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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
To invoke the word “naturalism” is reminiscent of American philosophy of a past generation that under the interdict of Neo-Hegelianism sought a reconstitution of metaphysical attitudes, expressed in terms of Pragmatism and Critical Realism. But these naturalistic philosophies have, in a sense, come and gone, the philosophical mainstream being subsequently dominated by varieties of Positivism and continental European philosophies stemming from Existentialism and Phenomenology. It is curious, in a way, that, with one notable exception, most of these more contemporary philosophical movements presume some type of naturalistic base, at least to the extent that they reject the issues of conventional metaphysics and elect to deal, in various ways, with what they construe to be present actualities. The “notable exception” is clearly Logical Positivism that makes a radical separation between the scientific and philosophical enterprise.
1 A good statement of the position is inAVer's, A. J.Language, Truth and Logic (New York, 1952)Google Scholar. Many accounts of Logical Positivism are available; one of the clearest is to be found inBlackstone, W. T., The Problems of Religious Knowledge (Englewood Cliffs, 1963)Google Scholar, Chapter III.
2 See Mill's, Inaugural Address (1867) at the University of St. AndrewsGoogle Scholar.
3 Morris, Deimond, The Human Zoo (New York, 1969)Google Scholar.
4 SeeMorris, , The Biology of Art (New York, 1962)Google Scholar.
5 See Whitehead, , Process and Reality (New York, 1929),Google Scholar especially Part III.
6 See Neumann, Erich, The Origins and History of Consciousness (New York, 1954)Google Scholar.
7 Eliade, Mircea, The Myth of the Eternal Return (New York, 1954)Google Scholar, especially Chapter IV.
8 For a preliminary analysis of this area by the author, see “Human Knowledge and Animal Wisdom,” Laurentian University Review (December, 1969), pp. 25–44.