What Nature Is An Outline Of Scientific Naturalism

This book presents an introduction to the principles of scientific naturalism, which holds that nature is a self-sufficient reality that can be explained by natural causes and laws. Franklin explores the implications of this worldview for our understanding of the world and the place of humanity within it. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Excerpt from What Nature Is an Outline of Scientific Naturalism The problem before us is this: Given the ele ments and energies now at work in Nature, to explain human existence in naturalistic terms, to answer the questions: What is the Universe? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from What Nature Is an Outline of Scientific Naturalism I am now convinced, that no great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought. The old opinions in religion, morals and politics, are so much discredited in the more intellectual minds as to have lost the greater part of their efficiency for good, while they have still life enough in them to be powerful obstacles to the growing up of any better opinions on these subjects. When the philosophical minds of the world can no longer believe its religion, or can only believe it with modifications amounting to an essential change of its character, a transitional period commences, of weak convictions, paralyzed intellects, and growing laxity of principle, which can not terminate until a renovation has been effected in the basis of their belief, leading to the evolution of some faith, which they can really believe: and when things are in this state, all thinking or writing which does not tend to promote such a renovation is of very little value, beyond the moment. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The intellectual and cultural battles now raging over theism and atheism, conservatism and secular progressivism, dualism and monism, realism and antirealism, and transcendent reality versus material reality extend even into the scientific disciplines. This stunning new volume captures this titanic clash of worldviews among those who have thought most deeply about the nature of science and of the universe itself. Unmatched in its breadth and scope, The Nature of Nature brings together some of the most influential scientists, scholars, and public intellectuals—including three Nobel laureates—across a wide spectrum of disciplines and schools of thought. Here they grapple with a perennial question that has been made all the more pressing by recent advances in the natural sciences: Is the fundamental explanatory principle of the universe, life, and self-conscious awareness to be found in inanimate matter or immaterial mind? The answers found in this book have profound implications for what it means to do science, what it means to be human, and what the future holds for all of us.

To naturalists, there is no such thing as complete justification for any claim, and so requiring complete warrant for naturalist proposals is an unreasonable request. The proper guideline for naturalist proposals seems thus clear: develop it using the methods of science; if this leads to a fruitful stance, then explicate and reassess. The resulting offer will exhibit virtuous circularity if its explanatory feedback loop involves critical reassessment as the explanations it encompasses play out. So viewed, naturalism is a philosophical perspective that seeks to unite in a virtuous circle the natural sciences and non-foundationalist, broadly-based empiricism. Other common lines of antinaturalist complaint are that naturalization efforts seem fruitful only in some areas, also that several endeavors outside the sciences serve as sources of knowledge into human life and the human condition, especially in areas where science does not reach terribly far as yet. It seems hard not to grant some truth to many allegories from literature, art and some religions. Naturalism has room for knowledge gathered outside science, provided the imported claims satisfy also by naturalistic methods. Naturalism and the debate about its scope and limits thrive on discrepancy. We hope that, collectively, the selected essays that follow will give a fair view of the vitality and tribulations of naturalism as a variegated contemporary philosophical perspective.

The Norwegian painter, novelist, and social critic Christian Krohg (1852–1925) is best known for creating highly political paintings of workers, prostitutes, and Skagen fishermen of the 1880s and for serving as a mentor to Edvard Munch. One of the Nordic countries’ most avant-garde naturalist artists, Krohg was influenced by French thinkers such as Émile Zola, Claude Bernard, and Hippolyte Taine, and he shocked the provincial sensibilities of his time. His work reached beyond the art world when his book Albertine and its related paintings were banned upon publication. Telling the story of a young seamstress who turns to a life of prostitution, it galvanized support for outlawing prostitution in Norway—but Krohg was also punished for the work’s sexual content. Examining the theories of Krohg and his fellow naturalists and their reception in Scandinavian intellectual circles, Øystein Sjåstad places Krohg in an international perspective and reveals his striking contribution to European naturalism. In the process, Christian Krohg’s Naturalism provides an unparalleled account of Krohg’s art.

Today most philosophers in the English-speaking world adhere to “naturalist” credos that philosophy is continuous with science, and that the natural sciences provide a complete account of all that exists. This volume presents a group of leading thinkers who criticize scientific naturalism in order to defend a more inclusive or liberal naturalism.