Understanding Naturalism

"Understanding Naturalism provides a clear and readable survey of the main strands in recent naturalist thought. The origin and development of naturalist ideas in epistemology, metaphysics and semantics is explained through the works of Quine, Goldman, Kuhn, Chalmers, Papineau, Millikan and others. Key objections to naturalism, such as it fails to engage with "real" philosophical problems, it is self-refuting, and it cannot deal with normative notions like truth, justification and meaning, are all addressed. Ritchie distinguishes two strands of naturalist thinking - the constructive and the deflationary - and shows how this distinction can invigorate naturalism and the future of philosophical research."--BOOK JACKET.

Jack Ritchie is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Cape Town.