Bulletin of the Santayana Society, No. 15 Fall 1997

              Rudiments of a Speculative
Naturalist Philosophy
Few philosophers today will deny that there is an external world; yet according
to tradition, we are constrained, by intellectual rigour, to talk of substances, things, and
events oily at a certain remove (by the empiricist school) or not at all (by the idealist and
phenomenology schools). We are expected instead to deal with some kind of reductive
substitute, an idea or a sentence or a theory. However, a naturalist philosophy, as
understood here, ought before anything else to deal freely with material things, and to
refer to them explicitly.
A second point; it has become clear, through relativity and other modem physical
theories, that our grasp of this external reality is most curious. Many of our most
cherished concepts, which were thought to be well understood since antiquity, have come
in the twentieth century under a devastating attack. The idea of simultaneity makes
sense only within a chosen frame of reference. One may return to one's original position
by following a straight line — or is there such a thing as a straight line? The notion of
causality disintegrates. Andsocn. I think that physicists have taken to heart, frcan these
discoveries, a profound lessen about the nature of knowledge. This is less so for
philosophers, who tend to retain a doctrinaire position regarding the relation between our
knowledge and the truth. Conceptual difficulties such as the above receive considerable
attention as puzzles in the philosophy of science, but the overall theory of knowledge
continues by and large to be what logicians would like it to be.
A serious conflict has been assumed, between the strong realism suggested by the
first observation above, and the anti-realism apparently displayed by doubts of the
second kind. Here, however, it is held that these two thoroughly convincing views are
mutually consistent; neither should be relinquished or watered down. On the one hand
is the overwhelming presence of a physical cosmos, not just external to us, but in which
we participate as a part. We are in immanent contact with this reality at all times, and
refer to it in our thought constantly. What is at a certain remove, however, is our
intellectual grasp of what that reality is, since our concepts of it fail us so radically. The
former intimate contact with the world is through animal faith; the latter ideal
reconstruction of that reality cannot disclose to us its innermost nature.
Philosophers often respond to difficulties with ever more exacting definitions; but
this approach is not helpful when dealing with substances whose nature is hidden from
us. In the setting here, such definitions are rendered somewhat implausible by their
precision alone. It is balanced judgement which is called for, and not ever further
refinement The philosophical challenge is rather to cope with less precise notions, and
to be more concerned to unearth the ultimate assumptions of theories. A place cannot
be refused In philosophical discourse for arguments appealing to the weaknesses of
human psychology, to the influence of dominant inherited ways of tfnnking, and to the
scope of common illusions. Thus a change is forced on us in the kinds of argument
which are philosophically acceptable.
1.  Naturalism
The basic assumption of naturalism used here Is very simple:
1.1     There exists a physical cosmos containing living organisms having preferences
and needs. Interacting as participants within it are humans, who are conscious,
have passions, and are capable of happiness. (NATj