Naturalism: Encyclopedia - Naturalism

Naturalism

"Naturalism" refers to a number of different topics:

• Naturalism (philosophy) is any of several philosophical stances which do not claim that phenomena or hypotheses commonly labeled as supernatural necessarily do not exist or are wrong, but insist that they are not inherently different from natural phenomena or hypotheses, and that both supernatural and natural phenomena and hypotheses can be studied by the same methods.
  • Methodological naturalism assumes that observable events in nature are explained only by natural causes without assuming the existence or non-existence of the supernatural.
  • Ontological naturalism is the metaphysical assumption that the natural world is all that exists.
• Ethical naturalism: the theory that ethical terms can be defined in non-ethical terms.
• Humanistic naturalism: an outlook that places the emphasis upon a naturalism based upon scientific reasoning
• Natural history: a broad area of the natural sciences concerned with living things.
• Sociological naturalism: the view that the natural world and the social world are roughly identical and governed by similar principles.
• Naturalism as an artistic style.
• Naturalism as a literary, cinematic, or theatrical style.

See also Naturalist.

Naturalism should not be confused with naturism, i.e., nudism.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Naturalism", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki