Interesting Thread

Over at Perverse Egalitarianism, there is some musings on the relationship between naturalism and phenomenology. I don't know how naturalism is used in this thread, but there is something like an anti-naturalism in phenomenology only insofar as the general positing character of the natural attitude becomes all-encompassing. This is what is really important when speaking about naturalism in Husserl. Husserl does not eschew the world. Moreover, it might be possible to have a naturalism that works in tandem with phenomenology. I'm aware that Shaun Gallagher thinks phenomenology puts us in contact with mental events in the right type of way and as such, argues for a neurophenomenology that is not simply a folk psychology.

For me, naturalism is the reduction of philosophical inquiry to what the natural sciences posit. In such a relationship, philosophy disappears as directed inquiry of a free subject. Philosophy becomes only reactionary to science in the most excessive form. This is not to say, however, that there cannot be a range of activity studied by the natural sciences. In so doing, those studying science must regard themselves as engaging in a life-praxis. It is only when the scientific character of the world is presupposed as the only legitimate standpoint we can ever take on issues that makes robust naturalism problematic.