Charles Taylor’s Discussion with Naturalism

The Taylors of Lancashire

JOHN L. WEST, The Taylors of Lancashire, Manchester, [the author], 1977, 8vo, pp. 134, illus., £1.50 + postage (paperback). (Obtainable from: 11 Half Edge Lane, Eccles, Manchester). An excellent account of a remarkable medical family, based on extensive research into manuscript and printed sources. It extended over six or seven generations, from James Taylor (1708/10-1777) of Whitworth to Herbe...

Top-Level Ontology: The Problem with Naturalism

Much work in ontology has been based on ideas derived explicitly from philosophy. In particular there are two philosophy-based high-level ontologies which have been used to analyse tools and techniques for designing information systems, both deriving from the tradition of realism – one from naturalism (Bunge), the other from Aristotelian common-sense realism (Chisholm). Does it matter which und...

Cultural Naturalism

Culture can be viewed as the means by which a society can live in its surroundings by acquiring and consuming free energy. This naturalistic notion assumes that everything can be valued in terms of energy, hence also social changes can be described as natural processes that are influenced by the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. This universal law, when formulated as an equation of motion, reveals tha...

Positivism, Naturalism, and Anti- Naturalism in the Social Sciences

Quining Naturalism

Scientific naturalism is a metaphysical doctrine, a view about what there is, or what we ought to believe that there is. It maintains that natural science should be our guide in matters metaphysical: the ontology we should accept is the ontology that turns out to be required by science. Quine is often regarded as the doyen of scientific naturalists, though the supporting cast includes such gian...