Does Naturalism Preclude Purpose?
by bipodNaturalism has a long, long history and the most popular flavor of contemporary times is certainly not representative of the diverse and robust conceptions of nature that Naturalists have had over the millenia. Contemporary naturalism is probably the simplest instantiation and, I think, the least interesting (and also the least successful at dealing with some obvious facts about nature).
There was a recent comment in our blog suggesting that Naturalism precludes purpose. The subtitle of our blog is a definition of telic which goes like this: "directed or tending towards a goal or purpose; purposeful." The subtitle of the ISCID site is this: "retraining the scientific imagination to see purpose in nature." Under a naive view (the view of most) nature has been disemboweled of purpose, and thus those who talk about the scientific investigation of purpose must have some agenda to discover something like the intentions or purposes of God. There is no room in nature (and thus Naturalism) for any purpose whatsoever.
As I indicated, this view is quite naive. In the first place, it ignores the distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic purpose. Extrinsic purpose is purpose that is imposed from without - intention and pscychological attribution. It is doubtful that extrinsic purpose would be amenable to rigorous scientific investigation. However, intrinsic purpose is what we might call self-contained or system-referential purpose and it is exactly this that a Naturalist can accept and still be a Naturalist. Intrinsic purpose, for the Naturalist, is directly related to functional properties or the causal role that a sub-system plays within the larger system of which it is a part. Such purpose is amenable to scientific investigation, so long as the purpose is relative to a functional whole. Intrinsic purpose is relative to a frame of reference and that reference point is going to be a functioning physical system. Functioning systems are perfectly natural. Intrinsic purpose, defined relative to such systems, is perfectly natural.
It is not Naturalism that precludes purpose, but a very specific, rigid, dogmatic form of Naturalism that has emerged over the last 3-4 centuries that does so. To deny purpose from Nature is to deny directed functionality from Nature, and to take such a stance clearly stands against that form of Naturalism (this negative stance towards purpose is largely a negative response to bad uses of teleology).
