Naturalism: a crititcal analysis

Naturalism provides a rigorous analysis and critique of the major varieties of contemporary philosophical naturalism. The authors advocate the thesis that contemporary naturalism should be abandoned, in light of the serious objections raised against it. Contributors draw on a wide range of topics including: epistemology, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind and agency, and natural theology. "Naturalism: A Critical Analysis accomplishes three things. First, it argues that naturalism fails to deal adequately with a number of desiderata; second, it shows that to the degree that naturalism is a consistent paradigm and is 'located' within the physicalist story, it should be a form of strict physicalism; and third, it provides an account of the contemporary resurgence of philosophical theism by advertising to evidentiary considerations in the natural world itself (e.g. Big Bang cosmology) which serve as signposts of transcendence."--Jacket "Naturalism: A Critical Analysis presents a rigorous analysis and critique of the major varieties of contemporary philosophical naturalism. It advocates the thesis that contemporary naturalism should be abandoned in light of the serious difficulties raised against it. The contributors draw on a wide range of topics including: epistemology, philosophy of science, value theory to basic analytic ontology, philosophy of mind and agency, and natural theology." This book presents a rigorous analysis and critique of the major varieties of contemporary philosophical naturalism. It advocates the thesis that contemporary naturalism should be abandoned in the light of serious difficulties against it Many philosophers have held, in the tradition of Plato and Aristotle, that there are uniquely philosophical, non-empirical methods of inquiry and that there are things whose investigation is reliably conducted via such methods.