Wittgenstein, naturalism, and scientism

Wittgenstein&s;s contributions to philosophy include numerous remarks that indicate his attitude towards science and, in particular, the relation between science and philosophy. While Wittgenstein&s;s views are not anti-science they do convey a staunch anti-scientism. Naturalism is a view about the relation between science and philosophy, one that privileges the metaphysical and epistemological status of science. Scientism could be construed as an especially strong form of naturalism. Huw Price has drawn a contrast between what he calls object naturalism and subject naturalism. Object naturalism is the view that in some important sense, all there is is the world studied by science. Subject naturalism, in contrast, is not primarily a view about what entities exist, taking the ontology of natural science as its guide and then regarding our practices and discourse in light of that. The author has tried to show that while such a form of understanding is threatened by scientism it need not be so threatened by naturalism.