NATURALISM
Charles François (2004). NATURALISM, International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics, 2(2): 2240.
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 2240 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
- “The belief that all human faculties are emergent from the rest of nature and not dependent upon some special operations of a supernatural agency” (J.Z. YOUNG, 1978, p. 296)
YOUNG adds “Hence in ethics the belief that reliable criteria for right actions can be founded on factual observations , includingfacts about people” (Ibid).
Of course, in the long run, naturalism can be sustained only through experimental confirmation of specific emergent effects . Moreover, the very concept of emergence implies the appearance of more complex and integrating phenomena from so-called “lower” levels to “higher”levels . Accordingly, the study of this mechanism of emergence in itself is also the responsability of the naturalistic approach, unless we would be back to reductionism.
See also
Falsifiability