RE: [asa] Question for Ted {was: American ScientificAffiliation * Whatever happened to its mission?

These definitions get tricky, and obviously individual authors use them in
their own ways. Sometimes their definitions are only implicit, which makes
it even tougher.

The article Robin Collins and I wrote, on "Scientific Naturalism," was
published in 2000 and written starting in 1996. We didn't survey other
authors' definitions; rather we did our best to convey what the terms meant
in wide practice, in the opinions of both an historian (me) and a
philosopher (Robin) of science. We actually distinguished four separate
terms, as follows:

Scientific Naturalism -- the conjunction of naturalism, the claim that
nature is all that there is and hence that there is no supernatural order
above nature, along with the claim that all objects, processes, truths, and
facts about nature fall within the scope of the scientific method. This
ontological naturalism implies weaker forms of naturalism, such as the
belief that humans are wholly a part of nature (anthropological naturalism);
the belief that nothing can be known of any entities other than nature
(epistemological naturalism); and the belief that science should explain
phenomena only in terms of entities and properties that fall within the
category of the natural, such as by natural laws acting either through known
causes or by chance (methodological naturalism). Prior to the late
nineteenth century, scientific naturalism was not the dominant way of
understanding the world, nor is it now the only metaphysical position
consistent with modern science. Technically, scientific naturalism is not
the same thing as philosophical materialism -- the belief that everything is
ultimately material -- but it is closely related, and today they are usually
conflated. Traditional theists do not accept scientific naturalism,
although they may agree with anthropological naturalism and/or
methodological naturalism.

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Received on Tue Apr 24 12:26:18 2007