While naturalism is said to be the oldest and most popular view among contemporary philosophers and scientists, serious and pervasive questions linger concerning its nature, norms, goals, and status. I critically assess these issues in defending a metaphilosophy of naturalism. I begin in arguing that naturalism is neither a trivial nor empty worldview suffering from a lack of cohesion or content. In support of this, I develop a typology of naturalism from which I extract three “core” commitments exemplified by nearly all forms of the doctrine. I thus provide some preliminary, non-arbitrary grounds for the naturalist to defend the thesis from many objections. In the second chapter, I address the fundamental ontological commitments of metaphysical naturalism. Problems with defining naturalism are connected to the many ways these notions are understood, and I defend account of what it is for an entity, process, phenomenon, etc. to be natural or occur naturally. In furtherance of this, I defend in Chapters 3 and 4 an analysis of nature according to its two primary senses: The first is the particular sense, as picked out in claims referring to the nature of some entity, and the second is the universal sense, as is picked out in reference to nature itself. For both primary senses, I assess various arguments for acosmism, the thesis that nature does not exist (in either sense). In response to these challenges, I argue that the concept of nature in both senses is theoretically and ontologically fundamental, and thus indispensable to philosophy and science. The penultimate chapter constitutes an analysis of the relationship between naturalism and physicalism. I argue that even if the basic principles upon which physicalism rests are true, they nevertheless highly questionable and problematic. I connect and resolve these issues with an assessment of the relations between them and the Principle of Sufficient Reason. I conclude the chapter with an account of naturalization. In the final chapter, I criticize various interpretations of the claim that metaphysics and science, are and/or ought to be “continuous.” I argue that there are deep commonalities between metaphysics and science which frustrate attempts to show that there is a fundamental distinction between them. In conclusion, I show that metaphysical naturalism is not only more rich and complex than what most of its sympathizers and detractors believe, but also that it is consistent with many theses, norms, and posits of traditional, non-naturalistic approaches in philosophy generally.

Scepticism, taken as a challenge to the possibility of justifying knowledge claims in general, has a history perhaps as long and varied as attempts to construct positive theories of knowledge. The relation that holds between scepticism and the rest of epistemology is often assumed to be straightforwardly adversarial. However, in light of the widespread "end or transformation" debate within epistemology in recent decades, the proliferation of sophisticated scholarship concerning scepticism and justification may be taken as a prima facie endorsement of the continuing vitality of traditional epistemology. The publication in 1984 of Barry Stroud's The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism, focused interest in the epistemological community on the burden of specifically modem (global, post-Cartesian, external world) scepticism. However, during the overlapping two decades since Significance, the influence of Richard Rorty's work (particularly Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature published in 1979) has led to a growing suspicion that epistemology has neither a stable nor defensible mandate. In this thesis, I try to connect the two discussions in a novel way, by arguing that the metaphilosophical problems arising from the stalemate I diagnose in the vibrant contemporary scepticism debate does not suggest that epistemology as a discipline is robustly healthy. I characterize metaphilosophical issues as a cluster of concerns involving the methodology, nature, aim, self image and criteria of satisfaction of doing philosophy. Most generally, metaphilosophy is a philosophical exploration of the nature of philosophy; more specifically, it deals with the expectations and aspirations of inquiry. David Hume is rightly remembered as a thoughtful exponent of the power of sceptical reasoning. More recently, he has been recognized for his influential attempt to develop a naturalistic theory of belief that serves to explain how we form and tenaciously cling to our most deeply held beliefs-despite our inability to rationally justify them. I contend that there are metaphilosophical lessons to be learned from Hume's struggle to maintain and defend the theoretical invulnerability of scepticism, despite his evident discomfort adjusting to the potential consequences of such a position. Michael Williams has been an insightful critic of the "pessimism" that he detects in the work of Stroud and "the New Humeans." I outline the major issues in his exchange with Stroud, and evaluate the strengths of each position. I also argue that Williams' "contextualism" fails to rescue epistemology in any substantial way from the fundamental sceptical challenges that can be raised. For each of the central philosophers under consideration (David Hume, Barry Stroud, and Michael Williams), I construct an account of what I call their criteria of satisfaction. The specific classification of particular criteria is much less important here than the metaphilosophical lesson that I extract from the nature of the frequent clashes between different epistemologist's favoured criteria. Into the contemporary debate about modem scepticism, I introduce ancient sceptical concerns like the "problem of the criterion" and the Five Modes of Agrippa, which serve to illustrate the importance of long-standing sceptical metaphilosophical considerations for this discussion. I contend that these ancient problems can help clarify the nature of the contemporary stalement in the debate about modem scepticism. Even if epistemologists become dissatisfied with what they take to be the criteria of satisfaction of the traditional project, motivating the adoption of revised criteria of satisfaction will still encounter grave difficulties. Finally, I discuss possible morals to be drawn from the wider metaphilosophical concerns. I ultimately argue that the remarkably active state of contemporary literature about scepticism should not be mistaken as a straightforward positive indicator of the continued health of philosophical theories of knowledge. To the contrary, an examination of the metaphilosophical issues surrounding scepticism reveals even more urgent problems with the inherent variability and instability of epistemic criteria of satisfaction. An exploration of these issues threatens to lead if not to metaphilosophical scepticism, then at least to a thorough reevaluation of the nature and self-image of the epistemological project. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

What are the proper aims and methods of philosophy? What is philosophy trying to accomplish, and how does it go about accomplishing it? A survey of the history of philosophy and current discussions regarding its aims and methods shows that philosophers radically disagree about the nature of philosophical inquiry. Part of the reason for this observation is that the aims and methods of philosophy are themselves philosophical topics. My task in meta-philosophy is to understand the nature of philosophy given that there is no distinct subject matter, and its aims and methods are subject to philosophical dispute; philosophy is an essentially divided discipline. Philosophers today and throughout history have supposed that philosophy is a scientific discipline; however, if my thesis is correct, philosophy cannot be a science. The first step is to appreciate the diversity of philosophical aims and methods; some aims and methods in philosophy directly contradict each other. Unlike science, which proceeds on the basis of a general universal methodology, philosophy is incapable of making scientific progress due to a radical methodological controversy at the very heart of the discipline. I recommend that, instead of attempting to merge with the aims and methods of science, philosophy should distinguish itself from science, and be understood as a different kind of discipline altogether. Once we reject the scientific meta-philosophical conception of philosophy, we can begin speculating and reconstructing the identity of philosophy from within philosophy itself.

Metaphilosophy of Morris Lazerowitz

This dissertation is a set of three essays connected by the common theme of our epistemic fragility: the way in which our knowledge – of our own minds, of whether we are in violation of the epistemic and ethical norms, and of the philosophical truths themselves – is hostage to forces outside our control. The first essay, “Are We Luminous?”, is a recasting and defence of Timothy Williamson’s argument that there are no non-trivial conditions such that we are in a position to know we are in them whenever we are in them. Crucial to seeing why Williamson’s anti-luminosity argument succeeds, pace various critics, is recognising that the issue is largely an empirical one. It is in part because of the kind of creatures we are – specifically, creatures with coarse-grained doxastic dispositions – that nothing of interest, for us, is luminous. In the second essay, “What’s in a Norm?”, I argue that such an Anti-Cartesian view in turn demands that epistemologists and ethicists accept the ubiquity of normative luck, the phenomenon whereby agents fail to do what they ought because of non-culpable ignorance. Those who find such a view intolerable – many epistemic internalists and ethical subjectivists – have the option of cleaving to the Cartesian orthodoxy by endorsing an anti-realist metanormativity. The third essay, “The Archimedean Urge”, is a critical discussion of genealogical scepticism about philosophical judgment, including evolutionary debunking arguments and experimentally-motivated attacks. Although such genealogical scepticism often purports to stand outside philosophy – in the neutral terrains of science or common sense – it tacitly relies on various first-order epistemic judgments. The upshot is two-fold. First, genealogical scepticism risks self-defeat, impugning commitment to its own premises. Second, philosophers have at their disposal epistemological resources to fend off genealogical scepticism: namely, an epistemology that takes seriously the role that luck plays in the acquisition of philosophical knowledge.

Bibliography: leaves 358-383.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Adelaide, 1986. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 358-383).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1998. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-212).