The Routledge Handbook of Liberal Naturalism

This is the first collection to present a comprehensive overview of liberal naturalism. Essential reading for students and researchers in all areas of philosophy it will be of particular interest for those studying philosophical naturalism, philosophy of science, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and ethics.

"The question of naturalism - the relation of philosophy to science - was one of the defining strands of twentieth-century thought and remains a major source of debate and controversy today. Its proponents argue that philosophy should ally itself with the sciences, especially physics, and that science should be applied to all areas of reality. Its opponents argue that that such naturalism severely reduces the nature and scope of philosophical enquiry and, moreover, that many philosophical problems are not reducible to science, such as consciousness, the role of intuitions, the nature of concepts and ethics. The Routledge Handbook of Liberal Naturalism is the first collection to present a comprehensive overview of liberal naturalism, a philosophical outlook that lies between hard naturalism and supernaturalism. Comprising 37 chapters by an international team of contributors, it examines all the important topics including: what is liberal naturalism? metaphysics naturalism and the history of philosophy, including the scientific revolution, Hume, William James and Quine contemporary proponents of liberal naturalism in figures such as P.F. Strawson, John McDowell, Richard Rorty and Robert Brandom related theories of naturalism, including subject, common-sense, and biological naturalism liberal naturalism and contemporary debates in epistemology, ethics, philosophy of mind and aesthetics. Essential reading for students and researchers in all areas of philosophy, it will be of particular interest for those studying philosophical naturalism, philosophy of science, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and ethics"--