naturalism

1. Introduction

Naturalism, in its philosophical sense, is a family of views that situate all reality, knowledge, and value within nature and its regular processes. It typically rejects, or at least sidelines, appeal to supernatural agents, realms, or explanations. While unified by this broad orientation, naturalisms differ over what counts as “nature,” how closely philosophy should follow the empirical sciences, and whether some domains (such as ethics or mathematics) involve sui generis kinds of facts.

A minimal, widely used characterization distinguishes:

• Ontological naturalism: claims about what exists and what kinds of properties or causes there are.
• Methodological naturalism: claims about how inquiry should proceed, especially in the sciences.
• Programmatic or “scientific” naturalism: attempts to recast philosophical problems in continuity with scientific practice.

Historically, naturalistic tendencies emerge long before the term “naturalism” itself: early Greek cosmologists explained the world via physis (nature) rather than myth; Hellenistic atomists such as Epicurus extended this stance to mind and the gods; early modern thinkers such as Spinoza and Hume developed systematic, largely immanent accounts of reality and human life. By the 19th and 20th centuries, naturalism became a self-conscious philosophical banner, further shaped by Darwinian biology, American pragmatism, and logical empiricism.

Contemporary debates concern how far naturalism extends. Some theorists defend reductive programs that seek to explain, for example, consciousness and morality in fully physical or scientific terms. Others advance non‑reductive or “liberal” naturalisms, allowing for emergent properties, irreducible normativity, or abstract objects, so long as they do not invoke supernatural causation.

This entry traces the term’s linguistic roots, its historical development, and its main systematic distinctions and controversies, while also situating philosophical naturalism in relation to rival outlooks and to non-philosophical uses of “naturalism,” especially in the arts.

2. Etymology and Linguistic Origins

The English term “naturalism” derives from Middle French naturalisme and Medieval Latin naturalisumus / naturalismus, formed from Latin natura (“birth, character, the natural world”) plus the doctrinal suffix ‑ismus (“system, doctrine, tendency”).

Latin Roots

In classical and medieval Latin, natura named both the cosmic order and the intrinsic powers or tendencies of things. It stems from nasci (“to be born”), linking “nature” to what arises or develops on its own. From this root cluster we also get:

By contrast, supernaturalis (“above nature”) named miraculous or grace‑given events, preparing the later opposition between naturalism and supernaturalism.

Medieval and Early Modern Developments

Medieval scholastic Latin uses naturalismus rarely and often pejoratively, to denote doctrines that overemphasize natura at the expense of gratia (grace) and revelatio (revelation). In early modern French and other vernaculars, naturalisme could refer to:

• Living “according to nature” (in moral or medical contexts);
• Attention to natural causes in medicine and natural philosophy;
• Occasionally, heterodox views downplaying divine intervention.

Entry into English

“Naturalism” appears in English from the 17th century onward, initially with theological overtones (a tendency to explain everything by nature alone). By the 19th century it acquires:

• A philosophical sense: worldviews emphasizing nature and denying, or minimizing, the supernatural.
• An artistic sense: a literary and pictorial movement focused on detailed, often deterministic depictions of life.

Because these strands share the same word, later philosophical uses coexist—and sometimes conflict—with the aesthetic usage, creating persistent ambiguity that later sections address in more detail.

3. Semantic Field and Philological Context

Naturalism belongs to a broader semantic field centered on terms for “nature” in Greek, Latin, and modern European languages. These terms interact with contrasting vocabularies for the supernatural, the artificial, and the ideal.

Core Cluster

In classical Greek, physis (φύσις) denotes growth, emergence, and underlying constitution. Latin natura partially translates physis but also fits into a Christianized framework in which nature is created and may be supplemented or overridden by grace.

Contrasting Fields

Naturalism is historically framed against several opposing clusters:

Philologically, these contrasts shape how “naturalism” is heard. In some theological contexts, naturalist simply meant one who neglects or denies grace. In later philosophical contexts, it signals a commitment to immanence: explanations remain within the natural order, however construed.

Overlaps and Shifts

Over time, related terms such as materialism, physicalism, and positivism enter the same lexical space. In several languages:

• Materialism historically stresses matter and motion;
• Physicalism emphasizes compatibility with modern physics;
• Positivism underlines an epistemic restriction to scientific knowledge.

Where “naturalism” sits among these varies by language and tradition. In many contemporary Anglophone discussions, it marks a broader, more flexible stance, sometimes accommodating non-material abstract entities so long as they do not invoke the supernatural.

4. Pre-Philosophical and Early Uses of ‘Nature’

Before “naturalism” became a technical term, words for nature functioned in everyday, religious, and proto-theoretical discourse.

Nature as Growth and Character

In archaic Greek, physis referred to growth, emergence, and the way something comes to be—for example, a plant’s natural development or a person’s temperament. Similarly, early Latin usage of natura encompassed:

• The birth or origin of things;
• Their characteristic dispositions (“it is in his nature”);
• The overall order of the world.

These uses were not yet systematically philosophical but provided the vocabulary for later theorizing.

Nature vs. Art and Custom

Common early contrasts shaped the conceptual landscape:

In Greek sophistic debates, questions about whether morality stems from physis (nature) or nomos (convention) anticipated later naturalist treatments of ethics and politics.

Religious and Mythic Contexts

In many ancient cultures, natural phenomena were personified as gods or spirits, yet there was also a growing sense of impersonal regularities—for instance, predictable heavenly motions or seasonal cycles. These were sometimes attributed to divine governance, sometimes treated as quasi-independent “laws of nature” in embryo.

Late Antique and Medieval Christian Usage

In Latin Christian thought, natura acquired a dual role:

• As the created order (the universe as made by God);
• As the essence or kind of a thing (e.g., “human nature”).

“Natural” contrasted with what was by grace, miracle, or revelation. Discussions of “natural reason” and “natural law” (e.g., in Stoicism, then in Aquinas) framed what humans can know or do without special divine aid. This theological structuring of nature, grace, and the supernatural later became crucial for how “naturalism” would be understood and contested in early modern debates.

5. Ancient Precursors and Proto-Naturalism

Long before the explicit doctrine of “naturalism,” several ancient schools advanced naturalistic approaches to cosmology, mind, and human life.

Presocratic Cosmologies

Early Greek thinkers often called “natural philosophers” (physikoi) sought to explain the cosmos via physis rather than myth:

• Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes proposed material principles (water, the apeiron, air) as the basic stuff of reality.
• Heraclitus emphasized ever-living fire and lawlike change.
• Democritus developed an atomist picture: all things, including soul, consist of atoms moving in the void.

These views are frequently described as proto-naturalistic because they appeal to impersonal processes and regular patterns, not to ad hoc divine interventions, though many remained compatible with some form of divinity.

Hippocratic Medicine

Hippocratic treatises often explain disease through natural causes—diet, climate, bodily humors—rather than curses or demons. This medical naturalism set a precedent for later appeals to systematic, natural explanations of complex phenomena, including those involving the human body and behavior.

Classical and Hellenistic Naturalism

• Aristotle systematized a teleological but thoroughly immanent conception of nature: each thing has its own form and end, and natural change unfolds according to intrinsic principles.
• Stoicism viewed the cosmos as a rational, providential organism, often equated with Nature or Zeus, blurring the line between the natural and the divine but stressing an orderly, law-governed world.

The Epicureans represent perhaps the most explicit ancient precursor to modern naturalism:

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“Nothing can ever be created from nothing by divine power.”

— Lucretius, De Rerum Natura I

Epicurus and Lucretius held that everything, including mind and gods, consists of atoms; the gods exist but do not intervene. Fear of divine punishment and death is to be dispelled by understanding nature’s workings.

Skepticism and Natural Belief

Later interpreters often read ancient skepticism (e.g., Sextus Empiricus) as naturalistic in method, insofar as it relies on appearances and everyday experience rather than metaphysical postulation, though skeptics typically suspend judgment on ultimate natural structures.

These diverse strands provided conceptual resources—material explanation, lawlike order, attention to human nature—that would later be woven into explicit philosophical naturalisms.

6. Early Modern Transformations and Theological Debates

In the early modern period (16th–18th centuries), the meaning of “nature” and “natural” shifted amid scientific, religious, and philosophical change, setting the stage for explicit talk of naturalism.

Mechanistic Nature and Scientific Revolution

Thinkers such as Galileo, Descartes, Boyle, and Newton advanced a mechanistic conception of the physical world:

• Nature was increasingly described in terms of matter in motion, governed by mathematical laws.
• Miracles and occult qualities were criticized as explanatory “black boxes.”

While many of these figures were devout theists, their work reinforced the idea that natural causes suffice to explain most observable phenomena.

Nature, Grace, and “Naturalism” in Theology

Within Christian debates, “naturalism” began to be used, often pejoratively, to name positions that:

• Overstressed natural reason or natural law relative to grace and revelation;
• Treated human powers as sufficient for salvation or moral knowledge.

Critics, especially in Catholic and Reformed traditions, associated such views with Pelagianism, deism, or rationalism.

Spinoza and Immanent Nature

Baruch Spinoza is often cited as a pivotal early modern naturalist. His formula “Deus sive Natura” (God or Nature) identifies God with the single, infinite substance whose modes constitute all things. There is no transcendent creator outside nature; everything follows necessarily from the divine/natural essence.

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“Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God.”

— Spinoza, Ethics I, prop. 15

Interpreters disagree whether Spinoza is best described as a pantheist, immanentist, or naturalist, but his system dissolves a sharp natural/supernatural divide.

Deism and Religious Natural Religion

Deists (e.g., Toland, Tindal) argued that reason and observation of nature suffice to know God and morality, minimizing the need for revelation. Some historians view deism as a moderate naturalism in theology, while others stress its continuing affirmation of a designing deity.

These early modern transformations did not yet produce a unified doctrine called “philosophical naturalism,” but they reconfigured the field in which Enlightenment naturalisms would crystallize.

7. Philosophical Crystallization in the Enlightenment

During the Enlightenment, naturalistic tendencies consolidated into more explicit philosophical programs, often in critical dialogue with theology and metaphysics.

Humean Naturalism

David Hume is central to this crystallization. He proposed that human understanding, belief, and morality should be explained in terms of natural psychological principles—habit, association, sentiment—rather than rationalist or theological foundations.

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“Custom… is the great guide of human life.”

— Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding V

Key features of Hume’s approach:

• Epistemology: Knowledge rests on experience and the mind’s natural tendencies; causation is understood as regularity plus psychological expectation.
• Religion: Belief in miracles and design is treated as a product of human imagination and fear, subject to empirical critique.
• Morality: Moral distinctions arise from sentiment and social practices, not from divine commands or objective moral essences.

Many later philosophers identified this as a form of methodological and psychological naturalism, even though Hume himself did not use that label.

French Materialism and Radical Enlightenment

In 18th‑century France, authors such as La Mettrie, Diderot, d’Holbach developed more overtly materialist and atheistic worldviews:

• Mind was described as a function of matter (e.g., the brain as a machine).
• Religion was often reduced to ignorance or political manipulation.
• Ethical and political life were framed in terms of human nature and social arrangements.

These thinkers are frequently classified as naturalists because they explain all phenomena via nature’s laws and deny or marginalize supernatural causes.

Kant and the Limits of Naturalism

Immanuel Kant accepted the success of Newtonian natural science but argued that reason also imposes a priori forms and moral law, which cannot be straightforwardly naturalized. His insistence on a realm of freedom and moral autonomy distinct from empirical nature provided a major counterpoint to Enlightenment naturalisms, influencing later critics and “two‑standpoint” accounts.

Enlightenment Legacies

By the end of the 18th century, several strands of naturalism had emerged:

These currents laid conceptual foundations for 19th‑century scientific and philosophical naturalism, especially once Darwinian evolution reshaped understandings of nature and humanity.

8. 19th-Century Naturalism and Scientific Worldviews

In the 19th century, naturalism became closely associated with scientific worldviews, shaped by industrialization, new sciences, and changing religious landscapes.

Darwin and Evolutionary Naturalism

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection (On the Origin of Species, 1859) offered a comprehensive naturalistic account of biological diversity and, increasingly, of human origins:

• Species were explained by gradual variation and selection, not special creation.
• Teleology in nature was reconceived in terms of adaptive function, not inherent purpose.

Many philosophers and public intellectuals interpreted Darwinism as supporting a thoroughly naturalistic picture of life, prompting theological and philosophical debate.

Scientific Naturalism and Positivism

Thinkers such as Ernst Haeckel in Germany and T. H. Huxley in Britain promoted a scientific naturalism that extended the methods and assumptions of the natural sciences to all domains:

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“The naturalistic view of the universe… is that all phenomena are governed by laws of nature.”

— Attributed to Haeckel, paraphrased from Die Welträthsel

In parallel, Auguste Comte’s positivism asserted that genuine knowledge is scientific knowledge, organized in a hierarchy of sciences culminating in sociology. Positivism sometimes overlapped with naturalism but added explicit anti‑metaphysical and historical-progress theses.

Materialism and Monism

19th‑century debates featured:

• Scientific materialism: e.g., Büchner, Vogt, Moleschott argued that matter and its properties suffice for explaining mind and society.
• Monism: Haeckel and others proposed a single substance underlying all reality, rejecting both dualism and traditional theism.

These movements were often identified by supporters and critics alike as forms of naturalism, though terminological usage varied.

Theology and “Religious Naturalism”

At the same time, some theologians and religious thinkers sought to reconcile faith with scientific naturalism:

• Liberal Protestant theology often reinterpreted miracles and doctrines in symbolic or ethical terms, aligning with natural laws.
• Early forms of “religious naturalism” treated the natural world itself as the locus of the sacred, without a transcendent deity.

Institutional and Cultural Context

Naturalistic outlooks were bolstered by the professionalization of science, secularization movements, and controversies over education and church–state relations. By the end of the 19th century, “naturalism” could refer both to philosophical positions denying the supernatural and to broader scientific attitudes that privileged empirical inquiry over revelation.

9. American Pragmatism and Naturalistic Philosophy

American pragmatism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries developed a distinctive naturalistic orientation, while differing from more rigid scientific or materialist naturalisms.

Peirce and Fallibilist Inquiry

Charles S. Peirce treated inquiry as a community-based, experimental process embedded in the natural world. Beliefs are habits of action subject to testing and revision. While Peirce retained a complex metaphysics (including chance and ideal elements), his account of knowledge, meaning, and logic is often read as methodologically naturalistic, anchored in scientific practice.

James and Radical Empiricism

William James emphasized experience in all its varieties, including religious experience, but insisted that these must be studied empirically, not posited as access to a separate supernatural realm. His “radical empiricism” treats relations and values as part of experience, blurring rigid divides between fact and value, natural and mental.

Dewey’s Comprehensive Naturalism

John Dewey articulated an explicit philosophical naturalism in works like Experience and Nature:

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“The new sense of nature is a sense of the world as a scene of risk; it is also an appreciation of its precarious and hazardous character.”

— Dewey, Experience and Nature

Key themes:

• Continuity between humans and the rest of nature, especially through evolution.
• Experience as interaction between organism and environment, not a private inner realm.
• Values, norms, and institutions as natural phenomena emerging from human practices.

Dewey rejected both reductive materialism and appeals to transcendent realms, advocating a pragmatic, experimental approach to ethics, politics, and education within a natural world.

Santayana and Santayanian Naturalism

George Santayana developed a poetic, detached “spiritual” naturalism, affirming an indifferent natural universe while valuing human imagination and ideals as natural products. His work influenced later “liberal” or non‑reductive naturalists who seek to preserve space for meaning and value within a naturalistic framework.

Pragmatist Legacy

Pragmatism’s influence on naturalism lies in:

• Stressing practice and inquiry rather than fixed metaphysical doctrines;
• Integrating social, ethical, and aesthetic domains into a naturalistic picture;
• Inspiring mid‑20th‑century and contemporary philosophers (e.g., Quine, Putnam, Rorty) to conceive of naturalism less as a rigid ontology and more as a philosophy continuous with the sciences and human practices.

10. Logical Empiricism and Scientific Naturalism

In the 20th century, logical empiricism and related movements articulated influential forms of scientific naturalism, reshaping analytic philosophy.

Vienna Circle and Logical Empiricism

Members of the Vienna Circle (e.g., Carnap, Schlick, Neurath) and allied thinkers promoted:

• The verification principle: meaning tied to empirical verification or logical form.
• A sharp distinction between analytic (logical, mathematical) and synthetic (empirical) statements.
• The ideal of unified science, where all legitimate claims connect to a common empirical language.

Although not always labeled “naturalism” at the time, this program effectively privileged scientific methods and vocabularies, marginalizing metaphysical and theological claims as meaningless or non-cognitive.

Carnap and Ontological Questions

Rudolf Carnap viewed ontological disputes as often linguistic or pragmatic rather than substantive. In “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology,” he argued that choosing a language framework (e.g., with or without numbers) is a matter of convenience, not of discovering extra-natural entities. This stance is seen by some as a deflationary naturalism about abstract objects.

Quine and “Epistemology Naturalized”

W. V. O. Quine explicitly embraced naturalism:

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“It is within science itself, and not in some prior philosophy, that reality is to be identified and described.”

— Quine, “On What There Is”

Key elements of Quine’s scientific naturalism:

• Rejection of a sharp analytic/synthetic distinction;
• Holism about theory confirmation;
• Proposal to “naturalize epistemology”: study knowledge as a psychological and scientific phenomenon, rather than from a detached, foundational standpoint.

For Quine, philosophy is continuous with natural science, differing only in generality and abstraction.

Post‑Positivist Developments

Later philosophers sympathetic to naturalism (e.g., Sellars, Putnam, Churchland, Papineau) modified or rejected aspects of logical empiricism while retaining core naturalistic commitments:

• Sellars critiqued “the Myth of the Given” while advocating a “stereoscopic” view integrating scientific and manifest images.
• Some developed scientific realism: the claim that science aims at literally true descriptions of a natural world.

Logical empiricism and Quinean naturalism together helped make scientific naturalism—the view that philosophical questions should be answered from within the methods and results of the empirical sciences—a dominant orientation in late 20th‑century analytic philosophy.

11. Ontological vs Methodological Naturalism

Contemporary discussions often distinguish ontological from methodological naturalism, though the relationship between them is contested.

Ontological Naturalism

Ontological (or metaphysical) naturalism is a claim about what exists:

• All that exists is part of the natural world.
• There are no irreducibly supernatural entities (e.g., gods, angels, non-natural souls) or causally independent realms.

Ontological naturalists differ over how to characterize the natural:

• Some equate it with the physical as described by fundamental physics.
• Others allow for emergent or higher-level properties (e.g., mental, social, normative) that supervene on but are not reducible to the physical.

Methodological Naturalism

Methodological naturalism is a claim about how inquiry should proceed:

• Scientific and scholarly explanations should appeal only to natural causes and laws.
• Hypotheses invoking supernatural agency are set aside as methodologically out of bounds, regardless of their truth.

This principle is widely accepted in the natural sciences and often in the humanities and social sciences, even by many who hold religious or non-naturalist metaphysical beliefs.

Relationships and Debates

Philosophers disagree about the connection between the two:

In philosophy of religion and science–religion debates, some argue that methodological naturalism is merely a research policy, compatible with theism; others contend that over time it tends to encourage ontological naturalism by rendering supernatural hypotheses explanatorily superfluous.

The distinction also informs debates within philosophy itself: whether, for example, ethics or logic can be pursued under a methodological naturalism without presupposing that only natural entities exist.

12. Naturalism, Physicalism, and Materialism

Naturalism is closely related to physicalism and materialism, but the terms are not interchangeable. Their relationships vary across historical and contemporary contexts.

Materialism

Historically, materialism refers to the view that:

• Only matter and its motions fundamentally exist.
• Mental phenomena, if real, are dependent on or reducible to matter.

Classical materialists (e.g., Democritus, La Mettrie, 19th‑century scientific materialists) often emphasized mechanical models and sometimes rejected non-material entities entirely (including abstract objects).

Physicalism

Physicalism emerged in the 20th century, influenced by physics and logical empiricism. It usually claims that:

• Everything is physical or supervenes on the physical.
• “Physical” is defined by current or ideal physics, not just by “matter.”

Physicalism can be:

• Reductive: all truths are reducible to physical truths.
• Non-reductive: mental, biological, or social properties are not reducible but depend on physical states.

Naturalism’s Broader Scope

Many contemporary philosophers treat naturalism as broader than either materialism or physicalism:

• Naturalism typically rules out the supernatural, but may allow:
  • Abstract entities (numbers, sets) if they fit into a scientifically respectable ontology;
  • Normative properties (moral, epistemic) understood as natural or supervenient;
  • Emergent phenomena that resist straightforward physical reduction.

Debates and Overlaps

Some philosophers equate naturalism with physicalism, arguing that anything non-physical would be, in effect, supernatural. Others defend “liberal” or non-reductive naturalisms that:

• Accept that all causal powers are physical or natural;
• Yet resist identifying naturalism with strict physicalism, especially regarding mind, meaning, and morality.

There are also self-described “naturalist dualists” (e.g., certain views in philosophy of mind) who claim that consciousness involves non-physical properties but remains part of “nature” in a broad sense—illustrating how flexible and contested the term “naturalism” can be.

13. Naturalism in Ethics, Mind, and Epistemology

Naturalism has played a major role in ethics, philosophy of mind, and epistemology, though its application in each domain is contested.

Ethical Naturalism

Ethical naturalism holds that moral properties or facts are in some sense natural:

• Reductionist views (e.g., certain forms of utilitarianism) identify moral facts with natural facts about pleasure, pain, or human flourishing.
• Non-reductive naturalist views (e.g., some neo-Aristotelian accounts) treat moral properties as higher-level, emergent features of human life and social practices, still fully within nature.

G. E. Moore’s “open question argument” famously challenged reductive ethical naturalism, claiming that any naturalistic identification of “good” leaves it an open question whether that natural property is indeed good. Responses include sophisticated forms of identity theory, constructivism, and non-reductive realism that aim to preserve both naturalism and moral normativity.

Naturalism in Philosophy of Mind

Naturalists about mind seek to explain consciousness, intentionality, and mental causation without invoking non-natural souls or spirits. Approaches include:

• Identity theories: mental states are identical with brain states.
• Functionalism: mental states are defined by their causal roles in a system.
• Representationalist and teleosemantic theories: mental content explained via information and evolutionary functions.
• Non-reductive physicalism: mental properties are dependent on but not reducible to the physical.

Critics argue that certain mental phenomena—e.g., qualia, subjective experience, or intentionality—resist naturalization. Some propose property dualism or other non-naturalist accounts; naturalists respond with various models of emergence, higher-order theories, or revisions to our understanding of the physical.

Epistemological Naturalism

Epistemological naturalism treats knowledge and justification as natural phenomena to be studied empirically:

• Quine’s naturalized epistemology replaces traditional foundational projects with psychology and cognitive science of belief formation.
• Others propose reliabilist accounts, where justification depends on reliably truth-conducive processes understood scientifically.

Some philosophers distinguish between:

Critics worry that full naturalization may undermine normativity, reducing “justified” to mere causal reliability. Defenders argue that norms can be understood as naturalized standards tied to human aims and cognitive capacities.

These debates illustrate both the appeal of extending naturalistic explanations into value, mind, and knowledge, and the controversies over whether, and how far, such extensions succeed.

14. Contrasting Positions: Supernaturalism, Idealism, Dualism

Naturalism is often defined in contrast to several major philosophical outlooks: supernaturalism, idealism, and dualism. These contrasts help clarify what is distinctive about naturalistic positions.

Supernaturalism

Supernaturalism posits entities, causes, or realms that transcend nature:

• Theistic traditions often affirm a personal God who can act miraculously—that is, outside or above natural laws.
• Many forms of religious belief include angels, demons, or souls with non-natural properties and destinies.

From a naturalist perspective, supernaturalism introduces causal powers not continuous with those studied by the natural sciences. Supernaturalists reply that natural laws are themselves sustained by or depend on such transcendent realities.

Idealism

Idealism generally gives priority to mind, ideas, or spirit over matter or nature:

• Metaphysical idealists (e.g., Berkeley, some readings of Hegel) claim that reality is fundamentally mental or spiritual.
• Objective idealism may treat nature as an expression of a world mind or absolute spirit.

Naturalists typically reject the idea that nature is grounded in or constituted by a non-natural mind, though some non-reductive or “liberal” naturalisms entertain panpsychist or proto-mental aspects of nature, blurring the boundary.

Dualism

Dualism posits two fundamentally distinct kinds of substances or properties:

• Substance dualism (e.g., Cartesianism): an immaterial mind/soul and a material body.
• Property dualism: irreducible mental properties (e.g., qualia) distinct from physical properties.

Naturalists often resist dualism because it introduces non-natural mental substances or properties and raises interaction problems. Dualists counter that certain features of consciousness or normativity cannot be captured within a purely natural ontology.

Comparative Overview

These contrasting positions serve as foils for naturalism, sharpening questions about what counts as “nature,” whether mind or value can be naturalized, and whether any appeal to transcendent or non-natural reality is philosophically warranted.

15. Translation Challenges and Cross-Linguistic Issues

Translating “naturalism” across languages and traditions raises several difficulties, due to varied historical usages and overlapping meanings.

Polysemy: Philosophy vs. Art

In many European languages, the cognates naturalisme, Naturalismus, naturalismo denote both:

• A philosophical stance emphasizing nature over the supernatural;
• A literary and artistic movement (19th‑century Naturalism) focusing on detailed, often deterministic depictions of life.

Without context, it may be unclear which sense is intended. Translators sometimes add qualifiers like “philosophical naturalism” or “literary naturalism” to avoid confusion.

Overlaps with Materialism and Positivism

In some traditions, “naturalism” shades into or is partially replaced by other terms:

Because materialism and positivism have their own specific connotations (e.g., anti-metaphysics, emphasis on matter), using them as equivalents to “naturalism” may misrepresent more liberal or non-reductive naturalisms.

Non-European Traditions

In non-European philosophical traditions, there may be no direct equivalent:

• Chinese translations sometimes render naturalism via terms connected to zìrán (自然), meaning “the self-so” or “spontaneous nature,” but this carries Daoist resonances that differ from Western naturalism.
• In Indian contexts, doctrines akin to naturalism might be linked with Cārvāka/Lokāyata materialism or certain Buddhist stances, yet these traditions have distinct metaphysical and soteriological frameworks.

Translators must decide whether to use a loanword (e.g., “naturalisme”) or a descriptive phrase (“doctrine that only nature exists”), each with trade‑offs in precision and accessibility.

Conceptual vs. Lexical Equivalence

Because “naturalism” spans ontological, methodological, and ethical dimensions, some languages may require different expressions for each:

• “Methodological naturalism” might be rendered as “scientific explanation restricted to natural causes,” avoiding the contested term “naturalism.”
• “Religious naturalism” may need paraphrase to indicate religious attitudes without belief in the supernatural.

Scholars therefore often supplement the term with explanatory glosses, especially when comparing Western naturalism with indigenous or non-Western conceptions of nature and the sacred.

16. Naturalism and the Arts: Literary and Artistic ‘Naturalism’

Outside philosophy, “Naturalism” names influential movements in literature and the visual arts, which intersect with but are not reducible to philosophical naturalism.

Literary Naturalism

In late 19th‑century European and American literature, Naturalism described a style associated with authors such as Émile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, and later Theodor Dreiser:

• Emphasis on detailed, often gritty realism, depicting everyday life, especially of the lower classes.
• Focus on deterministic forces—heredity, environment, social conditions—shaping character and fate.
• Use of quasi-scientific observation; Zola spoke of the novelist as an “experimental scientist” of human behavior.

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“The writer of naturalistic novels is simply a recorder… who submits the facts to the experiment of circumstances.”

— Zola, paraphrased from Le Roman expérimental

This literary Naturalism shares with philosophical naturalism an interest in causal explanation and immanent forces, though it need not endorse any specific metaphysical thesis.

Artistic and Pictorial Naturalism

In the visual arts, “naturalism” refers to:

• Lifelike representation of subjects, with attention to detail, light, and anatomy;
• Sometimes, an avoidance of idealization, mythological themes, or overt symbolism.

This aesthetic naturalism predates the philosophical term and can coexist with religious or idealist worldviews. For example, Renaissance artists combined highly naturalistic techniques with explicitly Christian themes.

Intersections with Scientific and Philosophical Themes

The rise of photography, scientific illustration, and social realism in the 19th century influenced both artistic and literary naturalism. Some artists and writers drew directly on scientific theories (e.g., Darwinism, social science), reflecting a broader cultural confidence in natural explanations.

However, the relationship to philosophical naturalism is complex:

Because the same term is used, care is needed to distinguish aesthetic doctrines from philosophical positions, even though they sometimes influence one another and share a background of scientific and secular ideas.

17. Contemporary Debates and Varieties of Naturalism

In contemporary philosophy, naturalism is not a single doctrine but a spectrum of positions differing over scope, strength, and interpretation.

Strong vs. Liberal Naturalism

• Strong (or strict) naturalism often identifies naturalism with physicalism and emphasizes reduction of higher-level phenomena (mind, morality, meaning) to physical facts.
• Liberal (or non-reductive) naturalism allows for emergent properties, irreducible normativity, or abstract objects, provided they are not supernatural and fit into a broadly scientific worldview.

Debates center on whether liberal naturalisms genuinely remain distinct from non-naturalism or risk smuggling in quasi-supernatural elements.

Normativity and Reason

A major issue concerns normative phenomena—moral, epistemic, and semantic norms:

• Some naturalists pursue strict reductions, treating norms as natural facts about human needs, evolutionary advantages, or social practices.
• Others (inspired by pragmatism, Sellars, or contemporary expressivism) argue norms can be explained as part of linguistic and social “space of reasons”, still entirely within a natural world.

Critics question whether such accounts can preserve the objectivity or bindingness associated with norms.

Naturalism in Philosophy of Mind

Controversies persist around consciousness and qualia:

• Some endorse eliminative materialism or illusionism, denying that phenomenal consciousness, as ordinarily conceived, exists.
• Others defend physicalist but non-reductive or higher-order theories.
• Alternative views (e.g., panpsychism, Russellian monism) claim to be naturalistic while positing fundamental experiential or proto-mental features of matter.

Whether these latter views count as naturalist is debated, reflecting different understandings of “nature.”

Religious and Religious-Friendly Naturalisms

There are discussions of “religious naturalism” and “theistic naturalism”:

• Religious naturalists affirm religious or spiritual attitudes toward the natural world itself, rejecting supernatural beings.
• Some theologians explore whether belief in God can be reconceived so that God is fully immanent in nature, raising questions about whether such positions are genuinely naturalist or instead redefine the supernatural.

Meta-Philosophical Naturalism

Finally, some philosophers defend a meta-philosophical naturalism, holding that philosophy should be continuous with the sciences, while others argue for a more autonomous role for conceptual analysis, phenomenology, or a priori reasoning. Disagreements over this methodological naturalism contribute to divergent visions of what it means to be a naturalist today.

18. Critiques and Limits of Naturalistic Explanation

Naturalism has been widely critiqued from within and outside philosophy. Objections target both its explanatory scope and its underlying assumptions.

Concerns about Consciousness and Subjectivity

Many argue that phenomenal consciousness—the “what it is like” aspect of experience—resists naturalistic explanation:

• “Hard problem” arguments claim that physical accounts of structure and function leave an explanatory gap regarding subjective experience.
• Some philosophers and cognitive scientists assert that naturalistic theories either leave out qualia or redefine them in ways that fail to capture their essence.

Naturalists respond with higher-order, representational, or identity theories, or by questioning the coherence of the hard problem.

Normativity and Meaning

Critics contend that moral, epistemic, and semantic normativity cannot be fully naturalized:

• Norms seem to involve “oughts”, reasons, and correctness conditions that go beyond descriptive natural facts.
• Attempts to reduce norms to evolutionary advantage, social practices, or psychological tendencies are said to result in “nothing-but” explanations that fail to capture their prescriptive force.

Some non-naturalists posit irreducible normative facts; naturalists reply with sophisticated forms of expressivism, constructivism, or non-reductive realism.

Mathematical and Abstract Objects

Questions arise about mathematical entities, propositions, and other abstracta:

• Platonist views treat such objects as non-spatiotemporal and causally inert, seemingly at odds with strict naturalism.
• Nominalists and fictionalists attempt to avoid commitment to abstract objects; other naturalists (e.g., some Quineans) accept them as part of a broadly naturalized ontology, raising debate over whether that remains genuinely naturalist.

Existential and Axiological Critiques

Some argue that naturalism cannot account for:

• Human freedom (understood as contra-causal or robust autonomy);
• Objective meaning or purpose in life;
• Certain forms of religious or mystical experience.

The claim is that a purely natural world is value-neutral and ultimately indifferent, making meaningfulness or robust freedom illusory. Naturalists may respond by reconceiving freedom (e.g., as compatibilist) and meaning (e.g., as constructed but real within human practices).

Methodological and Meta-Philosophical Critiques

Non-naturalists also challenge the meta-philosophical aspect of naturalism:

• Some argue that phenomenology, conceptual analysis, or transcendental arguments reveal structures not captured by empirical science.
• Others contend that science itself relies on norms, concepts, and presuppositions that cannot be justified naturalistically without circularity.

Internally, “friendly critics” of naturalism question overly scientistic versions, advocating more pluralistic or liberal naturalisms that recognize the limits of current scientific explanation.

19. Naturalism in Interdisciplinary and Scientific Contexts

Naturalism intersects with numerous scientific and interdisciplinary fields, shaping and being shaped by their methods and findings.

Evolutionary Biology and Psychology

In evolutionary biology, naturalism underlies explanations of life via mutation, selection, drift, and other natural processes. This framework extends into:

• Evolutionary psychology, which treats cognitive and behavioral traits as products of evolutionary pressures.
• Debates over adaptationism, spandrels, and the extent to which complex human phenomena (morality, religion, aesthetics) can be explained in evolutionary terms.

Some critics worry about overextension or speculative “just-so stories”; others see evolutionary accounts as central to a robust naturalism about human nature.

Cognitive Science and Neuroscience

Cognitive science and neuroscience operationalize a naturalistic view of mind:

• Mental states are modeled as computational, representational, or dynamical processes in the brain and body.
• Research on perception, decision-making, and consciousness informs philosophical discussions of mental naturalization.

Interdisciplinary projects in neurophilosophy and cognitive science of religion explicitly explore how naturalistic explanations of cognition and belief bear on traditional philosophical and theological issues.

Social Sciences and Naturalism

In sociology, anthropology, and economics, naturalism manifests as attempts to explain social phenomena via:

• Causal models involving institutions, norms, incentives, and evolutionary game theory;
• Empirical, quantitative methods and field studies.

There is ongoing debate over whether interpretive or hermeneutic methods require a stance beyond naturalism, or whether they can be integrated into a broadly naturalistic social science.

Environmental Studies and Ecology

Ecology and environmental science rely on naturalistic frameworks to study ecosystems, climate, and biodiversity. These fields influence:

• Environmental ethics and eco-philosophy, some of which adopt religious or spiritual naturalism, venerating nature without invoking the supernatural.
• Public discourse on climate change and conservation, often framed in naturalistic, evidence-based terms.

Philosophy of Science and Metascience

Within philosophy of science, naturalism supports:

• Scientific realism or empiricism grounded in scientific practice;
• Metascientific study of how science works, using tools from statistics, psychology, and sociology.

Some philosophers advocate a fully naturalized philosophy of science that avoids a priori constraints, while others defend space for normative and conceptual analysis not wholly subsumed under empirical study.

Overall, naturalism operates both as an assumption of many scientific disciplines (methodological naturalism) and as a philosophical interpretation of their collective results, raising questions about how tightly philosophy should be bound to current science.

20. Legacy and Historical Significance

Naturalism has had a substantial and multifaceted impact on the history of philosophy, science, and culture.

Reshaping Metaphysics and Epistemology

Naturalistic tendencies have:

• Shifted metaphysical inquiry toward immanent structures and processes, reducing reliance on transcendent or supernatural explanations.
• Encouraged epistemological models that prioritize empirical methods, probabilistic reasoning, and fallibilism, often aligning philosophical accounts of knowledge with scientific practice.

This has contributed to the decline of traditional metaphysics in some quarters and the rise of analytic, scientifically informed philosophy.

Influence on Conceptions of Humanity

Naturalism, especially through Darwinian evolution and cognitive science, has reframed views of:

• Human origins as continuous with other life forms;
• Mind and agency as natural phenomena subject to causal explanation;
• Morality and social institutions as products of human nature, culture, and history rather than divine command or eternal forms.

These shifts have influenced debates on free will, responsibility, and the place of humans in the cosmos.

Interactions with Religion and Secularization

Naturalism has played a prominent role in processes of secularization:

• Providing alternative explanations for phenomena once attributed to the supernatural;
• Inspiring freethought, agnosticism, and atheism, as well as religious naturalisms that reconceive the sacred in immanent terms.

Conflicts and dialogues between naturalistic and religious outlooks continue to shape public discourse and philosophy of religion.

Cultural and Intellectual Movements

Beyond philosophy and science, naturalism has:

• Informed literary and artistic movements focused on realistic and deterministic portrayals of life;
• Influenced political and social thought, including certain strands of liberalism, socialism, and technocratic governance that rely on social science and empirical policy evaluation.

Ongoing Significance

Today, naturalism remains a central reference point in many areas of philosophy:

• It is invoked as a default presumption in much analytic metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and epistemology.
• It continues to attract defenders, reformers, and critics, prompting ongoing reflection on the scope and limits of naturalistic explanation.

The historical development of naturalism—from ancient proto-naturalistic cosmologies to contemporary scientific naturalism and its critics—thus marks a major trajectory in the intellectual history of how humans understand nature, themselves, and their place in reality.