Phenomenology and naturalism: a hybrid and heretical proposal

Abstract

In this paper I aim to develop a largely non-empirical case for the compatibility of phenomenology and naturalism. To do so, I will criticise what I take to be the standard construal of the relationship between transcendental phenomenology and naturalism, and defend a ‘minimal’ version of phenomenology that is compatible with liberal naturalism in the ontological register (but incompatible with scientific naturalism) and with weak forms of methodological naturalism, the latter of which is understood as advocating ‘results continuity’, over the long haul, with the relevant empirical sciences. Far from such a trajectory amounting to a Faustian pact in which phenomenology sacrifices its soul, I contend that insofar as phenomenologists care about reigning in the excesses of reductive versions of naturalism, the only viable way for this to be done is via the impure and hybrid account of phenomenology I outline here.

Keywords:

• Phenomenology
• naturalism
• methodology
• metaphilosophy

Notes

1 While beginning with a thesis in this manner is not a very phenomenological way of doing philosophy, it does at least partly derive from my own prior phenomenological work and is consistent with the hybrid view I will ultimately advocate, in which we are always in media res. Speaking of which, it is appropriate here to acknowledge Ricky Sebold for his detailed feedback on this paper and his more general provocations on this theme, the referees for IJPS, audiences at Johannesburg, Melbourne and Canberra where versions of this paper have been given, and to Rafael Winkler for putting the conference on in Johannesburg that first prompted these reflections.

2 Is it a mistake, or phenomenological infelicity, for Sartre to prepare his account of being-for-others by outlining the problems in the history of philosophy regarding the ‘reef of solipsism’, and thus motivating his account for a better explanation, which includes adequacy to phenomenological experience, but also internal coherence? Is Merleau-Ponty wrong to motivate his account of embodiment via his critique of intellectualism and empiricism and their insufficiencies?

3 It is sometimes said phenomenologists do not argue, but describe or transcendentally reflect (cf. Crowell 1999, 32). I think this opposition is a little exaggerated, however. Phenomenologists regularly maintain that various modes of experience exhibit a hierarchical structure with certain conscious acts claimed to be more or less ‘basic’, and an argument to this effect can be assembled (cf. Russell and Reynolds 2011, 301–302).