Abstract

The paper focuses on the Humean origins of contemporary philosophical naturalism and attempts to address fundamental issues like the following: to what extent is the naturalistic interpretation of Humean philosophy influenced by contemporary interpretations of naturalism itself? Can we really make Humean naturalism consistent with contemporary naturalism? Is the former really relevant to the latter, and in what sense? The above analysis is not meant simply to be an exercise in Humean scholarship, but also a contribution to the understanding of the philosophical foundations of naturalism, involving two general main claims. First, the image of science that shapes Humean naturalism is different from the corresponding contemporary one, so as to make far from obvious the claim according to which contemporary naturalism is inspired by the Humean one. Second, science itself presupposes a sort of intrinsic explanatory normativity, that makes the naturalistic claim on the non-normative character of scientific explanations highly controversial.