalists think models which are verified believe "this is how the universe really is". To me, models are useful approximations. Good models are extremely useful and accurate approximations. But it takes a rather large leap in my eyes to view even the best models as perfect representations of reality.

And, unless I am mistaken, the naturalist view is dependent upon the assumption that scientific models accurately represent reality. For example: the assumption that everything which exists must have a spatio-temporal location. This seems to be there because of its role in physical models, not based on any type of "absolute truth" that everything must have a spatio-temporal location. This seems like a form of affirming the consequent.


I never said they claimed that. I'm wondering why they are claiming that the correct model will be like the contemporary one given how often scientific models are revised, and why they think models are how things "really are" rather than an approximation. Also wondering why, even if these things are true and we come up with this universal model, why naturalists thinks this explains "everything".

Actually Guth is positing that certain Laws "precede" the spatio-temporal universe.

They are closely connected, but not identical. I would say that probably the biggest difference is that the epistemological naturalist has a more specific view of how we gain knowledge. Naturalists generally regard science as the best model of knowledge and so try to use this kind of methodology as far as they can in all areas of investigation.

Empiricists are not as explicitly tied to the model of science. For instance, while Berkeley is part of the tradition of British Empiricism, he probably shouldn't be considered an epistemological naturalist since he differs in both conclusions and methods from them.

However, there are obviously many affinities between the two views, and I think it is fair to consider naturalism an offshoot of empiricism.

I think the claim is that as a matter of fact the only things (or events) that science can investigate are things which are part of the causal structure of the universe. If something is not part of the causal structure of the universe, then since we are ourselves part of the universe, we could know nothing about it (as we couldn't causally interact with it).

So naturalists will sometimes say that we just can never know anything about such things if they do exist, or that we shouldn't believe in them because of Occam's Razor, or that talk of such entities is nonsensical. I think all of these views fall into the general family of naturalistic views on such entities.

Yeah, most naturalists don't believe in rational intuition as a way of gaining knowledge. They tend to be fairly Humean about epistemology. Insofar as you are a rationalist, you might not be a naturalist.

Still not seeing the problem. No one has claimed that our current models, or even the best possible models of science are perfect representations of reality. Obviously they have to have some level of correspondence or predictive power (or science doesn't actually provide us with knowledge about the world), but this doesn't have to be perfect.

I think these kinds of questions are just not that central to the views of most naturalists. They generally are not that bothered to try to prove that only things that exist in the spatio-temporal universe exist (it is very likely that any such argument would itself violate their epistemological views). Rather, what is most central is the claim that of the things that do exist, or that do need to be explained, such as human beings and their minds, the universe and its operations, etc. the only available explanation for these must be a natural one--one that appeals to objects or events that are part of this world. Any explanation that goes outside of this ends up being worthless and usually based on a misunderstanding of how our minds work.

I think the naturalist response would be that while scientific theories have been revised or given up, since the rise of modern science it has been a characteristic of almost all of these theories that they are naturalistic in character--that is, they appeal only to events or bodies in this universe, not in some other realm of existence.

I would have to know more about what Guth is actually saying before I comment more.

It may well just be my platonism creeping in. I assume there really is a force of gravity (whether it acts in exactly the way we think it does or not).

I could construct a meaning for sentences like "Gravity operates throughout the universe" without such a conception though.
No not really - I'm just not really clear about what people are saying when they claim to be naturalists. Nor what they mean when they declare something a naturalistic explanation. Your last few posts have been helpful though, thanks.

I wondered how they'd react to claims like "Ghosts exist", "Gravity exists" and "the Higgs boson" exists.

Naturalism is not a very clearly defined term. Also, as a method it is useless.

Science is rooted in empiricism and falsifiability. Arbitrary names given to imagined sections of the universe nobody can readily explain nor prove (be it natural or supernatural) need not apply. It is what you measure that matters, and that you can disprove your hypothesis.

Natural and supernatural then, is really only useful terms to laymen who debate their respective silly faiths about what the parts of the universe they can't observe consists of.

Or maybe more to the point; It is of absolutely no importance whatsoever that a scientific model is just a model. Your reality is a model generated by your brain...if we feed you the right chemicals or anesthetize the right part of your brain...you're going to see the world completely different. We see models through models...that is how knowledge works...to assume some "objective reality" is stupid, since it is an assumption we don't need.

If you want to start a new thread on empiricism, which is a mountain to reject compared to the intellectual pebble which is naturalism...I wish you good luck.

It should also be noted that there is a huge difference between "method" and "philosophy".

To use naturalist method (regardless of how unnecessary it might be) doesn't imply that you are naturalist, just like using empirical method doesn't imply that you are an empiricist.

Maybe a fitting analogy (though somewhat silly) could be that viewing the moon through a binocular doesn't imply that you think the world can only be understood through binoculars, or that what you see in the binoculars is "true" while what you see without the binoculars is "false"; Mostly it just means that binoculars are useful when looking at the moon.

Am I crazy or is this a rather hostile sounding post defending empiricism when I wasn't even talking about empiricism?

Without knowing your mental state thoroughly, I'll still go out on a limb and say that this is a false dichotomy.

However, I'm a gentle soul so I'll explain my post in fewer terms: Naturalism is rubbish, I don't think it has any scientific value whatsoever (except maybe barely as method, but it isn't needed for that) and thus your OP comes off as weird.