@article{Spiegel2020,
  author    = {Spiegel, Thomas Jussuf},
  title     = {Is religion natural?},
  series = {International journal of philosophy and theology},
  volume    = {81},
  journal   = {International journal of philosophy and theology},
  number    = {4},
  publisher = {Routledge, Taylor \& Francis Group},
  address   = {Abingdon},
  issn      = {2169-2327},
  doi       = {10.1080/21692327.2020.1749717},
  pages     = {351 -- 368},
  year      = {2020},
  abstract  = {In this article I argue that the kind of scientific naturalism that tends to underwrite projects of naturalizing religion operates with a tacit conception of nature which, upon closer inspection, turns out to be untenable. I first distinguish an uninteresting modest naturalism from the more ambitious and relevant scientific naturalism. Secondly I survey three different kinds of attempting to naturalize religion: naturalizing the social aspect of religion, naturalizing religious experience, and naturalizing reference to the transcendent. Thirdly I argue that these projects operate with a conception of nature which is insufficiently clear. I suggest three ways of charitably explicating that tacit conception of what is natural before arguing that neither of these three positions works. Lastly I offer an irenic proposal: we would do good in giving up the scientific naturalism that underlies projects of naturalizing religion in order to embrace Lynne Rudder Baker's recently proposed notion of near-naturalism which allows the naturalist to retain a 'science first' attitude while avoiding problematic, overly restrictive notions of what is natural.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{Spiegel2021,
  author    = {Spiegel, Thomas Jussuf},
  title     = {The Scientific Weltanschauung},
  series = {Journal of Transcendental Philosophy},
  volume    = {2},
  journal   = {Journal of Transcendental Philosophy},
  number    = {2},
  publisher = {De Gruyter},
  address   = {Berlin ; Boston},
  issn      = {2626-8329},
  doi       = {10.1515/jtph-2021-0016},
  pages     = {259 -- 276},
  year      = {2021},
  abstract  = {Different forms of methodological and ontological naturalism constitute the current near-orthodoxy in analytic philosophy. Many prominent figures have called naturalism a (scientific) image (Sellars, W. 1962. "Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man." In Wilfrid Sellars, Science, Perception, Reality, 1-40. Ridgeview Publishing), a Weltanschauung (Loewer, B. 2001. "From Physics to Physicalism." In Physicalism and its Discontents, edited by C. Gillett, and B. Loewer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Stoljar, D. 2010. Physicalism. Routledge), or even a "philosophical ideology" (Kim, J. 2003. "The American Origins of Philosophical Naturalism." Journal of Philosophical Research 28: 83-98). This suggests that naturalism is indeed something over-and-above an ordinary philosophical thesis (e.g. in contrast to the justified true belief-theory of knowledge). However, these thinkers fail to tease out the host of implications this idea - naturalism being a worldview - presents. This paper draws on (somewhat underappreciated) remarks of Dilthey and Jaspers on the concept of worldviews (Weltanschauung, Weltbild) in order to demonstrate that naturalism as a worldview is a presuppositional background assumption which is left untouched by arguments against naturalism as a thesis. The concluding plea is (in order to make dialectical progress) to re-organize the existing debate on naturalism in a way that treats naturalism not as a first-order philosophical claim, but rather shifts its focus on naturalism's status as a worldview.},
  language  = {en}
}
@article{Spiegel2022,
  author    = {Spiegel, Thomas Jussuf},
  title     = {Liberal naturalism without reenchantment},
  series = {European journal for philosophy of religion},
  volume    = {14},
  journal   = {European journal for philosophy of religion},
  number    = {1},
  publisher = {University of Innsbruck},
  address   = {Innsbruck},
  issn      = {1689-8311},
  doi       = {10.24204/EJPR.2022.3350},
  pages     = {207 -- 229},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {There is a close conceptual relation between the notions of religious disenchantment and scientific naturalism. One way of resisting philosophical and cultural implications of the scientific image and the subsequent process of disenchantment can be found in attempts at sketching a reenchanted worldview. The main issue of accounts of reenchantment can be a rejection of scientific results in a way that flies in the face of good reason. Opposed to such reenchantment is scientific naturalism which implies an entirely disenchanted worldview. However, one of the main problems of scientific naturalism are placement problems. A reenchanted worldview does have the conceptual resources to avoid placement problems, yet seems to throw out the baby (a reasonable appeal to science as an authority) with the bathwater (placement problems). A dilemma results: the Scylla of an undesirable scientific naturalism and the Charybdis of a rampant, seemingly prescientific reenchanted worldview. In this article I argue that there is a safe middle passage between these two options, i.e. the recently proposed liberal naturalism which allows for a moderate normative reenchantment. Liberal naturalism lets us have it both ways: avoiding the placement problems while retaining a necessary and reasonable adherence to science, thereby avoiding both an all-too restrictive scientific naturalism.},
  language  = {en}
}