For more about Clark, see Determinism Vs. the Individualistic Naturalism of the Soul"Ok, many thanks for these clarifications, most interesting. It would be nice if [everyone examined his] philosophy as assiduously as do you, ending up with more nuanced conclusions about the legitimacy of compassion and limits of egoism."
"Nuances" are extremely important in understanding naturalism, if only because there are so many nuances that anyone trying to understand is going to be confused as he/she begins investigating this science.
As stated in yesterday's Academy's posting, [see link in first paragraph above,] compassion, humanism, and altrusim are major aspects of some forms of naturalism. This necessarily involves bringing in the subject of egoism, since, "Altruism is the opposite of egoism." "The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy"; http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/egoism.htm
But we will get to that, later in this series. For now, lets begin with the first part of the Academy's position. http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/2008/08/academys-strong-definition-of_03.html It begins with this:
"Naturalism, challenging the cogency of the
cosmological,i mechanical,ii and moral argumentsiii..."
That alone is daunting. Three words in that short clause had to have footnotes. But as I stated above, definitions must be precise if they are to be called definitions, and as you will note, I began the basis of my definition from another authoratative philosopher, in an encyclopedia I trust, and then amended it. As it stood in that enclyclopedia, it did not precisely fit my own understanding nor my epistemic base. And as it was authored in the early part of the 20th Century, it did not address issues that have arisen since it was written.
I am certain that as the subject is discussed more in public and in the blogosphere and in academia, that I may have to amend it more in the future.
1) "...challenging the cogency of the cosmological,i arguments..."
"Cosmology" in its simplest definition is understood as a world view. Cosmology is explained as an awareness of the universe, an awareness one has when one holds the world before his mind as if it were a single intelligible object.* To which it must be added: while holding the universe in one's mind, one decides what his place is or is to be, in that universe as he comes to understand it "heart and mind."
i * Phrasing taken from the "Syntopicon of the Great Ideas of the Western World"; the "Syntopicon" is Vols. II and III of the "Great Books of the Western World"; Encyclopedia Britannica; Mortimer J. Adler, Editor.
Marcus Aurelius wrote about having a world view, i.e., a personal cosmology, when he wrote, “He who does not know what the world is does not know where he is, and he who does not know for what purpose the world exists, does not know who he is, nor what the world is.”
"Cosmology" describes man's need to explain the world in which we live, his need to explain it as he feels it in his being. But aside from the cosmology of physics, which has arisen only in the era of science that came after Galileo and Francis Bacon specifically, cosmology was made the sole property of the Church. This was done when St. Aquinas incorporated the philosophy of Aristotle into Christianity. It was this cosmology of the Roman Church that was overturned when its leaders had to admit that Galileo and Copernicus were correct in their science.
And it was this necessary capitulation by the Church that proved to every man of reason whether of the physical sciences or of medicine or of mathmatics, art, politics or theology, that science had found its place in the affairs of man. Yet the Church continued to cling to every fiber of its cosmology that was not directly affected by the "Copernican Revolution." And so the naturalism within the calculations of Copernicus did nothing (or little) to "challenge the cogency of the cosmological argument."
Yet the argument is still being challenged because the cosmology of Western religion has still not opened its door to allowing science to tell it what God hath wrought. Dogma is created when it ignores science. Science destroys dogma. And religion ought to be built on what science is able to tell the Church is the truth about our world, as Copernicus and Galileo did. Yet it resists.
The Single Intelligible Object
"Single intelligible object" does not mean an object as described as a single word. Doing so in one word would leave out so much of the essence of existence and our emotional reaction to it; but it means defining it in the fewest number of words (because that is what definitions do,) which describe that essential characteristic, as an object which is intelligible in its singularity.
Every dictionary definition turns the concept(s) described by a word into a single intelligible object. http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/search?q=single+intelligible+object and On Free Will, the Soul, and the Single Intelligible Object That is the specific nature of definitions.
The footnote to this first piece of the Academy's definition of naturalism states that it is "challenging the cogency" of the arguments. Mirriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines "cogent" as "appealing forcibly to the mind or reason : convincing
So naturalism is challenging the validity, the pertinence, and the convincing relevance of not only the cosmological position, but also the "mechanical" and the "moral" arguments that are contrary to naturalism. According to Dr. , naturalism was the conventional wisdom for nearly 1000 years, with theism playing the role of skeptic to it. says that all changed with Augustine, who managed to make theism the conventional wisdom, and turned naturalism into the skeptical position. He says naturalism must take back its ancient tradition. See The Loss of Secularism in Naturalism, Part 1
Ayn Rand, in "Philosophy: Who Needs It", never used the word "cosmology," so far as I know. Instead, she called it "a sense of life" and said that it "represents an individual's unidentified philosophy (which can be identified—and corrected, if necessary;" and said "it affects his choice of values and his emotional responses, influences his actions, and frequently clashes with his conscious convictions."
Religions have their own philosophies--identified sometimes in minute detail--and the word cosmology is most usually associated with either religion, or with physics. As an identifiable philosophy, physics has it own philosophers, called cosmologists, and physics is loath to accept any cosmology that strays into the real of metaphysics.
Metaphysics is not a strict science; it is actually more of an art, the art of non-contradictory identification of the values men place on the things which they know. But such identification of values is not the same as scientific identification of the laws of nature. Metaphysics is, instead, opinion about those laws. The opinions of the cosmologists of physics may still be opinions, but they are based not on value to the human psychology, but to value of the knowledge in the structure of the scienc of understanding the laws of nature as mathematical elements.
Description of Cosmology according to the Academy's Position on Metaphysical Naturalism
iWhere cosmology is taken to mean that which treats of the origin and structure of the universe. Cosmology also refers to the structural view where it is the world view of physics. However, as to cosmological origin, let me be clear: There is no origin. If existence itself had an origin, then the pre-existing condition of existence would be non-existence, which by definition can have no existence and therefore cannot have been a state of being prior to existence.
In Part Three: The Mechanical and Moral Arguments
Note: I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC
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