Abstract

In tackling the issue of justification, philosophers have gone overboard in their efforts to discover fallacies in the reasoning of otherwise sensible people. And having fallen into deep water, those philosophers now find that they do not know how to swim. The cause of such philosophical distress can be located in what may have once appeared as a virtue: the separation between man and nature. Science may describe the world, and even us, but it cannot tell us what we ought to do; it may explain how a state of affairs originated and developed, but it cannot tell us whether that state of affairs is a good thing. In this paper I will argue against that separation; and in advocating a philosophy that treats man as part of nature, I will attempt to throw light on the issue of justification.