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Frank Visser, graduated as a psychologist of culture and religion, founded IntegralWorld in 1997. He worked as production manager for various publishing houses and as service manager for various internet companies and lives in Amsterdam. Books: Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (SUNY, 2003), and The Corona Conspiracy: Combatting Disinformation about the Coronavirus (Kindle, 2020).

Extended Naturalism and the Quest for a New Worldview

A critical review of The Core of Extended Naturalism by Gregg Henriques and John Vervaeke

Frank Visser / ChatGPT

Introduction

In their article “The Core of Extended Naturalism,” psychologists and philosophers Gregg Henriques and John Vervaeke present an ambitious proposal for a new philosophical framework that they call Extended Naturalism (EN). The project forms part of the broader Unified Theory of Knowledge (UTOK) initiative, an attempt to integrate insights from natural science, psychology, philosophy of mind, and cultural theory into a coherent worldview.

The authors argue that contemporary philosophy of mind remains trapped in a conceptual deadlock between materialism, idealism, panpsychism, and dualism. According to them, these traditional positions are all distorted by what they call the “Enlightenment Gap”—the inherited dichotomy between objective matter and subjective mind. Their proposal is to construct a framework that integrates the scientific image of the world with the phenomenology of consciousness.

This review examines the strengths and weaknesses of Extended Naturalism as presented in the article. While the proposal is conceptually rich and motivated by legitimate philosophical concerns, it raises important questions about theoretical inflation, explanatory clarity, and empirical grounding.

The Problem Extended Naturalism Seeks to Solve

Henriques and Vervaeke begin from a diagnosis that will sound familiar to anyone following contemporary debates on consciousness. Modern science has produced powerful models of the physical world but has struggled to explain the nature and role of subjective experience.

The authors identify three key problems:

• The lack of a comprehensive worldview integrating scientific knowledge and human consciousness.

• The failure of standard metaphysical positions—materialism, idealism, dualism, and panpsychism—to provide satisfactory solutions.

• A conceptual split between two research questions:

• the nature of consciousness, addressed by philosophy of mind

• the function of consciousness, studied by cognitive science and psychology.

Extended Naturalism is designed to bridge these divides by offering a framework that simultaneously addresses ontology, epistemology, and psychology.

The ambition is considerable: EN aims not merely to solve the “hard problem” of consciousness but to reformulate the entire relationship between mind, matter, and knowledge.

The Architecture of Extended Naturalism

The article sketches several conceptual pillars underlying the theory.

1. Splitting the Hard Problem

EN proposes that the famous hard problem of consciousness actually conflates two distinct issues:

• a philosophical meta-problem concerning the relation between matter and subjectivity

• a scientific engineering problem concerning how neurocognitive processes produce conscious experience.

By separating these problems, the authors claim to dissolve some of the conceptual confusion surrounding consciousness research.

This move resembles strategies used in other philosophical traditions that attempt to dissolve metaphysical puzzles by reframing them. Whether the problem truly disappears or simply reappears in another form remains an open question.

2. The Tree of Knowledge Ontology

A central component of UTOK—and therefore of Extended Naturalism—is the Tree of Knowledge (ToK) system, which divides reality into several ontological layers:

• Energy-Information

• Matter-Objects

• Life-Organisms

• Mind-Animals

• Culture-Persons.

The model portrays the natural world as a hierarchy of emergent levels, each introducing new forms of organization and explanation.

In many ways, this resembles earlier layered ontologies proposed by philosophers such as Nicolai Hartmann or contemporary accounts of emergence. What is distinctive in UTOK is the explicit attempt to integrate psychological and cultural phenomena into the same ontological map as physics and biology.

3. The Map of Mind

Extended Naturalism further elaborates the mental domain through a multi-layered taxonomy:

• Mind1b: overt behavioral activity

• Mind1a: neurocognitive processes

• Mind2: subjective conscious experience

• Mind3a: private self-narration

• Mind3b: public justification systems.

This classification is intended to clarify different dimensions of mindedness, distinguishing biological cognition from reflective human consciousness and from social systems of reasoning.

Again, the ambition is integrative: the framework attempts to link neuroscience, phenomenology, and cultural discourse within one conceptual structure.

Strengths of the Proposal

Despite its speculative character, Extended Naturalism possesses several noteworthy strengths.

1. Recognition of the “Problem of Psychology”

Henriques has long argued that psychology lacks a clear conceptual foundation because it sits between the natural sciences and the humanities. The EN framework attempts to address this by explicitly situating psychology within a layered ontology of nature.

This diagnosis resonates with ongoing debates about the fragmentation of psychological science and the difficulty of integrating biological, cognitive, and social approaches.

2. Integration of First- and Third-Person Perspectives

Another valuable feature of EN is its insistence that scientific knowledge and subjective experience represent different but complementary forms of knowing.

Rather than reducing consciousness to neural processes or elevating experience above nature, the framework attempts to situate both within a broader epistemological structure.

This emphasis reflects a wider trend in philosophy of mind and cognitive science to integrate phenomenology with empirical research.

3. Conceptual Richness

Finally, Extended Naturalism provides a rich conceptual vocabulary—maps, layers, levels, and processes—that can stimulate interdisciplinary dialogue.

Frameworks like these often serve as intellectual scaffolding that allows researchers from different disciplines to communicate across conceptual boundaries.

Problems and Critiques

Despite these virtues, the article also reveals several weaknesses.

1. Conceptual Proliferation

The most immediate concern is the sheer complexity of the framework.

Extended Naturalism introduces numerous new constructs:

• Enlightenment Gap

• Problem of Psychology

• Neurocognitive Engineering Problem

• Tree of Knowledge

• Map of Mind

• Periodic Table of Behaviors

• Recursive Relevance Realization.

While each concept may have merit individually, the cumulative effect is a system that risks becoming overly baroque.

A philosophical framework that multiplies conceptual entities faster than it clarifies phenomena risks losing explanatory power.

2. Ambiguity of “Extended Emergence”

The article proposes that behavioral complexity emerges through an “extended emergence” located between weak and strong emergence.

However, the concept is not clearly defined. Without precise criteria for distinguishing this form of emergence from existing models, the proposal may simply rename familiar ideas rather than introduce a genuinely new explanatory principle.

3. Limited Empirical Engagement

Although EN emphasizes compatibility with science, the article remains largely metatheoretical. It outlines conceptual frameworks rather than offering empirical predictions or testable hypotheses.

This raises an important question:

Is Extended Naturalism a scientific theory, a philosophical worldview, or a conceptual toolkit for interdisciplinary dialogue?

The article seems to oscillate between these roles without clearly defining its methodological status.

4. The Persistent Hard Problem

Finally, despite the authors' claim to “split” the hard problem of consciousness, the fundamental mystery remains.

Even if we distinguish philosophical and engineering questions, we are still left with the central puzzle:

Why do neural processes generate subjective experience at all?

Extended Naturalism provides a taxonomy of mental processes, but it does not clearly explain how subjective awareness arises from physical systems.

The Broader Context

Extended Naturalism should be understood as part of a broader intellectual movement attempting to transcend the perceived limitations of classical naturalism.

These projects often share several goals:

• integrating science with meaning and value

• overcoming the mind-matter dichotomy

• constructing comprehensive worldviews.

However, such efforts sometimes risk drifting toward metaphysical system-building, reminiscent of earlier grand syntheses in philosophy.

Whether Extended Naturalism represents a genuine advance or another elaborate conceptual architecture remains to be seen.

Conclusion

“The Core of Extended Naturalism” presents a bold attempt to rethink the relationship between mind, science, and culture. The framework's strengths lie in its integrative ambition and its recognition of unresolved tensions within contemporary philosophy of mind.

Yet the proposal also illustrates the dangers inherent in large-scale theoretical synthesis. Conceptual proliferation, ambiguous terminology, and limited empirical grounding raise questions about the framework's explanatory value.

Extended Naturalism may best be viewed not as a finished theory but as an experimental philosophical platform—a conceptual landscape designed to stimulate dialogue between psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science.

Whether it ultimately clarifies the nature of consciousness or merely adds another layer to the already complex discourse remains an open question.