The Big Picture

A New Philosophy for a Scientific World: Poetic Naturalism

Human existence often feels like a cartoon character suspended in midair after running off a cliff, only falling once they realize the ground is gone. For centuries, our "ground" was a belief in a transcendent purpose—the idea that things happen for a reason. As scientific understanding deepened, that ground eroded, leaving us to construct our own conceptual jet packs to navigate a universe that appears indifferent to our presence. To understand our place, we must examine ontology, the study of what truly exists. Our everyday "folk ontology" is pluralistic; we see people and chairs as fundamentally different. However, intellectual progress has moved us toward a sparse, unified ontology, revealing that every object is composed of the same three particles—protons, neutrons, and electrons—governed by the same impersonal forces. This suggests the world is a single, unified reality, not sustained by anything outside itself.

Accepting this sparse ontology doesn't mean we must stop talking about the world in human terms. This reconciliation is found in poetic naturalism. Naturalism posits that there is only one world, the natural one, which follows unbroken patterns discoverable through science. The "poetic" aspect acknowledges that there are many ways of talking about this one world. Consider the "Ship of Theseus" paradox: if every plank of a ship is replaced, is it still the same ship? To a poetic naturalist, "ship" is not a fundamental category but a useful story we tell about a specific collection of atoms. An "eliminativist" might argue that ships are illusions because they aren't fundamental particles, but the poetic naturalist views them as real because they are essential to a valid, higher-level description of reality. We use different "stories"—from quantum field theory to sociology—depending on our goals.

The transition to this scientific view required overturning Aristotle's physics, which was built on "final causes"—the idea that objects move toward goals or natural states. In his view, a coffee cup stops because its natural state is rest, and the universe requires an "unmoved mover" (God) to keep everything in motion. However, the work of pioneers like Galileo and Ibn Sina led to the principle of conservation of momentum. They realized that an object in motion stays in motion without needing a "mover." This shifted the focus from "why" things happen to "how" they move according to patterns. The universe doesn't need a push to keep going; it simply follows laws. Consequently, "causes" and "purposes" disappeared from fundamental physics, remaining only as useful descriptions for our macroscopic lives.