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The Radical Naturalism of Naturalistic Philosophy of Science

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Abstract

Naturalism in the philosophy of science has proceeded differently than the familiar forms of meta-philosophical naturalism in other sub-fields, taking its cues from “science as we know it” (Cartwright in The Dappled World, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999, p. 1) rather than from a philosophical conception of “the Scientific Image.” Its primary focus is scientific practice, and its philosophical analyses are complementary and accountable to empirical studies of scientific work. I argue that naturalistic philosophy of science is nevertheless criterial for other versions of meta-philosophical naturalism; relying on a conflicting conception of scientific understanding would constitute a “first philosophy” imposed on the sciences. Moreover, naturalistic philosophy of science provides the basis for a “radically” naturalistic alternative to the familiar forms of orthodox or liberal naturalism. Goodman, Sellars and Hempel had previously challenged empiricist scruples against causal connections or nomological necessity by arguing that scientific concepts already had modal import. The radical naturalism I defend similarly challenges meta-philosophical naturalists’ conception of the Scientific Image as anormative, and instead shows how the normativity of scientific understanding in practice is a scientifically intelligible natural phenomenon. This account then provides a basis for naturalistic reflection on how other practices and normative concerns fit together with the best scientific understanding of human ways of life.

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Notes

  1. Widely cited examples of ontological naturalism and the “placement problem” include Armstrong (1978) and Jackson (1998). Quine (1969) is a classic defense of methodological naturalism. Papineau (2021) carefully surveys and assesses various naturalist positionings.

  2. Prominent historical markers for this shift include Ronald Giere’s (1985) proposal for a naturalized philosophy of science, Arthur Fine’s (1986a ch. 7–8, 1986b, 1991, 1996) papers on the Natural Ontological Attitude, Werner Callebaut’s (1993) wide-ranging interviews of naturalistic philosophers of science, prominent edited volumes (Pickering 1992, Galison and Stump 1996) bringing together philosophers, historians, sociologists, and feminist scholars in constructive conversation, the subsequent mutually productive engagement of philosophers, historians, and sociologists in the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology (https://www.ishpssb.org/), and the founding of the Society for the Philosophy of Science in Practice (https://www.philosophy-science-practice.org/).

  3. Salient examples include Ankeny and Leonelli (2016); Barad (2007); Bechtel (2006); Cartwright (2019); Douglas (2009); Dupre (2012); Giere (2006); Hacking (2009); Kitcher (2001); Mitchell (2009); Nersessian 2008; Rouse 2015, Part II ; Solomon 2015; Winsberg 2018; Wylie (2002).

  4. Classic examples of this approach include Wilson (1975), Cosmides, Tooby, and Barkow (1992), and Buss (2008).

  5. Important examples of such criticism include Cowie (1999), Sterelny (2003) Part III, Buller (2005), Lloyd (2008) ch. 9, Laland and Brown (2011).

  6. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for Topoi who called attention to the need to address conceptions of evolutionary biology as vindicating a conception of nature as anormative.

  7. Prominent examples of the now-extensive literature on cultural evolution include Richerson and Boyd (2005), Mesoudi (2011), and Tomlinson (2018); Lewens (2015) provides a critical overview.

  8. Rouse (2023) develops an extensive account of the two-dimensional normativity of the discursive, practice-differentiated way of life that has evolved in the human lineage.

  9. “Objective accountability” here refers to how concepts and claims are answerable to the objects, properties, and relations they are about, rather than to any purported criteria for the objective correctness of those claims. For discussion of the difference between these two aspects of objectivity, see Rouse (2015), ch. 5.

  10. The future-directed temporality of the justification of scientific understanding has been a central theme in philosophy of science, although rarely thematized in those terms. Wilfrid Sellars provided one classic expression of this temporal orientation:

    [S]cience is rational not because it has a foundation but because it is a self-correcting enterprise which can put any claim in jeopardy, although not all at once. (1997, 79)

    Kuhn (1970) was especially influential in arguing that what secures widespread acceptance of a conceptual orientation is not the retrospective assessment of its coherence and evidential support so far, but its continuing ability to set and solve “problems” for how to extend that conceptualization to new cases, and hence its promise as a guide to subsequent research.

  11. I am grateful to an anonymous referee for Topoi for suggesting the need to address this concern.

  12. The research for this paper has been funded by grant 61575 on “Social Practices, Scientific Practice, and Human Evolution” from the Natural Sciences Division of the John Templeton Foundation, whose support is gratefully acknowledged.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Wesleyan University, 350 High Street, Middletown, CT, 06459, USA

    Joseph Rouse

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Rouse, J. The Radical Naturalism of Naturalistic Philosophy of Science. Topoi 42, 719–732 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-023-09885-7

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