Re: The Question of Starting Point Premises, and the Burden of Proof for Non-Naturalism

From: Chris Cogan (ccogan@telepath.com)
Date: Sun Jul 02 2000 - 21:39:48 EDT

  • Next message: Terry Trainor: "Re: The Question of Starting Point Premises, and the Burden of Proof for Non-Naturalism"

    At 02:07 AM 07/03/2000, you wrote:
    >Thanks for the essay, Chris. I'd just like to nit-pick on one point. You
    >wrote:
    >
    > >Naturalism is minimal; it assumes only the already-known natural world.
    >
    >This statement seems ambiguous to me. It could be taken as meaning that
    >naturalism assumes no more than what we already know. But naturalism *does*
    >assume the existence of not-yet-known entities and mechanisms in the natural
    >world. For example, naturalism assumes that a natural mechanism for
    >abiogenesis exists, even though we don't know what the mechanism is.
    >
    >I would say that naturalism extrapolates from the fact that we have natural
    >explanations of many phenomena to the assumption that there are natural
    >explanations for all phenomena. Given the enormous past success of science
    >in finding natural explanations (often for phenomena which were previously
    >claimed to be supernatural), this seems a reasonable extrapolation to make.
    >
    >On the other hand, supernaturalism does not just extrapolate. It postulates
    >an entirely knew type of phenomenon. That's why it carries the burden of
    >proof, as far as science is concerned.

    Thanks for the comments. I probably should have said "metaphysically
    minimal," rather than just "minimal."

    --Chris



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