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Naturalism, Science and the Supernatural

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Abstract

There is overwhelming agreement amongst naturalists that a naturalistic ontology should not allow for the possibility of supernatural entities. I argue, against this prevailing consensus, that naturalists have no proper basis to oppose the existence of supernatural entities. Naturalism is characterized, following Leiter and Rea, as a position which involves a primary commitment to scientific methodology and it is argued that any naturalistic ontological commitments must be compatible with this primary commitment. It is further argued that properly applied scientific method has warranted the acceptance of the existence of supernatural entities in the past and that it is plausible to think that it will do so again in the future. So naturalists should allow for the possibility of supernatural entities.

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Notes

  1. Rea (2002) does not develop these comments. They function as stage-setting for an ambitious argument against naturalism that turns on the alleged inability of naturalists to discover the modal properties of the world using the methods of natural science. Assessment of this argument is well beyond the scope of this paper.

  2. Armstrong (1989: 3) also describes naturalism as “the doctrine that nothing at all exists except the single world of space and time.”

  3. See also Sober (1993: ch. 3). In a recent paper McLaughlin (2007) takes issue with Sober’s (1993) view that Paley’s argument from design, which was most forcefully advocated in 1802, was representative of then prevailing scientific opinion. McLaughlin’s views need not detain us, however, as he concedes that “the argument from design was a part of science up to about 1730” (McLaughlin 2007: 27). This dispute is about when the argument from design was a part of science, not whether it was a part of science.

  4. For extensive discussion of the Intelligent Design movement, see Pennock (2001).

  5. On the influence of Christianity on the development of Western science, see Brooke (1991) and Grant (1996).

  6. Thanks to Peter Forrest for suggesting this line of objection.

  7. A second example of a possible scenario that would be best explained by appeal to the existence of the supernatural can be found in Clarke (1997).

  8. Psillos (1999: 212–13) explains why van Fraassen has often been read this way.

  9. Kim (2003: 92) considers an argument along these lines.

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Acknowledgement

Thanks to audiences at the Australian National University, Charles Sturt University, the University of Natal, the University of the Witwatersrand and the Australasian Philosophy of Religion Association inaugural conference for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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Correspondence to Steve Clarke.

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Clarke, S. Naturalism, Science and the Supernatural. SOPHIA 48, 127–142 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-009-0099-2

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