Philosophical and Empirical Knowledge in the Program of Naturalism 1

Abstract

The possibility of adopting a philosophical stance, talking about philosophical knowledge, and characterizing its relation to empirical knowledge forms an important set of foundational problems for the program of naturalism. Against the background of earlier 20 th century analytic philosophy these issues are specifically acute, because naturalism rejects the very principles that such pure analytic and aprioristic philosophy relied on to demarcate itself from the special sciences. If the philosophical tradition is seen as depending on the autonomy of the conceptual sphere, then to keep the tradition alive, the program of naturalism will have to be able to provide some account of the nature and role of philosophical knowledge. This paper will introduce the program of naturalism and the rejection of pure philosophy on the basis of W.V. Quine’s work, in particular (section 1). A discussion of naturalized epistemology and of the applications of naturalism in the philosophy of mind will then be offered (section 2). Naturalism has also been a major trend of thought in contemporary philosophy of science. After having dealt with Arthur Fine’s ”natural ontological attitude ” and some other forms of naturalism (section 3), we shall take a look at the scientific study of religion in the cognitivist paradigm as an example of the contrast between philosophical and special-scientific empirical knowledge (section 4). Finally, concluding reflections will pull these themes together (section 5).

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