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What is materialism?

Bunyip

pro scapegoat
Many recent threads indicate that there are some very, very different understandings of what 'materialism' means.

As I understand it, it is simply a lens - a philosophical approach that assumes there will be a natural explanation. As opposed to atheism, nihilism, communism and all the other 'isms' I see it equated to. It does not deny anything, it does not reject paranormal concepts, it is not challenged by the unknown.

So what is 'materialism' to you?
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
Many recent threads indicate that there are some very, very different understandings of what 'materialism' means.

As I understand it, it is simply a lens - a philosophical approach that assumes there will be a natural explanation. As opposed to atheism, nihilism, communism and all the other 'isms' I see it equated to. It does not deny anything, it does not reject paranormal concepts, it is not challenged by the unknown.
So what would not fit into 'materialism' with you?
 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
What folks call "materialism" would more properly be described as physicalism per philosophy, but this seems to be what the vast majority of people mean when they say "materialism" in terms of discussing the substances that underly reality:

Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on the physical. The thesis is usually intended as a metaphysical thesis, parallel to the thesis attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Thales, that everything is water, or the idealism of the 18th Century philosopher Berkeley, that everything is mental. The general idea is that the nature of the actual world (i.e. the universe and everything in it) conforms to a certain condition, the condition of being physical. Of course, physicalists don't deny that the world might contain many items that at first glance don't seem physical — items of a biological, or psychological, or moral, or social nature. But they insist nevertheless that at the end of the day such items are either physical or supervene on the physical.​
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
What do you mean by 'not fit into materialism' George? Materialism does not eliminate any possibility, so how can anything be said to 'not fit'?


How do you define 'materialism'?
The term becomes meaningless if nothing does not fit into it.
 

Bunyip

pro scapegoat
What folks call "materialism" would more properly be described as physicalism per philosophy, but this seems to be what the vast majority of people mean when they say "materialism" in terms of discussing the substances that underly reality:

Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical, or as contemporary philosophers sometimes put it, that everything supervenes on the physical. The thesis is usually intended as a metaphysical thesis, parallel to the thesis attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Thales, that everything is water, or the idealism of the 18th Century philosopher Berkeley, that everything is mental. The general idea is that the nature of the actual world (i.e. the universe and everything in it) conforms to a certain condition, the condition of being physical. Of course, physicalists don't deny that the world might contain many items that at first glance don't seem physical — items of a biological, or psychological, or moral, or social nature. But they insist nevertheless that at the end of the day such items are either physical or supervene on the physical.​
Thanks, very interesting.
 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
The Standford article goes into a ton more detail beyond that brief exerpt. In essence, materialism/physicalism is a type of philosophical monism that reduces everything down to the physical. Not being a philosophical monist, I obviously can't agree with it on those grounds alone.
 

Bunyip

pro scapegoat
If everything fits into 'materialism' then there is no significant meaning to the term.
Yes, you said that. It is just a non-sequitur. Why is 'materialism' meaningless if 'everything fits into materialism'? And what do you mean by that?

I ask again how you define 'materialism' George?
 

Bunyip

pro scapegoat
The Standford article goes into a ton more detail beyond that brief exerpt. In essence, materialism/physicalism is a type of philosophical monism that reduces everything down to the physical. Not being a philosophical monist, I obviously can't agree with it on those grounds alone.
Sorry, but in your first post you argue that people mistake materialism for physicalism, and in the second post equate materialism with physicalism.
Which is it?
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
Many recent threads indicate that there are some very, very different understandings of what 'materialism' means.

As I understand it, it is simply a lens - a philosophical approach that assumes there will be a natural explanation. As opposed to atheism, nihilism, communism and all the other 'isms' I see it equated to. It does not deny anything, it does not reject paranormal concepts, it is not challenged by the unknown.

So what is 'materialism' to you?

Materialism, whatever exists has to have properties which can be measured. Basically for something to be said to exist, it has to effect something, be effected by something and that effect is capable of being measured.
 

Laika

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
there are different forms of materialism, and the one I use (dialectical materialism) is excentric. So this isn't a definition of all forms of materialism, only a marxist specific one known as dialectical materialism. Marxists tended to re-write things to suit logical consistency of their arguments and this is a specific response to the question of the relationship between thinking and being/mind-matter problem. it's worth treating it with some caution when applied in other contexts.

"the great basic question of all philosophy, especially of modern philosophy, is that concerning the relation of thinking and being... The answers which the philosophers have given to this question split them into two great campos. Those who asserted the primary of spirit to nature and therefore in the last instance assumed the world creation in some form or another... comprised the camp of idealism. The others, who regarded nature as primary, belong to the various schools of materialism." [F. Engels]

the reason it's dialectical is because nature is supposed to change itself and therefore does not require either human or divine consciousness to animate it. this was supposed to make it inherently atheist compared with other forms of materialism which could for example be pantheist if consciousness and matter were equated. Because nature is regarded as primary, it means that any explanation that regards spirit or consciousness as primary is rejected. It is therefore a philosophical worldview in marxist ideology that gets applied to everything rather than a single concept which is used selectively as a lens. This would include the rejecting concepts of god, the soul, supernatural entites as well less obvious ones such as free will. I'm not 100% sure how it works, but the form of materialism that is most nihilistic is eliminative materialism which denies the existence of consciousness. a distinction is that whereas eliminative materialism would such concepts as god are false, dialectical materialism would say there are an illusion arising from natural causes. man still has to create god based on logical inferrence. (I admit I'm unclear on the deatils as there are very few texts that clarify what they meant by "scientific atheism" in the USSR).
 

Deathbydefault

Apistevist Asexual Atheist
I'm more prone to the philosophical base idea that materialism is grounded in.
The idea that the physical world, and all the materials it presents to us, is all that there is.
That doesn't seem to be modern materialism though, as this idea didn't ever try to include the supernatural.
 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
Sorry, but in your first post you argue that people mistake materialism for physicalism, and in the second post equate materialism with physicalism.
Which is it?

No, I didn't say people "mistake" materialism for physicalism, I said the way in which people use the word "materialism" is as a synonym for "physicalism" with respect to how it is defined in philosophical dialogues (and even in philosophical dialogues, physicalism and materialism are used interchangeably in this way). The colloquial meaning for materialism is the same as how physicalism/materialism is understood in philosophy: that nothing exists except matter, or that everything reduces to it. But it's worth noting that "materialism" is a term also used to describe people who are not philosophical materialists/physicalists, but people who value material possessions over other things or have a consumerist mindset. That clearly isn't what we are talking about here, though.
 

Yerda

Veteran Member
As I understand it, it is simply a lens - a philosophical approach that assumes there will be a natural explanation.
I think the word for that is naturalism.

Bunyip said:
So what is 'materialism' to you?
The thesis that matter is the only substance. It's a position in an old, odd philosophical debate.
 

Yerda

Veteran Member
No, I didn't say people "mistake" materialism for physicalism, I said the way in which people use the word "materialism" is as a synonym for "physicalism" with respect to how it is defined in philosophical dialogues (and even in philosophical dialogues, physicalism and materialism are used interchangeably in this way).
I often wonder if this had anything to do with the discovery/invention of field theories to explain natural phenomena. When it was obvious that not everything was matter did the materialists simply switch to physicalism (as in the things understood by physics)?
 

Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
Many recent threads indicate that there are some very, very different understandings of what 'materialism' means.

As I understand it, it is simply a lens - a philosophical approach that assumes there will be a natural explanation. As opposed to atheism, nihilism, communism and all the other 'isms' I see it equated to. It does not deny anything, it does not reject paranormal concepts, it is not challenged by the unknown.

So what is 'materialism' to you?
That's the "lens" called naturalism.

Materialism is the lens that sees everything reducible to matter.
 

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
Here is Wikipedia's answer:

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

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.
 
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