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Evolutionary Naturalism
N aturalism is an approach to philosophical problems that interprets them as tractable through the methods of the empirical sciences or at least, without a distinctively a priori project of theorizing. For much of the history of philosophy it has been widely held that philosophy involved a distinctive method, and could achieve knowledge distinct from that attained by the special sciences. Thus, metaphysics and epistemology have often jointly occupied a position of "first philosophy," laying the necessary grounds for the understanding of reality and the justification of knowledge claims. Naturalism rejects philosophy's claim to that special status. Whether in epistemology, ethics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, or other areas, naturalism seeks to show that philosophical problems as traditionally conceived are ill-formulated and can be solved or displaced by appropriately naturalistic methods. Naturalism often assigns a key role to the methods and results of the empirical sciences, and sometimes aspires to reductionism and physicalism. However, there are many versions of naturalism and some are explicitly non-scientistic. What they share is a repudiation of the view of philosophy as exclusively a priori theorizing concerned with a distinctively philosophical set of questions.
Naturalistic thinking has a long history, but it has been especially prominent since the last decides of the twentieth century, and its influence is felt all across philosophy. This article looks at why and in what ways it is prominent and describes some of the most influential versions of naturalism.
1. Introduction
"Naturalism" is a term that is applied to many doctrines and positions in philosophy, and in fact, just how it is to be defined is itself a matter of philosophical debate. Still, the overall landscape of naturalism can be surveyed, and that is what we will do here. This discussion will not present a defense or critique of one or another specific version of naturalism. Its aim is to characterize the broad range of views typically identified as naturalistic and to say something about what motivates them. It will also locate the debate about naturalism in the larger setting of philosophical inquiry and theorizing overall.
Different periods in the history of philosophy exhibit different emphases in what are the most prominent and pressing concerns, and there are reasons why different issues are at the forefront at different times. In antiquity, basic questions about the constitution of reality motivated various conceptions about the material substance of things, about whether that substance is material, and about the relation between matter and whatever else might be constitutive of reality. Views ranged from variants of (recognizably naturalistic) materialism to those that included decidedly non-materialist and non-naturalist elements, such as Platonism and Aristotelianism. During the Medieval Period, debates over the status of universals and the nature of the intellect, the will, and the soul were especially central. In large part, this had to do with their significance for issues in natural theology. Also, questions concerning the relation between soul and body and whether and how the soul survives the death of the body were prominent. This was because of their significance for the individuation of persons, the possibility and nature of immortality, and for the nature of providence. These families of issues were prominent in all three of the great Western religious traditions. They are though, enduring philosophical questions. Many of them have roots in the Classical tradition.
In the Early Modern Period debates about the respective roles of reason and the senses in knowledge were especially prominent. They had long been important, but there was a revived interest in skepticism and the possibility of knowledge. Also, debates concerning determinism and free will attained high visibility. In both cases, the explanation had to do, in part, with the impact of dramatic developments in scientific theorizing. Those developments led to large-scale revisions in the conceptions of many things, including human nature and human action. In the twentieth century a focus on questions of meaning and semantic issues played a role in many different philosophical movements (from logical positivism to ordinary language philosophy). It was widely thought that linguistic approaches might untie some age-old philosophical knots.
The main problems of philosophy have not really changed over time, but there are differences in what motivates certain formulations of them and ways of addressing them. Since the Early Modern Period, the methods and the results of the sciences are again playing an increasingly important role in motivating new philosophical conceptions, and indeed, overall conceptions of philosophy itself. Various versions and defenses of naturalism are currently at the center of many philosophical debates. Naturalism is a philosophical view, but one according to which philosophy is not a distinct mode of inquiry with its own problems and its own special body of (possible) knowledge. According to many naturalists, philosophy is a certain sort of reflective attention to the sciences and it is continuous with them. They maintain that this is so not only in the sense that philosophy's problems are motivated by the sciences, but also in that its methods are not fundamentally distinct. It might be said that the sciences afford us a more systematic, rigorous, and explanatory conception of the world than is supplied by common sense. In turn, we might say that philosophy is motivated by, and remains connected to the scientific conception of the world. There may be ways in which the scientific conception dramatically departs from common sense, but it is rooted in experience and the questions that arise at the level of common sense. Similarly, according to many defenders of naturalism, philosophy is not discontinuous with science. While it attains a kind of generality of conceptions and explanations that is perhaps not attained by the special sciences, it is not an essentially different inquiry. There are no separate philosophical problems that need to be addressed in a distinctive manner. Moreover, philosophy does not yield results that are different in content and kind from what could be attained by the sciences. Thus, in being a view about the world, naturalism is also a view about the nature of philosophy.
It is worthy of remark that while the sources of naturalism go back a very long way in Western philosophy, it has been especially prominent in philosophy in America. The pragmatist tradition, in which philosophers such as C. S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, W. V. O. Quine, and Richard Rorty are key figures, has been crucial to the development of recent and contemporary naturalism. (There are other key figures in the American pragmatist tradition less clearly associated with its naturalist dimension. In recent years Nelson Goodman [1978; 1979] and Hilary Putnam [1981] are examples.) There is a naturalistic cast to a great deal of pragmatist thought in a number of respects. It regards the general skeptical problem in epistemology as less than genuine. (We will see the significance of this below.) It closely ties meaning to experiential consequences, and it closely ties truth to methods of inquiry and the practical consequences of belief. Also, it often emphasizes the public or social and non-a priori character of inquiry (in contrast to the ego-situated method described by René Descartes, for example). It is anti-foundational, anti-skeptical, and fallibilist. It tends to put a great deal of weight on the accessibility to scientific resolution of genuine intellectual problems. In the American pragmatist tradition there is a wide spectrum of views, of course. But it is an outstanding example of a significant, modern, and still evolving tradition with significant naturalistic currents running in it. Peirce and other American pragmatists have influenced a great deal of recent philosophy of many types. As a result, they are beginning to be more thoroughly studied, after having been widely neglected for several decades.
At numerous places in this discussion we will see that the affirmation of science as the only genuine approach to acquiring knowledge is often a feature of naturalism. However, naturalism is not always narrowly scientistic. There are versions of naturalism that repudiate supernaturalism and various types of a priori theorizing without exclusively championing the natural sciences.
2. Basic Elements of Naturalism Concerning Reality and Knowledge
The debate about naturalism ranges across many areas of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of mind, just to mention areas where it is especially prominent. There are two basic dimensions in which the debate takes place. One of them concerns (to put it simply) what there is, and the other concerns methods of acquiring belief and knowledge. There are several affiliated issues (supervenience, objectivity, various realism/antirealism debates, the character of norms of epistemic justification, the theory of meaning, and so forth) but they are all connected through those two main concerns.
a. What There Is
With respect to the first, the naturalist maintains that all of what there is belongs to the natural world. Obviously, a great deal turns on how nature is understood. But the key point is that an accurate, adequate conception of the world does not (according to the naturalist) include reference to supernatural entities or agencies. According to the naturalist, there are no Platonic forms, Cartesian mental substances, Kantian noumena, or any other agents, powers, or entities that do not (in some broad sense) belong to nature. As a very loose characterization, it may suffice to say that nature is the order of things accessible to us through observation and the methods of the empirical sciences. If some other method, such as a priori theorizing, is needed to have access to the alleged entity or to the truth in question, then it is not a real entity or a genuine truth. According to the naturalist, there is only the natural order. If something is postulated or claimed to exist, but is not described in the vocabulary that describes natural phenomena, and not studied by the inquiries that study natural phenomena, it is not something we should recognize as real.
Unsurprisingly, the success of the sciences has been one of the main motivations for thinkers to embrace naturalism. The sciences have proved to be powerful tools for making the world intelligible. They seem to have such a strong claim to yield genuine knowledge that it is widely thought that whatever there is, is a proper object of science. That does not require that in embracing naturalism one also embrace determinism, physicalism, and reductionism. (However, it is true that many advocates of some or all of those are also very often naturalists.) While those specific theses about the structure or character of the world are not essential features of naturalism, many who endorse naturalism believe that over time scientific progress will make the case for physicalism, in particular. Even if, for example, attempts to provide fully reductive accounts of mental phenomena, certain biological phenomena, and values do not succeed, that would not be an insurmountable impediment to physicalism; or, at least that is the view of some defenders of naturalism. There is only the physical natural order, even if there are various constituents and aspects of it that are to be described in their own non-reducible vocabularies.
Naturalism could be said to involve a denial that there is any distinctively metaphysical area of inquiry. Thus, even if one's preferred interpretation of naturalism is not reductionist or even physicalist (in a non-reductionist form), naturalism is a conception of reality as homogeneous in the sense that there is one natural order that comprises all of reality. There are no objects or properties that can only be identified or comprehended by metaphysical theorizing or non-empirical understanding. What exactly is the true theory of that single natural order may remain open to dispute. The key points are that our conception of reality need include nothing that is exclusively accessible to a priori theorizing, or to "first philosophy," and there is only one natural order.
b. How We Know
For naturalistic epistemology, the main claim is roughly the following: the acquisition of belief and knowledge is a (broadly) causal process within the natural order, and a priori norms, principles, and methods are not essential to the acquisition or justification of beliefs and knowledge. Compare David Hume and Descartes, for example. Hume explains our acceptance of beliefs on the basis of habits of association—causal tendencies that we can reflectively articulate into rules of epistemic practice. There are processes of belief acquisition and acceptance, but they are not underwritten by principles formulated a priori, nor are they structured by such principles. Epistemology is part of the overall science of human nature. It is not a project that is prior to or independent of the empirical sciences. There are norms of belief acceptance and of inquiry, but they are derived from consideration of experience and practice. (Here too, there is also an important point of contrast with Kant and also with the Platonic theory of knowledge as recollection of innate ideas, as well as with Descartes.)
Descartes held that the norms and method of belief acceptance must be independent of experience, and must have their grounds in reason alone. Otherwise, they would be vulnerable to exactly the sorts of skeptical objections that led to the search for epistemic principles in the first place. Even if one does not defend rationalism or a conception of the synthetic a priori, one might still think (as most philosophers have) that there are certain distinctively philosophical epistemological issues that can be dealt with only by distinctively philosophical (that is, a priori) methods. Hume and Descartes' positions are rather like bookends, and there are many other, less "pure" or radical positions, in between theirs. But they are excellent examples of a causal-empirical approach on the one hand and a rationalist-a priori normative approach on the other.
There is a vast contemporary literature on the extent to which epistemology can be naturalized and what a naturalized epistemology would or should look like. At the core of the controversy is whether we need a philosophical theory in order to understand knowledge or epistemic justification, or is the so-called "problem of knowledge" really just another (broadly) empirical problem. If it is, then perhaps it can be addressed by the methods of the sciences (psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, cognitive science, etc.). This is not just the same as the debate between rationalists and empiricists, though it is related to it. It is open to an empiricist to argue that there are analytic truths that are known just by consideration of their meanings, and that this knowledge is not explicable in exclusively naturalistic terms. Similarly, if there are conceptual truths or logical truths that are not explicated in naturalistic terms, then that could be an important part of an empiricism that is not also a variant of naturalism. Still, there are some affinities between empiricism and naturalism that make them plausible candidates for having close relations.
Most epistemological theories are not as purely rationalistic as Descartes'. Also, though Kant's influence has been enormous, there are few contemporary theorists who accept the conception of synthetic a priori knowledge on the basis of Kant's transcendental idealism. Nonetheless, many epistemologists argue that fundamental issues concerning skepticism and the nature of epistemic justification cannot be successfully handled by the resources of naturalism. Or, they argue that they can only be handled in a question begging way by those resources. On the other hand, naturalists insist that there is nothing for a priori epistemology to be. Unless epistemology remains fully grounded in and tethered to the practices of scientific inquiry and the results they yield, it is cut off from the only sorts of evidence and strategies of explanation that can be conclusively vindicated or confirmed.
Recent decades have seen the development of not only different versions of naturalized epistemology, but also different overall approaches to it. One of the key distinctions is between what are sometimes called "replacement" theories and theories that develop naturalistic accounts of epistemic justification instead of repudiating the traditional epistemological project. The former are attempts to abandon the normative issue of epistemic justification. They substitute for it a more fully descriptive and causal account of our beliefs.
For example, at some points in his career, Quine openly rejected the traditional project of justification (at least as he construed it). He sought to fully assimilate epistemology to psychology (broadly construed), making it a part of empirical science, rather than a special inquiry that might underwrite scientific knowledge claims. He held that we should abandon (as hopeless) the project of identifying epistemically privileged foundational beliefs and inferring other beliefs from them, via a priori rules. Moreover, there is no clean break between supposed analytic truths on the one hand and synthetic truths on the other, and there is no realm of meanings distinct from linguistic behavior and the rest of behavior that it is embedded in. The philosophical distinction between truths of meaning and truths of fact does not reflect a genuine, explanatorily significant distinction. Like the entire project of a priori epistemology, it is a misrepresentation of what the actual problems of knowledge are. Also, while Hume had shown that there is no a priori justification of inductive inference, Quine maintained that that does not leave us with a profound skeptical difficulty. Rather, we are to examine and adjust our inductive practices in light of what we find to be empirically effective and supported without first (or ever) requiring that they be justified on non-empirical grounds. There is no "first philosophy" that underwrites science.
Other defenders of naturalistic epistemology, such as Alvin Goldman (1979; 1986), have developed causal accounts of justified beliefs or of knowledge, but still regard the philosophical project of epistemology as a genuine project, though it is to be carried out with naturalistic resources. We still are to speak in terms of beliefs being justified. In that respect there are versions of naturalism that continue to regard epistemology as involving normative considerations about belief and knowledge. Also, if we ascertain what is involved in beliefs being caused by reliable processes, we can deflect or defeat various general skeptical challenges. Those can be taken seriously, but naturalism can meet them. In meeting them, we will have attained substantive conditions of justification, but without requiring that they be accessible to a cognitive agent in order to be fulfilled. The causality of justified beliefs is one thing; whether an agent can articulate grounds for his beliefs is another. Justification can be explicated in non-epistemic terms, in terms of processes that are reliably truth-conducive. The problems of epistemology admit of naturalistic solutions, but need not repudiate the problems as unwelcome and less than genuine philosophical artifice.
Both the more and the less radical approaches share the central claim that the correct account of knowledge is in terms of reliable processes of belief-acquisition that are themselves explicated in empirical, and mainly causal, terms. The true beliefs of cognitive subjects, we might say, are one type of phenomenon that occurs in the natural world. We need not leave the latter in order to explain the former. There is no stand-alone problem of epistemic justification, requiring its own distinctive vocabulary and evidential considerations. Epistemic value, we might say, can be interpreted in terms of naturalistic facts and properties.
3. Naturalism in Various Versions and Various Contexts
On the basis of the discussion so far, it might appear that naturalism is more or less a type of scientism, the view that only the methods of the sciences are legitimate in seeking knowledge, and that only the things recognized by the sciences as real are real. There are indeed naturalists who hold that view, but it is not a necessary feature of naturalism. As noted at the outset, there is considerable debate over what sorts of views should be recognized as naturalistic. There are theorists who wish to identify their views and approaches as naturalistic without embracing reductionist physicalism. There are also some approaches that can plausibly be described as naturalistic that are quite self-consciously anti-scientistic. In particular, there are philosophers who have been influenced by the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein (1953) who regard their general approach as naturalistic, though it is just as critical of scientism as it is of traditional metaphysics.
This is not to say that Wittgenstein was deliberately making a case for naturalism. Rather, because of his emphasis on the importance of looking at actual practice, the significance of the wider social context of practices, and the avoidance of a priori theorizing, his work can be seen as having features of naturalism. Like G. E. Moore before him, Wittgenstein argued that the refutation of skeptical hypotheses is not required in order to succeed in making knowledge claims, and that we have knowledge of the external world without first proving that such knowledge is possible. Moreover, Wittgenstein rejected the view that there is some single, global method (including the scientific method) for arriving at a true account of the world, and his approach is explicitly oriented to honoring the differences between contexts. This is evident in his discussion of language games, for example. His philosophical explorations are anti-reductionist. They disavow any attempt to capture and explain everything in the terms of some overall theory within one or another special science. He vigorously opposed the attempt to force phenomena to "fit" some preferred theory or vocabulary. Indeed, in some important ways, his work is anti-theoretical without being anti-philosophical. (The same might be said of Thomas Reid [1785] in the eighteenth century. It is also plausible to regard his views as naturalistic in important respects. One can see this especially in contrast to Kant, for example.)
If it is appropriate to describe this approach as naturalistic it is because of the ways in which Wittgenstein insisted that philosophical examination should look closely at the facts and should avoid theorizing about them in ways that lead to a large scale reconceiving of them or to postulation of entities, agencies, and processes. Very often the truth is disclosed by looking carefully, rather than by discovering something "behind" or distinct from what we encounter in experience. There is not some order of the "really real" or a transcendent order beyond what we meet with in the natural world. Yet, this does not mean that only a narrowly scientific understanding of it is a correct understanding. That sort of view itself would be an example of an overly restrictive approach that misrepresents the world and our understanding of it.
In addition, Wittgenstein was especially concerned to understand normative issues (such as the normativity involved in the use of concepts and in engaging in various practices) without explaining them away or reducing them to something non-normative. There are important normative issues even in contexts where we are not directly investigating questions concerning values. All sorts of practices, including various kinds of thinking and the use of language, have normative dimensions. Their normativity cannot be reduced to the occurrence of this or that event, or state, or causal process. For example, there may be no specific physical or psychological state or process that underlies or causally explains how a person is able to go on applying a concept to new cases, and to use a term in indefinitely many new situations, and to do so correctly in ways that are understood by others. That might mean that there is an irreducible normativity involved in the use of concepts and terms. There is nothing metaphysically exotic about that. It does not indicate that there are special normative entities or properties in addition to the practices and activities in question. There just is the normative, but natural activity of speaking, understanding, and making judgments. These are altogether familiar to all of us. If we want to understand what makes for the correct use of a term, for example, we should look at the way that it is used rather than look for some other fact or entity underlying its use. There is no special realm of meanings, or a thinking substance that grasps them, or a world of universals outside of space and time that is grasped by thought. (It is noteworthy that Plato understood the forms to be not only real, but normative realities.)
Many approaches to meaning, to the explication of inference and thought in general, and to the acquisition of concepts that have been influenced by Wittgenstein (see Wittgenstein on meaning), are naturalistic in an anti-metaphysical regard and in their close descriptive attention to the actual facts and natural and social contexts of the phenomena at issue. Traditional, central, philosophical debates, such as those between realism and nominalism in regard to universals, are purportedly deflated by Wittgensteinian approaches. That makes it plausible to regard them as naturalistic in at least a broad sense, though there is a very wide spectrum of Wittgenstein-influenced views and of Wittgenstein interpretation. Many different "-isms" can be interpretively connected to Wittgenstein's work. Some Wittgensteinians and interpreters of Wittgenstein seem to support antirealism and nominalism. Others present views plausibly described as realist, but in a distinctively Wittgensteinian way. The range of Wittgenstein-influenced views is so wide, in large part, because he refused to be drawn into the use of many of the prevailing formulations of issues.
Wittgensteinian approaches have been very influential in the philosophy of social explanation, an area in which there has long been a debate about whether the methods of the natural sciences are appropriate to the kinds of phenomena it is claimed are uniquely encountered in social explanation. This is a place where we can see the breadth of the field of interpretation of naturalism. In one sense, Wittgensteinian approaches are naturalistic, in the ways described. At the same time, they are decidedly not naturalistic, if by "naturalism" we mean that the categories, concepts, and methods of the natural sciences are the only ones that are needed to explain whatever there is.
There are some affinities between Wittgenstein and some currents in American pragmatism with respect to the emphasis on the importance of the shared, public world for understanding language and the significance of practices. In particular, recent work by Richard Rorty (1979; 1982) has been important in drawing attention to that tradition and reinvigorating pragmatism in a post-Wittgensteinian context. His views and others like them have also attracted a great deal of criticism, reinvigorating debates about the interpretation and plausibility of naturalism. At the center of the debate is the issue of whether there are enduring philosophical problems about the nature of reality, and truth, and about value, for example, or just the more concrete, contingent, but still significant problems that individuals and societies encounter in the business of living.
As might be expected, many naturalistic thinkers feel discomfort at being grouped with Wittgenstein under the same heading. They regard his approach as unscientific and as much more permissive in regard to interpretation than more empirically fastidious approaches can accept. Still, it is plausible to regard at least some of Wittgenstein's views as naturalistic even though they constitute a version of naturalism that differs from others in important respects.
a. Naturalism in Ethics
Ethics is a context in which there are important non-scientistic versions of naturalism. For example, there are respects in which neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics can be regarded as naturalistic. It does not involve a non-natural source or realm of moral value, as does Kant's ethical theory, or Plato's or Moore's. For Aristotle, judgments of what are goods for a human being are based upon considerations about human capacities, propensities, and the conditions for successful human activity of various kinds. Thus, while it is not a scientistic conception of human agency or moral value, it also contrasts clearly with many clearly non-naturalistic conceptions of agency and moral value. Central to the view are the notions that there are goods proper to human nature and that the virtues are excellent states of character enabling an agent to act well and realize those goods. This can be construed as naturalism in that many defenders of the view, especially recent ones, have argued that familiar versions of the so-called "fact-value distinction" are seriously mistaken. Correlatively, they have argued that the distinction between descriptive meaning and evaluative meaning is mistaken. Their view is that various types of factual considerations have ethical significance—not as a non-natural supervening property, and not merely expressively or projectively. The agent with virtues is able to acknowledge and appreciate the ethical significance of factual considerations, and act upon them accordingly.
While it is apt to call this "naturalism," it is quite different from some paradigmatic examples of moral naturalism, such as the hedonistic utilitarianism of John Stuart Mill. Mill attempted to explain moral value in non-moral (naturalistic) terms—in terms of what people desire for its own sake and what they find pleasing. He sought to do this without any non-empirical assumptions or commitments about what people should desire, or what are proper goods for human beings. (He tried to make distinctions between inferior and superior pleasures on an empirical basis independent of antecedent normative commitments.) This is an attempt to demystify moral value by showing that it can be explained (even if not outright defined) in terms of facts and properties that are themselves non-moral and accessible to observation and the methods of the sciences. Other theorists, whether or not they accept Mill's conception of what in fact has moral value, have pursued the project of theorizing in the same general direction in so far as they wish to show that moral values can be understood in terms of natural (including social) facts and properties.
In some respects, this is analogous to showing how, say, biological phenomena are explicable in physico-chemical terms. There are theories of moral value according to which it is constituted by, supervenes upon, or is defined in terms of non-moral, natural facts and properties. (Each is a different account of the relation between the moral and the non-moral. They are not simply different ways of saying the same thing.) This does not turn moral thought into a department of natural science, but it does mean that the explanation of what moral thought is about may very well depend extensively upon scientific methods. There may be regular and even law-like relations between non-moral facts and properties on the one hand, and moral facts and properties on the other. It may be that moral concepts are not entailed by or reducible to non-moral ones, but moral values have no independent ontological standing and are not essentially different in kind from natural phenomena in the way that Moore, for example, understood them to be. At the same time, moral values are real, and there are moral facts. The evaluative meaning of moral judgments is not merely expressive (see non-cognitivism in ethics). Moral judgments report moral facts, and moral claims are literally true or false. There are numerous versions of naturalistic moral realism.
There are other versions of ethical naturalism that owe much more to Hume and make the case for antirealism rather than realism. It was central to Hume's moral theory that there are no value-entities or special faculties for perceiving or knowing them. According to Hume, moral value and moral motivation are to be explained in terms of facts about human sensibility. In this type of view, moral judgments are to be interpreted projectively, but they are also to be regarded as having all the form and force of cognitive discourse. On the one hand, commitment to objective values (with all of their alleged metaphysical and epistemological difficulties) is avoided. On the other hand, there is ample scope for moral argument, for critical assessment of moral views, and for regarding moral language as having much richer meaning than just being emotive in a person-relative way. The learning of moral concepts, the practice of reason-giving, and the adjustment of moral beliefs that we take to be part of moral experience and practice really are parts of it, though their genuineness does not depend upon there being moral facts or objective values. All that is needed is a common human sensibility and our propensity to make action-guiding judgments. To defenders of this approach, naturalism is not a way of explaining away moral values, or translating moral language into non-moral language. Instead it is the project of explaining all that moral values can be, in terms of sensibility, and showing how that is sufficient for full-fledged morality. It may be instructive to interpret this account of moral thought and discourse as analogous to Hume's treatment of causal thought and discourse. There too, he severely criticized realist interpretations, but he also sought to show that his account could preserve the significance and the form of causal claims and causal reasoning. In that regard, the Humean approach can be said to explain moral judgments and causal judgments, rather than explaining them away.
Some Humean-influenced views of morality put weight on the role of evolutionary explanations. They can be important to the story of how there came to be creatures with morally relevant sentiments and moral concern, and also why certain kinds of cooperative and coordinated behavior—certain types of moral behavior—well-serve us as a species, and are regarded by us as valuable. That does not mean that we are "naturally" moral, but that naturalistic explanations are central to the account of the possibility and character of morality. The Humean-influenced approach (of which there are many variants) to meta-ethics is not reductive naturalism, but it certainly seems to count as a type of naturalism. And, as we have noted, special argumentation is needed to show why naturalism would have to be reductive.
There are also versions of evolutionary ethics that are not much influenced by Hume. Ethical theories strongly influenced by evolutionary thinking but without ties to Hume's philosophy were developed in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth. Some were crude variants of Social Darwinism, but others were sophisticated attempts to show the naturalistic origin and ground of ethical value and practice. (Thomas Henry Huxley [1893] is a good example of a subtle, sophisticated nineteenth century exponent of the role of evolution in ethics.) In recent decades there have been important developments in this tradition, incorporating knowledge of genetics and animal behavior and its physiological bases.
In general terms, evolutionary ethics attempts to show that the attitudes, motives, and practices that are part and parcel of ethical life are to be accounted for in terms of how they are adaptive. Virtues, vices, moral rules and principles, and so forth do not have an independent standing, or a basis in a priori reasoning. Moral values are not detected by a quasi-perceptual moral sense or by a faculty of intuition. This does not mean that morally significant behavior is robotic or uninfluenced by judgment and reasoning. Rather, the point is that needs are met by certain dispositions, susceptibilities, and behaviors, and the presence of those things themselves is explicable in terms of selective advantage in the struggle for existence. Altruism and various patterns of coordinated behaviors are explained in terms of the biological benefits they confer. They enhance fitness. That there is morality and concern for moral issues at all are facts that can be accounted for in terms of an account of how we came to be, and came to be the sorts of animals we are in a process of natural selection. Defenders of this view argue that only if one thinks morality must have its source in God or reason would one find this threatening to morality. It does not subvert virtue, or render moral motivation something base or no more than an animal function, like digestion or excretion. Morality is a no less real or significant part of our lives, but it is in our lives at all, in the ways that it is, because of our evolutionary history. We need not look elsewhere.
b. Naturalism in the Philosophy of Mind
The philosophy of mind is another area in which naturalistic views have been prominent and highly controversial in recent times. Many theorists hold that the categories, concepts, and vocabulary needed to explain consciousness, experience, thought, and language are those of the natural sciences (and perhaps some of the social sciences, understood naturalistically). The impetus for this view comes from a number of directions, including developments in biological sciences, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science. To many theorists it seems increasingly clear, or at least plausible, that the mind is as fully a part of nature as anything else. They hold that while the properties and processes of mental life may have distinctive features, (which, admittedly, may be especially difficult to study and to understand) they are not ultimately inexplicable by the methods of the sciences. The study of them is especially complicated because of the ways in which biochemical, physiological, social, developmental, and many other processes and events interact. But according to the naturalist, the mind is not "outside of nature." It operates in accordance with principles fundamentally like those that govern other natural phenomena. Here again, the naturalist need not be a reductionist physicalist. The theorist of mind may be a non-reductionist physicalist (taking the view that the mental supervenes on the physical) or not take an explicit stand on physicalism one way or the other. Rather, the naturalist with respect to philosophy of mind may emphasize the claim that the study of the mind does not involve any methods other than those recognized in the various natural sciences. It requires no commitments to the existence of entities and properties other than those recognized in the sciences.
As before, Plato, Descartes, and Kant are excellent examples of non-naturalism concerning the mind. Their theories differ in important ways, but they all share the principle that the mind and its activities are not physical and are not governed by the laws of nature. This is not because of pre-scientific ignorance or lack of sophistication. It is because they found it virtually or literally incoherent that awareness, comprehension, and the activity of thought should just be part of what goes on in the natural order. Many theorists still find that incoherent. They argue that either the object of cognition is something non-natural, such as a state of affairs, or a proposition, or a universal (or a complex of instances of universals), or that cognition itself is something non-natural—or that both are. Thinking, the objects of thought, and the relations between them (which are often necessary relations, but not causally necessary relations) seem to be matters that are not susceptible to being rendered in naturalistic terms. (It may be that the objects of cognition are not exactly the same things as the objects of perception, which are natural objects and also artifacts made by human beings.) Indeed, even apart from disputes focused on naturalism these are some of the persistent, fundamental problems of philosophy of mind, and its relations to epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of language.
Modern critics of naturalism often point to (at least) two especially significant problem areas for naturalism. One of them concerns how a naturalistic conception of mind is to handle intentional states—states such as belief, desire, hope, fear, and others that have objects. These are expressed in the form, "X believes that…" or "X hopes that…" and so forth. These are states that are about something. Many mental states are intentional in this way, and this feature of being about something seems to be distinctive of mental states. A state of temperature, or a quantity, or a positive or negative charge, or a valence, or combustion, or the suppression of an immunological response is not about something. These and other states, events, and processes have causes (and effects) but do not have objects. They are not directed at anything in the way that many mental states are. There are difficult questions concerning the nature of intentionality and also the nature and status of the objects of intentional states. Are the latter propositions, or states of affairs, or something else? Many mental states (such as belief) seem to be representational. How is representation to be understood?
A second issue is the following. Is understanding the meaning of a sentence, or the grasp of a mathematical truth, or the grasp of other sorts of necessary truths (as in logic) something that can be exhaustively explained in terms confined to the language of the natural sciences and its referents? In addition to questions about how thought has intentional objects and about the objects of thought, there are questions about the form and structure of thought and whether they are susceptible to naturalistic treatment. Is the necessity of logical validity something that can be completely accounted for in causal-empirical terms? Are relations between concepts supervenient upon, or explicable in terms of, relations between events? Are they resistant to assimilation into natural causal processes, even if they are dependent upon them? (There are analogies here to the issue of epistemic justification and the status of moral values, which too may be dependent upon naturalistic phenomena, though not simply "nothing but" naturalistic phenomena.)
The insistence that the mind is not a separate substance is not sufficient to make for naturalism about the mind. Similarly, insisting that we can only learn language and develop cognitive abilities because of the way we have evolved is not enough to underwrite naturalism. It is not a view only about what is relevant to explain or understand a certain range of phenomena. It is a view about what is sufficient to do so. Substance dualism is very much out of favor, but it is hardly the only alternative to naturalism with regard to the mind. In this context, as in the other contexts, there is a broad range of views, many of them naturalistic, many of them not. It is not as though there is a single, prevailing naturalistic theory of mind. The debate about what naturalism about the mind should look like remains very much open and ongoing.
4. Overview of the Debate About Naturalism
The debate about naturalism remains so very much alive and so complex. Much of it concerns just how narrowly or broadly to construe naturalism and how open it should be to the form and content of what is accepted as belonging to science. What if our best understanding of the sciences indicates that reductionism is at best "local," confined to certain areas, and there is no single, fundamental level of description in which all scientific truths can be expressed? And what if the interpretation of the "physical" is expanded to include supervenient properties, including mental properties, and moral values? Would that be a defeat for naturalism, or only for certain versions of it? Or, suppose a theorist claimed that philosophy could dispense with a priori theorizing or with attempts to arrive at highly general theories altogether (the theory of knowledge, the theory of morality, the theory of meaning, etc.), say, in the manner of the later Wittgenstein? Would that rejection of "first philosophy" and the search for foundations or essences constitute a kind of naturalism? We can imagine a defender of that approach answering in the affirmative, and other self-avowed naturalists finding that inappropriate and misleading. In their view naturalism requires certain quite specific commitments about what there is and how it can be known or explained.
This does not mean that the debate about naturalism is merely or mainly verbal. There are significant, substantive issues involved. Some of them concern just how naturalism is to be interpreted, and some of them concern the truth of naturalism in one or another area. These are not matters of stipulation, but difficult, complex issues. In trying to resolve them there is considerable traffic back and forth between philosophical theorizing and empirical science. One could, for example, be a naturalist about moral value, but not a "global" naturalist, a naturalist about all things. Moral theorizing has some important relations with epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind, but one need not tackle all of those issues and relations at once in order to assess the claims of naturalism in one area. Or, at least that appears to be a workable approach. At the same time, part of the appeal of naturalism is its potentially global scope. It has the apparent merit of providing a single, or at least integrated overall account of what there is, and what it is like, and how it works—including the actions, experiences, and thoughts of rational animals.
a. Conclusion
Totalizing views have often had considerable appeal to philosophers. Such views promise to make the world intelligible with a single array of fundamental concepts. They purport to overcome the perplexities attending views in which the world is ultimately heterogeneous, with objects, properties, and processes of fundamentally different kinds, belonging to different categories. Objective idealism such as Hegel's is one sort of totalizing view, and so is global naturalism, though the two are radically different from each other. Spinoza's metaphysical theory according to which there is just one substance is another totalizing view, and so is phenomenalism, in its own way. Each is an attempt to produce the widest and most thorough intelligibility by identifying a small number of basic categories and principles through which things can be understood.
It is understandable that a great deal of philosophical theorizing should have a tendency to be reductionist or to seek a "privileged" vocabulary for describing the ultimate constituents of reality or the basic activities or processes that govern it. After all, many philosophers conceive the project of philosophy to include the task of articulating an account of the most general features of reality, knowledge, value, and so forth. In one respect, naturalism resists that tendency, in so far as it rejects the project of a priori theorizing as hopeless, irrelevant, or obsolete. Given the guiding intellectual disposition of naturalism, it seems that it would countenance as real whatever the progress of (empirical) enquiry indicates is required for complete explanations. It would be open to what is found. Rather than fashioning a completely general and abstract conception of reality, it focuses on the substantive explanations and theories that are developed in specific areas of inquiry. According to naturalism, if philosophy becomes detached from those, it is mere theory-building and does not afford us real understanding.
In another respect though, naturalism is a decidedly philosophical approach and an entrant in the grand debate about what is the true global view. As noted above, naturalism is itself a philosophical view, though it claims to be a rejection of a great deal that historically has been distinctive of philosophy. Even if naturalism is articulated in strictly empirical terms, and strives to be scientific, we are still faced with the issue of whether strictly empirical terms are adequate to capture and express all that there is and all we can know. It is not as though naturalism can avoid questions about whether it is itself a true view, and all the associated concerns about how to interpret truth, and what would make it a true view. The issue of whether naturalism is true may be the sort of issue that is not clearly resolvable in exclusively naturalistic terms. At least it seems that the view that it can be, is itself a distinctively philosophical view. Once we begin to explore such questions, we are of course doing philosophy, even if our aim is to make the case for naturalism.
For critiques of naturalism, see the Social Science article.
5. References and Further Reading
This list indicates titles of selected sources and is not an attempt to be exhaustive. It includes some of the most relevant works of thinkers referred to in the article and also some important works by thinkers who are not named in the article.
- Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics.
- Blackburn, Simon (1988). "How To be an Ethical Anti-realist," Midwest Studies in Philosophy 12, pp. 361-375.
- Blackburn, Simon (1998). Ruling Passions, Oxford University Press.
- Churchland, P. M. (1988). Matter and Consciousness, MIT Press.
- Descartes, René (1641). Meditations on First Philosophy.
- Dewey, John (1920). Reconstruction in Philosophy, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company.
- Dewey, John (1925). Experience and Nature, Chicago: Open Court.
- Foot, Philippa (2003). Natural Goodness, Oxford University Press.
- Gibbard, Alan (1990). Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment, Oxford University Press.
- Goldman, Alvin (1979) "What is Justified Belief?" in George S. Pappas Justification and Knowledge Dordrecht, pp. 1-23.
- Goldman, Alvin (1986). Epistemology and Cognition, Harvard University Press
- Goodman, Nelson (1978). Ways of Worldmaking, Hackett Publishing Company.
- Goodman, Nelson (1979). Fact, Fiction, and Forecast, Harvard University Press.
- Hume, David (1748). An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.
- Hume, David (1751). An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals.
- Huxley, Thomas Henry (1893). Evolution and Ethics, Pilot Press.
- Jackson, Frank (1982). "Epiphenomenal Qualia" The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 127 April, pp. 127-136.
- James, William (1907/1979). Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979 (originally published in 1907).
- Kant, Immanuel (1781/87). Critique of Pure Reason, Werner Pluhar (trans.), Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996. (First edition originally published in 1781, second edition in 1787.)
- Kant, Immanuel (1783). Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Gary Hatfield (trans.), New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997 (originally published in1783).
- Kim, Jaegwon: "What Is 'Naturalized Epistemology'?" Philosophical Perspectives 2, James E. Tomberlin (ed.), Asascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Co., pp. 381-406.
- Kornblith, Hilary, ed. (1985). Naturalizing Epistemology, MIT Press.
- McDowell, John (1995). "Two Sorts of Naturalism" in Virtues and Reasons: Philippa Foot and Moral Theory, Rosalind Hursthouse, Gavin Lawrence, and Warren Quinn (eds.), Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 149-79.
- McDowell, John (1996). Mind and World, Harvard University Press.
- Mill, John Stuart (1861/1998). Utilitarianism, Roger Crips (ed.), Oxford University Press. (Originally published in 1861).
- Moore, G. E. (1925). "A Defense of Common Sense," Contemporary British Philosophy (2nd series), ed. J. H. Muirhead. Reprinted in Moore (1959c).
- Moore, G. E. (1959a). "Proof of the External World" Ch. 7 of Moore (1959b), pp. 126-148.
- Moore, G. E. (1959b). Philosophical Papers. London: George, Allen and Unwin.
- Peirce, Charles Sanders (1898/1992). Reasoning and the Logic of Things: The Cambridge Conference Lectures of 1898, Kenneth Laine Ketner (ed., intro.) and Hilary Putnam (intro., comm.), Harvard University Press, 1992.
- Peirce, Charles Sanders (1903/1997). Pragmatism as a Principle and Method of Right Thinking: The 1903 Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism, Patricia Ann Turrisi (ed.), SUNY Press.
- Plato. Republic.
- Plato. Theaetetus.
- Plato. Sophist.
- Putnam, Hilary (1981). Reason, Truth and History, Cambridge University Press.
- Quine, W. V. O. (1969a). "Epistemology Naturalized," Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, New York: Columbia University Press.
- Quine, W. V. O. (1969b). "Natural Kinds,"Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, New York: Columbia University Press.
- Quine, W. V. O. (1990). Pursuit of Truth, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
- Reid, Thomas (1785). Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man.
- Rorty, Richard (1979). Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton University Press.
- Rorty, Richard (1982). Consequences of Pragmatism, University of Minnesota Press.
- Ruse, Michael (1986). Taking Darwin Seriously: A Naturalistic Approach to Philosophy, N.Y.: Blackwell.
- Ruse, Michael & Wilson, E. O. (1985). "The Evolution of Ethics," New Scientist 108, pp. 50-52.
- Searle, John (1980). "Minds, Brains and Programs," Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3, pp. 417-57.
- Searle, John (1983). Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge University Press.
- Trigg, Roger (1982). The Shaping of Man: Philosophical Aspects of Sociobiology, Oxford: Blackwell.
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953). Philosophical Investigations, New York: Macmillan.


text:
The best Android VLC Remote® Control!
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subset: commoncrawl


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As I mentioned, it's got VoIP abilities (that's Voice over IP — Internet phone calls), and, as I also mentioned, getting them to work is a pain in the arse. A bit of Googling reveals, in fact, that a whole subculture has sprung up in recent months composed entirely of people trying to figure out how to get VoIP to work on a Nokia E-series phone and sharing their discoveries.
The technical explanation for all this trouble is that Nokia haven't built NAT traversal capabilities into these phones — yet — they're planning to release an upgrade to the firmware this year, to which I look forward. In slightly less technical terms, this means the phone can handle VoIP if you have your own VoIP server in your house but can't if you use one of the many located on the Interweb. Needless to say, most people don't have their own servers.
Nokia's reason for this is that the E-series phones were designed primarily as business phones, and businesses often do have their own VoIP servers. This is a reasonable excuse, especially since they're planning to release this upgrade to the phone's firmware this year. They have, in fact, created phones with a really cool function which no mobile phone has had before and which they will shortly upgrade for free to make it even better. This is good, surely?
Well, there's no technical brilliance that an idiot in a marketing department can't turn into a complaint.
Look at this discussion on Nokia's forums. Lots of people have been spending days or even weeks jumping through hoops and using various cunning workarounds to get their phones to use VoIP without NAT traversal, with mixed results. One guy has to reboot his phone every time it loses the connection. One can call people but gets disconnected as soon as they answer. And then a guy called Iphone says, almost in passing:
Nokia stated to E series phones has NAT problems and they working on it.
English isn't his first language. I hope. Anyway, that seems like a reasonable summing-up and a rather uncontroversial statement: the E-series phones, like I said, and as Nokia have said, can't handle NAT. If you have NAT, you might reasonably describe that as "a problem". And yes, Nokia are working on it.
Nokia's fans and forum moderators disagree, and were so outraged by this comment that they threw a bit of a hissy fit. First, Rufao:
just to clarify, the above is not accurate.
nokia has not said there is a problem with the eseries and SIP. if yuo read their FAQ on the phones, you see them state the current limitations, not that there is a problem
Got that? Limitations aren't a problem.
Nokia E series phones works OK on SIP when VoIP SIP and Access Point are same side, but if you want to use VoIP service from any providers then there's big problem.
This is true, of course: trying to connect through NAT using a device that cannot connect through NAT does present a problem.
The Nokia crowd, however, insist that "problem" can only mean "bug" or "fault", and this insistence, unsurprisingly, leads them to royally piss off a guy who, at the end of the day, has an entirely reasonable complaint:
My reason to wanted that phone was integrated SIP protocol. ... I was so upset when receievd Nokia E60 and SIP failed!
Enter Karim, Official Nokia Moderator:
ipphone, you are confusing a limitation with a fault as other members have said.
No, he's not. He said "problem", not "fault". It's you who are confusing a problem with a fault.
There is no fault with the Eseries phones and SIP at the moment. Instead we have listed the current limitations of the phone as an Internet Phone on our FAQ's.
Now, unless you have an issue you would like some help with here do not post any more of these comments - you will simply confuse people about the issue.
To summarise, the Eseries phones can be used as Internet Phones and for more information on this please visit the FAQ here: http://europe.nokia.com/A4151187
Look at that. If you claim that the phone's failure to do this is a problem, then you're a liar, as the phone was never meant to do it. Oh, and, by the way, of course the phone can do it.
It's this attitude that's generated so many complaints in the first place: faced with a customer, Nokia staff just can't bring themselves to say outright "The phone only works as an Internet phone if you have your own server." All they can say is "The phone absolutely can be used as an Internet phone and go and look at the small print over there which I won't spell out for you."
Then look at this from Seraphim:
iphone, you must be a little remedial... the FAQ categorically states nokia plans to release firmware in the future that will give it NAT traversal support. if you didnt look at that before you bought the phone, its your own fault.
Here's what it says under "Technical Specifications" on Nokia's E70 page:
Call Management
Internet call over WLAN
And that's it. Is it really so unreasonable to conclude from reading that that the E70 can make Internet calls over a WLAN? Is it really your own bloody stupid fault if you buy a product without first trawling its multinational manufacturer's huge sprawling website for small print? Shouldn't the official product description tell you all you need to know?
Derekm makes exactly this point:
It is simply not on to refer to the small print of a post-sales FAQ page, the pre-sales documentation should have had this. I am just disappointed that what seems to be a very nice piece of hardware has been let down by seemingly pre-beta software.
And is promptly shot down for his trouble by Rufao:
the tech spec also mentions the phone can use PTT, but in the faq/userguide it mentions this can only be done once you have the right settings.
does this mean that the PTT feature is beta software? no, it doesnt.
Got that? There is no difference between having to input the correct settings and having to wait for Nokia to release a firmware upgrade. Same thing.
nokia has made it clear for all the eseries phones about the limitations of the voip call features ...
Yes, that's right: in Rufao's world, completely failing to mention any limitations whatsoever in the official product description and press release is "making it clear".
so no, its not nokias fault but instead its the fault of whoever sold you the phone on this basis in the first place...
Now, phone retailers don't, as a rule, test all the features of every phone they sell themselves. Usually, they just rely on what's in the manufacturer's press release. Go to ten different mobile phone retailers and you'll see roughly the same product blurb at every one.
there aer enough posts here from people saying they can work this with asterisk to prove that the firmware is fine. if you have a service that doesnt support the phone, then who is at fault?
Let's see. Windows claims that it can connect to the Internet. After buying my PC, it turns out that it can, but only through AOL. If I'm not on AOL, well, whose stupid fault is that?
Now, no, not all these commenters work for Nokia, I'm sure. But the one who does backs up everything they say. And this approach to customer service is, frankly, bizarre. Like I said, this phone is superb; I still believe it to be the best on the market; I love it to bits. And the VoIP capability is groundbreakingly excellent, and is soon going to be made even better. But I'm still very pissed off with Nokia about this. Because their resolute refusal to tell me about the VoIP limitations led me to think that I couldn't connect the phone because I was doing something wrong — and that led me to try and correct my mistake, and that led me to waste hours and hours and long, long hours trying to figure out what that mistake was. Had they simply printed in the phone's manual what they've buried deep in their Web's FAQ, I'd have read it and wasted no time at all. Admittedly, I don't mind all that much, 'cause I love pottering with gadgets, but I imagine some people have become royally exasperated by all this.
And then, when one of their customers has the temerity to complain, they demand that he retract the statement, then insult him and shout at him when he doesn't.
There may not be a fault in the phone, but there's one hell of a bug in Nokia's customer relations.


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Einstein Bros. issued a recall Monday of a smoked salmon product that the Lakewood, Colo.-based bagel chain sells, saying its supplier notified it of a potential bacteria threat in the food.
Potential Listeria-positive products have been identified and we can confirm that Delifish S.A. has issued a voluntary recall of cold smoked salmon products potentially containing Listeria monocytogenes placed on the market in the USA produced from lots 249 through 291, manufactured between September 5 2012 and October 17, 2012. There have been no complaints or illnesses reported. Listeria monocytogenes is an organism, which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Although healthy individuals may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.
Product was possibly distributed in the CA, VA, OH, IL, FL, GA, TX, DE, NJ, NY, PA, and Puerto Rico and reached consumers through retail stores. Under the following brand names Black Bear of the Black Forest Smoked Salmon (1 lb., UPC # 810230000493, Lots = 249 thru 291), Food Service Cold Smoked Salmon Trim 1 lb. Lot #'s = 249 thru 291, Einstein Darn Good 4 oz. Retail package UPC # 099892315200, Lot #'s = 249 thru 291, Food Service Whole Smoked Side 3-5 lb. pack food service Lot# 's 249 thru 291, Silver Source Smoked Salmon Foodservice 2-3 lb. smoked fillet Lot# 's = 249 thru 291, Royal Fjord Smoked Toppers 6oz, UPC = 810230000561, Lot #'s = 249 thru 291, and Royal Fjord Sliced Smoked Salmon Loin, 12-14 oz. Item # 42925 Lot #'s= 249 thru 291 and HEB 4 oz. smoked salmon Package UPC 041220630417 Lot #'s= 249 thru 291
The voluntary recall is carried out as a precautionary measure in cooperation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is based on Listeria detection in a few of the recalled batches. No other products supplied by Delifish or Marine Harvest USA are involved in this case.


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An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights
Libraries do not advocate the ideas found in their collections or in resources accessible through the library. The presence of books and other resources in a library does not indicate endorsement of their contents by the library. Likewise, the ability for library users to access electronic information using library computers does not indicate endorsement or approval of that information by the library.
Labels on library materials may be viewpoint-neutral directional aids that save the time of users, or they may be attempts to prejudice or discourage users or restrict their access to materials. When labeling is an attempt to prejudice attitudes, it is a censor's tool. The American Library Association opposes labeling as a means of predisposing people's attitudes toward library materials.
Prejudicial labels are designed to restrict access, based on a value judgment that the content, language or themes of the material, or the background or views of the creator(s) of the material, render it inappropriate or offensive for all or certain groups of users. The prejudicial label is used to warn, discourage or prohibit users or certain groups of users from accessing the material. Such labels may be used to remove materials from open shelves to restricted locations where access depends on staff intervention.
Viewpoint-neutral directional aids facilitate access by making it easier for users to locate materials. The materials are housed on open shelves and are equally accessible to all users, who may choose to consult or ignore the directional aids at their own discretion.
Directional aids can have the effect of prejudicial labels when their implementation becomes proscriptive rather than descriptive. When directional aids are used to forbid access or to suggest moral or doctrinal endorsement, the effect is the same as prejudicial labeling.
Rating Systems
A variety of organizations promulgate rating systems as a means of advising either their members or the general public concerning their opinions of the contents and suitability or appropriate age for use of certain books, films, recordings, Web sites, or other materials. The adoption, enforcement, or endorsement of any of these rating systems by the library violates the Library Bill of Rights. Adopting such systems into law may be unconstitutional. If such legislation is passed, the library should seek legal advice regarding the law's applicability to library operations.
Publishers, industry groups, and distributors sometimes add ratings to material or include them as part of their packaging. Librarians should not endorse such practices. However, removing or destroying such ratings—if placed there by, or with permission of, the copyright holder—could constitute expurgation (see Expurgation of Library Materials: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights).
Some find it easy and even proper, according to their ethics, to establish criteria for judging materials as objectionable. However, injustice and ignorance, rather than justice and enlightenment, result from such practices. The American Library Association opposes any efforts that result in closing any path to knowledge.
Adopted July 13, 1951, by the ALA Council; amended June 25, 1971; July 1, 1981; June 26, 1990; January 19, 2005.


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When General Motors went bankrupt in 2009 and had to accept a federal bailout, its critics—and rivals—referred to the company derisively as "Government Motors." The implication? Far from being a dynamic private sector entity, producing vehicles and innovating, it was a bureaucratic arm of the Obama administration. Managers, workers, and other stakeholders would go about their day with the government perpetually looking over their shoulders and telling them how to run the business.
Of course, aside from clamping down on businesses and instilling a fear of using corporate jets, the Obama administration didn't micromanage G.M. General Motors went public in the fall of 2010. Soon thereafter, the government started selling its shares in the company. Treasury sold the last of its shares in December 2013, closing out the investment with a $10 billion loss.
Six years ago, the failure of G.M.'s financial engineering brought greater government oversight. Now a failure of electrical and business engineering is turning G.M. into Government Motors again.
The long-running saga surrounding problematic ignition switches for the Chevrolet Cobalt has been an embarrassment for G.M. A problem that could have been averted at a relatively small cost wound up causing accidents that killed 13 people. And the botched response has brought down the government's wrath on the company. In doing so, it has thrust the strong arm of the government directly into the company's operations.
First, the National Highway Transpiration Safety Administration (NHTSA) came down as hard as it could Friday on General Motors. "What NHTASA is doing is the most it can do under the existing law," said Clarence Ditlow, director of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington, D.C. NHTSA levied a $35 million fine against G.M. It may seem like a slap on the wrist, but that is the hardest hit allowed.
Typically, a fine and a promise to behave better gets companies off the hook. But NHTSA has promised "unprecedented oversight requirements" that will have the agency up in the company's grill. NHTSA is demanding that GM changes the way it does business when it comes to putting cars together and dealing with problems and defects. In addition to the fine, NHTSA "ordered GM to make significant and wide-ranging internal changes to its review of safety-related issues in the United States, and to improve its ability to take into account the possible consequences of potential safety-related defects." As part of the consent order signed Friday, NHTSA will micromanage G.M.'s internal investigation and recall efforts, specifically prescribing initiatives such as "including targeted outreach to non-English speakers, maintaining up-to-date information on its website, and engaging with vehicle owners through the media." What's more, G.M. must "submit reports and meet with NHTSA so that the agency may monitor the progress of G.M.'s recall and other actions required by the consent order."
Stockholders took the news in stride. The company's stock barely budged on Friday, treating the consent order as a non-event.
But there's more to come—and G.M. still has plenty to fear from the federal government. The Justice Department has far more tools at its disposal to punish corporations for such episodes than NHTSA—large fines, jail sentences, and big plea deals. And in March started looking into General Motors.
While Justice has been slow to pursue criminal cases against blue-chip financial corporations, it has shown less restraint when going after automakers. In March, the Justice Department formally charged Toyota in a criminal case that carried a $1.2 billion penalty over issues relating to misleading consumers about issues with gas pedals sticking, which was responsible for up to 21 deaths. It was, the Justice Department noted, "the largest penalty of its kind ever imposed on an automotive company."
What's more, the G.M. investigation is being led by the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Led by Wall Street scourge and prosecutor Preet Bharara, the Southern District has an epic undefeated streak prosecuting insider-trading cases and relishes going after high-profile defendants. (On Friday, hedge fund trader Michael Steinberg was sentenced to 3.5 years in jail for his insider-trading conviction.)
So as G.M. labors to comply with the consent order imposed by NHTSA, it will have to cope with the prospect of an expensive prosecution. "I cannot believe Justice will not impose a fine larger than what it did against Toyota," said Ditlow. The real question remains to what degree Justice will pursue criminal charges against the company, or against specific individuals.
The government gave plenty to G.M. in 2009 and 2010. It now has the potential to take plenty away.


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The holiday season is often a nostalgic time when we reflect on the year gone by.
Some think back to the growth their business has seen, others the amazing challenges they've overcome; perhaps your year was one of personal fulfillment and joy.
Whatever you see when you look back, the team here at the Shopify Web Design and Development Blog want to stroll with you down memory lane.
We pulled together our best articles of 2016, and hope they inspire and challenge you as much as they did us.
And as you start to contemplate all that lies ahead, may this collection of articles help prepare you for the challenges and successes sure to come in 2017.
You might also like: 10 Beautiful Christmas-Themed Ecommerce Websites to Get You in The Holiday Spirit.
Starting Your Own Web Design Company
We start this list of articles with yet another list of articles! But hear me out — it's an epic list of articles that will help you with every facet of starting your own web design or development business. This article covers every stage of your journey, including working as a freelancer, finding and managing clients, and tips for taking your creative endeavor to the next level.
3 Simple Steps for Setting Up a Local Shopify Theme Development Environment
Lots of developers and designers use and love the online Shopify Theme Editor — but if you're looking to develop Shopify Themes locally, you should know that you're not limited to the online theme editor alone. In this article, we cover three simple steps that'll help you start developing themes on your local development environment.
Designing with SVG
Earlier this year, we sat down with Chris Coyier — co-founder of CodePen, author of A Book Apart's Practical SVG, and creator of CSS-Tricks — for a Shopify Partner Session webinar, and chatted about how web designers and developers can incorporate SVG elements into their design toolkits. We compiled five of his tactics into one article that helps you easily implement SVG objects into your next client project.
How to Build a Shopify App in One Week
Shopify app developer and ecommerce consultant Eric Davis busts the myth that creating a custom Shopify App for a client is crazy or difficult. In fact, he argues it's doable in one week, and might even be the best option for your client.
99 Beautiful Ecommerce Website Designs
Prepare for wow. We've done ecommerce website design roundups in the past, but we've never been able to capture so many of our favorites ecommerce designs in one go. From art and photography, to food and drink, this list has all the amazing ecommerce website design inspiration you'll ever need.
You might also like: How Ecommerce Stores Are Designing Web Pages for the Christmas Shopping Season.
20 Expert Strategies to Help Overcome Creative Blocks
I'm sure you're familiar with the feeling. A deadline is looming; a client awaits. You know your brain has the capacity to dream up a beautiful solution to the problem you're trying to solve, but it's just. not. happening.
When a creative block lodges itself in your path, how do you smash down that wall to release your creative energy? Here are a few key strategies to get your creative mojo back.
How One Sri Lankan Teen Transformed His Life With Freelancing
At only 19, Shopify Expert Mohammadu Mifras has achieved a great deal in the span of only a few years. His amazing story of family struggle, freelancing, and Shopify Partner success will get you inspired and ready to tackle 2017 with a fresh sense of gusto.
15 Web Designer and Development YouTube Channels To Subscribe To
Once you skip past all the cat videos, there's a world of web design and development knowledge to explore on YouTube. This list consists of channels covering everything from color theory and creating color palettes, to parallax effect animations. You could even start on the Shopify Partners channel (😏 ) and watch our latest webinars with industry experts, like Eva Lotta-Lamm and Jeffrey Zeldman.
The Seven Deadly Sins of User Experience Design
If you want a competitive advantage, nothing is better than offering a great experience to your customers. But are you doing all you can to create a great experience, or just paying lip service to it?
Digital strategy industry leader Paul Boag shares his playful yet informative take on the seven deadly sins of user experience design. We hope you're a saint and not a sinner.
How to Design a Wholesale Solution for an Ecommerce Store
Shopify Expert Mark Perini dives into what wholesale's got to do with your role as a designer or developer (a lot, it turns out). If you haven't built a wholesale store yet, it can be a great way to re-engage a client with whom you've lost touch. Maybe they've never thought B2B was possible, and if that's the case, you could be the inspiration for a new-found revenue stream. Take a read and learn something new!
You might also like: 12 Holiday Gifts for the Designers and Developers in Your Life.


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5 Powerful Mind Success Strategies
Building a business is a fantastic and challenging experience. You can wake up exhilarated to begin your day and go to bed feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. The key to success is to maintain a positive, yes you can do it, mindset.
Easier said than done, right? Here are 5 keys to help you create and sustain a positive mindset so you attain the success you desire.
1. Surround yourself with successful and positive people. The influence people have over our own personal energy is amazing. Moods and attitudes are so easily spread – think about how much of a difference a simple smile from a stranger can make for your day and then magnify it 1000 times to demonstrate the power of positive and successful friends, family and associates. When you have people around you who inspire you, believe in you and want you to succeed, there's no room for doubts and even when they creep up, they're quickly swept away.
2. Create a mantra or an affirmation. Repeating positive affirmations has been shown to get people through tough times and to actually help them truly believe what they're saying.
For example, "I am building a powerful and profitable business." Many of the most esteemed business professionals have used the same affirmation strategy to attain their success. To find the right affirmations for you, consider writing a quick list of your doubts, insecurities and complaints. These can then be quickly turned into affirmations.
For example,
if you write that you're always feeling disorganized then your affirmation would be, "I am organized and in control." Repeat your affirmations several times a day and feel the power of positive thinking.
3. Capture negative thoughts. We all have negative thoughts from time to time, however, negative thoughts and emotions can derail us and prevent us from achieving all we desire. Of course catching those negative thoughts takes practice and persistence. When you find yourself thinking negative thoughts or having negative emotions, find a trigger to turn them around. The affirmations mentioned above are a great way to turn the negative into the positive. You can also find quick pick me ups like a favorite song, a walk outside in the fresh air, or some exercise to help improve your mood.
4. Set goals/intentions and then be willing to let it go. The law of attraction says that we attract what we focus on the most. However, desperation, needing your business to be a success, sends mixed messages and a lot of negativity into the universe. Set your goals and intentions and then let them go. A certain amount of faith in yourself and in the power of attraction is necessary. Give it a try.
5. Be grateful. Gratitude is perhaps the single most powerful and positive tool for success. When you're grateful for all of the wonderful things and people in your life the challenges you face seem significantly less important and are more easily dealt with.
Consider keeping a gratitude journal and make a practice of entering into it daily. That way, when you're facing challenges a quick peek at all the amazing things in your life will make you feel as if you can tackle anything. Additionally, an attitude of gratitude helps you maintain a positive perspective and to face challenges as opportunities rather than obstacles.
Success is within your reach and with the right attitude you can accomplish anything you set your sights on. Embrace these five powerful mind success strategies and you'll build a better business and live a happier, more satisfying life.
For more affirmations and discussion of mindset, subscribe to The Business of At Home Business newsletter.


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U.S. District Court judge revokes historic oil and gas leases in the Gulf
This could be the beginning of the end of offshore drilling
The Gulf of Mexico is a beautiful, majestic place full of colorful coral, thriving marine ecosystems, and beloved ocean critters. Manatees dwell in coastal coves, dolphins leap through the waves, and leatherback sea turtles swim through clear, blue water. It's an ecosystem teeming with life.
All of this, and more, is at risk when we drill for oil and gas in our oceans.
In November, the Biden administration held the largest oil and gas lease sale in history, putting 18 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico up for auction. That's an area twice the size of Florida. Rightfully outraged at the climate implications from a sale of this size, a coalition of environmental groups sued the Biden administration to stop the lease sale.
On Jan. 28, the coalition's work paid off when a U.S. District Court judge revoked the federal government's November oil and gas lease sale. The ruling found that the negative impact the sold leases would have on the climate were not adequately addressed in the government's environmental impact statement.
Although this is a win for our oceans and something to celebrate, more action is still necessary.
We have been saying for decades that offshore drilling is dirty, dangerous and doesn't belong anywhere in our oceans. When we drill, we spill, and these oil spills destroy precious marine life, pollute coastal communities, and damage public health. On top of all of that, even when oil spills aren't occurring, offshore oil and gas rigs are constantly producing climate-warming greenhouse gasses.
Offshore drilling is the source of so much climate-warming pollution that banning it in all federal waters would prevent more than 19 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions — that's the equivalent of taking every car in the United States off the road for 15 years.
What was always an unsustainable practice is now an unconscionable action. The Biden administration needs to recognize the importance of this ruling and focus on bringing about the end of offshore drilling.
This can start by issuing no new leases in the Biden administration's next five-year plan, which is a five-year schedule of proposed oil and gas lease sales in U.S. waters. President Biden has the opportunity to be a climate hero by issuing no new oil and gas leases in our beloved oceans.


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As you know, in June of 2014 we announced our expansion into the location previously occupied by Doylestown Lumber & Millwork. Doylestown Lumber had a strong presence in the Bucks County market and their decision to close the business created a terrific opportunity for Tague Lumber to expand our capabilities and strengthen our product offering to the greater Doylestown marketplace. Soon after our expansion into the Doylestown Lumber location we realized a need for a much larger facility — a facility better equipped to provide our customers with the state-of-the-art, drive-through warehouses and fast dependable delivery service that is synonymous with the name Tague Lumber.
In January of 2015 we relocated our Doylestown location to 6100 Easton Road in Plumsteadville (just 1/4 mile past the Plumsteadville Inn). Working through the renovation process proved challenging but the transformation of the lumberyard and retail sections were completed within the year.
With hopes of offering our Bucks County customers the most comprehensive shopping experience in the area, in Spring of 2015, construction began on the addition of a Showroom to our newly renovated Doylestown lumberyard. Just 18 months later, in the Fall of 2017, we officially opened the doors to the stunning NEW Tague Design Showroom located at 6100 Easton Road.
As our first hybrid facility, our Doylestown location seamlessly joins our existing lumberyard with a beautiful new 4,000 sq. ft Design Showroom. Customers are now able to walk directly from the retail section into our showroom which features full-scale vignettes of kitchen and bath cabinetry, windows, doors, hardware, plus moulding and millwork displays all under one roof. Our new showroom is "one stop shopping" at its finest. Add in the professional services of certified kitchen and bath designers on staff and your next renovation project can go from concept to completion effortlessly.
Stop by our new location at 6100 Easton Road in Plumsteadville and see our amazing retail facility — and our stunning NEW Design Showroom — all with expanded products and services added for your convenience.


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Yin Yang
The theory of yin and yang is the most fundamental concept of traditional Chinese medicine. One of the major beliefs of TCM is that all things in the universe are either yin or yang. However, there are no absolutes: nothing is ever all yin or all yang, but a balance between the two forces. For example, when day changes into night, it is an example of a yang object changing into a yin object; when winter turns into spring; it is considered a changing from yin to yang.
These forces are opposite and yet complementary, and share an interdependent relationship without yin, there would be no yang, and without yang, no yin.
Yang is generally associated with items or concepts that are bright, warm, and in motion. Yin is generally associated with objects or ideas that are dark, still and cold. Any given frame of reference can be divided into opposite factors, i.e. a yin side and a yang side. For instance, a human body can be divided into exterior and interior sections; the temperature can be divided into hot or cold; time can be divided into day or night; animals can divided into hot-blooded or cold-blooded, and so on.
The following are some of the more well-known examples of yin and yang:
Yin Yang Female Male Night Day Moist Dry Cold Hot Winter Summer Death Birth Small Large Solid Hollow
The Yin-Yang Symbol
The yin-yang symbol is a representation of the philosophy of traditional Chinese medicine. The symbol consists of a circle, divided by a curved line into a black (yin) and white (yang) side. The curve symbolizes the constant change of balance between yin and yang. Each side contains a small circle of the opposite color. This demonstrates the belief that nothing is never really all yin or all yang; there is some of yang in yin, and vice-versa.
Applying Yin and Yang to Chinese Medicine
Each organ in the body has an element of yin and yang within it. Some organs, such as the liver, are predominantly yang; others, such as the kidneys, are yin. Even though an organ may be predominantly yin or yang in nature, the balance of yin and yang is maintained throughout the body, because the sum total of yin and yang will be in balance.
It is important to note that the body is not always in an exact balance of yin and yang. Even when the body is healthy, there may be subtle shifts from one state to the other. When a person gets angry, for instance, the yang state may dominate; when that person has calmed down and resumed to a peaceful state, yin may become dominant.
In traditional Chinese medicine, illness is believed to be caused by an imbalance of yin and yang in the body. In an excess of yin, the yang qi would be damaged, leading to the development of a cold disease. Excess of yang will likewise damage yin qi and lead to a heat disease being developed.
Basic treatment of these diseases is aimed at replenishing depleted yin or yang, and it is through this process that the balance of yin and yang is re-established. Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners attempt to determine the exact nature of the imbalance, then correct it through a variety of approaches, including acupuncture, herbal remedies, exercise, and changes in diet and lifestyle. As the balance is restored in the body, so is the person's health.
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See AllMy first response to a cold is always guasha as that is the easiest "dispersing" therapy that can be easily done at home using a any cooking/massage oil that we may have and a metal spoon with smooth