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Article: Naturalism
- Article from:
- International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
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Naturalism
NATURALISM IN THE ARTS
PHILOSOPHICAL NATURALISM
NATURALISM IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Naturalism
is a term that stands for a family of positions that endorse the general idea of being true to, or guided by,
“
nature,
”
an idea as old as philosophy itself (e.g., Aristotle is often called a
“
naturalist
”
) and as various and open-ended as interpretations of
“
nature.
”
Since the rise of the modern scientific revolution in the seventeenth century, nature has come to be identified increasingly with the-world-as-studied-by-the-sciences. Consequently, naturalism has come to refer to a set of positions defined in terms of the scientific ...