Materialism is nearly universally assumed by cognitive scientists. Intuitively, materialism says that a person’s mental states are nothing over and above his or her material states, while dualism denies this. Philosophers have introduced concepts (e.g., realization, supervenience) to assist in formulating the theses of materialism and dualism with more precision, and distinguished among importantly different versions of each view (e.g., eliminative materialism, substance dualism, emergentism). They have also clarified the logic of arguments that use empirical findings (...) to support materialism. Finally, they have devised various objections to materialism, objections that therefore serve also as arguments for dualism. These objections typically center around two features of mental states that materialism has had trouble in accommodating. The first feature is intentionality, the property of representing, or being about, objects, properties, and states of affairs external to the mental states. The second feature is phenomenal consciousness, the property possessed by many mental states of there being something it is like for the subject of the mental state to be in that mental state. (shrink)

New materialism challenges conventional theories of understanding human being and subjectivity, which it regards as shaped by mechanistic models characteristic of early modern philosophy that regarded matter as largely passive. Instead it gives weight to topics often overlooked in such accounts: the body, the role of affect and the emotions, gender, temporality, agency and vitalism. This collection, which includes an international roster of contributors from philosophy, history, literature and science, is the first to ask what is 'new' about the (...) new materialism and place it in interdisciplinary perspective. Against current theories of new materialism it argues for a deeper engagement with materialism's history; questions whether matter can be 'lively'; and asks whether new materialism's wish to revitalize of politics and the political lives up to its promise. (shrink)

Dialogic Materialism: Bakhtin, Embodiment and Moving Image Art argues for the relevance of Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of dialogism as a means of examining the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary moving image art forms. The volume comprises six chapters divided into two sections. The first section, Part I, illustrates the key concepts in Bakhtin's multifaceted dialogism and develops these ideas in relation to moving image art. The main focus of this first part is the proposal of what the author terms (...) dialogic materialism, which builds upon the Marxism inherent in Bakhtin, examining the material processes of cultural exchange with a particular emphasis on multi-perspective subjective relations. Part II consists of case studies that apply dialogic materialism to the moving image artwork of three artists: Stan Douglas, Jamelie Hassan and Chris Marker. Applying Bakhtinian theory to the field of the visual arts provides a means of examining the fundamentally dialogic nature of moving image art making and viewing, a perspective that is not fully developed within the existing literature. (shrink)

Feminists today are re-imagining nature, biology, and matter in feminist thought and critically addressing new developments in biology, physics, neuroscience, epigenetics and other scientific disciplines. Mattering, edited by noted feminist scholar Victoria Pitts-Taylor, presents contemporary feminist perspectives on the materialist or ‘naturalizing’ turn in feminist theory, and also represents the newest wave of feminist engagement with science. The volume addresses the relationship between human corporeality and subjectivity, questions and redefines the boundaries of human/non-human and nature/culture, elaborates on the entanglements of (...) matter, knowledge, and practice, and addresses biological materialization as a complex and open process. This volume insists that feminist theory can take matter and biology seriously while also accounting for power, taking materialism as a point of departure to rethink key feminist issues. The contributors, an international group of feminist theorists, scientists and scholars, apply concepts in contemporary materialist feminism to examine an array of topics in science, biotechnology, biopolitics, and bioethics. These include neuralplasticity and the brain-machine interface; the use of biometrical identification technologies for transnational border control; epigenetics and the intergenerational transmission of the health effects of social stigma; ADHD and neuropharmacology; and randomized controlled trials of HIV drugs.A unique and interdisciplinary collection, Mattering presents in grounded, concrete terms the need for rethinking disciplinary boundaries and research methodologies in light of the shifts in feminist theorizing and transformations in the sciences. (shrink)

New materialism challenges conventional theories of understanding human being and subjectivity, which it regards as shaped by mechanistic models characteristic of early modern philosophy that regarded matter as largely passive. Instead it gives weight to topics often overlooked in such accounts: the body, the role of affect and the emotions, gender, temporality, agency and vitalism. This collection, which includes an international roster of contributors from philosophy, history, literature and science, is the first to ask what is 'new' about the (...) new materialism and place it in interdisciplinary perspective. Against current theories of new materialism it argues for a deeper engagement with materialism's history; questions whether matter can be 'lively'; and asks whether new materialism's wish to revitalize of politics and the political lives up to its promise. (shrink)

Over three decades, Gillian Howie wrote at the forefront of philosophy and critical theory, before her untimely death in 2013. This interdisciplinary collection uses her writings to explore the productive, yet often resistant, interrelationship between feminism and critical theory, examining the potential of Howie's particular form of materialism. The contributors also bring to this debate a serious engagement with Howie's late turn towards philosophies of mortality, therapy and 'living with dying'. The volume considers how differently embodied subjects are (...) positioned within public institutions, discourses and spaces, and the role of philosophy, art, film, photography, and literature, in facing situations such as sexual oppression and life-limiting illness. (shrink)

Baker, James and Reader offer new religious engagement with the public sphere via means of interdisciplinary analysis and empirical examples, developing what we call a Relational Christian Realism building upon interaction with contemporary Philosophy of Religion. This book represents an exciting contribution to philosophy and practice of religion on both sides of the Atlantic and aspires to be sufficiently interdisciplinary to also appeal to readerships engaged in the study of modern political and social trends.

This paper is a critical examination of one central theme in Jon Elster's Making Sense of Marx; Elster's defense of ?methodological individualism? in social science and his related critique of Marx's use of ?functional explanation?. The paper does not quarrel with Elster's claim that the particular instances of functional explanation advanced by Marx are defective; what it criticizes is Elster's attempt to raise principled, philosophical objections to this type of explanation in the social sciences. It is argued that Elster's philosophical (...) critique of functional explanation rests on a caricature of this kind of explanation, just as his critique of Marx's use of teleology in the philosophy of history rests on a caricature of the kinds of teleological claims Marx is concerned to make. The paper ends with a brief discussion of a recently published passage from Marx's notebooks of 1861?1863, where Elster claims to have found Marx explicitly criticizing capitalist exploitation as an injustice to the workers. (shrink)

Purple Haze: The Puzzle of Consciousness, by Joseph Levine, is reviewed. The position that Levine takes in the current philosophical debate about consciousness is identified and the general approach of the essay outlined. I focus on two of the more important issues in the book - the conceivability argument against materialism, and the explanatory gap argument against dualism - and argue that Levine's argument against the former is unconvincing and his diagnosis of the source of the latter leads him (...) into problems. I suggest a more promising route. (shrink)

Resumen A fines del siglo pasado, con especial notoriedad en los años 80 y 90, surgieron diversos intentos de revuelta anti-hermenéutica que propusieron una transformación materialista de las Ciencias sociales y las Humanidades. Resulta especialmente llamativo el hecho de que algunas de las propuestas más influyentes en ese contexto hayan recurrido explícitamente al pensamiento de Martin Heidegger. En efecto, tanto Hans-Ulrich Gumbrecht cuanto Friedrich Kittler reconocen a Heidegger como una de sus principales influencias. ¿Cómo es posible que el pensamiento de (...) Heidegger, un referente de la filosofía hermenéutica, se haya convertido en un eficaz apoyo para la revuelta contra la orientación hermenéutica de las Ciencias del Espíritu? Esta cuestión exige, por una parte, tomar en consideración el contexto académico de la época, especialmente las tensiones intergeneracionales y el surgimiento de nuevas orientaciones interdisciplinares. Por otra parte, la cuestión reclama una tarea de indagación temática. Es preciso explicitar qué planteamientos de problemas y qué desarrollos específicos provenientes de Heidegger fueron objeto de una recepción creativa conducente a un rediseño materialista de las Ciencias del Espíritu.Diverse anti-hermeneutical attempts that proposed a materialist transformation of the Social Sciences and the Humanities developed in the late 20th century, particularly during the 80s and 90s. It is striking that some of the most influential proposals in that context explicitly appealed to Martin Heidegger's thought. In fact, Hans-Ulrich Gumbrecht and Friedrich Kittler acknowledged Heidegger as one of their main influences. How is impossible that Heidegger's thought, a well-known referent of hermeneutics, became a productive resource for the revolt against the hermeneutical orientation of the ‘Geisteswissenschaften? On the one hand, this question requires us to consider the academic context of that time, especially the intergenerational tensions and the birth of new interdisciplinary orientations. On the other hand, it demands a thematic inquiry. We need to explain what problems and specific developments of Heidegger's thought mere interpreted in a materialist fashion in order to reshape the ‘Geisteswissenschaften ’. (shrink)

This paper characterizes a form of materialism which is strongly anti?reductionist with regard to mental predicates. It argues against the functionalist views of writers such as Brian Loar on the basis that the counterfactual interdependencies of intentional states are governed by constraints of rationality embodied in semantic links which cannot be captured in non?intentional, functionalist terms. However, contrary to what is commonly supposed, such anti?reductionism requires neither instrumentalism about the mental nor opposition to a causal explanatory view of intentional (...) explanation. The paper therefore aims to show that a realist causal explanatory view of psychological states is compatible with a non?reductive materialism (a position excluded by Brian Loar in his recent book Mind and Meaning). (shrink)

Marx may be taken to hold that productive forces (e.g. the steam engine) explain productive relations (e.g. capitalism) more than the other way on, and that productive relations explain superstructures (e.g. the legal system) more than the other way on. There are no satisfactory standard causal understandings of these claims about explanatory primacy. That is, no standard causal understanding saves Marx from the traditional objection that relations very greatly affect forces, and superstructures very greatly affect relations. One satisfactorily articulated attempt (...) to save Marx has been the attempt to understand the claims teleologically. Three such understandings can be distinguished, but they do not work. The first fails since it attempts to explain events by way of abstract objects. The second fails since it attempts to explain a thing by means of that thing. The third fails for a related reason. Each understanding also fails for another reason as fundamental. So?called teleological explanations are in fact claims that standard causal explanations exist, which relevant explanations conflict with the ruling idea of Marx's philosophy, that history is somehow independent of men's consciousness and wills. There may be no evidence that Marx himself intended historical materialism to be understood teleologically. There may be evidence against. (shrink)

Philosophers and scientists have recently been showing renewed interest in dualistic conceptions of the human mind, owing to growing acknowledgment of the failings of materialism and reductionism in contemporary philosophical and scientific thought. This book presents a state-of-the-art overview of current developments in this exciting new area of interdisciplinary collaboration, and will be indispensable reading for all researchers and students in this field.

The Center of Interdisciplinary Studies in Cracow has a very rich tradition that has been studied by many and recently by Kamil Trombik. The very difficult period for the Church and for philosophy during the materialistic Marxist ideology was an opportunity for card. K. Wojtyła to outline a new mode of dialog between science and religion. The future Center, organized by Michał Heller and Józef Życiński not only captured this idea but transformed it into an academic institution centered on (...) the idea of philosophy in science, which was also developed at the Vatican Observatory by W.G. Stoeger et al. Trombik’s book is an excellent study of the historical context and initial years of activity of the Center and its development. (shrink)

It is argued that there are moral costs of our accepting ‘strict materialism’, the view that there is no such phenomenon as an irreducible first‐person point of view. If we accept strict materialism, then we have to give up some considered moral views, such as the principle of an agent‐relative morality and the hedonistic principle. The necessity involved is not logical, however, but pragmatic. Strict materialism does not imply that these moral views are false; it is our (...) belief in them that is undermined by pur belief in strict materialism. If there is no irreducible first‐person point of view these moral views simply do not seem to make any moral sense. Since these moral views are prima facie very plausible, the moral costs of our accepting strict materialism are considerable. (shrink)

Until quite recently, mind-body dualism has been regarded with deep suspicion by both philosophers and scientists. This has largely been due to the widespread identification of dualism in general with one particular version of it: the interactionist substance dualism of Réné Descartes. This traditional form of dualism has, ever since its first formulation in the seventeenth century, attracted numerous philosophical objections and is now almost universally rejected in scientific circles as empirically inadequate. During the last few years, however, renewed attention (...) has begun to be paid to the dualistic point of view, as a result of increasing discontent with the prevailing materialism and reductionism of contemporary scientific and philosophical thought. Awareness has grown that dualism need not be restricted to its traditional form and that other varieties of dualism are not subject to the difficulties commonly raised against Descartes' own version of it. -/- Interest in these alternative versions of dualism is growing fast today, because it seems that they are capable of capturing deep-seated philosophical intuitions, while also being fully consistent with the methodological assumptions and empirical findings of modern scientific work on the human mind and brain. The object of this book is to provide philosophers, scientists, their students, and the wider general public with an up-to-date overview of current developments in dualistic conceptions of the mind in contemporary philosophy and science. (shrink)

G. A. Cohen's influential ?technological determinist? reading of Marx's theory of history rests in part on an interpretation of Marx's use of ?material? whose idiosyncrasy has been insufficiently noticed. Cohen takes historical materialism to be asserting the determination of the social by the material/asocial, viz. ?socio?neutral? facts about human nature and human rationality which manifest themselves in a historical tendency for the forces of production to develop. This paper reviews Marx's writings to demonstrate the extensive textual evidence in favour (...) of the traditional interpretation ? that for Marx, the ?material? includes the economic, and is thus ineluctably social in character. Thus those critics of Cohen who have urged the inclusion of the relations of production in historical materialism's explanans do seem to have Marx's terminological and conceptual backing. (shrink)

One foundation of Eliminative Materialism is the claim that the totality of our ordinary resources for explaining and predicting behaviour, ?Folk Psychology?, constitutes a theoretical scheme, potentially in conflict with other theories of behaviour. Recent attacks upon this claim, as well as the defence by Paul Churchland, are examined and found to be lacking in a suitably realistic conception of theory. By finding such a conception, and by correctly identifying the level of conceptual structures within which Folk Psychology is (...) located, the original claim is reinforced. (shrink)

Environmental ethics deals with discussing the ethical framework of environmental values, their organization and regulation, and their ethical premises. One of the main cul-de-sacs that environmental ethics has is its anthropocentrism that can be observed through its diverse ethical approaches—even ecocentric ones, developed as non-anthropocentric egalitarian alternatives. This article aims to question the exclusiveness of Anthropos, the practices, values, and discourses that determine the scope and course of environmental ethics, and the exclusion of nonhuman animals or more-than human beings from (...) its focus. It first examines the main approaches in environmental ethics (land ethic, deep ecology, social ecology, and postmodern environmental ethics)—biocentric, ecocentric, anthropocentric, socialist, postmodern—and reveals that they are but limited to the human perspective, deeply rooted in human exceptionalism. All of these approaches provide us with a critical frame that still needs to be deconstructed so that they will not project an anthropocentric orientation. This article posits that the compass of environmental ethics, recently aligning itself to embrace the more-than-human world in its ecocentric attitude, still needs to be revisited for its discourses of exclusion. At this point, new materialism functions as a prolific theoretical site as it diminishes the classical boundaries between human and animal or subject and object that anthropocentric environmental ethics relies on. With such concepts as “agential realism” (Barad), “transcorporeal ethics” (Alaimo), “vibrant matter” (Bennett), or “storied matter” (Oppermann and Iovino) the new materialist view of the human and the nonhuman evolves to end set dualities in the discourses of environmental ethics. This article concludes that the new materialist theory destabilizes any anthropocentric position in environmental ethics and includes more-than-human beings in its ethical focus, discarding any dualities that serve anthropocentrism or human exceptionalism. (shrink)

In the article the author reflects on the meaning of politics in a newmaterialist framework. She concentrates predominantly on two political dimentions – space and time. With reference to that, the author develops the concept of politics of squatting. Its spatial aspect is investigated along the lines of the notion of heterotopia, coined by Michel Foucault, and its temporal aspect is analyzed through the concept of heterochrony and Darwinian evolution as interpreted by Elizabeth Grosz. The concept of politics of squatting (...) is then juxtaposed with nomadism. Finally, the author provides a case study by elaborating on the anti-gender campaign that began in 2012-2013 in Poland from the perspective of politics of squatting. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Historical Background 1930–7: Interdisciplinary Materialism and Disintegrative Dialectics 1937–1940: Critical Theory 1940–5: The Critique of Instrumental Reason 1945–70: Theory and Practice in a One‐Dimensional Society Conclusion.

First published in 1982. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

“In the ‘interdisciplinary materialism’ theorized by Max Horkheimer and practiced by the critical-theoretical consortium of the 1930s, the critique of political economy worked both as a more general model for the critique of available knowledge and as the focal point for different disciplinary approaches. In such a constellation, the internal connection between the critical attitude and the critique of political economy also meant that ‘theory’ was the result of ‘critique’, having the critique of political economy as its model. (...) These two claims converge in that ‘theory’ was the same as producing critical diagnoses of the present time, Critical Theory’s most eminent task. Such a characterization of this first figure of Critical Theory allow us to see that the decline of the critique of political economy as a common language for collaboration from the 1940s on gave rise to a long-lasting dispute about its best substitute as the common ground for interdisciplinary research. Until today this dispute over the ‘best theory’ in the critical-theoretical field not only overshadows its most eminent aim but also threatens to blur the very distinction between Critical and Traditional contributions.”. (shrink)

The Ideological Condition: Selected Essays on History, Race and Gender is a reader comprised of many of Himani Bannerji's English writings over a long period of teaching and research in Canada and India. Bannerji creates an interdisciplinary analytical method and extends the possibilities of historical materialism by predominantly drawing on Marx, Gramsci, and Dorothy Smith. Essays here instantiate Marx's general proposition that while all ideology is a form of consciousness, all forms of consciousness are not ideological. Applying this (...) insight to issues ranging from patriarchy through race, class, nationalism, liberalism and fascism, Bannerji breaks through East-West binaries, challenging the mystifying approaches to the constitution of the social, and shows that a sustained struggle against ideological thinking is at the heart of a fundamental socialist struggle. (shrink)

The foundations of Horkheimer’s rational society are based on the premise that social philosophy could be a choice for the Critical Theory. Therefore [1] a dialectic interpretation of the social issue is developed between philosophy and social sciences theories, using the category of interdisciplinary materialism. [2] Characterizing an age in a state of indigence begins with the definition of Enlightenment as a process of disenchantment with the world that reduces human reality under the sign of domination. The liberator (...) course of the Enlightenment was marred from the beginning and ended up being a process of alienation and reification. [3] Hence, the moral sentiments of compassion and politic solidarity get to the stage in order to addressing a new ethical perspective in which it is posible to define an existential imperative that can view the human misery and the searching of happiness, in the purpose of overcoming the conditions and realities of the present age in state of indigence. (shrink)

The Center of Interdisciplinary Studies in Cracow has a very rich tradition that has been studied by many and recently by Kamil Trombik. The very difficult period for the Church and for philosophy during the materialistic Marxist ideology was an opportunity for card. K. Wojtyła to outline a new mode of dialog between science and religion. The future Center, organized by Michał Heller and Józef Życiński not only captured this idea but transformed it into an academic institution centered on (...) the idea of philosophy in science, which was also developed at the Vatican Observatory by W.G. Stoeger et al. Trombik’s book is an excellent study of the historical context and initial years of activity of the Center and its development. (shrink)

Consciousness is arguably the most important interdisciplinary area in contemporary philosophy of mind, with an explosion of research over the past thirty years from philosophers, psychologists, and scientists. It is also perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the world despite the fact that it is familiar to each of us. Consciousness also seems resistant to any straightforward physical explanation. This book introduces readers to the contemporary problem of consciousness, providing a clear introduction to the overall landscape and a fair-minded (...) critical survey of various theories of consciousness. Beginning with essential historical background to the problem of consciousness, Rocco Gennaro explores the following key topics and debates: the metaphysical problem of consciousness, including varieties of dualism and materialism; consciousness and neuroscience, particularly the question of whether consciousness can be reduced to brain activity or attentional mechanisms; representational and cognitive theories of consciousness; consciousness and psychopathology; animals, machines, and consciousness. Extensive use is made of interesting phenomena throughout the book, ranging from blindsight, synaesthesia, and change blindness to phantom limb syndrome, split-brain cases, and dissociative identity disorder. The inclusion of chapter summaries, annotated further reading, and a glossary make this book essential reading for anyone seeking a clear and informative overview of the problem of consciousness, not only in philosophy but related fields such as psychology and cognitive science. (shrink)

There has been an explosion of work on consciousness in the last 30–40 years from philosophers, psychologists, and neurologists. Thus, there is a need for an interdisciplinary, comprehensive volume in the field that brings together contributions from a wide range of experts on fundamental and cutting-edge topics. The Routledge Handbook of Consciousness fills this need and makes each chapter’s importance understandable to students and researchers from a variety of backgrounds. Designed to complement and better explain primary sources, this volume (...) is a valuable "first-stop" publication for undergraduate or graduate students enrolled in any course on "Consciousness," "Philosophy of Mind," or "Philosophy of Psychology," as well as a valuable handbook for researchers in these fields who want a useful reference to have close at hand. The 34 chapters, all published here for the first time, are divided into three parts: Part I covers the "History and Background Metaphysics" of consciousness, such as dualism, materialism, free will, and personal identity, and includes a chapter on Indian philosophy. Part II is on specific "Contemporary Theories of Consciousness," with chapters on representational, information integration, global workspace, attention-based, and quantum theories. Part III is entitled "Major Topics in Consciousness Research," with chapters on psychopathologies, dreaming, meditation, time, action, emotion, multisensory experience, animal and robot consciousness, and the unity of consciousness. -/- Each chapter begins with a brief introduction and concludes with a list of "Related Topics," as well as a list of "References," making the volume indispensable for the newcomer and experienced researcher alike. (shrink)

Eliminative materialism is the position that common?sense psychology is false and that beliefs and desires, like witches and demons, do not exist. One of the most popular criticisms of this view is that it is self?refuting or, in some sense, incoherent. Hence, it is often claimed that eliminativism is not only implausible, but necessarily false. Below, I assess the merits of this objection and find it seriously wanting. I argue that the self?refutation objection is (at best) a misleading reformulation (...) of much more mundane objections to eliminativism and that, contrary to its advocates? endorsements, it adds nothing of genuine interest to the debate over the existence of prepositional attitudes. (shrink)

The philosophy of nature, which encompasses the comprehensive study of the natural world, became intimately linked with the interdisciplinary approach of self-organization theory, or synergetics, as it was revealed in the latter third of the 20th century. This novel understanding of reality and its connection to synergetics becomes evident when comparing the panlogism of G.W.F. Hegel and the dialectical materialism of F. Engels, both based on 19th-century scientific achievements, with contemporary issues in natural science. This comparison is justified (...) as the worldviews formulated by Hegel, Marx, and Engels significantly influenced the development of civilization in the 20th century. Similarly, synergetics appears poised to become the cornerstone of the emerging scientific worldview. The philosophical legacies of these classical thinkers play a crucial role in shaping the theory of self-organization. Hegel examined the question of self-development within complex systems and analyzed culture through this perspective, consequently, he can be considered a precursor to synergetics. His viewpoint on the philosophy and methodology of science as a means of reflection within the domain of knowledge remains influential. The evolutionary approach, which Engels regarded as one of the major accomplishments of 19th-century science, now serves as the foundation for numerous contemporary scientific disciplines, including synergetics itself. The philosophical approach to seeking elementary entities, from which the properties of the whole could be discerned, emerged as the driving force in the development of 20th-century science. Concurrently, the challenges confronting humanity have significantly transformed the realm of scientific knowledge. Emphasis has shifted toward the laws governing the interactions of elementary entities, as well as the associated issues of structure, chaos, and self-organization. The roles of mathematical modeling, intra-scientific reflection, and large-scale projects have proven to be more critical than initially anticipated by the classical philosophers. The ongoing humanitarian and technological revolution necessitates new responses to the profound and significant questions originally posed by Hegel and Engels. (shrink)

"The influence of materialist ontology largely dominates philosophical and scientific discussions. However, there is a resurgent interest in alternative ontologies from panpsychism to idealism and dualism. The Routledge Handbook of Idealism and Immaterialism is an outstanding reference source and the first major collection of its kind. Historically grounded and constructively motivated, it covers the key topics in philosophy, science, and theology, providing students and scholars with a comprehensive introduction to idealism and immaterialism. Also addressed is post-materialism developments, with explicit (...) attention to variations of idealism and immaterialism. Comprising forty-four chapters written by an international and interdisciplinary team of contributors, the Handbook is organised into five clear parts: Idealism and the History of Philosophy Important Figures in Idealism Systematic Assessment of Idealism and Science Idealism, Physicalism, Panpsychism, and Substance Dualism. Essential reading for students and researchers in metaphysics, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of mind, The Routledge Handbook of Idealism and Immaterialism will also be of interest to those in related discplines where idealist and immaterialist ontology impinge on history, science, and theology"--. (shrink)