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hand, seems to pose a greater problem. It is difficult to
see how physical properties could ever be of or about
anything. Likewise, concept acquisition and evaluation
do not fit well with physicalist causal stories concerning
the production of beliefs.
The first two chapters set up these components
of knowledge needing attention from naturalists. Like
other naturalists, D.M. Armstrong’s view surveyed in
chapter one contends that perception is the result of a
causal chain, perhaps traversing from the object through
the relevant neural pathways and then into my con-
sciousness. However, given that I can experience percep-
tions such as hallucinations that have not originated in
an object, but are still caused, the causal chain theory
of perception will not be able to explain how it is the
case that we are able to distinguish between veridical
and non-veridical instances by further investigation. A
causal connection is necessary, therefore, but not suf-
ficient for knowledge of the external world.
According to naturalists, the fundamental com-
ponents of the world are physical. Usually, for them,
mental states are then taken to be conceptualizations of
brain states. Neural outputs are taken as experiences of
external objects, even though the entirety of the process
is physical. Chapter two on the views of Dretske, Tye,
and Lycan considers two additional facets for which
naturalist epistemologies must account given these
parameters: 1) the means by which we form concepts
in the first place and 2) the means by which we correct
our concepts, e.g., introspection, which allows us to
compare the concepts we have with their objects.
The trajectory toward seeing our conscious experi-
ences as the conceptualization of physical states of the
brain takes another step in the views of Searle, surveyed
in chapter three. However, if all of our observations are
relative to a conceptual scheme, it would seem that the
naturalistic affirmation that everything is composed of
physical stuff is undercut or not compelling. In chapter
four, Smith contends that Papineau’s theory suffers from
the same problem. If experiences are conceptualizations
of brain states, then we do not have unmediated access
to the objects of our experience. Making our conscious
experiences conceptualizations of brain states puts us at
some remove from reality even while perhaps intending
to preserve our connection to it. Other thinkers Smith
surveys are even more willing to dismiss our mental
lives as illusory (Dennett – chp. 5) or as eliminable (the
Churchlands – chp. 6) rather than bothering to take our
consciousness seriously.
In various ways, many of the views surveyed in
chapters two through seven fall prey to the objection
discussed in chapter two and rehearsed in relation to the
varying naturalist positions: if our mental lives are mere-
ly the conceptualization of our brain states, then we will
not have the ability to form concepts or to compare our
concepts with their objects. Worse still, all of the con-
cepts favored by naturalists and used to bolster natural-
ism, such as “reliability,” “reductive materialism,” “every-
thing is physical,” do not find a rational basis given the
ontological commitments of naturalism. Those concepts
cannot be formed, nor can they be compared with their
objects, given a naturalist ontology.
A distinct, yet complementary, strategy for some
readers would be to focus their attention on chapters
eight, nine, and ten. A large section of chapter eight
concerns two strategies naturalists might employ to
avoid the problems that Smith has raised. The second
of those approaches is simply to accept that we do not
have access to the world as it is. Instead, all of our asser-
tions about or perceptions of the world are interpreta-
tions or conceptualizations that cannot be compared
with their objects for the sake of checking their
accuracy. Smith notes that this is a move similar to that
made by many postmodernists concerning knowledge.
He gives thorough consideration to Nancey Murphy
who embraces a kind of interpretation-universalism
along with certain tenets of naturalism. Smith examines
Murphy’s epistemological holism and its inspiration
in MacIntyre, her philosophy of language, and her
ontology. Ultimately, Smith contends, this view cannot
deliver on all that it promises. For instance, if we are
unable to know reality as it is, then we are also unable
to compare rival views of the world and rationally adju-
dicate between them.
Smith does not use a purely negative critique of
naturalism’s failed epistemology; in chapter nine, he
develops a model for our ability to know reality using
the ideas of Edmund Husserl particularly as those were
developed by Dallas Willard. This theory dodges the
problems besetting the various naturalistic alternatives
considered in the earlier parts of the book. One implica-
tion of this ontology of knowledge is that the knower
cannot be merely physical (194); some kind of anthro-
pological dualism provides a better explanation for our
knowledge.
The final chapter carries through the implications
of the previous chapters by contending that forms of
methodological naturalism, such as scientism or empiri-
cism, cannot be supported by a naturalistic ontology.
“Having knowledge of reality requires the very kinds of
entities that philosophical naturalism cannot admit into
its ontology. Thus, it is utterly fruitless to tie science, or
any other discipline or practice, to ontological natural-
ism” (200). Since we can and do gain knowledge of the
world through empirical means, and since ontological
naturalism cannot provide an adequate explanation
of that truth, a different explanation must be sought.
Smith suggests that an explanation that better accounts
for the facts is that we have been designed to experience
correspondence between our minds and the world.
Once the restriction of knowledge to science is
shown to be untenable, additional domains such as
religion and morality may be thought to provide knowl-
edge. Smith shows how these two domains fit with his
