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Supernaturalism or Naturalism: A Study in Meaning and Verifiability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Herbert Spiegelberg
Herbert Spiegelberg*
Affiliation:
Lawrence College
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Extract

Among the many dichotomous cleavages among philosophers and theologians few seem to me as questionable as the Procrustean division into supematuralists and naturalists. “Naturalism” and “supernaturalism” have become party labels whose original meanings have been lost in the heat of banner-waving and slogan shouting. Even the great minds of the past, who were innocent as yet of this philosophical two-party system, are being herded into one pen or the other. And apparently few of the penkeepers are aware of the fact, pointed out almost apologetically by Professor Randall, that “the usage is hardly fashionable abroad, even in England.” (39, p. 355) I, for one, confess that, not having been acclimatized in my European cave to this stern disjunction, I have to this day felt rather uneasy, if not evasive, at the outspoken or tacit expectation to line up with one faction or the other, much as my leanings were toward the other rather than toward the one. I therefore decided that some day I had to get to the bottom of this uneasiness.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , October 1951 , pp. 339 - 368
Copyright
Copyright © 1951, The Williams & Wilkins Company

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