The word 'materialism' is ambiguous: it designates a moral doc trine as well as a philosophy and, indeed, an entire world view. Moral materialism is identical with hedonism, or the doctrine that humans should pursue only their own pleasure. Philosophical ma terialismis the view that the real worId is composed exclusively of material things. The two doctrines are logically independent: hedonism is consistent with immaterialism, and materialism is compatible with high minded morals. We shall be concerned ex (...) c1usively with philosophical materialism. And we shall not confuse it with realism, or the epistemological doctrine that knowIedge, or at any rate scientific knowledge, attempts to represent reality. Philosophical materialism is not a recent fad and it is not a solid block: it is as old as philosophy and it has gone through six quite different stages. The first was ancient materialism, centered around Greek and Indian atomism. The second was the revival of the first during the 17th century. The third was 18th century ma terialism, partly derived from one side of Descartes' ambiguous legacy. The fourth was the mid-19th century "scientific" material ism, which flourished mainly in Germany and England, and was tied to the upsurge of chemistry and biology. The fifth was dialec tical and historical materialism, which accompanied the consolida tion of the socialist ideology. And the sixth or current stage, evolved mainly by Australian and American philosophers, is aca demic and nonpartisan but otherwise very heterogeneous. Ancient materialism was thoroughly mechanistic. (shrink)

Analysis of the social-cognitive substrate of scientific activity reveals that much of science functions in an inauthentic mode whereby a materialist world view constrains the authentic practice of science. But materialism cannot explain matter, as evidenced by empirical data concerning the nature of physical manifestation. Nor, then, should materialism be the basis for our interpretation of consciousness. It is time to move beyond scientific materialism and develop transcendent theories of consciousness. Such theories should minimally meet (...) the following criteria: they should be based on all of the usual empirical data concerning consciousness, including altered states of consciousness; they should take into account data about anomalous phenomena and transcendent states of consciousness; they should address the issue of existential meaning and provide soteriological guidance; and they should be consistent with the most accurate theories of physical manifestation, such as relativistic quantum field theories. Speculating within a quantum-theoretic context, consciousness could be inserted as a primitive element into reality by providing a role for intention in the selection process of observables, the collapse of the state vector, or the ordering of quantum fluctuations. But consciousness could be more fundamental, in the sense of a deep consciousness coinciding with a pre-physical substrate, from which intention shapes both mental experience and physical manifestation. If any significance can be attached to the mathematical formalism of relativistic quantum field theories, perhaps creation and annihilation operators, which determine the fluctuations of a quantum field, can metaphorically be regarded as the avenue through which intention acts. Morphic fields within the pre-physical substrate could hold in place patterns that shape the reality that we experience. Among such morphic fields could be ones that correspond to the world view of scientism. By becoming authentic, one could break from such constraints and consider alternative possibilities that can include various forms of radical transformation. (shrink)

A comprehensive study of German materialism in the second half of the nineteenth century is long overdue. Among contemporary historians the mere passing references to Karl Vogt, Jacob Moleschott, and Ludwig Buchner as materialists and popularizers of science are hardly sufficient, for few individuals influenced public opinion in nineteenth-century Germany more than these men. Buchner, for example, revealed his awareness of the historical significance of his Kraft und Stoff in comments made in 1872, just seventeen years after its original (...) appearance. A philosophical book which has undergone twelve big German editions in the short span of seventeen years, which further has been issued in non-German countries and languages about fifteen to sixteen times in the same period, and whose appearance (although its author was entirely unknown up to then) has called forth an almost unprecedented storm in the press,... such a book can be nothing ordinary; the world-calling it enjoys at present must be justified through its wholly special characteristics or by the merits of its form and content. ' Vogt, Moleschott and Buchner explicitly held that their materialism was founded on natural science. But other materialists of the nineteenth century also laid claim to the scientific character of their own thought. It is likely that Marx and Engels would have permitted their brand of materialism to have been called scientific, provided, of course, that 'scientific' was understood in their dialectical meaning of the term. Socialism, Engels maintained, had become a science with Marx. (shrink)

"Scientific materialism" is one of the most influential currents in modern Anglo-American philosophy. An examination of its content and the paths that have emerged for its further evolution is of prime interest for Marxist philosophers. "Scientific materialism" was born in the fifties and has developed rapidly on many levels, signaling a sharp increase in materialist tendencies in contemporary bourgeois philosophy and an attendant intensified confrontation between materialism and idealism. This, of course, deserves especially careful attention.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the claims of the new Scientific Materialism as they pertain to sensations, thoughts, and colors. More precisely, I propose to deny that a scientific account of the world might be a comprehensive and adequate metaphysics. Such an account must, I believe, fail to include elements which are constituents of the world and it, therefore, cannot provide a viable alternative to our ordinary view of the world.

My main topic will be, roughly speaking, the claim that mental events or conscious experiences or inner experiences are brain processes. I hasten to say, however, that I am not going to talk about “mental events” or “conscious experiences” or “inner experiences.” These expressions are almost exclusively philosophers terms, and I am not sure that I have got the hang of any of them. Philosophers are not in agreement in their use of these terms. One philosopher will say, for example, (...) that a pain in the foot is a mental event, whereas another will say that a pain in the foot certainly is not a mental event. (shrink)

As the title of this work may suggest, Bunge is a true believer in the ideology of modern science. He recognizes this fact and makes no apologies for it. His task is to revitalize and update materialism. He thinks that "a philosophical doctrine... is best established by showing that it harmonizes with science and that it helps advance scientific research". The task of philosophy is to outline what science studies in detail.

C. L. Herrick; The Passing of Scientific Materialism: Atomism and the Ether., The Monist, Volume 15, Issue 1, 1 January 1905, Pages 46–86, https://doi.org/10.58.

Nineteenth-century German science was frequently involved in philosophical disputes and also in political issues. Most thinkers wanted their systems to be considered ‘scientific’, and Marx and Engels were no exceptions. However, they sharply distinguished their approach from that of the popularizing ‘materialist’ philosophers, Büchner, Vogt and Moleschott. In this paper we review the relation of Marx and Engels to these and other tendencies, both in ideas and in personal contacts, and show how they distinguished their ‘dialectical’ materialism from (...) that which they described as ‘vulgar’. (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz wird den Enfluss der steigenden kulturellen Autorität des naturwissenschaften Erkenntnisses auf die Entwicklung der deutschen evangelishen Theologie im Laufe des 19. Jahrunderts untersucht mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Albrecht Ritschl und seine theologische Nachfolger, Wilhelm Herrmann, Ernst Troeltsch, und Rudolf Otto. Dieser Einfluss besteht nicht in erster Linie in den direkten Antworten dieser Theologen auf die Behauptungen der Vertreter verschiedener nicht-theistischen Weltanschuungen, sondern vielmehr in der Übernahme philosophischer Begriffe und Argumentationsmittel, die ihre eigenen theologischen Programme unterschiedlich geformt haben.

Developing MacIntyre’s metaphilosophy, Whitehead’s contention that philosophy ‘is the most effective of all the intellectual pursuits’ is elucidated and defended. It is argued that the narratives through which philosophical ideas are evaluated can refigure the stories constituting societies. In this way philosophical ideas become practically effective and come to be embodied in institutions. This is illustrated by the challenge by process philosophy to scientific materialism in the face of an impending global ecological crisis. It is argued that to (...) be successful, process philosophy must be articulated into a grand narrative to challenge the dominant grand narrative of modernity. (shrink)

This paper argues for a broader understanding of complexity; an understanding that speaks to the multidimensionality of environmental problems. As argued, environmental problems rest upon ontological, epistemological, and moral claims; they rest, in other words, upon statements about what is, knowledge, and what ought to be, respectively. To develop and illustrate this argument, the GMO (genetically modified organism) controversy is broken down according to these three dimensions. Dissecting environmental problems in this manner reveals why we cannot look solely toward the (...) natural sciences for resolution: because these problems beg questions that cannot be answered with references to materiality alone. (shrink)

Many Christians who argue against Christian materialism direct their arguments against what I call ‘Type-I materialism’, the thesis that I cannot exist without my organic body. I distinguish Type-I materialism from Type-II materialism, which entails only that I cannot exist without some body that supports certain mental functions. I set out a version of Type-II materialism, and argue for its superiority to Type-I materialism in an age of science. Moreover, I show that Type-II (...) class='Hi'>materialism can accommodate Christian doctrines like the Resurrection of the Body, the Incarnation, and the intermediate state (if there is one). (shrink)

This book is a rationalist critique of the identity theory, oriented by a discussion of Feigl’s significance-reference distinction. Large chapters on the impossibility of identity, on both methodological and empirical grounds, are filled with helpful quotes and clear interpretations of contemporary theories. For Polten dualism is not resolved by language clarification. "Morning star" and "evening star" do not have the same sense, nor do they refer to the same extension. They could not be substituted for one another. "X = Y (...) if and only if X and Y have every property in common.... If I only show one property which is not common between mind and body, the identity theory is disconfirmed," logically. Empirically there are grounds for a dualist position because "... mind and brain are observed to be different." Epistemologically, "... what we do perceive is mind-dependent without exception;" the basis of experience is personal and a pure ego enables us to account for this privileged access. Polten tends to collapse distinctions between logic, epistemology, and ontology to provide a metaphysical overview in the pure ego. "... Object and subject merge, and the experience is one of self-illumination and transparence." His arguments do not justify this metaphysics, but he does make a case, in terms of his criticisms of attempts at reduction, for linguistic and epistemological dualism.—P.S. (shrink)