I offer a minimal characterization of naturalism, with ontological, epistemological, psychological and evaluative dimensions. I explain why naturalism is attractive. I note that naturalists disagree among themselves about, among other things, the nature of values, beliefs, and abstractions. I close by responding to some standard objections to naturalism.

Louise Antony explains a variety of naturalisms, and why she doesn't believe in God.

The word ‘naturalism’ has a bewildering array of uses in philosophy. Roughly speaking, it connotes pro-scientific attitudes and approaches. This article introduces the subject of naturalism by sketching a history of pro-scientific attitudes and approaches in philosophy, from their origins in the early modern period through to the present day. It then distinguishes a number of distinct families of naturalism: metaphysical, logico-linguistic, epistemological, and methodological. The resulting taxonomy encompasses a plurality of loosely related views rather than a number of variations on a single clear and unified theme.

In this article, I consider the famous Invisible Gardener Parable which aims to show that theism is not a viable theory because it can be endlessly amended to accommodate for prima facie disconfirming data. I point out that the parable fails to consider how tolerance for theory adjustment is relative to the perceived explanatory power of the theory. I also point out that naturalism is no less subject to adaptation than is theism. Thus, if endless adaptability constitutes an objection for theism then it does so for naturalism as well.

Many philosophers call themselves ‘naturalists’ because they believe theism is incompatible with science. However, many also hold that science is compatible with many other theistic beliefs about morality, free will, the mind, and the meaning of life. Those naturalists who reject these other beliefs need a different label for their view. This article recommends the term ‘scientism’.

In this article I argue that we do not need a strict definition of naturalism, but can satisfactorily describe the naturalistic stance or attitude in terms of hostility to seeing human beings as subject to powers or forces or laws of nature that go beyond those governing the rest of the empirical world. We are to be explained as the evolutionary products of natural processes. I argue that we should see our concepts as well in this light, and explore some examples of the way this attitude can illuminate questions of meaning.

My argument is that naturalism is too restricted and dogmatic an account of the many different sorts of entities and explanations that we employ in trying to understand our world. It is a faith rather than a mode of inquiry.

This article makes a case for theism by comparing it to naturalism. It examines the conflict between the two world-views, the nature of ultimate reality, the limits of science, the status of the universe, the role of faith in shaping beliefs, and how we account for human rationality. It concludes that naturalism is fatally flawed and that theism provides a more coherent explanation for human rationality and consciousness, the intelligibility of the universe and the existence of immaterial information.

This article argues that it is a mistake to assume that atheism entails naturalism, that naturalism is what leads someone to embrace atheism, and that atheists must sign up to a ‘naturalistic world-view’.

I defend a form of naturalism which has much in common with Iris Murdoch's ‘true naturalism’, but I argue that it can accommodate God. I consider what it could mean for naturalism to be theistic in this sense, and respond to the charge that it leaves no room for the transcendent.

This article explores the nature and intellectual argument for naturalism and its dependent attitude, materialism. It touches on some of the alternatives but argues that they are inferior approaches to the manner in which knowledge and understanding are obtained. It extends the argument by touching on two subsidiary questions: the role of mathematics in describing the world and the origin of the laws of Nature.