Materialism
Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental aspects and consciousness, are results of material interactions.

In Idealism, mind and consciousness are first-order realities to which matter is subject and secondary. In philosophical materialism the converse is true. Here mind and consciousness are by-products or epiphenomena of material processes (the biochemistry of the human brain and nervous system, for example) without which they cannot exist. According to this doctrine the material creates and determines consciousness, not vice versa. Materialists believe that Matter and the physical laws that govern it constitute the most reliable guide to the nature of mind and consciousness.

Materialist theories are mainly divided into three groups. Naive materialism identifies the material world with specific elements (e.g. the scheme of the four elements—fire, air, water and earth—devised by the Pre-Socratic philosopher Empedocles). Metaphysical materialism examines separated parts of the world in a static, isolated environment. Dialectical materialism adapts the Hegelian dialectic for materialism, examining parts of the world in relation to each other within a dynamic environment.

Materialism is closely related to physicalism, the view that all that exists is ultimately physical. Philosophical physicalism has evolved from materialism with the discoveries of the physical sciences to incorporate more sophisticated notions of physicality than mere ordinary matter, such as: spacetime, physical energies and forces, dark matter, and so on. Thus the term "physicalism" is preferred over "materialism" by some, while others use the terms as if they are synonymous.

Philosophies contradictory to materialism or physicalism include idealism, pluralism, dualism, and other forms of monism.

Overview
thumb|In 1748, French doctor and philosopher La Mettrie exposes the first materialistic definition of the human soul in L'Homme Machine 
Materialism belongs to the class of monist ontology. As such, it is different from ontological theories based on dualism or pluralism. For singular explanations of the phenomenal reality, materialism would be in contrast to idealism, neutral monism, and spiritualism.

Despite the large number of philosophical schools and subtle nuances between many, Alternative  Alternative  all philosophies are said to fall into one of two primary categories, which are defined in contrast to each other: idealism and materialism. The basic proposition of these two categories pertains to the nature of reality, and the primary distinction between them is the way they answer two fundamental questions: "what does reality consist of?" and "how does it originate?" 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, famously by René Descartes. 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.

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 influentially 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. A lot of vigorous literature has grown up around the relation between these views.

Modern philosophical materialists extend the definition of other scientifically observable entities such as energy, forces, and the curvature of space. However philosophers such as Mary Midgley suggest that the concept of "matter" is elusive and poorly defined.Mary Midgley The Myths We Live By.

Materialism typically contrasts with dualism, phenomenalism, idealism, vitalism, and dual-aspect monism. Its materiality can, in some ways, be linked to the concept of determinism, as espoused by Enlightenment thinkers.

During the 19th century, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels extended the concept of materialism to elaborate a materialist conception of history centered on the roughly empirical world of human activity (practice, including labor) and the institutions created, reproduced, or destroyed by that activity (see materialist conception of history). Later Marxists, such as Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky developed the notion of dialectical materialism which characterized later Marxist philosophy and method.

History

Axial Age
Materialism developed, possibly independently, in several geographically separated regions of Eurasia during what Karl Jaspers termed the Axial Age ( 800–200 BC).

In ancient Indian philosophy, materialism developed around 600 BC with the works of Ajita Kesakambali, Payasi, Kanada, and the proponents of the Cārvāka school of philosophy. Kanada became one of the early proponents of atomism. The Nyaya–Vaisesika school ( 600 BC – 100 BC) developed one of the earliest forms of atomism, though their proofs of God and their positing that consciousness was not material precludes labelling them as materialists. Buddhist atomism and the Jaina school continued the atomic tradition.

Xunzi (ca. 312–230 BC) developed a Confucian doctrine centered on realism and materialism in Ancient China.

Ancient Greek philosophers like Thales, Anaxagoras ( 500 BC – 428 BC), Epicurus and Democritus prefigure later materialists. The Latin poem De Rerum Natura by Lucretius (ca. 99 BC – ca. 55 BC) reflects the mechanistic 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 given scope for in this article.

Common Era
Chinese thinkers of the early common era said to be materialists include Yang Xiong (53 BC – AD 18) and Wang Chong (c AD 27 – AD 100).

Later Indian materialist Jayaraashi Bhatta (6th century) in his work Tattvopaplavasimha ("The upsetting of all principles") refuted the Nyaya Sutra 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/Lokāyata text to quote from, or even refer to.History of Indian Materialism, Ramakrishna Bhattacharya

In early 12th-century al-Andalus, the Arabian philosopher, Ibn Tufail (Abubacer), wrote discussions on materialism in his philosophical novel, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (Philosophus Autodidactus), while vaguely foreshadowing the idea of a historical materialism.Dominique Urvoy, "The Rationality of Everyday Life: The Andalusian Tradition? (Aropos of Hayy's First Experiences)", in Lawrence I. Conrad (1996), The World of Ibn Tufayl: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Ḥayy Ibn Yaqẓān, pp. 38-46, Brill Publishers, .

Modern era
The French cleric Pierre Gassendi (1592–1665) represented the materialist tradition in opposition to the attempts of René Descartes (1596–1650) to provide the natural sciences with dualist foundations. There followed the materialist and atheist abbé Jean Meslier (1664–1729), Julien Offray de La Mettrie, the German-French Paul-Henri Thiry Baron d'Holbach (1723–1789), the Encyclopedist Denis Diderot (1713–1784), and other French Enlightenment thinkers; as well as (in England) John "Walking" Stewart (1747–1822), whose insistence in seeing matter as endowed with a moral dimension had a major impact on the philosophical poetry of William Wordsworth (1770–1850).

The German materialist and atheist anthropologist Ludwig Feuerbach would signal a new turn in materialism through his book, The Essence of Christianity (1841), which presented a humanist account of religion as the outward projection of man's inward nature. Feuerbach's materialism would later heavily influence Karl Marx, who elaborated the concept of historical materialism, which is the basis for what Marx and Engels outlined as scientific socialism:

Later, Vladimir Lenin outlined philosophical materialism in his book Materialism and Empiriocriticism, which connected the political conceptions put forth by his opponents to their anti-materialist philosophies. Therein, Lenin attempted to answer questions concerning matter, experience, sensations, space and time, causality, and freedom.

More recently thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze have attempted to rework and strengthen classical materialist ideas. Contemporary theorists such as Manuel DeLanda, working with this reinvigorated materialism, have come to be classified as "new materialist" in persuasion.

New materialism

"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 (Duke UP, 2010) has been particularly instrumental in bringing theories of monist ontology and vitalism back into a critical theoretical fold dominated by poststructuralist theories of language and discourse. Scholars such as Mel Y. Chen 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. Other scholars such as Hélene Vosters 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.

Scientific materialists

Many current and recent philosophers—e.g., Daniel Dennett, Willard Van Orman Quine, Donald Davidson, and Jerry Fodor—operate within a broadly physicalist or materialist framework, producing rival accounts of how best to accommodate mind, including functionalism, anomalous monism, identity theory, and so on.http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/#SpeProFolPsy, by William Ramsey

Scientific "Materialism" is often synonymous with, and has so far been described, as being a reductive materialism. In recent years, Paul and Patricia Churchland have advocated a radically contrasting position (at least, in regards to certain hypotheses); eliminativist 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" and introspection illusion. That is, an eliminative materialist might believe that a concept like "belief" simply has no basis in fact—the way folk science speaks of demon-caused illnesses would be just one obvious example. 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 is somewhere in the middle.

Defining matter
The nature and definition of matter—like other key concepts in science and philosophy—have occasioned much debate. Is there a single kind of matter (hyle) which everything is made of, or multiple kinds? Is matter a continuous substance capable of expressing multiple forms (hylomorphism),"Hylomorphism" Concise Britannica or a number of discrete, unchanging constituents (atomism)?"Atomism: Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century"  Dictionary of the History of Ideas"Atomism in the Seventeenth Century" Dictionary of the History of Ideas
Article by a philosopher who opposes atomism  
Information on Buddhist atomism 
Article on traditional Greek atomism
"Atomism from the 17th to the 20th Century" Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Does it have intrinsic properties (substance theory), or is it lacking them (prima materia)?

One challenge to the traditional concept of matter as tangible "stuff" came with the rise of field physics 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. On the other hand, 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, less than 5% of the universe's energy density is made up of the "matter" described by the Standard Model of Particle Physics, and the majority of the universe is composed of dark matter and dark energy—with little agreement amongst scientists about what these are made of.Bernard Sadoulet "Particle Dark Matter in the Universe: At the Brink of Discovery?" Science 5 January 2007: Vol. 315. no. 5808, pp. 61 - 63

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 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." Likewise, some philosophers feel that these dichotomies necessitate a switch from materialism to physicalism. Others use the terms "materialism" and "physicalism" interchangeably."Many philosophers and scientists now use the terms `material' and `physical' interchangeably" Dictionary of the Philosophy of Mind

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, any property can be considered material, if one defines matter such that it has that property.Chomsky, Noam (2000) New Horizons in the Study of Language and Mind

Physicalism
George Stack distinguishes between materialism and physicalism: 

Criticism and alternatives

Quantum mysticism
Some modern day physicists and science writers—such as Paul Davies and John Gribbin—have argued that materialism has been disproven by certain scientific findings in physics, such as quantum mechanics and chaos theory. In 1991, Gribbin and Davies released their book The Matter Myth, the first chapter of which, "The Death of Materialism", contained the following passage:

Davies' and Gribbin's objections are shared by proponents of digital physics who view information rather than matter to be fundamental. Their objections were also shared by some founders of quantum theory, such as Max Planck, who wrote:

Religious and spiritual views
According to Constantin Gutberlet writing in  Catholic Encyclopedia (1911), materialism, defined as "a philosophical system which regards matter as the only reality in the world [...] denies the existence of God and the soul", In this view materialism could be perceived incompatible with most world religions. Materialism could be conflated with atheism. However Friedrich Lange wrote in 1892 "Diderot has not always in the Encyclopaedia expressed his own individual opinion, but it is just as true that at its commencement he had not yet got as far as Atheism and Materialism".

Most of Hinduism and transcendentalism regards all matter as an illusion called Maya, blinding humans from knowing the truth. Transcendental experiences like the perception of Brahman are considered to destroy the illusion.

Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, taught: "There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter."Doctrine and Covenants  This spirit element is believed to always have existed and to be co-eternal with God..

Philosophical objections
Kant argued against all three forms of materialism, subjective idealism (which he contrasts with his "transcendental idealism"see Critique of Pure Reason where he gives a "refutation of idealism" in pp345-52 (1st Ed) and pp 244-7 (2nd Ed) in the Norman Kemp Smith edition) and dualism.Critique of Pure Reason (A379, p352 NKS translation).

"If, however, as commonly happens, we seek to extend the concept of dualism, and take it in the transcendental sense, neither it nor the two counter-alternatives — pneumatism [idealism] on the one hand, materialism on the other — would have any sort of basis [...] Neither the transcendental object which underlies outer appearances nor that which underlies inner intuition, is in itself either matter or a thinking being, but a ground (to us unknown)..." However, Kant also argues that change and time require an enduring substrate,"Kant argues that we can determine that there has been a change in the objects of our perception, not merely a change in our perceptions themselves, only by conceiving of what we perceive as successive states of enduring substances (see Substance)".Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy  and does so in connection with his Refutation of Idealism."All determination of time presupposes something permanent in perception. This permanent cannot, however, be something in me [...]" Critique of Pure Reason, B274, P245 (NKS translation) Postmodern/poststructuralist thinkers also express a skepticism about any all-encompassing metaphysical scheme. Philosopher Mary Midgley,see Mary Midgley The Myths we Live by among others,Baker, L. (1987). Saving Belief Princeton, Princeton University PressReppert, V. (1992). "Eliminative Materialism, Cognitive Suicide, and Begging the Question". Metaphilosophy 23: 378-92.Seidner, Stanley S. (10 June 2009) "A Trojan Horse: Logotherapeutic Transcendence and its Secular Implications for Theology". Mater Dei Institute. p 5.Boghossian, P. (1990). "The Status of Content" Philosophical Review 99: 157-84. and (1991) "The Status of Content Revisited". Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 71: 264-78. argues that materialism is a self-refuting idea, at least in its eliminative form.

Idealisms
An argument for idealism, such as those of Hegel and Berkeley, is ipso facto an argument against materialism. Matter can be argued to be redundant, as in bundle theory, and mind-independent properties can in turn be reduced to subjective percepts.  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 seek to ameliorate the perceived shortcomings of traditional (especially mechanistic) 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 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.However, critics of materialism are equally guilty of prognosticating that it will never be able to explain certain phenomena. "Over a hundred years ago William James saw clearly that science would never resolve the mind-body problem." Are We Spiritual Machines? Dembski, W. Polkinghorne prefers "dual-aspect monism" to materialism.

Some scientific materialists have been criticized, for example by Noam Chomsky, for failing to provide clear definitions for what constitutes matter, leaving the term "materialism" without any definite meaning. Chomsky also 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

 Antimaterialism - beliefs that are opposed to materialism
 Cārvāka
 Christian materialism
 Critical realism
 Cultural materialism
 Dialectical materialism
 Economic materialism
 Eliminative materialism
 Existence
 French materialism
 Grotesque body
 Historical materialism
 Hyle
 Immaterialism
 Incorporeality
 Madhyamaka -  a philosophy of middle way
 Material feminism
 Marxist philosophy of nature
 Metaphysical naturalism
 Model-dependent realism
 Naturalism (philosophy)
 Postmaterialism
 Physical ontology
 Philosophy of mind
 Quantum energy
 Rational egoism
 Reality in Buddhism
 Substance theory
 Transcendence (religion)

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). [books.google.com/books?id=tw8OuwAACAAJ 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). "Buddhism and the Modern World". 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)
 Lange, Friedrich A.,(1925) The History of Materialism. New York, Harcourt, Brace, & Co.
 
  Alternative 
 Schopenhauer, Arthur (1969). The World as Will and Representation. 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) Materialism: An Affirmative History and Definition''. Amherst, New York, Prometheus Books.

External links

Stanford Encyclopedia:
Physicalism
Eliminative Materialism
Philosophical Materialism (by Richard C. Vitzthum) from infidels.org
Dictionary of the Philosophy of Mind on Materialism from the University of Waterloo

 
Category:Monism
Category:Ontology