Liberal naturalism

Liberal naturalism is a heterodox form of metaphysical naturalism that lies in the conceptual space between scientific (or reductive) naturalism and supernaturalism. It allows that one can respect the explanations and results of the successful sciences without supposing that the sciences are our only resource for understanding humanity and our dealings with the world and each other. Liberal naturalism is a heterodox form of metaphysical naturalism that lies in the conceptual space between scientific (or reductive) naturalism and supernaturalism. It allows that one can respect the explanations and results of the successful sciences without supposing that the sciences are our only resource for understanding humanity and our dealings with the world and each other. The term was introduced in 2004 by Mario De Caro & David Macarthur and, independently, by Gregg Rosenberg. This form of naturalism has been ascribed to Immanuel Kant. For a liberal naturalist many things in our everyday world that are not explicable (or not fully explicable) by science are, nonetheless, presupposed by science—e.g. tables, persons, artworks, institutions, rational norms and values. Explaining such things might require non-scientific non-supernatural resources according to this form of naturalism. So, rather than tailoring their ontology to the posits of the successful sciences, as scientific naturalists do, liberal naturalists recognise the prima facie irreducible reality of everyday objects that are part of what Wilfrid Sellars called 'the manifest image'. Liberal naturalism is a 'liberal' or 'catholic' naturalism for several reasons each of which contrasts with scientific naturalist orthodoxy: