Is really science what naturalism says it is?
Laudisa, Federico (2015) Is really science what naturalism says it is? [Preprint]
Abstract
In spite of the relevance of a scientific representation of the world for naturalism, it is surprising that philosophy of science is less involved in the debate on naturalism than expected. Had the viewpoint of philosophy of science been duly considered, naturalism could not have overlooked the established lesson, according to which there is no well-defined recipe for what science must or must not be. The present paper addresses some implications of this lesson for (some forms of) naturalism. First I will question the very significance of the distinction 'ontological vs. epistemic naturalism', by defending a conceptual priority of the latter over the former. Then I will focus on the implications of this priority for naturalization strategies, claiming that these strategies underestimate the normativity of scientific theories themselves. Finally, on the basis of the above points, I will have a critical look at an especially ‘aggressive’ variant of naturalism, according to which all epistemic facts are natural facts.
