E-book details

Naturalism, Normativity and Explanation

Naturalism, Normativity and Explanation

Robert Audi

Ebook
This book critically examines philosophical naturalism, evaluates the prospects for naturalizing such normative properties as being a reason, and proposes a theory of action-explanation. This theory accommodates an explanatory role for both psychological properties such as intention and normative properties such as having an obligation or being intrinsically good.
This overall project requires distinguishing philosophical from methodological naturalism, arguing for the possibility of a scientifically informed epistemology that is not committed to the former, and freeing the theory of action-explanation from dependence on the reducibility of the mental to the physical. The project also requires distinguishing explanatory power from causal power. Explanations - at least of the kinds central in both science and everyday life - are conceived as constitutively aimed at yielding understanding; the book sketches a view of understanding that clarifies the nature of explanation; and, partly in the light of this relation, it provides a broad account of causal power on which psychological properties can possess it without being reducible to physical properties.
The book concludes with an account of how, especially in the normative domain, explanations can be a priori. They may use a priori generalizations to provide understanding of what they explain, and they may clarify a priori propositions, or both. They may achieve these aims not only in logic and pure mathematics, but also in the realm of moral and other normative phenomena. The overall result is to show how philosophical understanding of both natural and normative phenomena is possible through integration with a scientific habit of mind that does not require a narrow empiricism in epistemology or a reductive naturalism in metaphysics or the theory of explanation.
Preface and Acknowledgments . . . . 5
 
Chapter 1
Naturalism as a Philosophical and Scientific Framework:
A Critical Perspective . . . . 11
 
I . The Historical and Philosophical Context  . . . . 12
II. Scientific Naturalism  . . . . 16
III. Ontological Pluralism  . . . . 21
IV. Non-Reductive Naturalism  . . . . 27
V. Realist and Anti-Realist Naturalisms  . . . . 29
VI. Scientific Naturalism and Causal Closure  . . . . 32
 
Chapter 2
The Nature of Normativity and the Project of Naturalizing
the Normative . . . . 41
I. A Cross-Disciplinary Conception of Normativity  . . . . 42
II. Philosophical Motivation for Naturalizing Normativity  . . . . 46
III. Naturalization Projects in Ethics  . . . . 49
IV. The Naturalization of Practical Reason  . . . . 55
V. Moral Perception as a Natural Phenomenon  . . . . 64
VI. Outline of a General Account of Normativity  . . . . 69
 
Chapter 3
Moral Properties: Some Epistemological, Ontological,
and Normative Dimensions . . . . 77
I. Moral Properties and Their Normativity  . . . . 78
II. The Non-Moral Grounds of the Moral: Supervenience
and Consequentiality  . . . . 83
III. The Epistemology of Moral Properties  . . . . 87
IV. The Problem of Normative Defeasibility . . . . 95
V. Are Moral Properties Natural (or Naturalizable)?  . . . . 98
 
Chapter 4
The Theory of Action-Explanation: Some Dimensions . . . . 103
I. Targets of Explanation  . . . . 103
II. Epistemological, Ontological, and Pragmatic Aspects
of Explanation  . . . . 106
III. Explanations Why  . . . . 111
IV. Explanations of Human Behavior  . . . . 115
V. The Problem of Mental Causation  . . . . 120
VI. Causes, Causal Explainers, and Mentalistic Explanation  . . . . 127
 
Chapter 5
A Priori Explanation . . . . 137
I. Framing the Issue: Preliminary Considerations  . . . . 138
II. A Priori Explanation, Proof, and Theoretical Method  . . . . 139
III. A Priori Elements in Empirical Explanation  . . . . 146
IV. Explanation and Understanding  . . . . 148
V. Explanation of Normative Propositions  . . . . 154
VI. Explanatory Ultimacy and the Grounding of Explanatory Facts  . . . . 156
VII. Conclusion  . . . . 161
References . . . . 163
Index . . . . 171
  • Title: Naturalism, Normativity and Explanation
  • Author: Robert Audi
  • ISBN: 978-8-3788-6148-5, 9788378861485
  • Date of issue: 2015-02-10
  • Format: Ebook
  • Item ID: e_511j
  • Publisher: Copernicus Center Press