54%
Confidence
Belief overview
Valuing empirical science
Science is seen as a central resource for knowing the empirical world.
2
Supportive
1
Contrary
1
Neutral
What it is: Naturalism usually confers a privileged role on science in understanding the empirical world.
How the position understands it: Observation, testing, public correction, modeling, and critical review provide the best available path for factual knowledge about nature.
Basis and context: The theme consolidated with scientific modernity and contemporary philosophy of science.
Debates and variations: Some critics distinguish valuation of science from excessive scientism, a distinction also accepted by many naturalists.
Documentary evidence
Supportive
Auguste Comte, Course of Positive Philosophy
The priority of positive and scientific knowledge.
Reference: Auguste Comte, Course of Positive Philosophy.
Content: Comte privileges positive and scientific explanations over traditional theological or metaphysical ultimate causes.
Use in debate: It is important for the valorization of empirical science and for criticism of the explanatory supernatural.
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
A defense of skepticism, evidence, and public inquiry.
Reference: Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World.
Content: Sagan values the critical examination of extraordinary claims and the public discipline of evidence.
Use in debate: It is widely used for fallibilism and the rejection of explanatory supernatural appeals.
Contrary
John Polkinghorne, Science and Theology
A theistic response to the idea that naturalism is totally sufficient.
Reference: John Polkinghorne, works on science and theology.
Content: Polkinghorne argues for the compatibility of science and theism and criticizes excessive naturalistic closure.
Use in debate: It is a relevant source against the claim that naturalism is fully sufficient.
Neutral
Acts 17:28
A passage about human existence in philosophical and theistic language.
Reference: Acts 17:28.
Content: The text states that in the divine we live, move, and have our being, in dialogue with the philosophical language of the ancient world.
Use in debate: It works as a theistic counterpoint to purely naturalistic conceptions of the human being.