Reviewing the Terminology of Naturalism's Classifications

I made some additions a few days ago to the Wikipedia page "Naturalism (Philosophy)". One editor was not pleased, immediately deleted all my comments, and said he detected that I had an "agenda".

He was correct; I do have an agenda. It is to correct definitional differences between various pages of Wikipedia on the subject of naturalism; but more than that, to discover whether or not there exists a class of naturalists who are not "pluralists" or "dualists" yet who accept the natural first-person experiences of such "mental states" as mind, consciousness, ego, soul, volition (free will), and emotions.

After the deletion of my material in Wikipedia because of arguments I later thought might have some merit, not in terms of "agenda" but in the possibility that what I had written was incomprehensible or its purpose was incomprehensible, I began some investigating to see whether any other author was already "on to" the same subject of reviewing the terminology used in the science and in the metaphysics.

I immediately discovered "The Rediscovery of the Mind" by John R. Searle (MIT). When I read, "How is it that so many philosophers and cognitive scientists can say so many things that, to me at least, seem obviously false?", then I knew I was at least (and at last!) reading an author who thought like me. Whether or not I would agree with his review of the terminology and with his conclusions and professional recommendations for altering the terminology would have to be determined after I read the book. I'm only a little way into the book, but it seems I am not the only one who does not see "materialism vs. dualism" as the only way out of the morass.

Please read the Journal entry titled "Journal of the Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism" for the mission statement of this newly titled url, and then feel free to make serious and relevant comments. All points of view are welcomed.

Curtis Edward Clark

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Journal of the Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism

The name of the entity at this url has changed in order to reflect the altered nature of the site, specifically that of its new mission as the "Journal of the Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism".

Its mission has become how to discuss the ontology of the definition of "materialism" its connection to "naturalism"; and of the definitions of metaphysical naturalism, ontological naturalism, and philosophical naturalism.

But more than that, it is to foster a discussion of whether "materialism" as it is historically defined has any bearing on naturalism at all, or whether, as John Searle puts it, the traditional vocabulary is "inconsistent with what we know about the world both from our own experiences and from the special sciences."¹

For quite some time I have been personally dissatisified with those traditional meanings, which are often as not used or defined differently from one text or author to the next. Sometimes it a matter of semantics.

But overall the problem is greater. It is whether or not the third person objectivity of science which demands evidence based on behavior or physics for proof of "mental states", has any relevance to first person consciousness and "mind" and our very noticeable mental states that no third person examination can uncover. I have found that more often than not they do not reflect my own experiences.

And while the title "Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism" is just a place holder until I can form a proper entity worthy of that name, this new Journal welcomes and invites all serious comments.

Curtis Edward Clark; September 9, 2009


1 The Rediscovery of the Mind; John R. Searl; © 1992 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger ©,
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The Metaphysical Naturalist ©,
are the educational arms of
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Naturalism, Mind, Pluralism

Question: Is it possible to accept a materialistic naturalism, ("a 'monistic' form of naturalism in that it maintains that only one basic kind of stuff exists--physical stuff" [1]), while maintaining at the same time that the existence of nonphysical abstract objects are not "transcendent Platonic forms beyond nature"? [1]

In other words, isn't it possible that the "mind" (for example), typically rejected by naturalists as being "beyond natural" and therefore categorized as a species within supernaturalism, is instead the natural quality of the physiology of the brain, expressing the nature of the brain and without which the purpose of the brain would be unthinkable?

To restate it: is it not possible that "mind" is the ever-present but immediate and momentary phenomenon created by the physiology of the brain, and which is elusive as a defined quality as is the phenomenon of "life"? Is it possible to accept the metaphysical definition of "mind" while accpting that the existence of such abstract objects is the direct result of transient yet enduring qualities of the physiology of the brain itself, without reverting to calling such metaphysical evaluations "pluralistic"? [1]

If the mind can be so described, and be as physically real while being qualitatively transient, as is the form of lightening or of a thunderclap or of the "strings" in string theory, then why does naturalism deny the existence of "mind" while not denying "consciousness"?

Answers will be gratefully accepted below.

[1] Internet Infidels http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/nontheism/naturalism/pluralistic.html

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Reason and Perfection

The Question: Why is man rational? What makes us different from other animals?

The Answer:
In Greek philosophy of "natural law" (physics) there was a term no longer used: perfection. This doesn't have the same meaning as the word we use.

In a sense, the Greeks understood evolution, because the First Science was metaphysics, which is about "Being" and "Becoming." http://www.tompotter.us/being.html
http://www.albany.edu/~rn774/fall96/phil…

"The things of this world are or exist only so far as they participate in the being of the eternal ideas, or so far as man in his creative capacity of craftsman, artist, and especially lawmaker copies these ideas. Here teleological thinking enters the scene. In the concept which gropes after and apprehends the essence or the idea of the thing there is contained at the same time also its end, the completion or perfection of the idea of the thing.

"The essences of things, which are exemplifications of the ideas conceived by the divine intellect, constitute at the same time the end or goal of the things themselves. The perfection or fulfillment of the things is their essence: formal cause and end are one (causa finalis is ultimately identical with causa formalis)." http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_s…

So, in evolution (becoming) all things tend toward the perfection of the idea naturally inherent in the subject that has "being". What it evolves into (the act of "becoming") can be described as the acorn that can become nothing but an oak. It can't become a donkey or a pine tree.
In the essence of the "being" of the thing called "mind", there is the evolution into what it can only become, like the acorn into an oak.

Other natural forces could have prevented it, as they prevented the dinosaurs from remaining on earth. Something natural could have wiped out all life on earth, or all life containing "mind".
But that didn't happen. So the mind had to evolve from the simplest forms, to its "perfect" form. That would appear to be "rationality." The chimp is said to be closest to man in this respect but is 400,000 years behind us. Perhaps in another 400,000 years we will discover whether "rationality", in the act of "becoming", will find a new perfection.

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