Uploaded August 2021 | Updated September 2026, 9 hours ago
“I am moved by strange sympathies; I say continually 'I will be a naturalist.'"
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Naturalists, according to David Papinau, believe “that reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing ‘supernatural’.” Naturalism “has no very precise meaning in contemporary philosophy” beyond this, along with an emphasis on science as a means to understand the natural world.
Naturalism is the view that there is only the natural world—reality is exhausted by nature. I defend this simple conception of naturalism, ward off a few criticisms, and argue that there’s a kind of parity between the terms “theism” and “naturalism.” In other words, if you don’t have a problem with the term “theism,” you shouldn’t have a problem with “naturalism.”
/ References /
Luke Roelofs - Combining Minds: How to Think about Composite Subjectivity amazon.com/Combining-Minds-Composite-Subjectivity-Philosophy/dp/0190859059
Is God the Best Explanation of Things? A Dialogue - Joshua Rasmussen & Felipe Leon (this wasn’t mentioned in the episode, but Leon does a wonderful job fleshing out “liberal naturalism” palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030237516
Graham Oppy - The Best Argument Against God amazon.com/Best-Argument-against-Palgrave-Pivot/dp/1137354135
Sean Carroll - Poetic Naturalism preposterousuniverse.com/poetic-naturalism
Galen Strawson - Real Naturalism lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v35/n18/galen-strawson/real-naturalism
William Lycan - Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction amazon.com/Philosophy-Language-Contemporary-Introduction-2nd/dp/0415957524
Naturalism - SEP https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/
/ Links /
https://linktr.ee/emersongreen
Follow on Twitter @waldenpod and @OnPanpsychism
Listen to and review Counter Apologetics: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counter-apologetics/id1273573417
Listen to Walden Pod: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/walden-pod/id1474408172
Support at Patreon.com/counter or /waldenpod
Transcript: emersongreenblog.wordpress.com/2021/08/18/what-is-naturalism
/ timestamps /
00:00 Groundwork definition and parity with theism
3:31 A few elaborations of naturalism
10:49 The Natural World
13:56 More on the parity with theism
15:40 Brief note on atheism
17:07 Use Theory
20:20 A few final thoughts on naturalism
“I am moved by strange sympathies; I say continually 'I will be a naturalist.'"
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Naturalists, according to David Papinau, believe “that reality is exhausted by nature, containing nothing ‘supernatural’.” Naturalism “has no very precise meaning in contemporary philosophy” beyond this, along with an emphasis on science as a means to understand the natural world.
Naturalism is the view that there is only the natural world—reality is exhausted by nature. I defend this simple conception of naturalism, ward off a few criticisms, and argue that there’s a kind of parity between the terms “theism” and “naturalism.” In other words, if you don’t have a problem with the term “theism,” you shouldn’t have a problem with “naturalism.”
/ References /
Luke Roelofs - Combining Minds: How to Think about Composite Subjectivity amazon.com/Combining-Minds-Composite-Subjectivity-Philosophy/dp/0190859059
Is God the Best Explanation of Things? A Dialogue - Joshua Rasmussen & Felipe Leon (this wasn’t mentioned in the episode, but Leon does a wonderful job fleshing out “liberal naturalism” palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030237516
Graham Oppy - The Best Argument Against God amazon.com/Best-Argument-against-Palgrave-Pivot/dp/1137354135
Sean Carroll - Poetic Naturalism preposterousuniverse.com/poetic-naturalism
Galen Strawson - Real Naturalism lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v35/n18/galen-strawson/real-naturalism
William Lycan - Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction amazon.com/Philosophy-Language-Contemporary-Introduction-2nd/dp/0415957524
Naturalism - SEP https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/
/ Links /
https://linktr.ee/emersongreen
Follow on Twitter @waldenpod and @OnPanpsychism
Listen to and review Counter Apologetics: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counter-apologetics/id1273573417
Listen to Walden Pod: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/walden-pod/id1474408172
Support at Patreon.com/counter or /waldenpod
Transcript: emersongreenblog.wordpress.com/2021/08/18/what-is-naturalism
/ timestamps /
00:00 Groundwork definition and parity with theism
3:31 A few elaborations of naturalism
10:49 The Natural World
13:56 More on the parity with theism
15:40 Brief note on atheism
17:07 Use Theory
20:20 A few final thoughts on naturalism
