Materialist Philosophy

[ReVoLuTiOnArY-BrOtHeR]

Comrades, who would you consider to be the main contributors to the philosophy of materialism.

[core_1]

Firstly and in my opinion, most importantly, Karl Marx. Then of course Engels, Lenin and maybe Sigmund Freud. I don't know much about freud though. I would say that the materialists of the marxist tradition are the most important contributors :thumbup1:.

[Meridian]

Firstly and in my opinion, most importantly, Karl Marx. Then of course Engels, Lenin and maybe Sigmund Freud. I don't know much about freud though. I would say that the materialists of the marxist tradition are the most important contributors :thumbup1:.
I don't think many would propose Freud to be a great contributor towards materialism. Maybe I have things skewed, but as far as I know, Freud was more of a psychologist... And I know many materialists who have much disdain for his theories.

[syndicat]

What do you mean by "materialism"? Is this just a way of referring to Marx's theory of history? In academic philosophy the word "materialism" has been less in favor in more recent decades because in the 18th and 19th centuries there were a number of different things called "materialism." There is the view that there is a world independent of human thought and perception, a world revealed in perception, where things stand in spatial relations and have various physical attributes like weight and malleability and so on. Nowadays philosphers prefer to call this "realism about the external world."

And then there is the view that all the entities that there are act in accord with the sorts of tendencies studied in the physical sciences, that is, that all entities are physical or wholly made up of physical entities. And thus there are no spiritual or non-physical entities (such as gods or souls). Nowadays this view is called "physicalism". This is related to the view that there is only nature, and the only way for us to find out about it is through empirical methods...a view also called "naturalism."

Very few philosophers nowadays reject realism about the physical world, and most are physicalists or naturalists.

[Dean]

I don't think many would propose Freud to be a great contributor towards materialism. Maybe I have things skewed, but as far as I know, Freud was more of a psychologist... And I know many materialists who have much disdain for his theories.

Then they are quite narrow in their focus.

People like Freud take the material reality of what they experience in their field and apply that to their overall understanding of the field. While it is certainly easier to mislead oneself when we are talking about more fluid concepts like those present in psychology, this doesn't manifest as a total indictment of the field, and furthermore it would be incredibly narrow (and subsequently non-materialist) to reject large ranges of serious inquiry simply because of a few failings.

[Dermezel]

Science. To explain, Materialist doctrine is not accepted as a matter of faith. It is accepted because it represents the most parsimonious and coherent world view. Science shows us how.

Simply put, there is no idealistic or spiritual science, other then the most bizarre forms of quackery. Science provides evidence of a material universe that works according to material laws. There is a scientific, materialist view of anatomy, of biology, of geology, or astronomy and cosmology and psychology and economics (Marxism) . There is no idealist or dualist equivalent, not in terms of evidence or parsimony of explanation of degree of coherence.

Within this context the materialist view makes less assumptions. We do not assume two substances but one. That is what refutes dualism.

So idealism is refuted by the fact that it is without coherence, and dualism/metaphysical pluralism is refuted by the fact that it lacks parsimony.

[Meridian]

Science. To explain, Materialist doctrine is not accepted as a matter of faith. It is accepted because it represents the most parsimonious and coherent world view. Science shows us how.
Science is great. But scientists are equally incapable of revealing metaphysical truths as old men in their armchairs.



Simply put, there is no idealistic or spiritual science, other then the most bizarre forms of quackery. Science provides evidence of a material universe that works according to material laws.
Again, a scientific method is the most effective in terms of empiric knowledge. But, we can know of no such "material laws". That would be anthropomorphising nature, and besides: We can only find patterns.

[Dermezel]

Science is great. But scientists are equally incapable of revealing metaphysical truths as old men in their armchairs.

That much is true, science by itself cannot determine the truth value of a particular philosophical claim, but it can inform philosophy.


Again, a scientific method is the most effective in terms of empiric knowledge. But, we can know of no such "material laws". That would be anthropomorphising nature, and besides: We can only find patterns.

Well yeah, I was hoping that it would be tacitly assumed that by laws I meant patterns, not literal intelligently designed laws (that's creationist mumbo-jumbo).

[whore]

as a materialist philosopher, i have to nominate david hume as being one of the first major ones, and still one of the best. his skeptism, his work on induction (and problems associated it), his attacks on religion and the idea of god, all are reasons why i claim he is among the best.

there have certainly been others before and since. but

[syndicat]

why do you think Hume was a materialist? His scepticism is generally an important source of later phenomenalist philosophies, which try to reduce the physical world to sensory contents...a form of idealist philosphy.