Abstract
Willem Drees endorses not only minimal naturalism, understood as the rejection of supernatural interruptions of the world's normal causal processes, but also maximal naturalism, with its reductionistic materialism. Besides arguing that this reductionistic naturalism provides the best framework for interpreting science, he believes that it is compatible with religion (albeit of a minimalist sort). The “richer” naturalism advocated by Whiteheadians is, accordingly, unnecessary. Drees's position, however, cannot do justice to a number of “hard‐core commonsense notions,” which we inevitably presuppose in practice and thereby in science as well as religion. His naturalism is too poor, in particular, to account for subjectivity, freedom, and mathematical, religious, and moral experience.
Keywords
reductionism, materialism, naturalism, metaphysics, Alfred North Whitehead, Darwinism, science and religion, common sense, consciouness, freedom, subjectivity, theism
How to Cite
Griffin, D., (1997) “A Richer or a Poorer Naturalism?”, Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 32(4), 593–614. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/0591-2385.00114