Online research in philosophy

Professor [H.W.] Sheldon's critique of contemporary naturalism as professed in the volume Naturalism and the Human Spirit consists of one central "accusation": naturalism is materialism pure and simple. This charge is supported by his further claim that since the scientific method naturalists espouse for acquiring reliable knowledge of nature is incapable of yielding knowledge of the mental or spiritual "nature" for the naturalist is definitionally limited to "physical nature." He therefore concludes that instead of being a philosophy which can settle age-old conflicts between materialism and idealism, naturalism is no more than a partisan standpoint, and contributes no new philosophical synthesis. ...

Part one: A progressive orientation: naturalism as exploration -- The vividness of truth: Darwin's romantic rhetoric and the evolutionary framework -- Our most vexing problem: conceptual conservatism and conceptual imperialism -- Naturalism as exploration: the elements of reform -- Part two: The allure of agency: "purpose" in biology -- The real heart of Darwinian evolutionary biology -- A formative power of a self-propagating kind: natural purposes and the concept location project -- A persistent mode of understanding: the psychological power of "purpose" -- Part three: The illusions of agency: "free will" and "moral responsibility" -- The death of an aphorism: the psychology of free will -- The bare possibility of our opinion: libertarian imperialism -- Words give us a special ability: compatibilist conservatism.