How Scientific Practices Matter Reclaiming Philosophical Naturalism JoserH RouseInept Rose cer of hp a Wen Uy Heche TR ata My Sr ot Ee a ‘Argel Ried 20 a,j 98 "one ucts mater ecg sip tan Toe Ree oiscee tee SSE ae CONTENTS Acknowledgments vil Introduction 1 1. The Problem of Manifest Necessity 28 2. The Dualism of Nature and Normativity +5. Quinean Indeterminacy and Is Implications for Naturalism 106 4. Feminist Challenges to the Reifeation of Knowledge 135 5. Two Concepts of Sciemife Practices 161 6, Perception, Action, and Diseusive Practices 184 +4. Desires, Bodies, and Normative Force 234 8, Experimentation, Theory, and the Normativity of Natural Phenomena 263 49. Natural Necessity and the Normativity of Scientific Practices 301 References 361 Index 375niece ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Arrmputi0s oF ations obscures the highly collaborative character of philosophical work. This book could noe have heen writen without exten: five exchange with many colleagues, students, and fiends over the past decade, They should not be held responsible for what is written here, but they have made indispensable contributions that [happily acknowledge Special recognition and thanks must be given to Karen Barad, Make COkrents and Sanford Shch, Important components of my arguments could ‘oly have been developed theough ongoing conversation with them and theie willingness to share theie work in progres. Many others have aso ‘contributed tothe book in ways that far exceed what can be acknowledged in specific notes. Among them age Steve Angle, Mario Biagio, ill Blae- net, Bob Brandon, Nancy Cartwright, David C Bert Dreyfus, Tes Elie, Brian Fay, Archu Fin, Lydia Goehr, Gary Gut «ing, John Haugeland, Steve Host, Dan Jacobson, Thomas Kun, Rebecca ‘Kula, Maek Lance, Lisa Lloyd, Huib Looren de Jong, Jill Morawski, Lynn Hankinson Nelson, Andy Pickering, Hans Radder, Paul Roth, Hans-Jorg Rheinberger, Bob Scharff, Ted Schataki, Brian Cantwell Smithy Betty Smocovitis, David Stem, Sonia Sultan, Charles Taylor, Jennifer Tucker, “Thomas Usbel, Joanne Waugh, Sam Wheeler, Mark’ Wrathall, Alison Wylie, and the two anonymous readers for che University of Chicago Press. ‘The book began to take its current form dung a 1997 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute, “How Background Practices Produce Inteligibily,” in Santa Cruz, California. I thank the [National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute directors, Hubert Dreyfus, David Hoy, and Jocelyn Hoy, and all ofthe Inttate participants “The book has also been significantly improved by thoughtful response from the audiences to whom I have presented various portions of i in hone, Andrew Curran, ‘cluding the history and philosophy of science departments or programs atNorthwestern Universi, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Notte Dame; the philosophy departments at Georgetown University, ‘the University of New Hampshiee, Wesleyan University, and the Univer= sity of Southeen Connecticut; meetings of the Boston Colloquium foe the Philosophy of Science, the International Society for Phenomenological Studies, and the Central Division of the American Philosophical Assoc ation; the Center for Cultural and Literary Studies at Harvard University, the Center for the Humanitics and the Public Affairs Center at Wesleyan University and the Center for Ideas and Society at the Univesity of Cal- fornia ar Riverside; and various conferences ot workshops, including "Sciences as Social Practices” at Carlton University, “Toward a More Developed Philosophy of Experimentation” atthe Vrije Universitit Am- stetdam, "Feminism and Naturalism” at Washington University and the University of Missouri at St. Lous, “Interpretation” at the State Univer- sty of New York at Stony Brook, *Models of Critique in Seicnee, Pol tis, and the Arts” at the Van Leet Institute and the Edelstein Cente for History and Philosophy of Science, and “Practices and Social Ordee™ at Zentrum far interdiszplinare Forschung, Universitit Bileed Much of what I say here was worked out iil ir my courses in the philosophy of science, scence studies, and ewentieth century philosophy at Wesleyan Univesity. am grateful o all of my students fr their thought participation in these courses, but special thanks go to Jessica Allen, Abby bass, Dave Bulan, Jessica Cohen, Allison Dimond, Paul Balefson, Dan acter, Chris Hanssman, Lauren Heller, Tala Inlender, John Jacobson, Mex Klein, Felicity Kohn, Evan Leonard, Yannig Luthea, Tess Moore, sarah Ostehoudt, Colin Patrick, Adam Roessler, Jeremy Saks, Sige chialzer, Susanne Sreedhar, Joanna Starels, Vanessa Stubbs, Whitney revelyan, Laura Warren, Mary Weaver, Elizabeth Wells, Cala Westen, deather Wile, and Lucas Winer. Preliminary versions of the following chapters were published else= vhere, and 1am grateful tothe orginal publishers forthe opportanity to ncorporate material from these articles in the book: parts of chapter 2 ppeared as “Interpretation in Naruea and Human Science,” in The Inter- vetive Tur, ed. David Hiley, James Bohman, and Richard Shusterman thaca: Cornell University Pres, 1991), 42-56; chapter 3 appeared as “I ecerminacy, Empirical Evidence, and Methodological Pluralism,” Syr- hese 86 (1991): 443-65; chapter 4 appeared as “Feminism and the So- al Construction of Scientific Knowledge,” in Feminism, Science, and the Philosophy of Science, ed. Lynn Hankinson Nelson and Jack Nelson (Dor- recht: Ker, 1996), 195-215, and is reprinted with kind permission of Kluwer Academic Publishers; and chapter 5 insides maeerial that ap- peated eacier as “Understanding Scientific Practices: Cultural Stadies of Science a8 a Philosophical Program,” in Sciece Studies Reader, ed. M. Biagioli (New York: Routledge, 1999), 442-56, and “Two Concepts of Practices,” in The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, ed. T Schatzki, KK, Knoce-Cetina, and E. von Savigny (London: Routledge, 2001), 189 9%, "have had the good fortune and che pleasure ro work with an extrordi- nary editor, Susan Abrams, bringing this book to press am also grate- ful to Carlisle Rex-Waller for er careful and thoughtful copyediting. Sally Grocan has been unwavering inher love, encouragement, and sup ‘ort throughout my years of work on this ook. Brian Rouse and Matin Rouse have made my life joyful during these years, and have also helped ime keep the book in proper perspective “The book is dedicated with love and gratitude to my mother, Helen MeClimans Rowse, and 0 the memory of my father, Joseph Thomas Rouse, By word and example, they have helped me understand what ie means to be cesponsible, and encouraged me never to lose sight of what really mates,INTRODUCTION Tas nook concERNS the meaning and significance of naturalism in phi losophy. I also claims to vindicate a broadly naturalistic program fo the philosophy of science, and more generally fr philosophical refletion upon language, ehoughe, and action, Yet many philosophers who think of chem- selves as naturalists will understandably find this claim astonishing, forthe book rejects some oftheir most prominent theses and some aspects oftheir defining orientation toward science and philosophy. My task is therefore not merely to articulate and defend a particular philosophical program, but also to justify doing so stil under the banner of *naturalis.” Natura [Naturalism inthe broadest sense isthe claim that philosophical reflection should be continuous with (or perhaps a par of) empiscal science. Natu- ralists no longer aspite to provide philosophicel grounding for the author: ity and ineligibility ofthe sciences; scien understanding instead pro- ‘des the hass for whatever remains of philosophy. That naturalism is now the predominant metaphilosophy is perhaps most clearly evident in the ‘homages to natutalism offered by apparently adamant antinatualss. For instance, Christine Koesgaard introduced her lectures on the sources of ‘moral normativty with this characterization ofthe contemporary pio sophical situation: "For us, reality is something hard, something which resists reason and value, something which is recaeteant co form” (196, 4). John Haugeland provides another striking example. Ar st glance, be right seem 10 dispute Korsgaard’s concessions to naturalism, by arging ‘thatthe supposedly recalcitrant objects of the natural sciences aee then selves constituted by us through an “existential commitment” comparable ‘o faith or love, Yet Haugeland,t00, in the end insisted tha these "normsIwrropuction of objective correctness [must] be understood ina spirit of naturalism, ap- propriaely construed, whichis] the thesis that people ae, chough ditine- tive, sill naturally evolved creatures somehow implemented in whatever Physics tells us about” (1998, 317, 358 n. 15). Korsgaard’s and Haugeland’s remarks invoke a generic sense of nate ralism, to which almost everyone in contemporary philosophy subscribes! This generic understanding of naturalism needs to be disambiguate, how= ‘ver Philosophy can be brought within the ambi of the sciences in dif: ent ways, and different conceptions of science thereby become authorita tive for philosophy. Naturalism is sometimes conceived as a thesis about philosophy, emphasizing its continuity with or dependence upon the best empirical sience. Yet naturalism has also been proposed as a thesis within philosophy, concerning the dependence of semantic, epistemic, of ‘exhicopolitical norms upon the regularities, necessities, oF causal powers ‘expressed in sienic laws and theories. The former (*metaphilosophical naturalism”) ia claim about philosophy as an activity or a discipline and irs relation to the disciplines of one or more of the sciences. (metaphysical naturalism") isa philosophical claim about the elation bberween the domain of natural facts or laws ditlosed within the sciences and some other domains (psychological, semantic, epistemic, socal, of moral) within which allegedly true claims or binding obligations aa be expressed. In tis later sense, a naturalists one for whom the existence, content, of binding authority ofthese normative domains is dependent upon theie relation tothe natural world disclosed by the sciences.” This distinction between naturalism as a metaphilosophical thesis and naturalism asa philosophical thesis readily aligns with different construals ‘of what is authoritative for naturalistic philosophy. In the former case, it is scince to which philosophy must defer; in the later iti nature, the world to which the sciences themselves ate also taken to be accountable, ‘We should not think ofthese two approaches as mutually exclusive, how fever. A coherent naturalism must ulimatly be able to reconcile these ap proaches, since scientific understanding is achieved by natural beings, and he later 1. Inches des how hi generis fata, whih even conte ‘ary ania sabi, nerd fo the cen the ne anda "tual pons of geal anal phenomena, a ono Kansiann, what Uo "te cho phn in he ee fe ewe rrr "Naval ini scan sos fen dep ges abou Row conse dhe npropent relatonbtwoen tatu laws sa sma cisy whee 5 recon, ereenn dmiustie a une perdi chaamaes ature sinelligible ro us primarily through scientific practice. Such recon: ciation isnot often attempted, let alone sucessfully displayed, for reasons {shall discuss in che chapters to follow. Yer philosophical naturalists are not without resources for making sense of the sientife disclosure of nature asitself “natural.” Each of the ewo strains of naturalism makes an impor ‘an contribution to understanding what a sucessful reconciliation would require ‘Metaphilosophical naturalisms countenance no arbieary philosophical Jmpositions upon the sciences. No philosophical account of what science mus be lke oF ought tobe like has the standing to block well-motivated developments within the sciences themselves. As Quine succinctly said, “philosophy of sience i philosophy enough.” Accord with this Quinean naturalist commitment would require tha the sciences be accepted as the dlfeasible bass for disclosing the natural word. Sil, holding oneself ac- ‘countable f this demand presupposes neither a compelling account ofthe boundaries of “the sciences themselves" nor a clear distinction between arbitrary and well-motivated constraints upon scentfie work. Accounts of “science itself and of what constitutes an “arbitrary imposition” upon itmust be developed together, guided by the concer to allow the sciences to develop freely, without athitrary constraint. Such accounts can also be sided by past examples in which scientific work succeded in part by free- ing itself rom what in retrospect were mistaken methodological o onto logical presuppositions. ‘Metaphysical naturalism also answer to a concern whose precise co tent cannot be flly specified ip advance but must be articulated in practice “Metaphysical naturalists can countenance no appeal to anything myster ‘uso supernatural in their oven explications and aeguments. This con straint is especially telling concerning “us," the beings who account for and are accountable to norms. Naturalists insist thar human beings and any other beings to whom (putative) norms might incllgibly apply are natural beings, embodied, causally inera-active, and bistorieally and bio- logically evolved. Call this the Nietschean commitment of contemporary naturalism, in honor of pethaps its mos relentless adherent? Here also, however, endorsement of this commitment need nor presume an already ‘tablished boundary herween the “natural” and the “supernatural.” Such ‘boundaries are articulated and sifted through critical discussion of natu-Inraopucrion ls ongoing ate dtingish acceptable fom unacceptable con cep chins nd argent informed by conning eget wth scenic work, Ongoing cure the richer fant once ing what isanuaccpable peso emething mero oe nesplesbe to whi sacs o makes concep claim or rpumene ely and narra asa vers any aed spl oe so for le Bounds ofthe naturel Think ofthe vo once expresedin he Quinn netaphiowphi- ca comment ood abitary impsions upon he deraphen of Sieg andthe Nieoacheanplowphialcommlonent nt eo tap ‘ely upon wha is mysterio spt a ariculating what sake in conminet to pilsopialnaturasm, Naw on ‘gre autho the concerns shold else osprey shold gre that mater chem both igh nd wo holon ante accountable wo tee appropri ppsation. I sags tht he won Ofer sll gether yan udeng commento ean ble hwo coe andi sinh ses that ake ths bod to have ben concen the pst of tur Some may woe that a sete of mature dnd by ese Quinean and Netache comnts inclie ad oleat fora dane resol of fundamental dageements abot what ature one {0 Yet in both eae thr ft appt sages how nly thi secures canbe anit ved and ths hw sega ae shecontain hy iors From Niche’ lens npn theo logical veges wikia suppose rechinking ing, though Ne hse of ren metaphycal asumptons Que and Dad senvobeton tothe dgnas of emp, Deda complains aboot the mpi of presence, Denes aplaton of “Dacia angcos ides or Rory eatmet of objet and aly a ses of a dese fr vacendesuthoriy, natal and eee stone narra hikers ave fund eh doing without spernatal eis tlio ier than lols, On theses fonthe now falar con fas between sie pace and many phlsophicl empire e fone eines shat ays seemingly Smile coiaton of een Sic noms ca be tomorow warranted inposon upon mene, Moreover, het fanaa natali commimn sug lini the project af eeoning he mecaphloophical nd methyl rin of aan. Mephysal mutuals hive an eigtion show ho and why thie preferced conception of nature i indeed what scientific in ‘quity discloses, and to do so without conceiving of science in ways that impose arbitrary constraints upoa inguiey. Metaphilosophical narralsss ate likewise obligated to indicate how their conception of scientific under- ‘standing is itself ntligible as part ofthe world the sciences disclose, and to-do so without invoking anything magical or superoatural. The joint satisfaction of these ewo obligations places stingent constraints upon a Satisfactory asiculation of philosophical naturalism. A central heme of this hook is that taking these constraints seriously ‘compels substantial revisions in che most familiar conceptions of philo- ‘ophical naturalism. Such revisions are nceded, I argue, because the issues between natualists and antinaturalists have been conceive in ways that block a satisfactory understanding ofthe elation between scientific inguty and the world thar such inguiey makes manifest. The most familiar concep tions of scientific underseanding, and ofthe natural world as disclosed by the sciences, make i difficult show how sciences like ours could reveal such a world from within it. Moreover, these ficulties alfce not oaly ‘commited natuealists, bur also thie critics who nevertheless subscribe ro 4 more generic and atenuated sense of naturalism, The appropriate ee- sponse to these difculties is noc to doubs the capaciies of the sciences, but to reconceive scientific inquiry, the word it discloses, and the relation ‘ot both to philosophical reflection about scientific understanding. Outin- ing sucha eeconception of science, the natural world, and their philosophi ‘al interpretation inthe spire of naturalism isthe aim ofthis book. Normativity and Necessity ‘To understand contemporary conceptions of science and nature hat shape discussions of naturalism, we fist need to consider briely their philo sophical origins, In the early decades ofthe rwentieth century, Frege's and Huser!’ criticisms of psychologism in logic conteibured to a widespread rejection of philosophical naturalism. Along with such diverse figures as Russell Heidegger, Wittgenstsin, Cassicer, Moore, and Carmap, Prege and Hused insisted chat che validity, objectviey, or rationality of judgment could not be explicated on the basis of empirical matters of fact. Logic, as Frege bluntly claimed, is a normative science, and could not be otherwise Moreover, the meaning and jasitieation of empirical scientific claims were also chought ro require a nanempirical grounding for their authority. eis widely recognized that eatly-twentieth-centuty antinaturaliss often distin-tiished the logical forms or essential structures that were to secure the normativey of meaning and justification fromthe empiical content that themnatural sciences then supplied empitially. Less well understood is how these distinctions of form and content mapped onto distinctions in modal ity. What supposedly prevented the results of empirical science from secur- ing their own nosmative grounding was noe their substantive content, but the contingeney of thar concent. Human psychology or historical context could not underwrite the validity of scientific judgments, because our cog nitive processes and our historical siation might have been different. By contrast, formal/tautological logical relations essential structures of con sciousness, o transcendental conditions of thought or representation were put forwacd as necessary conditions for meaning or thought. Normativty was to be grounded in a priori, formali/structural necessities; We ought t0 think and speak in these ways because we could not think or speak at all otherwise Philosophical work in che later haf of the twentieth century was deci sively shaped by criticism ofthese atempts to distinguish logical o essen ‘ial form from experiential content. Formalist accounes of meaning were ‘opposed by Quine’s deconstruction of analyicity, Wittgenstein’ rtcims ‘of the autonomy of rules, and Heidegger's relocation of meaning from es- sential seractures of consciousness to historical configurations of practical activity. Experienialst conceptions of semantic content were likewise challenged in Sellars’satack on the myth of the given, Witgenstein’s de- nial of the intelligibility of a private language, and Heideyger's insistence ‘that public norms of affect, understanding, and discursive articulation are presupposed in any interpretation of something “as” something. These challenges undercut the methodologically foundational rale of gical anal- ysis or phenomenological description, and with them, the aspiration to ‘what Quine called “frst philosophy.” ta particular meaning (whether lo- cated in thought, language, oF action) no langer comprised a distinctively philosophical domain of inquiry, accessible through a characteristcally 4. Apes acest might sem oss the noma sdriyof ch fon seat tht of hr ana fh ey ah eh ng Coo wrong soc hehe wou ot pak to what ete aca ah ges, or acon Norte force wat yl rune, howe, by tice tens oo S00 © meaning or json prominent amps inked te psec of Incings meaphys,pheromenslogl ack upon conan ee By tate fl td, and thao log aa exp lls reas o enn Soc rama ith ond gl rh, ainsi vcniaeleniy philosophical method) chat could disclose necesacy structures demarcatng the limits of legitimately empirical science, "Naturalism once again became a serous option within philosophy a 4 result of these crtcisms.' A common route to naturalism has been decouple the earlier association between a priori knowledge and necessity Normatvity is still tobe grounded in necessity bu the selevan necessities ae not logical or transcendental necessities knowable a priori, The work disclosed by the sciences isnot merely a jumble of contingent facts, but i steuctuted by brute, a posteriori necessities, Such necessities suppose provide a more local, naturalistic grounding for the normatvity of sien tlie understanding. Note well, however, that such strategies leave un ‘touched the presumption tha the normativiey of meaning and justification ‘nus be grounded in some form of necessity. highlight his poine becas ‘my argumeats in the chapters to follow will challenge this presumption Before considering this challenge, however, [want to look belly a th sways in which the normasviy of meaning and justification has bee grounded in a posteriori necesites that equi scientific rather than hilo sophical discovery Tis useful co begin with atempes to locate the normativiy of mein and justifiation in some form of social-istorial ncessiy. Tes atm involve appeals © the role of shated presuppositions, paradigms, lan uages, cultures, or standards in securing the ineligibility and authori ‘of wha individual participants in such collectives say and do, Instead o the ungualifed necessity of formal structutes of language or thought, on looks to the contextualized necessity of particular material presupposi 5. il eet of he soma ann ideas mr ie hn han ropa SHines te rpc nya sac acess tap pe Soa Rcd cant poral fone ery el weap Ts ‘erty age wit one mst eld pe fe lal cor Spm dno cr ch tic em, nich om ed ess ‘mot or wan ice knee pe lla le el er tt a prim agi suis 0. Gey shns te dito apres ens peo ‘som Gu rie ea a tao bec ha oe SS Samos of non ng mon eam anes thier Sine my Own pope ned np hh on of Guo tcp hesptc iee myo eb cl ee cnc rorestthch Que pint on lon ny bed es ‘nih wen ped eng mal eos sn ome ihe es ‘rl mr wd par oreo ston nue yt ne ce te ee aa eee eon be aIsrropuerio tions, The modal character of such claims has rarely been made explicit, ‘but resonision of their implicit modality is usefl, Why, afer all, should fone accede to the strictures of community or a culture as authoritative? (Or, from a thied-peson perspective, how does che socia-historcal setting of individual performances make their occurence intligibe, rather than merely causally explicable? The implicit claim is chat one should accede to community standards (and should he understood by others as having done so), because one must, Such a necessity is usally construed in one ‘of two ways Either one mast accede tothe standards of some community ‘or other in order tobe subject to noes at all, and hence to be ineligible 35 making a claim rather chan jst @ noise (on this conception, one must sccede to the standards of tis community only because i isthe one in ‘which one happens to find oneself. Alternatively, one must acede t0 the standards of this community because its members (oneself included, of course) are the ones upon whom one could possibly make claims, and hence the ones to whom one’s claiming must be accountable. However plausible they might have seemed initially, such appeals o social historical necessity to ground the ineligibility and justification of ltterances or actions have encountered fundamental difficulties. Quine’s criticism of the analytic/symthetc distinction can be taken as a model for ‘undermining ay atm to dissinguish moe loealythe necessary peesup positions of language, community or culture from contingent disputa- ble claims based upon those presuppositions, There is no principled basis for distinguishing a community's necessary presuppositions from those claims that its members contingently happen to accept, or for choosing among different ways of drawing the boundaries between che necessary and the contingent.” Similar problems arse in demarcating the boundaries of the communities whose standards and presuppositions would be bind- ing upon a particular speaker. Indeed the de facto plurality of linguistic, culsral, scent, and other communities that mighe govern the perfor ‘ances of a particular individual undercuts any attempt to ascribe even local necessity to the standards and presuppositions of any one of them. 7 On the dct of dsingsishig sen preseason fom contingent com vexgncs inet ha emerged mos clei the stupa ondetand clo cone. {unl change, by dings revluionay fom incremental change in orcs altar, changin langage fom change in ei cans andar sd nem “Ti plaray reed stained pilose! aes in he debates ove “se tialina” withis fomacan theory in the 19600 ned 1990s, evan eumreing grader peliticn eames tr i The actual availability and familiarity of alternative forms of life is rather compelling objection to their supposed impossibility or unintlii bility. Finally, appeals to scial-historical necessity have notoriously objec tionable normative implications. To he extent that paticulae communi tie performances, presuppositions, or standards ae necessary condition for their constituent’ ineligibility (and hence thir seats as persons or agents), these conditions seem to be effectively beyond criticism. Yet the characteristic performances and claims of most actual communities (ou ‘own very much inludedt} seem not merely open to ertcim, but seriously in aed of i ‘An alternative way to ground meaning and jusication has been £0 seek the source of semantic, epistemic, and practical authority in the 3 posterior! necessity of natral laws oF causal relations. The physical si ences, evolutionary biology, oF neuroscience and cognitive psychology right reveal essential features of language, thought, or action by human beings in this world, even though the relevane scientific truths are not nec: cssarily tue (ie, not tue inall possible words), and not knowable a pi or, Such appeals to nacral necessity have gained plausibility in che past few decades, because two of the most prominent philosophical abjetions rothe idea of natural necessity sem o have been overcome by secent pile sophical work,’ Fist, eiticisms of deductivesnomolagical theories of ex planation and empiricist theories of meaning have stongly undeemined ‘empiricist suspicions about he intelligibility of “metaphysical” necessity These suspicions turned on the doube that one is ever empirically justified in adding modal significance to antecedently intelligible descriptions of ‘what actully occurs. The diffculty hee lis fst inthe presumption that viamodalized dseriptions of the world are antecedenty intelligible. Even ‘the most minimally adequate scientific or everyday descriptions of many familiar phenomena seem to require modalizedcharacterizaions of dispo- sitions and capacities, such that it no longer seems plausible that one could conduct much empirical science or even ordinary conversation without em playing, modal focutions of some kind. Second, long-standing suspicions io con wih he ompesing clans fice nici, and clas. os 198, Ber 190, Speiman 1988, and Wir 1995 poe» god into to fe dae 2 Robert alo hs prone eles wo tar nh erin of hil ‘opal especial aces in hier Modaly sd Nort” ie thot he Boson Calg ote Palosophy of See, Ape 199, an be Ame Philosophical Asocated Contel Devisnc, teed 2000,about the infcential plasticity of modal lacutions have been allayed by powerful formal work in modal logic an its semantics tha has rendered ‘thee use philosophically respecable. Sictly speaking, sch work only ap- plies directly to alethie modality, and not to the weaker causal modalities thar might seem rclevant to claims of natural necessity.” By assigning «causal capacities or lawful regularities co objects and natural kinds, how ever, one might plausibly hope to construe natural necesiies in terms of Kripkean semantics for modal identity claims (eg, water is essentially H.O, including whatever lws and causal capacities follow fom ts having that struct}. How might the empirical discovery of natural necessities then serve to explicate che intligibilyy au asthority of the sciences and thereby reco spectively vindicate the very claims chat made such explication possible? Two stategies have heen prominently proposed, Richard Boyd has argued ‘that “mature” scientific disciplines can be shown to have crossed a crucial threshold marked by her ability to deploy highly theory-dependene meth ‘ods in ways that consistently yield hoth predictive success and the ability ‘oimprove that predictive suecess through the reflexive sheoretialeriique ‘of those methods. The peedictive reliability of theories in these disciplines, he argues, should be explained in terms of the causal relations between the natutal kind tems employed in the theories and che natural kinds ‘whose causal capacities determine what is possible and impossible. Boyd's approach would not account forthe inteligibilty of any discursive prac: tices except those of the cheoretically “mature” sciences, and it also dims the prospects for explaining pastor hastening farure disciplinary tans: tions to maturity: "The theoretical innovations that establish che Fis suc- ‘monly been assumed that norms can only be binding if they hold according to rule or principle (*necessarly"} atleast with regularity over time The peshaps surprising conclusion of my arguments is that under such conditions, norms can be bindingly authoritative, Our normative each always excoeds our grasp, and hence whats at stake in practices outeuns ny present articulation of those stakes, That is past of what it means to insist (as T hogan to do in chapter 5) that normativty cannot he reduced to regularities. We are accountable to what is at stake in our belonging (causally and normatvely) to che materil-discursve world: our fate is bound up with whae is a sue and at stake in ous practices, although those stakes are not yet definitively settled-—indeed, that is part of what its for them co be “at stake.” A failure to grasp this point is frequently expressed in demands to show the source of binding normativity, or its authoritative grounds. Sellars highlighted this poine with his implicit recognition of the unavoidably imythicl character of any retrospective dislosure ofthe source of normativity” Bur Sellars did not recognize the need fora parallel treatment of any prospective (final) articulation of the aocms to which practices are accountable, Nosmativity arises from practical involvement in a situation ‘whose subsequent development isnot yet determined: there are real pos sibilities for making a (significant) difference in how things subsequently tur out. The difference those possiblities can make transforms the situa tion, thereby changing what is a stake in responsiveness rit, Thats why itis crucial that the normativity of practices not be reduced fo undeelying regularities of performance or belief. What is at stake in practices cannot be established with finality except atthe cost oftheir normative authority and force Or, to pur it another way, the binding normatvity the notma- tive force) of what is at sake in practices comes from always aleady be longing to patterns of ongoing causal intra-action. The world already has 4 (normative) grip upon us, through oue belonging to situation, under- ‘stood asa field of real possibilities {conclude by showing how these considerations should inform an un- derstanding ofthe temporality of seientic practice an of whacisa stake in scienifc investigation. Philosophers have often seriously misunderstood science by construing ie retrospectively: they look to scence ro dscovee what is already} known about what che world (already) is, They thereby ‘overlook science as, in Francois Jacob's words, “a machine fr making the fure.” Seience is frst and foremost reseasch, am activity that cranseends present understanding. Even such philosophers as Davidson, Rorty, Bran- dom, and Haugeland, whose criticisms of scientstic versions of naturalism bear close affinities to my own, sil accept too readily a scentistic concep tion of natural scence Such considerations have especialy ironic significance for traditional conceptions of a naturalistic metaphysics, which insist that the sciences disclose nature as devoid of normative significance. Naturalists often elo- ‘quently insse thatthe anormativty of nature matters the sciences free us from thellsions of theological, anthropomoephic, and other wishful pro jections upon the world. Such achievements are indeed the rightful legacy 17, Rebeca Kak ian pals 20008 of “Epics ashe oso of Mind” shows why reeset take ety elas span “oil th oe Gives witha myth fof Jones.” Sela’ anal, abe argc shows that any sean of the nonrsiatn sor of nomatve autor aston reoptin since the led source mast hee saad ben nova Sing in eer co inands to be nathortative Inrropuction: cof philosophical naturalism. Ye that legacy has been claimed by metaphys- ical naturalists in a self-defeating ways they cannot adequately express how ature so coaceived matters to us as scientists and as naturalists. The eF fort to *naturalize” semantic, epistemic, or practical/poitical norms thus legitimately presumes that nator has aleeady been “naturalized” in the same way, To allow the narualstic legacy to claim us appropriately, Lam cguing, we should recognize instead the normativty of nature, manifest in the possibilities expresible in part chrough scientific practices.