Naturalism -A Philosophical Analysis

8/9/2019 Naturalism -A Philosophical Analysis

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NATURALISM---A PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS

DR V.K.MAHESHWARI Ph.D DR SURAKSHA BANSAL Ph.D

College of Education (D.I.M.S ) College of Education ( D.I.M.S )

MEERUT. INDIA MEERUT.INDIA

,Naturalism is the doctrine which separates nature from God, subordinates

spirit to matter and sets up unchangeable laws as supreme.According to this

law, nature is supreme, all answers should be sought in nature and it alone

can solve all the philosophical problems.-- Ward

RUNNING through most of the educational literature today one finds a dominantthread. The importance of this fact is for life as well as for education. The centraltheme of this thread is expressed in such terms as continuous progress, the

perfectibility of mankind, and perpetual betterment through scientific advances.The underlying philosophy of this outlook is signified by the term naturalism .Asa philosophy of life (perhaps the oldest one) it maintains that nature is the onlyreality worthy of the serious consideration of man, and that man himself is the apexof this reality.

Naturalism is a concept that firmly believes that ultimate reality lies in the natureof the matter. Matter is considered to be supreme and mind is the functioning ofthe brain that is made up of matter. The whole universe is governed by laws ofnature and they are changeable. Its through our sense that we are able to get thereal knowledge. The senses works like real gateways of knowledge and explorationis he method that helps in studying nature


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Basic Concept of Naturalism

The meaning of the name naturalism is strongly implied in the word itself. It is theview point which regards the world of nature as the all in all of reality .

Naturalism, commonly known as materialism, is a philosophical paradigmwhereby everything can be explained in terms of natural causes. Physical matter isthe only reality -- everything can be explained in terms of matter and physical

phenomena. Naturalism, by definition, excludes any Supernatural Agent oractivity. Thus, naturalism is atheism. Naturalism's exclusion of God necessitatesmoral relativism.

Naturalism is an artistic movement advocating realistic description: in art orliterature, a movement or school advocating factual or realistic description of life,

including its less pleasant aspects. In literature,

Naturalism has strong belief in religious truth from nature: a belief that allreligious truth is derived from nature and natural causes, and not from revelation.

The doctrine rejecting spiritual explanations of world: a system of thoughtthat rejects all spiritual and supernatural explanations of the world and holds thatscience is the sole basis of what can be known

HISTORICAL RETOSPECT

Ancient period

Naturalism appears to have originated in early Greek philosophy. The earliest pre -socratic philosophers, such as Thales, Anaxagoras or most especially Democritus,were labeled by their peers and successors "thephysikoi" physikos, meaning"natural philosopher," borrowing on the word physis, meaning "nature") becausethey sought to explain everything by reference to natural causes alone, often

distinctly excluding any role for gods, spirits or magic in the creation or operationof the world..

The philosophy of the early Greeks was dominated by the search for the OnePrinciple, or cause which should explain phenomena. No distinction was made


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between matter and spirit. The first speculations were made by the early Ionianphysicists known as the "School of Miletus.

AS for as the history of philosophy is concerned, naturalism is the oldestphilosophy. The earliest figures with whom our histories of philosophy commonlybegin were naturalists. Thales, who lived in Miletus, as coastal city so ancient AsiaMinor, during the early part of the sixth century B.C., observing water to be such alarge constituent of many material and living forms, decided upon it as the onesingle substance common to all things. The daring of Thales, marking him as anaturalist, is that he found his final substance within Nature

Thales was born at Miletus about the year 640 B.C. and lived until about 550 B.C.He was a mathematician, astronomer, and businessman. "The principle of allthings is water; all comes from water, and to water all returns."

For Thales, the principle of things is water, or moisture, which should not beconsidered exclusively in a materialistic and empirical sense. Indeed it isconsidered that which has neither beginning nor end - an active, living, divineforce. It seems that Thales was induced to proffer water as the first principle by theobservation that all living things are sustained by moisture and perish without it.

. Anaximander and Anaximander, who lived in the same century, formed, togetherwith Thales, the Milesian school. Both were disposed to explain realty in terms ofone substance, and like Thales did not go beyond the realm of Nature to identify

this substance. Matter

Anaximander was born at Miletus about the year 611 B.C. and died about 547 B.C.Anaximander was probably a disciple of Thales According to him"The principleof all things is infinite atmosphere, which has a perpetual vitality of its own,

produces all things, and governs all things.:

For Anaximander, the first principle of all things is the "indeterminate" - apeiron.There are no historical data to enlighten us as to what Anaximander may havemeant by the "indeterminate"; perhaps it was the Chaos or Space of which

physicists speak today .All things originate from the Unlimited, because movementcauses within that mysterious element certain quakes or shocks which in turn bringabout a separation of the qualities contained in the Unlimited.

The first animals were fish, which sprang from the original humidity of the earth.Fish came to shore, lost their scales, assumed another form and thus gave origin tothe various species of animals. Man thus traces his origin from the animals.


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Because of this, Anaximander has come to be considered the first evolutionistphilosopher.

. Anaximenes

Anaximenes was born toward the end of the sixth century B.C., and died about 524B.C. He was probably a disciple of Anaximander and he composed a treatise ofunknown title.

According to Anaximenes the first principle from which everything isgenerated is air. Air, through the two opposite processes of condensation andrarefaction, which are due to heat and cold, has generated fire, wind, clouds, water,heaven and earth.He reduces the multiplicity of nature to a single principle,animated and divine, which would be the reason for all empirical becoming.

But the ancient roots of naturalism have much fuller body in four other men whohave been called atomists, only two of whom were contemporaries. Leucippus andDemocritus,. Epicurus (341-270 b.c.), more than a century later, whose carrier waslargely subsequent to Aristotles was devoted to the ideas of Democritus. AndLucretius (96-55 b.c.), though not even a Greek and born almost two and one halfcenturies after Epicurus, was a great admirer of Epicurus. All four are calledatomists because they conceived of reality as fundamentally a matter of atomsmoving in space.

Leucippus and DemocritusLeucippus and Democritus explained the world in a commonsense reeducation of

Nature two simple things: empty space and atoms. They assumed that there is andcan be such a thing as empty space, a vacuum or void containing nothing. Thisempty space they containing nothing. This empty space they considered to be thesame as nothing, nonexistence, or nonbeing. About the substance filling emptyspace, giving us all the things making up the world, they reasoned that it must beconstituted by small indivisible units piled one upon another. These hypothetical

units they called atoms. Theoretically, at least, division of parts into smaller partscan go on indefinitely. But Leucippus and Democritus argued that there must besome infinitesimal unit which is elemental and cannot be divided further. This,

because of its imputed indivisibility, they called an atom.Little was said about empty space, nor could there be; it was a void in which

atoms could move. The atoms, however, were considered to be of an infinite


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variety of sizes, shapes, and weights. Everything in Nature as we now behold it isthe result of atoms moving through space. When the atoms come together inclusters, things come into being; when they move apart, objects dissolve and fallinto nonexistence. Even mind and soul are made up of atoms, evolving and

dissolving in the same manner. But mind and soul are made of fine, smooth atomswhich are perfectly round, similar to the atoms of which fire was supposedlycomposed. Mind and soul, like fire, have great mobility; and their atoms thereforemust be very active.

The motion of atoms in space was described by Leucippus and Democritus assheer motion,. The motion might be described as random, in the sense that there ismovement in all kinds of different directions. Such random movement resulted inatoms colliding with one another, thence forming clusters and accumulating the

mass to constitute such objects as rocks, trees, and planets.

From this elemental ground, Nature as we now know it has evolved, according toLeucippus and Democritus. Worlds whirled together as the atoms formed largemasses in vast swirling motions. Vegetation grew, animals developed, and manarose, his speech and institutions resulting with the same kind of necessity as

produced minerals and vegetation. .

Epicurus does go definitely beyond Democritus in considering the

knowledge problem .he was at least aware that if objects are made of atoms, andthe mind and soul are also made of atoms, some explanation must be found,harmonizing with the atom-space description of reality, making somewhat clearhow the impression of an object gets into the mind of the man who beholds it.His solution was that objects give off a kind of film of atoms which is transmittedto the mind through the sense, anther yields a king of photographic replica of theobject. This replica is not a copy pure and simple, for it is constituted by atomsgiven off by the object itself. It is a valid image of the object, in which the very

qualities of the object are retained, having been transmitted to the mind by theparticles given off by the object.

Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes Like the ancient naturalists, Hobbes conceived Nature as anaffair of bodies moving in space. He was not, however, an atomist, for he did not


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agree that any body could be so smaller. A body he defined as a thing which existsin and of itself and has no dependence what so ever upon our though about it.Bodies exist outside of us and do not depend on any relation to us. By spaceHobbes meant a place outside of the mind which can be filled by an object. If you

think of a book on our desk as being moved from the place it now occupies toanother spot, you can at least imagine a space which was left vacant by the book

being moved, a space which could be occupied by another object. There yetremains one other item in Hobbes description of Nature, namely, motion; andmotion he defined as :the privation of one place and the acquisition of another. Itis that way of behaving seen in Nature by which a body can first occupy one spot,then another, and still another, and so on. Motion is as fundamental as rest; it is notcaused by something other than motion; it is its own cause. If a body is in motion,

some body which is at rest will have to impeded its movement in order for it tocome to rest. Contrariwise, when a body is at rest it does not get into motion unlessit is pushed by another body endeavoring to get into its place.

Combining these definitions, we have Nature described by Hobbes as anaggregate of things existing outside of our minds, and therefore evidencing thereality of a space beyond us, but also an aggregate of things moving from one

place to another in that space which is beyond us. This is the same as thedescription given by Democritus and Epicures except that bodies may be both

larger and smaller than atoms, and also that Hobbs seems to have been moreaware of an observer making this description. Space is defined by him as a kind of

beyondness in contrast to the mental processes of the observer. .

Jean Jacques Rousseau

y . Rousseau, in his A Discourseon Inequality, an account of the historicaldevelopment of the human race, distinguished between natural man (man asformed by nature) and social man (man as shaped by society). He argued that

good education should develop the nature of man. Yet Rousseau found thatmankind has not one nature but several: man originally lived in a pure state ofnature but was altered by changes beyond control and took on a different nature;this nature, in turn, was changed as man became social. The creation of the artsand sciences caused man to become less pure, more artificial, and egoistic, andmans egoistic nature prevents him from regaining the simplicity of original


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human nature. Rousseau is pessimistic, almost fatalistic, about changing thenature of modern man.

ymile, his major work on education, describes an attempt to educate a simple andpure natural child for life in a world from which social man is estranged. mile isremoved from mans society to a little society inhabited only by the child and histutor. Social elements enter the little society through the tutors knowledge whenthe tutor thinks mile can learn something from them. Rousseaus aim throughoutis to show how a natural education, unlike the artificial and formal education ofsociety, enables mile to become social, moral, and rational while remaining trueto his original nature. Because mile is educated to be a man, not a priest, asoldier, or an attorney, he will be able to do what is needed in any situation.

Francis Bacon

According to Bacon, man would be able to explain all the processes in nature if hecould acquire full insight into the hidden structure and the secret workings ofmatter. Bacon's conception of structures in nature, functioning according to itsown working method, concentrates on the question of how natural order is

produced, namely by the interplay of matter and motion. InDe PrincipiisatqueOriginibus, his materialistic stance with regard to his conception of natural law

becomes evident. The Summary LawofNature is a virtus (matter-cum-motion) orpower in accordance with matter theory, or the force implanted by God in thesefirst particles, form the multiplication thereof of all the variety of things proceedsand is made up . Similarly, inDeSapientia Veterum he attributes to this force anappetite or instinct of primal matter; or to speak more plainly, the natural motionof the atom; which is indeed the original and unique force that constitutes andfashions all things out of matter . Suffice it to say here that Bacon, who did notreject mathematics in science, was influenced by the early mathematical versionof chemistry developed in the 16th century, so that the term instinct must beseen as a keyword for his theory of nature Bacon's theory of active or even vividforce in matter accounts for what he calls Cupid inDe PrincipiisatqueOriginibus . Bacon's ideas concerning the quidfacti of reality presuppose thedistinction between understanding how things are made up and of what theyconsist, . and by what force and in what manner they come together, and howthey are transformed . This is the point in his work where it becomes obviousthat he tries to develop an explanatory pattern in which his theory of matter, andthus his atomism, are related to his cosmology, magic, and alchemy.


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Middle ages to modernity

With the rise and dominance of Christianity and the decline of secularphilosophy in the West naturalism became heretical and eventually illegal, thusmaking it difficult to document the history of naturalism in the Middle Ages. When

the Renaissance reintroduced numerous lost treatises by Greek and Roman naturalphilosophers, many of the ideas and concepts of naturalism were picked up again,contributing to a new Scientific Revolution that would greatly advance the studyand understanding of nature Then a few intellectuals publicly renewed the case forl naturalism, like Baron d'Holbach in the 18th century.

In this period, naturalism finally acquired a distinct name, materialism, whichbecame the only category of metaphysical naturalism widely defended until the20th century, when advances in physics as well as philosophy made the original

premise of materialism untenable

Today, noteworthy proponents are too numerous to count, but prominent defendersof naturalism as a complete worldview include Mario Bunge,Richard Carrier ,Daniel Dennett , and David Mill.

Certain extreme varieties of politicized naturalism have arisen in the West, mostnotably Marxism in the 19th century and Objectivism in the 20thcentury. Marxism is an expression communist deals in a naturalist framework,while Objectivism is the exact opposite, an expression of capitalist ideals in anaturalist framework.

.FORMS OF NATURALISM

Naturalism in the broad sense has been maintained in diverse forms by Aristotle,the Cynics, the Stoics, Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, Thomas Hobbes, AugusteComte, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, William James, John Dewey, and Alfred

North Whitehead, philosophers who differ widely on specific questions. Some, likeComte and Nietzsche, were professed atheists, while others accepted a god in

pantheistic terms. Aristotle, James, and Dewey all attempted to explain phenomenain terms of biological processes of perception; Spinoza and the idealists tended toemphasize metaphysics; later thinkers of all schools have placed emphasis onunifying the scientific viewpoint with an all-encompassing reality. Thisamalgamation of science and an overall explanation of the universe in naturalisticterms is the source of much of contemporary philosophic thought


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Metaphysical naturalism (also known as ontologicalnaturalism or philosophical naturalism)

, Characterizes any worldview in which reality is such that there is nothing but the

natural things, forces, and causes of the kind that the natural sciences study, i.e. thethings, forces and causes which are required in order to understand our physicalenvironment and which have mechanical properties amenable to mathematicalmodeling. Metaphysical naturalism entails that all concepts relatedto consciousness or to the mind refer to entities which are reducible toor supervene on such natural things, forces and causes. More specificallymetaphysical naturalism rejects the objective existence of any supernatural thing,force or cause, such as are described in humanitys various religious andmythological accounts. In this view, all "supernatural" things are ultimatelyexplainable purely in terms of natural things. It is not merely a view about whatscience studies now, but it can also emphasize what science will encompass in thefuture. Metaphysical naturalism is a monistic and not a dualistic view of reality

. ]Physicalism & pluralism

Physicalism entails the claim that everything everyone has observed or claimedto observe is actually the product of fundamentally random arrangements orinteractions of matter-energy, arrangements or interactions that follow natural lawsof physics, in space-time, and therefore it is unreasonable to believe anything likea creator deity exists.

Pluralism (which includes dualism) adds to this the existence of fundamentallyrandom things besides matter-energy in space-time (such as reified abstract objects

Naturalism of physical sciences

Its metaphysical conclusions differ over abstract objectslike "mind," "soul," "free

will," or anything having to do with self-made men.The mind is caused by naturalphenomena What all metaphysical naturalists agree on, however, is that thefundamental constituents of reality, from which everything derives and upon whicheverything depends, are fundamentally mindless. So if any variety of metaphysicalnaturalism is true, then any mental properties that exist (hence any mental powersor beings) are causally derived from, and ontologically dependent on, systems of


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nonmental properties, powers, or things. This means metaphysical naturalismwould be false if any distinctly mental property, power, or entity exists that is notontologically dependent on some arrangement of nonmental things, or that is notcausally derived from some arrangement of nonmental things, or that has causal

effects without the involvement of any arrangement of nonmental things that isalready causally sufficient to produce that effect.

"Since philosophy is at least implicitly at the core of every decision we make orposition we take, it is obvious that correct philosophy is a necessity for scientificinquiry to take place." There are basic philosophical assumptions implicit at the

base of the scientific method - namely, that reality is objective and consistent, thathumans have the capacity to perceive reality accurately, and that rationalexplanations exist for elements of the real world. These assumptions are the basis

of naturalism, the philosophy on which science is grounded.

Biological Naturalism

For educational philosophers, the relevant form of naturalism is Biological Naturalism. It stresses upon the process of evolution and self preservation. Ournative experiences works moreover as a guide to us. So, it is advisable not toviolate the laws of nature but to live by nature, for nature and through nature.Biological Naturalism has various educational implications and its aim is self

expression. There is no control on any kind over the developing organism isallowed and there has to be complete freedom given. In other words, there is no

predetermined aim at all.

Absolute Methodical Naturalism

is the view that it is in some sense impossible for any empirical method todiscover supernatural facts, even if there are some. [This is compatible with (butdoes not entail) the view that something other than empirical methods might be

able to discover supernatural facts.]

Contingent Methodical Naturalism

entails the belief that, judging from past experience, empirical methods are farmore likely to uncover natural facts than supernatural ones. It is generally an ill-advised waste of resources to pursue supernatural hypotheses, but it would not be


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impossible to confirm them empirically if any were true. Thus not allmethodological naturalists will be metaphysical naturalists

THEORITICAL RATIONALE OF NATURALISM.

METAPHYSICAL POSITION

Concept of God

Many naturalists do not use the term God , but surprisingly there are Naturalistswho talk about God ,and although they do not advance classical arguments for Hisexistence they go on to give some definition of His nature.

According toWiesman, the renowned Naturalist God is within Nature .He is notall nature nor more than nature .He is that particular structure of nature in naturewhich is sufficiently limited to be described as making possible the realization ofvalue and as the foundation of all values

God is that process within Nature which is a kind of open door to all who wouldgrow in richness of life and at the same time God is the stable ground in Naturewhich sustains and constitute the values by which life is enriched ,Because ofthis,God, the structure of value itself,is the greatest of all values, the most worthyin human experience to which man must adjust if he is to grow in the possession

and enjoyment of value.The Concept of Self

Tow important aspects of the query about man are whether he has a soul andwhether he is good or bad. For Naturalists they are not much interested in the soulof man and his moral conditions . According to Naturalism ,man is a child ofnature; yet, nevertheless, he is a most significant child .For in the evolutionary

processes that have been at work in the universe so far, man is on the very crest of

the wave. He has capacities and has achieved heights common to no other child ofNature True enough, he has selfhood of a sort; but there is such a remarkablegamut of refinement in the achievements in selfhood of different men that it isdifficult to say what it is that men possess in common as a self , or, traditionally asa soul .The self seems to be an organization of experiencing .Such a description isquite far from those which state that man is made in the image of God. The human


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self is seen by naturalism as an offshoot of Nature ,and not as springing frombeyond Nature.

Concept of Universe

The family of naturalists becomes exceedingly large, especially in modern times,when one the label of naturalism to denote ay parson who denies (implicitly orexplicitly) the existence of anything above nature, or those who disregard thesupernatural. Thus Rousseau, who was a deist, fits into this category , even thoughhe believed that God had created the world. Spencer, the agnostic, falls into thesame class since he believed that even if the supernatural realm existed man couldknow nothing about it

EPISTEMOLOGICAL POSITION

. Naturalism does not necessarily claim that phenomena or hypotheses commonlylabeled as supernatural do not exist or are wrong, but insists that all phenomenaand hypotheses can be studied by the same methods and therefore anythingconsidered supernatural is either nonexistent or not inherently different fromnatural phenomena or hypotheses.

In terms of epistemology or theory of knowledge, naturalists highlight the value ofscientific knowledge. Francis Bacon emphasizes the inductive method for

acquiring the scientific knowledge through specific observation, accumulation andgeneralization. He also lays emphasis on the empirical and experimentalknowledge. Naturalists also lay stress on sensory training as senses are thegateways to learning

The naturalist rejected the role that intellect or reason play in the knowing processand put forth the claim that the only valid from of knowing process and put forththe claim that he only valid form of knowledge is that derived from experience. For

the early naturalists, experience chiefly meant that mode of acquiring knowledgebased on direct contact of the organism with the physical world thought the senses.The more sophisticated naturalists included the refined modes of knowing used bythe empirical sciences. Both, however, imply a denial of reason as a source ofknowledge. In practice, both types of experience are evident in naturalisticeducational theory.


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. THE LOGIC OF NATURLISM

There are tow general observations to be made concerning the logic of naturalismwhich will help to describe the setting for its more specific discussion. The first is

that, most generally considered, formal deductive logic such as was mentionedbriefly in the introduction has a minor place in the methods of logic approved bynaturalism.

The second observation is that is great variation in the methods of logic employed by naturalists. The logic of the earlier and more nave naturalism is the simplematerial logic of induction. In modern naturalism, if the epistemology is realistic,greater place is given to deductive logic because of the confidence placed in theindependence of relations by realists.

This narrows the task of the present discussion to a consideration of simpleinduction as the logic of naturalism. Of course, the kind of naturalism referred to ismore especially the earlier naturalism such as inspired the first steps in thedevelopment of scientific method. In its most elementary form, induction is theaccumulation of accurate and detailed information by direct relation with Nature.Whereas the formal logic of education deals wit the forms by which propositionsare dependably tied together; induction is the collection of the material on which

propositions must be based if theory are to be true propositions. Syllogisms may do

well in relating propositions correctly; but their value depends almost entirely uponthe material truth of their propositions. Does the major premise describe a factabout a class of individuals in Nature. And does the minor premise assert what isfact concerning one individual in that class? One the answer to these questions thewhole value of the syllogism rests. How could men ever have come to theconclusion. All men are mortal without having observed a great number of

people and having recognized that their lives were all terminated by death? And todo this is to follow inductive method.

Simple induction involve careful observation of Nature, accurate description ofwhat is observed, and caution in formulating generalizations. The way in which toget acquainted with Nature as it actually is, is to go directly to Nature and see whatis there. This means painstaking observation in which there is a rigorous pietyruing out everything but smile recognition of facts. In order to accumulate facts for


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later use in large messes, or in groups or classes, or for use by other than thosemaking the direct observations, it is necessary to record what is observed, and todo it carefully and accurately, representing the facts only as they are. True enoughone of the chief values of observing and collecting facts is the discovery of

generalizations about Nature; but in this stage of induction there must be muchcaution. It is so easy for wishful thinking or preconceived ideas to influence thehandling of the facts. Francis Bacon, the father of inductive method, even advisedcaution about hypotheses; he regarded them as anticipations of Nature. Here too,in forming conclusions, as well as in observing the facts and recording them, theremust be rigorous natural piety. There must be careful and patient accumulation ofthe facts until the conclusion almost seems to suggest itself as the onlygeneralization to which the facts could possibly point.

AXIOLOGICAL POSITION

Naturalism believes that A refined moral life is just as much a work of Nature asmuch a work of Nature as is a coarse and vulgar immortality. You are wrong inimplying , first of all, that a natural life is an immoral life .And further more ,yourreligious experience that a power from beyond yourself is sustaining you in doinggood is a natural phenomenon .Nature is versatile. Thes experience is no doubt avalid one. You are being sustained in living a good life. For it is in harmony with

Nature ,when it is inclusively , to do good and avoid evilTo naturalists, values arise from the human beings' interaction with theenvironment .Instincts. drives and impulses need to be expressed rather thanrepressed. According to them, there is no absolute good or evil in the world.Values of life are created by the human needs

It was against this essential unity of all values with the supernatural that thenaturalists revolted. For them, all real values are rooted in nature. There is no needto call upon the supernatural realm to sanctify values since nature possesses its

own inherent values, is its own good! .

The first principle has to do with the general character of values. It is that Nature isthe kind of order that just simply possesses values. According to naturalism, thevalues which people commonly enjoy, as well as others yet to be possessed, areresident in Nature; they do not transcend Nature. Stated from a frame of reference


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other than the natural versus the supernatural source of values, this principle alsomeans that Nature has a qualitative aspect as well as an existence aspect; and whenwe experience the qualitative elements in Nature, we are experiencing its values.

Nature is not just a machine in the sense that it merely functions, and also in the

sense that man, being a part of Nature, therefore functions within it as a cog in amachine. Nature is more than a machine in that there are overtones of enjoymentand suffering which go along with this functioning; and these overtones arequalitative, they are values which are enjoyed or endured, as the case may be,concomitantly as the functioning goes on.

The second principle has to do with the way in which the most desirable values areto be realized, according to naturalism. This principle is that the way in which anindividual can get the most value out of life is to harmonize his life as closely as

possible with Nature. This principle was foremost, it will be recalled, in thethinking of Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius. All of these men shared Incommon the desire to find a life which was as free as possible from pain andsuffering. And accordingly they tried to harmonize their lives as closely as possiblewith the rhythms of Nature, because in this harmony they felt was their greatest

peace.

1. Ethical Value

Ethics of naturalism is hedonistic, as long as this characterization is accompaniedby the caution that in the conscious though at least of many naturalists the highestgood is the most highly refined and abiding pleasure.

Pleasure is easily discerned as the highest good in the thought of the ancientnaturalists. It is not hard to feel what they must have felt when they desiredquietude and freedom from struggle, pain and fear as the predominant inner

possessions continuing uninterrupted through as many of their experiences aspossible. Most of us share their desire for this same peasce and happiness, althoughwe may not make it such a supreme value hat we will sacrifice all other possiblevalues for it. The important thing to note about this highest moral good, first of all,is a thing to be enjoyed; it is some thing, more on the feeling side of experience,which the person who possesses it undergoes and enjoys as contentment orsatisfaction. To a person so framing his conception of moral values, the pleasure


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ethics of naturalism may seem weak and selfish, because private enjoyment, eventhough it may be in no way contrary to convention, is placed prior to all otherconsiderations.

While the highest good for naturalists is pleasure, it is important to make clear, inthe second place, that many naturalists think of pleasure in the most refined andinoffensive forms when they speak of its as their highest good. George Santayanahas written pointedly on this subject in a chapter entitled, Moral Adequacy of

Naturalism. In answer to the common assumption that naturalism necessarilymeans coarseness in morality, he says: Why is naturalism supposed to befavorable to the lower sides of human nature? Are not the higher sides just asnatural ?....... I think that pure reason in the naturalist may attain, withoutsubterfuge, all the spiritual insights which supernaturalism goes so far out of the

way to inspire.

This may raise questions about the evil which is the counterpart of this highestgood. How is it conceived by naturalism? Since it is something to be avoided, ifnot escaped, as we manage our daily life and action, evil would seem to be aquality or kind of experience which is inflicted upon us. Much less is it a quality ofevents in which we ourselves participate or of which we are causes. Evil is a fact of

Nature. There just is evil in the cosmos, in the same way that there simply is good

in it. The ways by which we may seek the good, this quiescent freedom fromanguish, are considerably more restricted than the ways of living by which evilovertakes us. Otherwise it would not be necessary to give the attention we do to thequest for the good life. There are all kinds of ways in which accidents can happen;

but there is virtually only one way, certainly not more than a few ways, of beingcareful to avoid the accidents of life and possess the unbroken life of peace. Andthis is rarely possible.

The moral accidents of Nature have commonly been given the name physical evil.

They are many and well known: earthquake, famine, hurricane, disease, pestilence,etc. Clearly, these are evils of Nature; man has nothing to do with producing them,although he may tolerate conditions which if corrected, would lessen some of theireffects. There are also evils, more clearly moral, which men inflict on one another.War with its inflicted death and destruction is a notable example.


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What need to be noted generally about these various evils, as conceived bynaturalism, is that they are qualities and events of the natural order and not thework of some evil force beyond Nature. Evil, though unwanted, is a natural

phenomenon.

To summarize, we may say then that for naturalism pleasure is the highest goodand therefore the basis of marl judgments; but this pleasure is very subtle andhighly refined for many naturalists. To the extent that a person is consciouslynaturalistic in his ethics, he will make his day-by-day moral choices so as to claimfor himself the fullest measure of abiding pleasure and satisfaction. The evil whichit is hoped will be avoided in this way is purely a product of Nature. It is largelyinflicted evil, toward which the attitude of individual man is rightly passiveavoidance. Although men in the mass certainly inflict large-scale social evils on

other men, it is not necessarily so that individual man unwittingly becomes a causeof evil to his neighbor and to himself.

2. Aesthetic Value

The principles enunciated above regarding the ethical values of naturalism holdalso for aesthetic values. They, too, are rooted in nature and do not depend on anysource outside nature for their validation. Nature itself provides the criterion for

beauty there is no need to call upon universal principles such as unity and

proportion to judge beauty. A landscape is beautiful simply because it is nature. Apainting is beautiful because it reflects nature, not because it elevates man abovenature.

For naturalists, as could be surmised, aesthetic experience and the values it yieldsare both purely natural in character and do not involve any spiritual or supernaturalfactors. First of all, according to naturalism, the subject who is engaged byaesthetic experience is a child of Nature. While it takes a high degree ofdevelopment to yield the kind of complex nervous system which can communicatewith words and other symbols, and retain meanings long enough to interrelate themin such a way as to yield aesthetic enjoyment of an object, yet that is what Naturehas yielded in man. A pattern of responses of high complexity of co-ordination is

possible. Vivas says, because in the process of evolutionary development anervous system, highly centralized, came into being. Man, the subject who has


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aesthetic experiences, is a sentient organism developed by Nature, which is capableof centering his meanings in such a way as to experience aesthetic values. Thesevalues, therefore, do not transcend Nature; they are events in the experience of thishighly developed organism which is the result alone of evolutionary processes at

work in Nature.

There is also a minor sense in which aesthetic values are natural. This is that theyare not superior values which only a few select people are capable of enjoying.They are values which touch areas where we all live; they are natural because theyare native in the ordinary experience of all men.

3. Religious value

The religious life for naturalism is the kind of life which is so lived in the breachbetween present actual fact and future possible value as to replace circumstanceswhich destroy value with circumstances which destroy value with circumstanceswhich possess and conserve value. It is not possible, therefore, to enumerate ormore specifically characterize some values and designate them as the religiousvalues of naturalism. The chief religious value of naturalism is that aspect of

Nature which makes it possible to realize values and which sustains values whichare worth-while. Since all other possible values stem from this element in Nature,it is the most wrathful object that there is an the greatest value above all others.

The most significant life that can be lived is the life which is committed to theachieving of values in ones own life and in the world. So that the primeimperative of a naturalistic religion is that its adherents ally themselves with thevalue-realizing force in Nature and help to bring into existence values which arenot actual in the present.

4. Social Value

Society is therefore considered less organic in naturalism than in pragmatism, as

well as in idealism. It is an aspect or portion of Nature, not so much an organismthat has rhythms and patterns which, while not contrary to or above Nature, are yetits won rhythms and patterns. Individual man is therefore considered as Naturesoffspring, not a child of society or a segment of society whose very being dependsupon the social organism. Although dependent upon Nature, he stands on his ownfeet, more or less, as far as his relations to society are concerned. There are what


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might be called certain necessities which make it expedient for him to relatehimself somewhat effectively socially; but these are not necessities arising fromthe operation of society as an organism, so much as they are accidents orexigencies to be avoided by working out some kind of social organization to

correct them.

Rousseaus naturalism rooted man in Nature rather than society. So much did heregard man as a child of Nature, as over against society, that he proposed in hisEmile to keep Emile away from society until adolescences. In his Social Contracthe reveals how the problem of social organization is complicated by theimportance of the freedom of man. Individual man, he contended, is not a manunless he is free; if he is in bondage, he is less than a man. Yet unbridled freedomis neither in harmony with his own welfare not the welfare of society. Evidently

some social organization is needed, but one which preserves for man his freedom.This is a rather big order, but one which can be filled rather satisfactorily bydemocracy. For in democracy, although individual man sacrifices his ownindividual freedom by participation in the decisions which determine what the willof the state is to be.

It would seem that for naturalism social values are synthetic values which resultfrom agreements in which individual men bind themselves together. They are

secondary goods, not so much preferred as individual goods, which resultindirectly as a consequence of the desire to avoid the grater evils which accompanyanarchy. They are not organic values which are determined in part by the verynature of society and which would never be possessed by individual menseparately, even if they did not need to be saved from conflict and chaos by somekind of social organization

EVALUATION OF NATURALISM

However, evaluations of naturalism from other than the supernaturalism point ofview are possible. The notion that man is innately good appears too optimistic inthe light of events of the past century. One might argue that man has become lesshuman as he becomes more advanced in his evolutionary development. The cruelwars, injustice toward minorities, and many of the ills of modern man hardlysuggest such optimism.


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The nature of society in a modern, complex, industrial, urban world needsclarification from contemporary naturalists. Much of the classical naturalisticliterature on the nature of social processes is wholly inadequate today.

From various points of view naturalistic epistemology is too limited. To reduceknowing to experience precludes many possibilities of knowing about ethical andaesthetic values and the realm of the metaphysical.

From these philosophical limitations one can derive certain short comings in theeducational theories of naturalists. Perhaps the most significant of these from the

point of view of many philosophers is the absence of nay permanent goals foreducation. Without some permanence of aims education can easily become ahaphazard, day to day activity without any central focus.

By designating experience as the sole source of knowledge naturalism limits itselfto one methodology and to a narrow curriculum divested of much of theknowledge acquired by past generations as well as of the many artistic productionof the human race.

References-

1. Bridgman PW, "On Scientific Method," Reflections of a Physicist, 1955

2. "Ignorance reveals itself through arrogance." JP Siepmann quote 1997

3. Siepmann JP, "The Laws of Space and Observation," Journal of Theoretic,

April/May 1999, Vol.1

4. Maheshwari &Maheshwari, teaching of science R.Lall Book Depot, Meerut,

India .

5. Thilly Frank, A History of Philosophy, Central Publishing House, Allahabad.

India.

6.Breed, Frederick, Education and the Realistic Outlook, Philosophies ofEducation. National Society for the Study of Education, Forty-first Yearbook, Part1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942.


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7. Broundy, Harry S., Building a Philosophy of Education. Englewood Cliffs,N.J. : Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1961..

8. Butler, J. Donald, Four Philosophies and Their Education and

Religion. New York : Harper & Row.9.Comenius, John Amos, The Great Didactic. London : A & C Black, 1910.

The application of Comenius sense-realism to education.

10.Herbart, J.F., The Science of Education. Boston : D.C.Heath & Company,1902.

11.Locke, John Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Oxford : ClarendonPress, 1902. The basic statement of Lockes epistemological position.

12.Wild, John, Education and human Society : A Realistic View, ModernPhilosophies and Education. National Society for the study of Education, Fifty-fourth Yearbook, Part I. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1955.

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Naturalism -A Philosophical Analysis