Re: methodological naturalism - origin of the term?

From: Ted Davis (tdavis@messiah.edu)
Date: Tue Aug 26 2003 - 09:03:52 EDT

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    Hold on for a little while, and I should be able to come up with a better
    candidate for the first use of the term, "methodological naturalism." I'm
    waiting to hear from a scholar who is researching this for something he is
    writing. I heard him give a paper on it this summer, and he had a specific
    instance a few years earlier than 1991. I'm not presently at liberty to add
    details.

    I'll also note the following definintions, from the article I wrote with
    Robin Collins (a philosopher of science here at Messiah) on "Scientific
    Naturalism," for the Garland Encyclopedia of the History of Religion and
    Science (recently reprinted by Johns Hopkins):

    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.

    ted



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