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Methodological Naturalism Undercuts Ontological Naturalism

  • Peter Forrest

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Naturalism, as I understand it, includes cosmological naturalism, ontological naturalism and methodological naturalism. After clarifying these three theses I argue that the combination of ontological with methodological naturalism is untenable. I do so by providing a pro tanto case against ontological naturalism and show that it can be resisted, but only by abandoning methodological naturalism. The pro tanto case is that ontological naturalism requires a version of what I call Redundancy Nominalism, but methodological naturalists should either reject it or at very least treat it, and hence ontological naturalism, as a speculation.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)99-110
JournalAmerican Philosophical Quarterly
Volume60
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 31 Dec 2023

Keywords

  • Emergence
  • methodology
  • naturalism
  • nominalism
  • ontology
  • Philosophy

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