Anti·Naturalism in Extremis
John
Dewey
~LOSOPHICAL
NATURALISM
has a more distinguished ancestry
than is usually recognized; there are, for example, the names of
Aristotle and Spinoza. However, the Aristotle who has exercised
the greatest influence upon modern philosophy was one whose
naturalism did not prevent him from regarding the physical as
the lowest stratum in the hierarchical order of Being and from
holding that pure intellect, "pure" because free from contamina·
tion by any trace of matter, is at the apex. It is to be doubted,
however, whether the work of Aristotle would have inured, as it
has done, to the credit of anti-naturalism if he had not been
adopted as the official philosopher of the Church, and if his writ–
ings had not found their way into modern culture through the
transformation undergone in the medieval period.
For in this period, the out-and-out supernaturalism of the
Roman Catholic Church was injected whenever possible into in–
terpretation of Aristotle. The naturalistic elements in his teaching
were overlaid, covered up, with supernatural beliefs; or, if that
was not possible, were slurred over as the views of a pagan not
enlightened by the Hebraic-Christian revelation from on high.
The supernaturalism thus read into Aristotle united with elements
in him which are genuinely non-naturalistic from the standpoint
of present science. It resulted in his being held up by many
modern writers as the founder, in conjunction with Plato, of
spiritualistic anti-naturalistic philosophy.
However, when it is a question of moral theory, the natur–
alism of Aristotle lies so clearly on the face of what he said that
medieval Christian theological philosophy was compelled to give
it a radically different turn. How different was this turn may be
inferred from words of Cardinal Newman which express the
orthodox view: "The pattern man, the just, the upright, the gen–
erous, the honorable, the conscientious, if he is all this not from
a supernatural power, but from
mere natural virtue
has the
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