ABSTRACT
An obvious first thought is that the principle metaphysical commitment of naturalism is to the non-existence of anything supernatural. Against this, Rea objects that this claim is uninformative because naturalists disagree about how to classify things as either natural or supernatural. Even the most diehard naturalist accepts that it is conceivable or imaginable that established natural science tells us things about the natural and the supernatural that are incompatible with naturalism. Methodological naturalism holds that the best methods of inquiry in the social sciences and philosophy are, or are to be modelled on, those of the natural sciences. Bizarre linguistic stipulation aside, it is obvious that naturalism, empiricism, and scientism have exactly the same kind of epistemological status: scientism is a doctrine about the scientific; empiricism is a doctrine about the empirical; and naturalism is a doctrine about the natural.
