This chapter examines several varieties of “naturalism” in philosophy of mind and philosophy of science. In philosophy of mind, it is the view that mental phenomena can be accommodated within the framework of the world of the nature as understood by the natural sciences. However, there are a number of variations on this view. Naturalism takes normative and positive forms. It can be a claim about metaphysics or about explanation. And it can be based on several paradigms for understanding explanation in the natural sciences: reductive, nomic, and evolutionary. The preeminent importance of reductive naturalism in philosophy of mind is explained.
Keywords: naturalism, explanation, reduction, nomic explanation, evolutionary explanation, metaphysics