Author Archives: Kantian Naturalist

Naturalizing Teleology and Intentionality? (Must Nature Be “Disenchanted”?)

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Over the past year or so, two very interesting books in the philosophy of nature have attracted attention outside of the ultra-rarefied world of academic discourse: Alex Rosenberg’s The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions and Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False.  Both of these works have been extensively discussed in popular magazines, radio shows, blogs, and esp. at Uncommon Descent.  Here, I want to briefly describe what I see going on here and open up the topic for critical discussion.

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“Naturalism” and “Rationality”

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At Uncommon Descent — though not only there! — one often come across the view that naturalism is inconsistent with rationality: if one accepts naturalism, then one ought not regard one’s own rational capacities as reliable.   Some version of this view is ascribed to Darwin himself, and we can call it “Darwin’s Doubt” or simply “the Doubt.”   Should we endorse the Doubt?  Or are there reasons for doubting the Doubt?

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Materialism and Emergentism

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At Uncommon Descent, Elizabeth mentioned that she liked what I was calling “emergentism”. Here’s a brief overview, in contrast with dualism and materialism, that perhaps will spark some discussion.

(1) Dualism gives us The Bifurcated World: the world consists of two fundamentally different kinds of substance (mind and matter), each of which is characterized by an essential property (mental and physical), and is constituted by logically and metaphysically distinct substantial particulars (minds and bodies). Nothing is essentially both physical and mental, although some things may exist as temporary unions of mind and body. (How logically and metaphysically distinct things can causally interact (or even appear) to causally interact is a serious problem.)

(2) Materialism gives us The Layered World: the world consists of a series of “levels”, each of which hierarchically imposed on the others, and each level supervenes on the level below it. Mental facts –> biological facts –> chemical facts –> molecular, atomic, and quantum facts. (A major problem with this view is that each ‘level’ has its own conceptual, ontological, and causal integrity — whereas some philosophers hold that biology is irreducible to chemistry for merely epistemological and methodological reasons, I hold the stronger view that biology is irreducible to chemistry for ontological (or metaphysical) reasons.)

(3) Emergentism gives us the Dynamic World: the world consists of processes that are inherently active and reactive, energetic, and operating at all ‘scales’ of temporal and spatial resolution — some processes are vast and slow, others small and fast, and many in-between. Some of these processes are merely physico-chemical, some are biological, and some are mental. The basic elements in this ontology are processes, not substances (as in dualism) or even particles (as in materialism).

As I see it, the frequently-heard allegation (made by dualists and theists) that emergentism is an intellectual fraud depends on whether there is a difference that makes a difference between emergence and supervenience.

Naturalism, Normativity, and Nihilism

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Hopefully it will not be seen as an abuse of posting privileges if I share some thoughts I’ve been developing over the past few years.   But I’ve been prompted to share them by JLA’s assertion at Uncommon Descent that naturalism entails nihilism — an assertion that seems unquestioned in that forum. I think that that assertion collapses on closer inspection.

The problematic I’m concerned with here is about the relations between naturalism, normativity, and nihilism.  Each of these terms avails itself of a straightforward articulation, but I’ll be explicit: by ‘naturalism’ I mean that all real phenomena have a spatio-temporal location and participate in causal relations with other spatio-temporally locatable particulars.  By ‘normativity’ I mean that thought and action for at least some intelligent beings are governed by norms or rules of what counts as correct or incorrect, valid or invalid, good or bad.  And by ‘nihilism’ I mean that there is nothing of any real, genuine value, meaning, purpose, or fact in the world.

Now, does naturalism entail  nihilism?   It does, I submit, if — and only if — one has an a priori commitment to the further view that normativity is non-natural.  Put otherwise, if normativity is non-natural, but the natural is all that there is, then there isn’t any normativity — not really.   And nihilism follows as a result.

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Philosophy of Mind: A Taxonomy

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I consider the following to be a “work in progress,” and will make changes as others here contribute corrections and suggestions.

The so-called “mind-body problem”, as bequeathed to us by Descartes, has invited various solutions over the centuries.  In the classical version, the basic positions were dualism, materialism, and idealism — each of which has its sub-varieties.

What is meant by “mind”?  Well, there are characteristically mental phenomena have been presented as candidates for what is essential to mindedness: rationality, intentionality, subjectivity, volition, or consciousness.  (That these don’t all overlap can be seen by asking, “are there unconscious mental states or processes?”, “what sorts of minds do non-rational animals have?” “are there purely qualitative, non-intentional mental states, e.g. pains?” and so on.)

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The Dialectic of Darwinism and Anti-Darwinism

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I here present a number of theses, each of which deserves an independent argument in support of it, but which I think are both true and defensible:

(1) The resistance to Darwinism as expressed by creationism and by intelligent design largely arises from treating “Darwinism” as a scapegoat for the social ills produced by capitalism.  It has become commonplace among creationist and other anti-Darwinists to blame Darwinism for any and all of the following: eugenics, acceptance of homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, genocide, school shootings, abortion, and decline of ecclesiastical authority.

(2) Though the obsession with sexuality and anxiety about the ambiguity of embodiment are standard-fare among the religious far-right, my interest here lies in what it is about contemporary presentations of Darwinism that make it such a tempting target for these anxieties.

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