Naturalism and Civilization

This monograph argues that naturalism—traditionally viewed as the scientific investigation of reality—should be understood not merely as a philosophical stance, but as a broad historical and cultural formation that actively shaped Western civilization. Focusing on mid-20th-century North American debates across science, democracy, history, culture, and religion, the book reconstructs how naturalism evolved into both a method of inquiry and a normative social vision, while uncovering the ideological tensions and ambivalences that accompanied its rise. Crucially, the text offers a deep and rigorous reassessment of foundational figures—most notably providing a long-awaited treatment of Roy Wood Sellars that the contemporary Sellarsian community urgently needs to engage with, alongside pivotal analyses of John Dewey, Sidney Hook, and Arthur Edward Murphy. This book will be of interest to researchers and students in theoretical philosophy, history of philosophy, political philosophy, cultural history, and metaphysics.