Introduction

In Climate, God and Uncertainty, Arthur Petersen (2023) develops a sophisticated philosophical framework for the field of science and religion he calls transcendental naturalism, which builds on Immanuel Kant’s critical philosophy as further developed by Heinrich Rickert. This approach seeks to bridge the gap between scientific inquiry and the broader dimensions of human experience. Despite its engagement with complex philosophical topics—particularly in conversation with the work of Bruno Latour—Petersen’s approach aims to practically influence climate policies by integrating pluralistic cultural values into international policy development over climate change.

I deeply appreciate and resonate with many aspects of Petersen’s project. In an age dominated by scientific materialism, his argument that science cannot fully capture the entirety of human experience is both refreshing and necessary. Petersen’s critique of scientific materialism highlights its failure to address essential aspects of human life, such as meaning-making, moral judgment, and engagement with the transcendent. It also moves beyond the traditional methods by which scholars of science and religion have sought legitimacy through the philosophy of science (Reeves 2018). Furthermore, his emphasis on expert judgment and intercultural dialogue on values in science reflects a pragmatic and inclusive approach to addressing global challenges like climate change. These insights, informed by his extensive experience with international climate panels, demonstrate potential to inform real-world decision-making.

While I would endorse many aspects of transcendental naturalism, in this commentary, I focus on a narrow question: Is incorporating transcendental values into the definition of nature the most effective way of framing the position for a general audience? I worry that this redefinition introduces a counterintuitive understanding of nature that may not align with scientific practice or everyday language use, making it hard for working scientists (who are a main target of Petersen’s philosophy) to follow along with him. Instead, I propose that many of Petersen’s key insights—such as the importance of mystery, the limitations of scientific materialism, and the need for intercultural dialogue on values—can be reached using a more conventional understanding of nature, even while recognizing the ineliminable role of values in human judgment. By maintaining a clearer distinction between the natural world and the realm of human values and transcendence, we can preserve the strengths of Petersen’s project while avoiding unhelpful terminological debates that invariably come from philosophical inquiry.

On the Nature of Nature

Why is the idea of nature important at all? Traditionally, the concept of nature (physis) has served to define the character and limits of scientific inquiry.

For the Presocratic philosophers, whose works were often titled On Nature, the pursuit of understanding the natural world revolved around identifying its underlying principles and fundamental substances. Thinkers like Thales and Heraclitus proposed elements such as water, air, or fire as the basic building blocks of reality, reflecting their belief that nature could be explained through inherent, universal principles. This early natural philosophy laid the groundwork for a systematic investigation of the world, emphasizing the idea that nature operates according to discernible rules and patterns. The Presocratic approach, while speculative, marked a significant shift from mythological explanations to rational inquiry, establishing physis as a central concept in the emerging tradition of Western science.

Aristotle further developed this framework in his comprehensive philosophy of nature, articulated in works like Physics and Metaphysics. He introduced the doctrine of the four causes—material, formal, efficient, and final—to explain how and why things exist, change, and function within the natural world. What unites the Presocratic and Aristotelian perspectives is their shared commitment to uncovering the inherent principles that govern the natural world. This classical understanding of physis as an ordered, self-contained system profoundly influenced subsequent scientific and philosophical thought, shaping the way nature has been conceptualized and studied for centuries.

But where do values enter the picture? Premodern thinkers generally viewed the natural world as inherently imbued with values, seeing it as a meaningful and purposeful realm rather than a neutral or indifferent one (Reeves 2016). For them, nature was not merely a collection of material objects governed by mechanical laws but a dynamic system infused with purpose, order, and moral significance. This perspective was deeply rooted in both Platonic and Aristotelian traditions, which, despite their differences, shared the belief that the natural world reflected a higher, intelligible order. Plato saw the cosmos as a manifestation of divine rationality, with the physical world serving as a reflection of eternal, spiritual realities (Harrison 1998, 15). By studying nature, philosophers could align themselves with this divine order, becoming “as divine and orderly as a human being can” (Plato and Reeve 2004, 194). Similarly, Aristotle’s concept of telos—the idea that everything in nature has an inherent purpose or end—reinforced the view that the natural world is structured in ways that can guide human flourishing (Shapin 1996, 163). For premodern thinkers, understanding nature was not just about uncovering material causes but about discerning the moral and purposeful dimensions of existence.

In the seventeenth century, proponents of the emerging Scientific Revolution turned away from the premodern understanding of the connection between values and nature. Many adopted the “mechanical philosophy,” which reshaped the criteria for valid explanations (Reeves 2013). This framework insisted that all natural phenomena be understood through the lens of matter’s shape, size, quantity, and motion (Henry 2001, 69). Qualities such as color came to be regarded as subjective human experiences rather than inherent properties of the external world. For numerous advocates of this new philosophy, the pursuit of scientific knowledge demanded the exclusion of value judgments, ethical considerations, and political influences (Shapin 1996, 162). Philosophers were urged to separate descriptive claims, which depict the world as it is, from normative claims, which express human aspirations. By omitting moral premises from descriptions of nature, they argued, moral conclusions could not logically follow (Putnam 1982, 3).

The search for natural principles that govern the world remains a central driving force in scientific inquiry today, continuing a tradition that stretches back to the earliest natural philosophers. As the philosopher of science James Woodward (2003) argues in his seminal work Making Things Happen, a defining characteristic of the sciences is their focus on causal inference and explanation. Scientists strive to identify and understand the fundamental laws, forces, and mechanisms that underpin the behavior of the universe. Accordingly, nature is understood as a realm that exists independently of individual observers and can be studied through systematic, empirical methods. By framing nature as an objective, third-person world, science maintains its ability to produce knowledge that is universally applicable, transcending individual perspectives and cultural biases. This is the conception of nature I assume most scientists operate with.

Modern thinkers thus often see the natural world as an objective, value-free domain, which makes it seem ill-suited to address questions of human meaning and values. Stephen Jay Gould (2002) captures this idea with his concept of non-overlapping magisteria, which posits that religion and science are complementary but distinct: religion deals with ultimate meaning, purpose, and moral values, while science focuses on the empirical study of the natural world. In this framework, each domain operates independently.

Non-Western understandings of nature as inherently value-laden are strikingly different from the dominant scientific worldview today, which treats nature as a value-free, mechanistic system. As Petersen describes from his experience in climate change negotiations, this disconnect becomes particularly evident when Western scientists encounter Indigenous worldviews. Many Indigenous cultures see the natural world as deeply interconnected with human values and spirituality. For these cultures, nature is not just a resource to be studied and exploited but a living, meaningful entity that demands respect and reciprocity. This perspective is often difficult for scientists steeped in the mechanistic paradigm to fully grasp. One challenge of international policy development lies in reconciling these fundamentally different ways of understanding nature—one that sees it as a source of intrinsic meaning and value, and another that views it as an objective, value-neutral system.

Transcendental naturalism aims to meet this challenge by overcoming the conventional fact–value dichotomy. Values for Petersen are not external impositions on a neutral realm but instead arise naturally from the ways humans perceive, experience, and understand nature. As he argues, naturalism implies that “science and religion are dealing with the same reality, and not with two different and mutually exclusive realities” (Petersen 2023, 3). In other words, the values that inevitably shape human interpretation must be seen as inherent to nature itself. Observing and theorizing about nature always involves implicit value judgments, which blurs the strict separation between fact and value.

Moreover, Petersen asserts that the traditional concept of nature—which treats values and culture as external to the natural world—creates an unhealthy separation between humans and nature, positioning us as detached creators of values rather than as integral parts of a unified whole. Such a disconnect is a consequence of scientific naturalism (or, as Petersen calls it, “scientistic naturalism”), which privileges empirical data and scientific methods as the sole means of understanding reality. By redefining nature as “the world as a whole,” Petersen (2023, 256) incorporates all that is accessible to experience—including values and cultural meanings—within nature itself. Drawing on Kantian ideas of the transcendental and building on Rickert’s philosophy, Petersen situates values as ideal being, which is reached in an intermediary ontological realm that bridges with experience of the empirical world. In this framework, values are intimately linked with the act of judgment—a process that is inherently fallible and marked by uncertainty—thus making theoretical values such as truth, beauty, and justice materialize as real, empirical cultural goods. Ultimately, Petersen’s transcendental naturalism asserts that these transcendental values have genuine ontological status and are fundamental to human judgment, fostering a more integrated view of humanity’s place within the natural order.

Values in Science: Epistemology versus Ontology

Turning now to evaluate Petersen’s project: I agree that values are an ineliminable part of human judgment. However, I am worried about attempts to resolve our challenges through philosophical proposals that diverge from our everyday explanatory practices. Petersen is concerned that if we treat values and nature as entirely separate realms, we risk establishing a dualistic framework that divides the world into two mutually exclusive domains: one of objective, measurable facts and another of subjective, non-empirical values. The only way to resist this dualism is an expanded view of nature—one that does not confine itself solely to empirical data but also embraces the role of values in shaping human experience and understanding.

However, I worry that redefining “nature” to encompass values entails a metaphysical commitment that extends beyond what can be empirically verified, potentially undermining the clarity of scientific practice. While this dualism has its drawbacks, the alternative—an all-encompassing definition of nature—can lead to its own set of conceptual and practical difficulties. In the attempt to unify these two realms under the single concept of nature, there is a risk of conflating distinct domains of inquiry and thereby impeding progress in both.

Two notable alternatives in the literature illustrate how values can be acknowledged without resorting to an expansive redefinition of nature. The first is the account of science offered by Thomas Kuhn, who provides a compelling framework for understanding how values shape our perception of the world. His concept of paradigm illustrates that scientific inquiry is not merely a passive reception of empirical data but an active construction of the world through our interpretative frameworks (Reeves 2023). According to Kuhn (1996), scientific paradigms—comprehensive frameworks of theories and practices—not only influence what scientists observe but also shape how they interpret these observations. When Kuhn (1996, 191) famously asserts that “the world changes” in a paradigm shift, he is not indicating that an objective, observer-independent reality shifts before our eyes or that our beliefs simply evolve; instead, he contends that our scientific understanding is always mediated by the representations and classifications we impose, making our knowledge a joint product of the inherent properties of things and the structuring activity of scientific description. This view, which can be described as a form of projectivism, implies that our theories do not uncover nature as it is in itself but rather as it appears through the lens of our evolving practices of classification and measurement, thereby challenging the notion of a purely objective science progressing linearly toward truth (Lipton 2005).

The philosopher Roger Scruton (2014, 34) offers another possibility, outlining a position he calls cognitive dualism. Scruton argues that human understanding involves two distinct yet intertwined perspectives: the scientific worldview, which seeks universal explanations, and the interpersonal worldview, which seeks meaning and purpose through understanding. This dualism addresses the limitations of the scientific method in capturing first-person experiences, such as identity, personal motivations, and moral accountability. While science describes the physical world and its causal laws, it cannot answer the existential questions of “who am I?” or “why?” that are central to our subjective experience. Cognitive dualism suggests that human nature cannot be fully explained by science alone but requires an interpersonal perspective where subjective experiences and relational understandings are equally significant. This framework thus asserts a single reality approached through complementary but incommensurable ways of knowing.

Both Kuhn and Scruton thus agree that values are an inherent part of scientific judgment, but they do not speculate about their metaphysical origins. This more modest position leaves room for mystery without needing to redefine foundational concepts that guide scientific practice. The goal in the education of scientists thus would not be to have them posit from the very beginning that values have ontological status but to recognize that values cannot be eliminated from our descriptions of the world.

Perhaps then my hesitation with transcendental naturalism is I am more comfortable with explanatory dualism and so feel less need to reconcile nature with values. Humans can be seen as an integral part of nature in biological and ecological terms, while our unique capacities for culture and meaning-making are best understood within their own distinct explanatory framework. By maintaining a conventional understanding of nature and recognizing the role of human values and judgments within their appropriate domains, we preserve the methodological division of labor essential for scientific inquiry without resorting to contentious philosophical redefinitions, which ultimately will foster more productive dialogues on how to address the pressing scientific issues of our time.

Conclusion

In conclusion, both Petersen and I share the overarching goal of ensuring that values, meaning, and transcendence cannot be eliminated from the conversation because of scientific materialism. Where we differ is in the extent to which we are willing to redefine nature to achieve that goal. Although I agree that values are an inescapable part of human reasoning, I remain skeptical that incorporating them directly into the definition of nature accomplishes more than simply acknowledging that they cannot be eliminated from human judgment. Given that Petersen himself concedes that many scientists recoil from such redefinitions, it may be more effective to uphold a conventional view of nature while explicitly recognizing the indispensable role of values.

By teaching scientists about the ineliminable role of values, we can encourage them to critically examine the nature of their own value judgments while preserving the methodological clarity that is essential to empirical inquiry. Rather than attempting to forge a unifying framework that collapses the boundaries between objective facts and subjective values, we should embrace pluralism about values and foster an environment of epistemic humility and empathy. When scientists are confronted with value judgments that challenge their established frameworks, respect and understanding seem to be more attainable goals than searching for consensus on the ontological status of those values.

Ultimately, the true measure of these ideas will be found in their practical application. As Petersen continues to introduce transcendental naturalism into scientific and policy discussions, it will be instructive to observe the outcomes of such an approach in real-world settings. Will this redefinition of nature lead to more inclusive and ethically informed environmental policies, or will it create further confusion by conflating distinct domains of inquiry? I look forward to seeing how Petersen’s program plays out in the future and what positive effects it can have for reaching consensus on climate change goals.

Acknowledgments

A previous version of this commentary was presented at a book panel organized by the Science, Technology and Religion Unit of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) at the AAR Annual Meeting 2024, San Diego, USA, November 24, 2024. The International Society for Science and Religion has published a recording of the book panel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7hWwrhnmyE.