Materialism is a form of
philosophical monism which holds
matter
In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. All everyday objects that can be touched are ultimately composed of atoms, which are made up of interacting subatomic part ...
to be the fundamental
substance in
nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
, and all things, including
mental states and
consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materialism, mind and consciousness are
by-products or
epiphenomena
An epiphenomenon (plural: epiphenomena) is a secondary phenomenon that occurs alongside or in parallel to a primary phenomenon. The word has two senses: one that connotes known causation and one that connotes absence of causation or reservation ...
of material processes (such as the
biochemistry
Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...
of the
human brain
The human brain is the central organ (anatomy), organ of the human nervous system, and with the spinal cord makes up the central nervous system. The brain consists of the cerebrum, the brainstem and the cerebellum. It controls most of the act ...
and nervous system), without which they cannot exist. This concept directly contrasts with
idealism
In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected t ...
, where mind and consciousness are first-order realities to which matter is dependent while material interactions are secondary.
Materialism is closely related to
physicalism—the view that all that exists is ultimately physical. Philosophical physicalism has evolved from materialism with the theories of the physical sciences to incorporate more sophisticated notions of physicality than mere ordinary matter (e.g.
spacetime
In physics, spacetime is a mathematical model that combines the three dimensions of space and one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional manifold. Spacetime diagrams can be used to visualize relativistic effects, such as why differ ...
,
physical energies and
forces, and
dark matter
Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not a ...
). Thus, the term ''physicalism'' is preferred over ''materialism'' by some, while others use the terms as if they were
synonymous.
Philosophies traditionally opposed or largely historically unreconciled to the scientific theories of materialism or physicalism include
idealism
In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected t ...
,
pluralism,
dualism,
panpsychism, and other forms of
monism
Monism attributes oneness or singleness (Greek: μόνος) to a concept e.g., existence. Various kinds of monism can be distinguished:
* Priority monism states that all existing things go back to a source that is distinct from them; e.g., i ...
.
From
classical antiquity
Classical antiquity (also the classical era, classical period or classical age) is the period of cultural history between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD centred on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ...
,
Epicureanism is an ancient philosophy of materialism as a major forerunner to modern science. Epicurus, although ostensibly a
deist
Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin '' deus'', meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that empirical reason and observation ...
, affirmed both the literal existence of the
Greek gods
The following is a list of gods, goddesses, and many other divine and semi-divine figures from ancient Greek mythology and ancient Greek religion.
Immortals
The Greeks created images of their deities for many purposes. A temple would house th ...
in either some type of celestial "heaven" cognate from which they ruled the
Universe
The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. ...
(if not on a literal Mount Olympus) and his philosophy promulgated
atomism
Atomism (from Greek , ''atomon'', i.e. "uncuttable, indivisible") is a natural philosophy proposing that the physical universe is composed of fundamental indivisible components known as atoms.
References to the concept of atomism and its atoms ...
, while
Platonism
Platonism is the philosophy of Plato and philosophical systems closely derived from it, though contemporary platonists do not necessarily accept all of the doctrines of Plato. Platonism had a profound effect on Western thought. Platonism at l ...
taught roughly the opposite, despite Plato's teaching of
Zeus
Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label= genitive Boeotian Aeolic and Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label= genitive el, Δίας, ''Días'' () is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek reli ...
as
God
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
.
Overview
![La Mettrie, L'homme machine, 1748 Wellcome L0015753](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/La_Mettrie%2C_L%27homme_machine%2C_1748_Wellcome_L0015753.jpg)
Materialism belongs to the class of
monist ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exi ...
, and is thus different from ontological theories based on
dualism or
pluralism. For singular explanations of the phenomenal reality, materialism would be in contrast to
idealism
In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected t ...
,
neutral monism
Neutral monism is an umbrella term for a class of metaphysical theories in the philosophy of mind. These theories reject the dichotomy of mind and matter, believing the fundamental nature of reality to be neither mental nor physical; in other words ...
, and
spiritualism
Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and Mind-body dualism, dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century, Spiritualism (w ...
. It can also contrast with
phenomenalism
In metaphysics, phenomenalism is the view that physical objects cannot justifiably be said to exist in themselves, but only as perceptual phenomena or sensory stimuli (e.g. redness, hardness, softness, sweetness, etc.) situated in time and in ...
,
vitalism
Vitalism is a belief that starts from the premise that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things." Wher ...
, and
dual-aspect monism
:
In the philosophy of mind, double-aspect theory is the view that the mental and the physical are two aspects of, or perspectives on, the same substance. It is also called dual-aspect monism, not to be confused with mind–body dualism. The theo ...
. Its materiality can, in some ways, be linked to the concept of
determinism, as espoused by
Enlightenment thinkers.
Despite the large number of philosophical schools and subtle nuances between many,
[. . (Originally published in 8 volumes.)][. .] all philosophies are said to fall into one of two primary categories, defined in contrast to each other: ''idealism'' and ''materialism''. The basic proposition of these two categories pertains to the nature of reality—the primary distinction between them is the way they answer two fundamental questions: what reality consists of, and how it originated. To idealists, spirit or mind or the objects of mind (''ideas'') are primary, and matter secondary. To materialists, matter is primary, and mind or spirit or ideas are secondary—the product of matter acting upon matter.
[
The materialist view is perhaps best understood in its opposition to the doctrines of immaterial substance applied to the mind historically by ]René Descartes
René Descartes ( or ; ; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Ma ...
; however, by itself materialism says nothing about how material substance should be characterized. In practice, it is frequently assimilated to one variety of physicalism or another.
Modern philosophical materialists extend the definition of other scientifically observable entities such as energy
In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of hea ...
, forces and the curvature of space
In mathematics, curvature is any of several strongly related concepts in geometry. Intuitively, the curvature is the amount by which a curve deviates from being a straight line, or a Surface (mathematics), surface deviates from being a plane (g ...
; however, philosophers such as Mary Midgley
Mary Beatrice Midgley (' Scrutton; 13 September 1919 – 10 October 2018) was a British philosopher. A senior lecturer in philosophy at Newcastle University, she was known for her work on science, ethics and animal rights. She wrote her first b ...
suggest that the concept of "matter" is elusive and poorly defined.
During the 19th century, Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
and Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ,["Engels"](_blank)
'' materialist conception of history
Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...
'' centered on the roughly empirical world of human activity (practice, including labor) and the institutions created, reproduced or destroyed by that activity. They also developed dialectical materialism, by taking Hegelian dialectics
Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing ...
, stripping them of their idealist aspects, and fusing them with materialism (see Modern philosophy
Modern philosophy is philosophy developed in the modern era and associated with modernity. It is not a specific doctrine or school (and thus should not be confused with ''Modernism''), although there are certain assumptions common to much of i ...
).
Non-reductive materialism
Materialism is often associated with reductionism, according to which the objects or phenomena individuated at one level of description, if they are genuine, must be explicable in terms of the objects or phenomena at some other level of description—typically, at a more reduced level.
Non-reductive materialism explicitly rejects this notion, however, taking the material constitution of all particulars to be consistent with the existence of real objects, properties or phenomena not explicable in the terms canonically used for the basic material constituents. Jerry Fodor
Jerry Alan Fodor (; April 22, 1935 – November 29, 2017) was an American philosopher and the author of many crucial works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. His writings in these fields laid the groundwork for the modul ...
argues this view, according to which empirical laws and explanations in "special sciences" like psychology or geology are invisible from the perspective of basic physics.
Early history
Before Common Era
Materialism developed, possibly independently, in several geographically separated regions of Eurasia
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago ...
during what Karl Jaspers
Karl Theodor Jaspers (, ; 23 February 1883 – 26 February 1969) was a German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry, and philosophy. After being trained in and practicing psychiatry, Jaspe ...
termed the Axial Age
Axial Age (also Axis Age, from german: Achsenzeit) is a term coined by German philosopher Karl Jaspers. It refers to broad changes in religious and philosophical thought that occurred in a variety of locations from about the 8th to the 3rd centu ...
( 800–200 BC).
In ancient Indian philosophy
This page lists some links to ancient philosophy, namely philosophical thought extending as far as early post-classical history ().
Overview
Genuine philosophical thought, depending upon original individual insights, arose in many cultures ...
, materialism developed around 600 BC with the works of Ajita Kesakambali Ajita Kesakambali ( sa, अजित केशकंबली; ) was an ancient Indian philosopher in the 6th century BC. He is considered to be the first known proponent of Indian materialism, and forerunner to the Charvaka school. He was probably ...
, Payasi Pāyāsi or Paesi is a legendary king mentioned in the ancient Buddhist and Jain texts of India. In these legends, he appears as a materialist who orders several experiments to conclude that the soul does not exist. A Jain or Buddhist monk proves h ...
, Kanada Kanada may refer to:
*Kanada (philosopher), the Hindu sage who founded the philosophy of Vaisheshika
*Kanada (family of ragas), a group of ragas in Hindustani music
*Kanada (surname)
*Kanada Station, train station in Fukuoka, Japan
*Kannada, one of ...
and the proponents of the Cārvāka school of philosophy. Kanada became one of the early proponents of atomism
Atomism (from Greek , ''atomon'', i.e. "uncuttable, indivisible") is a natural philosophy proposing that the physical universe is composed of fundamental indivisible components known as atoms.
References to the concept of atomism and its atoms ...
. The Nyaya–Vaisesika
Vaisheshika or Vaiśeṣika ( sa, वैशेषिक) is one of the six schools of Indian philosophy (Vedic systems) from ancient India. In its early stages, the Vaiśeṣika was an independent philosophy with its own metaphysics, epistemolog ...
school (c. 600–100 BC) developed one of the earliest forms of atomism (although their proofs of God and their positing that consciousness was not material precludes labelling them as materialists). Buddhist atomism
Buddhist atomism is a school of atomistic Buddhist philosophy that flourished on the Indian subcontinent during two major periods. During the first phase, which began to develop prior to the 6th century CE,Reginald Ray (1999), Buddhist Saints in ...
and the Jaina
JAINA is an acronym for the Federation of Jain Associations in North America, an umbrella organizations to preserve, practice, and promote Jainism in USA and Canada. It was founded in 1981 and formalized in 1983. Among Jain organization it is ...
school continued the atomic tradition.
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...
atomists
Atomism (from Greek , ''atomon'', i.e. "uncuttable, indivisible") is a natural philosophy proposing that the physical universe is composed of fundamental indivisible components known as atoms.
References to the concept of atomism and its atoms a ...
like Leucippus
Leucippus (; el, Λεύκιππος, ''Leúkippos''; fl. 5th century BCE) is a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who has been credited as the first philosopher to develop a theory of atomism.
Leucippus' reputation, even in antiquity, was obscured ...
, Democritus
Democritus (; el, Δημόκριτος, ''Dēmókritos'', meaning "chosen of the people"; – ) was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from Abdera, primarily remembered today for his formulation of an atomic theory of the universe. No ...
and Epicurus prefigure later materialists. The Latin poem '' De Rerum Natura'' by Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into En ...
(99 – c. 55 BC) reflects the mechanistic
The mechanical philosophy is a form of natural philosophy which compares the universe to a large-scale mechanism (i.e. a machine). The mechanical philosophy is associated with the scientific revolution of early modern Europe. One of the first expo ...
philosophy of Democritus and Epicurus. According to this view, all that exists is matter and void, and all phenomena result from different motions and conglomerations of base material particles called ''atoms'' (literally 'indivisibles'). ''De Rerum Natura'' provides mechanistic explanations for phenomena such as erosion, evaporation, wind, and sound. Famous principles like "nothing can touch body but body" first appeared in the works of Lucretius. Democritus and Epicurus, however, did not hold to a monist ontology since they held to the ontological separation of matter and space (i.e. space being "another kind" of being) indicating that the definition of ''materialism'' is wider than the given scope of this article.
Early Common Era
Wang Chong
Wang Chong (; 27 – c. 97 AD), courtesy name Zhongren (仲任), was a Chinese astronomer, meteorologist, naturalist, philosopher, and writer active during the Han Dynasty. He developed a rational, secular, naturalistic and mechanistic account ...
(27 – c. 100 AD) was a Chinese thinker of the early Common Era
Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the o ...
said to be a materialist. Later Indian materialist Jayaraashi Bhatta (6th century) in his work ''Tattvopaplavasimha'' ('The upsetting of all principles') refuted the Nyāya Sūtra epistemology. The materialistic Cārvāka philosophy appears to have died out some time after 1400; when Madhavacharya compiled ''Sarva-darśana-samgraha'' ('a digest of all philosophies') in the 14th century, he had no Cārvāka (or Lokāyata) text to quote from or refer to.
In early 12th-century al-Andalus
Al-Andalus translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label= Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, al-Ándalus () was the M ...
, Arabian philosopher Ibn Tufail
Ibn Ṭufail (full Arabic name: ; Latinized form: ''Abubacer Aben Tofail''; Anglicized form: ''Abubekar'' or ''Abu Jaafar Ebn Tophail''; c. 1105 – 1185) was an Arab Andalusian Muslim polymath: a writer, Islamic philosopher, Islamic the ...
( Abubacer) wrote discussions on materialism in his philosophical novel
Philosophical fiction refers to the class of works of fiction which devote a significant portion of their content to the sort of questions normally addressed in philosophy. These might explore any facet of the human condition, including the funct ...
, ''Hayy ibn Yaqdhan
''Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān'' () is an Arabic philosophical novel and an allegorical tale written by Ibn Tufail (c. 1105 – 1185) in the early 12th century in Al-Andalus. Names by which the book is also known include the ('The Self-Taught Philosop ...
'' (''Philosophus Autodidactus''), while vaguely foreshadowing the idea of a historical materialism
Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...
.[Urvoy, Dominique. 1996. "The Rationality of Everyday Life: The Andalusian Tradition? (Aropos of Hayy's First Experiences)." pp. 38–46 in ''The World of Ibn Tufayl: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān'', edited by L. I. Conrad. Brill Publishers, .]
Modern philosophy
Thomas Hobbes
Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5/15 April 1588 – 4/14 December 1679) was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influ ...
(1588–1679)[Thomas Hobbes (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)]
/ref> and Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi (; also Pierre Gassend, Petrus Gassendi; 22 January 1592 – 24 October 1655) was a French philosopher, Catholic priest, astronomer, and mathematician. While he held a church position in south-east France, he also spent much t ...
(1592–1665) represented the materialist tradition in opposition to the attempts of René Descartes
René Descartes ( or ; ; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Ma ...
(1596–1650) to provide the natural sciences
Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...
with dualist foundations. There followed the materialist and atheist ''abbé'' Jean Meslier
Jean Meslier (; also Mellier; 15 June 1664 – 17 June 1729) was a French Catholic priest (abbé) who was discovered, upon his death, to have written a book-length philosophical essay promoting atheism and materialism. Described by the author as ...
(1664–1729), along with the works of the French materialists
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with France ...
: Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Julien Offray de La Mettrie (; November 23, 1709 – November 11, 1751) was a French physician and philosopher, and one of the earliest of the French materialism, French materialists of the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment. He is best known fo ...
, German-French Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789), Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the '' Encyclopédie'' along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a promi ...
(1713–1784), and other French Enlightenment thinkers. In England, John "Walking" Stewart
John "Walking" Stewart (19 February 1747 – 20 February 1822) was an English philosopher and traveller. Stewart developed a unique system of materialistic pantheism.Fairer, David. (2009). ''Organising Poetry: The Coleridge Circle, 1790-1 ...
(1747–1822) insisted on seeing matter as endowed with a moral dimension, which had a major impact on the philosophical poetry of William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication '' Lyrical Ballads'' (1798).
Wordsworth's ' ...
(1770–1850).
In late modern philosophy
Western philosophy encompasses the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics. The word ...
, German atheist anthropologist Ludwig Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach (; 28 July 1804 – 13 September 1872) was a German anthropologist and philosopher, best known for his book '' The Essence of Christianity'', which provided a critique of Christianity that strongly influenced gene ...
would signal a new turn in materialism through his book ''The Essence of Christianity
''The Essence of Christianity'' (german: Das Wesen des Christentums; historical orthography: ''Das Weſen des Chriſtenthums'') is a book by Ludwig Feuerbach first published in 1841. It explains Feuerbach's philosophy and critique of religion.
...
'' (1841), which presented a humanist
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "human ...
account of religion as the outward projection of man's inward nature. Feuerbach introduced anthropological materialism, a version of materialism that views materialist anthropology as the universal science Universal science (german: Universalwissenschaft; la, scientia generalis, scientia universalis) is a branch of metaphysics. In the work of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the universal science is the true logic.Stanley Burris"Leibniz's Influence on 19th ...
.
Feuerbach's variety of materialism would go on to heavily influence Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
, who in the late 19th century elaborated the concept of historical materialism
Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...
—the basis for what Marx and Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ,["Engels"](_blank)
'' scientific socialism
Scientific socialism is a term coined in 1840 by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in his book '' What is Property?'' to mean a society ruled by a scientific government, i.e., one whose sovereignty rests upon reason, rather than sheer will: Thus, in a given ...
'':
Through his ''Dialectics of Nature
''Dialectics of Nature'' (german: Dialektik der Natur) is an unfinished 1883 work by Friedrich Engels that applies Marxist ideas – particularly those of dialectical materialism – to nature.
History and contents
Engels wrote most ...
'' (1883), Engels later developed a "materialist dialectic" philosophy of nature
Nature has two inter-related meanings in philosophy and natural philosophy. On the one hand, it means the set of all things which are natural, or subject to the normal working of the laws of nature. On the other hand, it means the essential prope ...
; a worldview that would be given the title '' dialectical materialism'' by Georgi Plekhanov, the father of Russian Marxism
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...
. In early 20th-century Russian philosophy, Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
further developed dialectical materialism in his book ''Materialism and Empirio-criticism
''Materialism and Empirio-criticism'' ( Russian: ''Материализм и эмпириокритицизм, Materializm i empiriokrititsizm'') is a philosophical work by Vladimir Lenin, published in 1909. It was an obligatory subject of study ...
'' (1909), which connected the political conceptions put forth by his opponents to their anti-materialist philosophies.
A more naturalist-oriented materialist school of thought that developed in the middle of the 19th century was German materialism, which included Ludwig Büchner
Friedrich Karl Christian Ludwig Büchner (29 March 1824 – 30 April 1899) was a German philosopher, physiologist and physician who became one of the exponents of 19th-century scientific materialism.
Biography
Büchner was born at Darmstadt on ...
(1824–99), the Dutch-born Jacob Moleschott
Jacob Moleschott (9 August 1822 – 20 May 1893) was a Dutch physiologist and writer on dietetics. He is known for his philosophical views in regard to scientific materialism. He was a member of German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (since 1884).
...
(1822–93) and Carl Vogt
August Christoph Carl Vogt (; 5 July 18175 May 1895) was a German scientist, philosopher, popularizer of science, and politician who emigrated to Switzerland. Vogt published a number of notable works on zoology, geology and physiology. All his ...
(1817–95), even though they had different views on core issues such as the evolution and the origins of life in nature.
Contemporary history
Analytic philosophy
Contemporary analytic philosopher
Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United ...
s (e.g. Daniel Dennett, Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine (; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century" ...
, Donald Davidson, and Jerry Fodor
Jerry Alan Fodor (; April 22, 1935 – November 29, 2017) was an American philosopher and the author of many crucial works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. His writings in these fields laid the groundwork for the modul ...
) operate within a broadly physicalist or scientific materialist
Metaphysical naturalism (also called ontological naturalism, philosophical naturalism and antisupernaturalism) is a philosophical worldview which holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by ...
framework, producing rival accounts of how best to accommodate the mind, including functionalism, anomalous monism, identity theory, and so on.[Ramsey, William. ]003 003, O03, 0O3, OO3 may refer to:
*003, fictional British 00 Agent
*003, former emergency telephone number for the Norwegian ambulance service (until 1986)
*1990 OO3, the asteroid 6131 Towen
* OO3 gauge model railway
*''O03 (O2)'' and other related ...
2019.
Eliminative Materialism § Specific Problems With Folk Psychology
(rev.). '' Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''.
Scientific materialism is often synonymous with, and has typically been described as being, a reductive materialism
Type physicalism (also known as reductive materialism, type identity theory, mind–brain identity theory and identity theory of mind) is a physicalist theory in the philosophy of mind. It asserts that mental events can be grouped into types, a ...
. In the early 21st century, Paul
Paul may refer to:
*Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
* Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
*Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...
and Patricia Churchland
Patricia Smith Churchland (born 16 July 1943) is a Canadian-American analytic philosopher noted for her contributions to neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. She is UC President's Professor of Philosophy Emerita at the University of Cali ...
advocated a radically contrasting position (at least, in regards to certain hypotheses): eliminative materialism
Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism) is a materialist position in the philosophy of mind. It is the idea that majority of the mental states in folk psychology do not exist. Some supporters of eliminativism argue that no coherent ...
. Eliminative materialism holds that some mental phenomena simply do not exist at all, and that talk of those mental phenomena reflects a totally spurious "folk psychology
In philosophy of mind and cognitive science, folk psychology, or commonsense psychology, is a human capacity to explain and predict the behavior and mental state of other people. Processes and items encountered in daily life such as pain, pleasure ...
" and introspection illusion
The introspection illusion is a cognitive bias in which people wrongly think they have direct insight into the origins of their mental states, while treating others' introspections as unreliable. The illusion has been examined in psychological ex ...
. A materialist of this variety might believe that a concept like "belief" simply has no basis in fact (e.g. the way folk science speaks of demon-caused illnesses).
With reductive materialism being at one end of a continuum (our theories will ''reduce'' to facts) and eliminative materialism on the other (certain theories will need to be ''eliminated'' in light of new facts), revisionary materialism
Revisionary materialism is the view that falls between eliminative materialism and reductive materialism when it comes to a particular psychological phenomenon.
Take, for example, debates over the reality of a psychological concept like "demonol ...
is somewhere in the middle.
Continental philosophy
Contemporary continental philosopher
Continental philosophy is a term used to describe some philosophers and philosophical traditions that do not fall under the umbrella of analytic philosophy. However, there is no academic consensus on the definition of continental philosophy. Prio ...
Gilles Deleuze has attempted to rework and strengthen classical materialist ideas. Contemporary theorists such as Manuel DeLanda
Manuel DeLanda (born 1952) is a Mexican- American writer, artist and philosopher who has lived in New York since 1975. He is a lecturer in architecture at the Princeton University School of Architecture and the University of Pennsylvania School ...
, working with this reinvigorated materialism, have come to be classified as ''new materialist'' in persuasion. New materialism has now become its own specialized subfield of knowledge, with courses being offered on the topic at major universities, as well as numerous conferences, edited collections and monographs devoted to it.
Jane Bennett's book ''Vibrant Matter'' (2010) has been particularly instrumental in bringing theories of monist ontology and vitalism
Vitalism is a belief that starts from the premise that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things." Wher ...
back into a critical theoretical fold dominated by poststructuralist
Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critique ...
theories of language and discourse. Scholars such as Mel Y. Chen Mel Y. Chen is an academic whose scholarship intersects many fields, including queer theory, gender studies, animal studies, critical race theory, Asian American studies, disability studies, science studies, and critical linguistics. Chen (who us ...
and Zakiyyah Iman Jackson, however, have critiqued this body of new materialist literature for its neglect in considering the materiality of race and gender in particular.
Métis scholar Zoe Todd
Zoe Todd is a Métis anthropologist and scholar of Indigenous studies, Animal studies, human-animal studies, science and technology studies and the Anthropocene. She is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carl ...
, as well as Mohawk Mohawk may refer to:
Related to Native Americans
* Mohawk people, an indigenous people of North America (Canada and New York)
*Mohawk language, the language spoken by the Mohawk people
* Mohawk hairstyle, from a hairstyle once thought to have been ...
(Bear Clan, Six Nations) and Anishinaabe
The Anishinaabeg (adjectival: Anishinaabe) are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples present in the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. They include the Ojibwe (including Saulteaux and Oji-Cree), Odawa, Potawat ...
scholar Vanessa Watts, query the colonial orientation of the race for a "new" materialism. Watts in particular describes the tendency to regard matter as a subject of feminist or philosophical care as a tendency that is too invested in the reanimation of a Eurocentric
Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism)
is a worldview that is centered on Western civilization or a biased view that favors it over non-Western civilizations. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western worl ...
tradition of inquiry at the expense of an Indigenous ethic of responsibility. Other scholars, such as Helene Vosters, echo their concerns and have questioned whether there is anything particularly "new" about this so-called "new materialism," as Indigenous and other animist ontologies have attested to what might be called the "vibrancy of matter" for centuries. Other scholars such as Thomas Nail
Thomas Nail is a Professor of Philosophy at The University of Denver.
Biography
Nail received a B.A in philosophy from the University of North Texas, and a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon. His dissertation was on the theme of political r ...
have critiqued "vitalist" versions of new materialism for its depoliticizing "flat ontology" and for being ahistorical in nature.
Quentin Meillassoux
Quentin Meillassoux (; ; born
26 October 1967) is a French philosopher. He teaches at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
Biography
Quentin Meillassoux is the son of the anthropologist Claude Meillassoux. He is a former student of ...
proposed ''speculative materialism'', a post-Kantian
German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and was closely linked both with Romanticism and the revolutionar ...
return to David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment phil ...
which is also based on materialist ideas.
Defining 'matter'
The nature and definition of ''matter''—like other key concepts in science and philosophy—have occasioned much debate:
* If there is a single kind of matter ('' hyle'') that everything is made of, or multiple kinds
* If matter is a continuous substance capable of expressing multiple forms (''hylomorphism
Hylomorphism (also hylemorphism) is a philosophical theory developed by Aristotle, which conceives every physical entity or being (''ousia'') as a compound of matter (potency) and immaterial form (act), with the generic form as immanently real ...
'') or a number of discrete, unchanging constituents (atomism
Atomism (from Greek , ''atomon'', i.e. "uncuttable, indivisible") is a natural philosophy proposing that the physical universe is composed of fundamental indivisible components known as atoms.
References to the concept of atomism and its atoms ...
)?
* If it has intrinsic properties ('' substance theory'') or lacks them ('' prima materia'')
One challenge to the conventional concept of matter as tangible "stuff" came with the rise of field physics
In physics, a field is a physical quantity, represented by a scalar (mathematics), scalar, vector (mathematics and physics), vector, or tensor, that has a value for each Point (geometry), point in Spacetime, space and time. For example, on a weat ...
in the 19th century. Relativity shows that matter and energy (including the spatially distributed energy of fields) are interchangeable. This enables the ontological view that energy is prima materia and matter is one of its forms. In contrast, the Standard Model of particle physics uses quantum field theory to describe all interactions. On this view it could be said that fields are ''prima materia'' and the energy is a property of the field.
According to the dominant cosmological model, the Lambda-CDM model
The ΛCDM (Lambda cold dark matter) or Lambda-CDM model is a parameterization of the Big Bang cosmological model in which the universe contains three major components: first, a cosmological constant denoted by Lambda (Greek Λ) associated with ...
, less than 5% of the universe's energy density is made up of the "matter" described by the Standard Model, and the majority of the universe is composed of dark matter
Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not a ...
and dark energy
In physical cosmology and astronomy, dark energy is an unknown form of energy that affects the universe on the largest scales. The first observational evidence for its existence came from measurements of supernovas, which showed that the univ ...
, with little agreement among scientists about what these are made of.
With the advent of quantum physics, some scientists believed the concept of matter had merely changed, while others believed the conventional position could no longer be maintained. For instance Werner Heisenberg
Werner Karl Heisenberg () (5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist and one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics. He published his work in 1925 in a breakthrough paper. In the subsequent serie ...
said, "The ontology of materialism rested upon the illusion that the kind of existence, the direct 'actuality' of the world around us, can be extrapolated into the atomic range. This extrapolation, however, is impossible…atoms are not things."
The concept of matter has changed in response to new scientific discoveries. Thus materialism has no definite content independent of the particular theory of matter on which it is based. According to Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...
, any property
Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, r ...
can be considered material, if one defines matter such that it has that property.Chomsky, Noam
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
. 2000. ''New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind''
In the philosophical materialism G. Bueno redefines the term ''matter'' for philosophy and defines a more precise term than ''matter'', the ''stroma''
Physicalism
George Stack distinguishes between materialism and physicalism:
However, not all conceptions of physicalism are tied to verificationist theories of meaning or direct realist accounts of perception. Rather, physicalists believe that no "element of reality" is missing from the mathematical formalism of our best description of the world. "Materialist" physicalists also believe that the formalism describes fields of insentience. In other words, the intrinsic nature of the physical is non-experiential.
Religious and spiritual views
Christianity
Hinduism and
Transcendental Club The Transcendental Club was a group of New England authors, philosophers, socialists, politicians and intellectuals of the early-to-mid-19th century which gave rise to Transcendentalism.
Overview
Frederic Henry Hedge, Ralph Waldo Emerson, George ...
Most of Hinduism
Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...
and transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in New England. "Transcendentalism is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Wald ...
regard all matter as an illusion, or ''maya'', blinding humans from knowing the truth. Transcendental experiences like the perception of Brahman
In Hinduism, ''Brahman'' ( sa, ब्रह्मन्) connotes the highest universal principle, the ultimate reality in the universe.P. T. Raju (2006), ''Idealistic Thought of India'', Routledge, , page 426 and Conclusion chapter part X ...
are considered to destroy the illusion.[mahavidya.ca](_blank)
/ref>
Criticism and alternatives
From contemporary physicists
Rudolf Peierls
Sir Rudolf Ernst Peierls, (; ; 5 June 1907 – 19 September 1995) was a German-born British physicist who played a major role in Tube Alloys, Britain's nuclear weapon programme, as well as the subsequent Manhattan Project, the combined Allie ...
, a physicist who played a major role in the Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
, rejected materialism: "The premise that you can describe in terms of physics the whole function of a human being... including knowledge and consciousness, is untenable. There is still something missing."
Erwin Schrödinger
Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger (, ; ; 12 August 1887 – 4 January 1961), sometimes written as or , was a Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist with Irish citizenship who developed a number of fundamental results in quantum theo ...
said, "Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else."
Werner Heisenberg
Werner Karl Heisenberg () (5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist and one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics. He published his work in 1925 in a breakthrough paper. In the subsequent serie ...
, who came up with the uncertainty principle
In quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle (also known as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the accuracy with which the values for certain pairs of physic ...
, wrote, "The ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exi ...
of materialism rested upon the illusion that the kind of existence, the direct 'actuality' of the world around us, can be extrapolated into the atomic range. This extrapolation, however, is impossible... Atoms are not things."
Quantum mechanics
Some 20th-century physicists (e.g., Eugene Wigner
Eugene Paul "E. P." Wigner ( hu, Wigner Jenő Pál, ; November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who also contributed to mathematical physics. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his co ...
and Henry Stapp
Henry Pierce Stapp (born March 23, 1928 in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American mathematical physicist, known for his work in quantum mechanics, particularly the development of axiomatic S-matrix theory, the proofs of strong nonlocality properties, an ...
), as well as modern day physicists and science writers (e.g., Stephen Barr
__NOTOC__
Stephen Matthew Barr (born November 28, 1953) is an American physicist who is a professor emeritus of physics at the University of Delaware. A member of its Bartol Research Institute, Barr does research in theoretical particle physics a ...
, Paul Davies
Paul Charles William Davies (born 22 April 1946) is an English physicist, writer and broadcaster, a professor in Arizona State University and Director of BEYOND: Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. He is affiliated with the Institute ...
, and John Gribbin
John R. Gribbin (born 19 March 1946) is a British science writer, an astrophysicist, and a visiting fellow in astronomy at the University of Sussex. His writings include quantum physics, human evolution, climate change, global warming, the orig ...
) have argued that materialism is flawed due to certain recent scientific findings in physics, such as quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistr ...
and chaos theory. According to Gribbin and Davies (1991):
Digital physics
The objections of Davies and Gribbin are shared by proponents of digital physics
Digital physics is a speculative idea that the universe can be conceived of as a vast, digital computation device, or as the output of a deterministic or probabilistic computer program. The hypothesis that the universe is a digital computer was p ...
who view information rather than matter to be fundamental. Famous physicist and proponent of digital physics John Archibald Wheeler
John Archibald Wheeler (July 9, 1911April 13, 2008) was an American theoretical physicist. He was largely responsible for reviving interest in general relativity in the United States after World War II. Wheeler also worked with Niels Bohr in ...
wrote, "all matter and all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe
John Archibald Wheeler (July 9, 1911April 13, 2008) was an American theoretical physicist. He was largely responsible for reviving interest in general relativity in the United States after World War II. Wheeler also worked with Niels Bohr in e ...
." Their objections were also shared by some founders of quantum theory, such as Max Planck
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (, ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
Planck made many substantial contributions to theoretical p ...
, who wrote:
James Jeans
Sir James Hopwood Jeans (11 September 187716 September 1946) was an English physicist, astronomer and mathematician.
Early life
Born in Ormskirk, Lancashire, the son of William Tulloch Jeans, a parliamentary correspondent and author. Jeans was ...
concurred with Planck saying, "The Universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter."
Philosophical objections
In the '' Critique of Pure Reason'', Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
argued against materialism in defending his transcendental idealism
Transcendental idealism is a philosophical system founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. Kant's epistemological program is found throughout his '' Critique of Pure Reason'' (1781). By ''transcendental'' (a term that dese ...
(as well as offering arguments against subjective idealism and mind–body dualism
In the philosophy of mind, mind–body dualism denotes either the view that mental phenomena are non-physical, Hart, W. D. 1996. "Dualism." pp. 265–267 in ''A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind'', edited by S. Guttenplan. Oxford: Blackwell. ...
). However, Kant with his refutation of idealism, argues that change and time require an enduring substrate.
Postmodern/poststructuralist
Post-structuralism is a term for philosophical and literary forms of theory that both build upon and reject ideas established by structuralism, the intellectual project that preceded it. Though post-structuralists all present different critique ...
thinkers also express a skepticism about any all-encompassing metaphysical scheme. Philosopher Mary Midgley
Mary Beatrice Midgley (' Scrutton; 13 September 1919 – 10 October 2018) was a British philosopher. A senior lecturer in philosophy at Newcastle University, she was known for her work on science, ethics and animal rights. She wrote her first b ...
argues that materialism is a self-refuting idea
A self-refuting idea or self-defeating idea is an idea or statement whose falsehood is a logical consequence of the act or situation of holding them to be true. Many ideas are called self-refuting by their detractors, and such accusations are ther ...
, at least in its eliminative materialist form.
Varieties of idealism
Arguments for idealism
In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected t ...
, such as those of Hegel and Berkeley
Berkeley most often refers to:
*Berkeley, California, a city in the United States
**University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California
* George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher
Berkeley may also refer ...
, often take the form of an argument against materialism; indeed, the idealism of Berkeley was called ''immaterialism
Subjective idealism, or empirical idealism, is a form of philosophical monism that holds that only minds and mental contents exist. It entails and is generally identified or associated with immaterialism, the doctrine that material things do no ...
''. Now, matter can be argued to be redundant, as in bundle theory, and mind-independent properties can, in turn, be reduced to subjective percept
Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...
s. Berkeley presents an example of the latter by pointing out that it is impossible to gather direct evidence of matter, as there is no direct experience of matter; all that is experienced is perception, whether internal or external. As such, the existence of matter can only be assumed from the apparent (perceived) stability of perceptions; it finds absolutely no evidence in direct experience.
If matter and energy are seen as necessary to explain the physical world, but incapable of explaining mind, dualism results. Emergence, holism and process philosophy
Process philosophy, also ontology of becoming, or processism, is an approach to philosophy that identifies processes, changes, or shifting relationships as the only true elements of the ordinary, everyday real world. In opposition to the classi ...
seek to ameliorate the perceived shortcomings of traditional (especially mechanistic
The mechanical philosophy is a form of natural philosophy which compares the universe to a large-scale mechanism (i.e. a machine). The mechanical philosophy is associated with the scientific revolution of early modern Europe. One of the first expo ...
) materialism without abandoning materialism entirely.
Materialism as methodology
Some critics object to materialism as part of an overly skeptical, narrow or reductivist approach to theorizing, rather than to the ontological claim that matter is the only substance. Particle physicist and Anglican theologian
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
John Polkinghorne objects to what he calls ''promissory materialism''—claims that materialistic science ''will'' eventually succeed in explaining phenomena it has not so far been able to explain. Polkinghorne prefers "dual-aspect monism
:
In the philosophy of mind, double-aspect theory is the view that the mental and the physical are two aspects of, or perspectives on, the same substance. It is also called dual-aspect monism, not to be confused with mind–body dualism. The theo ...
" to materialism.
Some scientific materialists have been criticized for failing to provide clear definitions for what constitutes matter, leaving the term ''materialism'' without any definite meaning. Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...
states that since the concept of matter may be affected by new scientific discoveries, as has happened in the past, scientific materialists are being dogmatic in assuming the opposite.
See also
* Aleatory materialism
* Antimaterialism
In philosophy, antimaterialism is any of several metaphysical or religious beliefs that are specifically opposed to materialism, the notion that only matter exists. These beliefs include:
*Immaterialism, a philosophy branching from George Berk ...
beliefs:
**Gnosticism
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...
**Idealism
In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected t ...
**Immaterialism
Subjective idealism, or empirical idealism, is a form of philosophical monism that holds that only minds and mental contents exist. It entails and is generally identified or associated with immaterialism, the doctrine that material things do no ...
**Maya (religion)
''Maya'' (; Devanagari: , IAST: ), literally "illusion" or "magic", has multiple meanings in Indian philosophies depending on the context. In later Vedic texts, connotes a "magic show, an illusion where things appear to be present but are not ...
**Mind–body dualism
In the philosophy of mind, mind–body dualism denotes either the view that mental phenomena are non-physical, Hart, W. D. 1996. "Dualism." pp. 265–267 in ''A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind'', edited by S. Guttenplan. Oxford: Blackwell. ...
**Platonic realism
Platonic realism is the philosophical position that universals or abstract objects exist objectively and outside of human minds. It is named after the Greek philosopher Plato who applied realism to such universals, which he considered ideal ...
** Supernaturalism
**Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the late 1820s and 1830s in New England. "Transcendentalism is an American literary, political, and philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century, centered around Ralph Wald ...
* Cārvāka
* Christian materialism
Some Christian theologians embrace a holistic combination of Christian theology with ''some'' ideas of (ontological) materialism, a belief that matter is a fundamental substance of the world and that mental phenomena result from matter.
Historica ...
* Critical realism
* Cultural materialism
* Dialectical materialism
* Economic materialism
Materialism can be described as either a personal attitude which attaches importance to acquiring and consuming material goods or as a logistical analysis of how physical resources are shaped into consumable products.
The use of the term materia ...
* Existence
Existence is the ability of an entity to interact with reality. In philosophy, it refers to the ontological property of being.
Etymology
The term ''existence'' comes from Old French ''existence'', from Medieval Latin ''existentia/exsistentia' ...
* French materialism French materialism is the name given to a handful of French 18th-century philosophers during the Age of Enlightenment, many of them clustered around the salon of Baron d'Holbach. Although there are important differences between them, all of them we ...
* Grotesque body The grotesque body is a concept, or literary trope, put forward by Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin in his study of François Rabelais' work. The essential principle of grotesque realism is degradation, the lowering of all that is abstract, ...
* Historical materialism
Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...
* Hyle
* Incorporeality
Incorporeality is "the state or quality of being incorporeal or bodiless; immateriality; incorporealism." Incorporeal (Greek: ἀσώματος) means "Not composed of matter; having no material existence."
Incorporeality is a quality of souls, ...
* Madhyamaka
Mādhyamaka ("middle way" or "centrism"; ; Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ ; ''dbu ma pa''), otherwise known as Śūnyavāda ("the emptiness doctrine") and Niḥsvabhāvavāda ("the no ''svabhāva'' doctrine"), refers to a tradition of Buddhi ...
, a philosophy of Middle Way
* Marxist philosophy of nature
* Materialist feminism
Materialist feminism highlights capitalism and patriarchy as a central aspect in understanding women's oppression. It focuses on the material, or physical, aspects that define oppression. Under materialist feminism, gender is seen as a social con ...
* Metaphysical naturalism
* Model-dependent realism Model-dependent realism is a view of scientific inquiry that focuses on the role of scientific models of phenomena. It claims reality should be interpreted based upon these models, and where several models overlap in describing a particular subject, ...
* Naturalism (philosophy)
In philosophy, naturalism is the idea or belief that only natural laws and forces (as opposed to supernatural ones) operate in the universe.
According to philosopher Steven Lockwood, naturalism can be separated into an ontological sense and a ...
* Philosophical materialism
* Philosophy of mind
Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are add ...
* Physical ontology
In philosophy, physicalism is the metaphysical thesis that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical, or that everything supervenes on the physical. Physicalism is a form of ontological monism—a "one substa ...
* Postmaterialism
In sociology, postmaterialism is the transformation of individual values from materialist, physical, and economic to new individual values of autonomy and self-expression.
The term was popularized by the political scientist Ronald Inglehart in ...
* Quantum energy
A quantum mechanical system or particle that is bound—that is, confined spatially—can only take on certain discrete values of energy, called energy levels. This contrasts with classical particles, which can have any amount of energy. The te ...
* Rational egoism
Rational egoism (also called rational selfishness) is the principle that an action is rational if and only if it maximizes one's self-interest.Baier (1990), p. 201; Gert (1998), p. 69; Shaver (2002), §3; Moseley (2006), §2. As such, it is consi ...
* Reality in Buddhism
Reality in Buddhism is called ''dharma'' (Sanskrit) or ''dhamma'' (Pali). This word, which is foundational to the conceptual frameworks of the Indian religions, refers in Buddhism to the system of natural laws which constitute the natural order ...
* Scientistic materialism
Scientistic materialism is a term used mainly by proponents of creationism and intelligent design to describe scientists who have a materialist worldview. The stance has been attributed to philosopher George Santayana.
History
The " Wedge Docume ...
* Substance theory
* Transcendence (religion)
In religion, transcendence is the aspect of a deity's nature and power that is completely independent of the material universe, beyond all known physical laws. This is contrasted with immanence, where a god is said to be fully present in th ...
Notes
a. Indeed, it has been noted it is difficult if not impossible to define one category without contrasting it with the other.[
]
References
Further reading
* Buchner, L. (1920). ''Force and Matter''. New York, Peter Eckler Publishing Co.
* Churchland, Paul (1981).
Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes
'. The Philosophy of Science. Boyd, Richard; P. Gasper; J. D. Trout. Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT Press.
*
*
* Fodor, J.A. (1974). "Special Sciences", ''Synthese'', Vol. 28.
* Gunasekara, Victor A. (2001).
. ''Basic Buddhism: A Modern Introduction to the Buddha's Teaching". 18 January 2008
* Kim, J. (1994
Multiple Realization and the Metaphysics of Reduction
''Philosophy and Phenomenological Research'', Vol. 52.
* La Mettrie, La Mettrie, Julien Offray de (1748). ''L'Homme Machine'' (''Man a Machine
''Man a Machine'' (French: ''L'homme Machine'') is a work of materialist philosophy by the 18th-century French physician and philosopher Julien Offray de La Mettrie, first published in 1747. In this work, de La Mettrie extends Descartes' argum ...
'')
* Lange, Friedrich A. (1925)
The History of Materialism
'. New York, Harcourt, Brace, & Co.
*
* Alternative
* Schopenhauer, Arthur (1969). ''The World as Will and Representation
''The World as Will and Representation'' (''WWR''; german: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, ''WWV''), sometimes translated as ''The World as Will and Idea'', is the central work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The first editio ...
''. New York, Dover Publications, Inc.
* Seidner, Stanley S. (10 June 2009)
"A Trojan Horse: Logotherapeutic Transcendence and its Secular Implications for Theology"
''Mater Dei Institute''
*
* Vitzthum, Richard C. (1995)
'. Amherst, New York, Prometheus Books.
External links
*
*Stanford Encyclopedia
The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''SEP'') combines an online encyclopedia of philosophy with peer-reviewed publication of original papers in philosophy, freely accessible to Internet users. It is maintained by Stanford University. Eac ...
:
Physicalism
Eliminative Materialism
from infidels.org
Dictionary of the Philosophy of Mind on Materialism
from the University of Waterloo
The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to "Uptown" Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also operates ...
{{Authority control
Monism
Ontology