Naturalist Certification Course

Lesson 1 • Key Figures and Foundational Texts

Examines primary thinkers and canonical works that define the naturalist tradition. Students develop literacy in the core literature required for advanced study.

Lesson 2 • Defining Naturalism as a Worldview

Naturalism is defined through its core commitments to the natural world as the sole reality. This grounds all subsequent inquiry in a shared conceptual baseline.

Lesson 3 • Historical Development of Naturalist Thought

Traces naturalism from ancient Greek materialism through Enlightenment science to contemporary philosophy. Students identify key intellectual turning points that shaped modern naturalism.

Lesson 1 • Properties, Kinds, and Natural Categories

Natural kinds and properties are the ontological building blocks of scientific explanation. Students distinguish genuine natural kinds from conventional classifications.

Lesson 2 • Physicalism and Its Core Claims

Physicalism holds that everything real is physical or depends on the physical. Students evaluate the scope and limits of physicalist ontology within naturalism.

Lesson 3 • Emergence and Levels of Reality

Emergence explains how higher-level properties arise from lower-level physical processes. Students apply emergence to biological, mental, and social phenomena.

Lesson 4 • Space, Time, and Physical Reality

Naturalism treats space and time as features of the physical world, not independent containers. Students connect contemporary physics to naturalist metaphysical commitments.

Lesson 1 • Perception, Evidence, and Observation

Naturalism treats perception as a causal, fallible process rather than a transparent window to reality. Students analyze how observational evidence is constructed and constrained.

Lesson 2 • Quine's Naturalistic Turn in Epistemology

Quine argued that epistemology should be continuous with empirical science rather than prior to it. Students trace how this shift reframes traditional questions of justification.

Lesson 3 • A Priori Knowledge Under Naturalism

Naturalism challenges the traditional status of a priori knowledge by grounding even logic and math in cognitive practice. Students evaluate revisionary accounts of necessary truth.

Lesson 4 • Reliabilism and Cognitive Processes

Reliabilism grounds justification in truth-conducive cognitive processes rather than internal states. Students assess how cognitive science informs naturalist theories of knowledge.

Lesson 1 • Scientific Realism and Anti-Realism

The debate over whether science describes a mind-independent reality is central to naturalist philosophy. Students evaluate realist and anti-realist positions using scientific case studies.

Lesson 2 • Demarcation and Pseudoscience

Naturalism requires criteria to distinguish genuine science from pseudoscience and metaphysics. Students apply demarcation criteria to contested cases in contemporary discourse.

Lesson 3 • Theory Change and Scientific Progress

Naturalism must account for how science progresses despite radical theory change. Students apply models of scientific change to historical episodes in science.

Lesson 4 • Scientific Method as Naturalist Inquiry

Naturalism treats scientific method as the most reliable path to knowledge about the world. Students analyze hypothesis formation, testing, and revision within this framework.

Lesson 1 • Cognitive Science and Naturalist Psychology

Cognitive science provides empirical grounding for naturalist theories of mind. Students connect computational, connectionist, and embodied models to philosophical accounts.

Lesson 2 • Intentionality and Mental Content

Naturalism must explain how mental states can be about things in the world. Students analyze causal and teleological theories of mental content.

Lesson 3 • Free Will in a Naturalist Framework

Naturalism's commitment to causal closure raises questions about free will and moral responsibility. Students evaluate compatibilist and revisionary accounts of agency.

Lesson 4 • The Mind-Body Problem Revisited

Naturalism reframes the mind-body problem as an empirical rather than purely conceptual puzzle. Students map the logical space of physicalist solutions to mental causation.

Lesson 1 • Naturalist Normative Ethical Theories

Naturalism supports normative theories grounded in human flourishing, welfare, and social function. Students compare naturalist versions of consequentialism, virtue ethics, and contractualism.

Lesson 2 • Moral Progress and Social Naturalism

Naturalism explains moral progress as a real phenomenon grounded in expanding knowledge and social change. Students analyze historical cases of moral progress through a naturalist lens.

Lesson 3 • Evolutionary Ethics and Its Limits

Evolutionary biology illuminates the origins of moral intuitions but risks committing the naturalistic fallacy. Students critically assess evolutionary debunking arguments.

Lesson 4 • Metaethical Naturalism Defined

Metaethical naturalism identifies moral properties with natural properties. Students distinguish reductive and nonreductive forms and assess their plausibility.

Lesson 1 • Explanation and Interpretation in Social Inquiry

Social phenomena require both causal explanation and interpretive understanding. Students apply naturalist frameworks to reconcile explanation with meaning.

Lesson 2 • Can Social Science Be Naturalistic?

The debate over whether social science can mirror natural science methods is foundational to social naturalism. Students assess arguments for and against methodological naturalism in social inquiry.

Lesson 3 • Institutions, Power, and Natural Explanation

Social institutions and power structures are real features of the natural world requiring causal explanation. Students apply naturalist ontology to political and economic phenomena.

Lesson 4 • Naturalism and Cultural Phenomena

Culture, language, and meaning pose distinctive challenges to naturalist reduction. Students analyze how naturalism handles symbolic and normative dimensions of human life.

Lesson 1 • Synthesizing a Naturalist Worldview

Students integrate all prior learning into a coherent, defensible naturalist position. The synthesis prepares students to apply naturalism across professional and intellectual contexts.

Lesson 2 • Naturalism and Mathematics

Mathematical objects seem to resist naturalist ontology, posing a serious challenge. Students evaluate indispensability arguments and nominalist alternatives.

Lesson 3 • Religion, Spirituality, and Naturalism

Naturalism offers a secular framework that reinterprets or rejects religious claims. Students evaluate religious naturalism as a constructive response to traditional religion.

Lesson 4 • Naturalism and Normativity

Norms of rationality, logic, and meaning seem to resist purely causal explanation. Students assess whether naturalism can account for the binding force of normative standards.