La Natura e il Metodo

The naturalistic approach to knowledge, as emerges from of Quine’s and Sellars’ works, puts an absolute trust in the way science operates, insomuch that it suggests that philosophy should adopt its criteria and methods. This subsumption of philosophy to science is possible only reducing every discourse on their relationship to a mere question of method. This article aims to point out, by using Spinoza’s thought, the possibility of an escape from this rigid dichotomy. For the Dutch philosopher the study of nature is, in fact, the occasion for a broader consideration on the possibilities of knowledge in contributing to the achievement of an authentic freedom.