Naturalism Beyond the Limits of Science

Abstract

Philosophers and scientists both ask questions about what the world is like. How do these fields connect with one another? How should they? Naturalism Beyond the Limits of Science investigates methodological naturalism––the idea that when coming up with theories about what the world is like, philosophers should, whenever possible, make use of the methodology of science. Although many contemporary philosophers have implicit commitments that lead straightforwardly to methodological naturalism, few have a clear understanding of how widespread and disruptive this approach promises to be for the field. By way of a series of case studies involving laws of nature, composition, time, and modality, and drawing on historical and contemporary scientific developments, this book demonstrates the potential impacts of methodological naturalism. Along the way, this investigation illuminates the complex relationship between philosophy and science, and makes the case that philosophers and scientists alike would benefit from a greater understanding of the connections between the two fields.

Scientific explanation as a guide to ground

“…The worry is that by leaving open the specifics one can hardly make any judgement on the scientific acceptability of the notion. It is worth flagging that the question of under which circumstances a metaphysical notion becomes naturalistically acceptable is complicated and underexplored (but see Emery, 2023 for a recent work filling the gap). We do not have a complete answer to such an ambitious query.…”