Natural Human Philosophy as a Falsifiable Natural-Science Research Programme: Programme Statement, Methodological Foundations, and Failure Conditions
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Philosophical questions about human beings—who we are, where we come from, and where we can and should go—involve evolution, cognition, motivation, culture, organization, technology, natural dependencies, and the consequences of action. Natural Human Philosophy (NHP) studies these questions within the natural-science paradigm, on the basis that humans and their societies belong to the natural world, and organizes its theories as a correctable research programme. Its first methodological foundation comprises five conditions of scientific knowledge production and correction: Empirical Accessibility, Intersubjective Testability, Falsifiability, Revisability, and Revisable Cumulativity. Its second comprises the Two Logical Obstacles associated with premise establishment and inference: valid deduction cannot itself supply the truth of empirical premises, and purely descriptive premises cannot alone yield substantive normative requirements. Through research into laws, observation, testing, and correction, natural science provides true or approximately true factual premises. Principle-Derived Ought investigates objective action requirements under specified goals and conditions, and develops normative action requirements under the explicit evaluative premises of the Six-Level Framework of Good and Evil. Scientific support and expert consensus are assessed separately; the contribution of shared independent adjudication to philosophical convergence is studied as an empirical extension. Transgression, Third Nature, and the Cultural Cloud constitute three cornerstones; Human Superposition accounts for concrete persons. Intangible and organized Superpowers shape practice through feedback between ideas and organizations. Six-Level evaluation, scientific factual assessment, derivation from principles, implementation, and correction form a route for governance. Claims are assessed by their type and actual evidence, the framework and individual claims are judged separately, and failures are located along genuine dependencies. A null result for a particular configuration or measure does not negate other levels. This paper constitutes these elements as a testable, revisable, and cumulatively developing natural-science research programme.
Authors: Yuan, Xihao, Yuan, Haidan
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7222888166
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