Naturalism (philosophy)

Naturalism is any of several philosophical stances, typically those descended from materialism and pragmatism, that does not distinguish between the supernatural and the natural. It does not claim that phenomena or hypotheses commonly labeled supernatural necessarily do not exist or are wrong, but insists that they are not inherently different from any other hypotheses or phenomena and can be studied by the same methods.

History

The ideas and assumptions of philosophical naturalistism date to the Ionian pre-Socratic philosophers of the 4th century BCE; see, e.g., Jonathan Barnes's introduction to Early Greek Philosophy (Penguin), which describes them as subscribing to principles of empirical investigation that strikingly anticipate naturalism. During the Enlightenment, a number of philosophers including Francis Bacon and Voltaire outlined the philosophical justifications for removing appeal to supernatural forces from investigation of the natural world. Subsequent scientific revolutions would remove much of the remaining theistic baggage from scientific investigation culminating in the development of modern biology and geology which rejected the prevailing origin beliefs of the wider society's religion.

Related Topics:
4th century BCE - Jonathan Barnes - Enlightenment - Philosophers - Francis Bacon - Voltaire - Scientific revolutions - Biology - Geology - Origin beliefs

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