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