I came across this interesting if somewhat curious essay by philosopher Mazviita Chirimuuta (Edinburgh), prompted by the renaming of the Hume Tower at her university. Professor Chirimuuta tries, rather implausibly I thought, to draw a connection between Hume's naturalism and his racism. She does so by claiming it is difficulty to pin down what naturalism involves (I'm not so sure it is), and suggesting that it is mainly defined by opposition to the supernatural:
The question we contemporary philosophers need to ask ourselves is whether there is a legitimate notion of the “naturalistic worldview” that does not require, for its own self-definition, a contrast with the “superstitious worldview” of the “primitive” other. We need also to ask seriously whether the unreflected notion of what is a naturalistic, and hence intellectually respectable explanation, is still being used to de-legitimise explanations offered by various indigenous peoples concerning events in the natural world, events which include the symptoms of an ever more crushing ecological crisis. Such accounts are still regularly categorised as “spiritualistic”, and with that certain voices are still summarily dismissed, as expressed by the Māori individuals interviewed in this news report of a mass whale beaching.
Supernatural claims are explanatorily otiose, which is why supernatural entities drop out of a methodologically naturalistic conception of the world (i.e., one modeled on the successful empirical sciences). "Primitive" peoples have false views about cause and effect, as do their present-day descendants, like evangelical Christians: are we really not supposed to dismiss these kinds of supernatural-infused views about how the world works?
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