Naturalism is a powerful if somewhat vague philosophical view, with both epistemological and metaphysical sides. All knowledge derives from the methods we use to study the

natural world, sense-perception extended by the methods

of the natural sciences. The only objects and properties that we should countenance are those that we perceive in the natural world, and those that are required to explain natural phenomena by our best theories. Thus, in the title of his Dialogues on Natural Religion, the word natural

tells us that Hume will consider whether basically scientific methods of inquiry and argument can lead us to a belief in an intelligent creator.

Naturalism in ethics maintains that good and bad, right and wrong are definable in terms of natural properties, such as pleasure and pain, and that there are no special methods of knowledge for moral facts.