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Pragmatism, Naturalism, and Phenomenology

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Abstract

Pragmatism’s naturalism is inconsistent with the phenomenological tradition’s anti-naturalism. This poses a problem for the methodological consistency of phenomenological work in the pragmatist tradition. Solutions such as phenomenologizing naturalism or naturalizing phenomenology have been proposed, but they fail. As a consequence, pragmatists and other naturalists must answer the phenomenological tradition’s criticisms of naturalism.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks go to Charlie Hobbs, Jeffrey Jackson, Lenore Langsdorf, Joseph Margolis, Marc Freumont-Meurice, David Roberts, Aaron Simmons, Robert Talisse, the audience at the 2002 meeting of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, and the anonymous reviewers at Human Studies for comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University, 111 Furman Hall, Nashville, TN, 37240, USA

    Scott F. Aikin

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Aikin, S.F. Pragmatism, Naturalism, and Phenomenology. Hum Stud 29, 317–340 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-006-9026-5

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