Within the domain of philosophy, materialism comprises of the view that our existence is ruled by physical matter, although the term physicalism has been increasingly associated with this doctrine as it has been shown more often than not that matter itself re-arranges itself into forces and energy, earning itself the recognition of being one of the most prominent denizens in the universe. It is also true its roots can be traced back to Greek atomism, arising in the modern period in Hobbes's Leviathan. Another definition for materialism holds that it's the excessive desire for goods and wealth. This definition bears little resemblance to the philosophical use of the term, even though the lingering ambiguity is potentially exploited to stir up controversy against an undifferentiated materialism. This is also the meaning of the term which leads to a life unguarded of the evils that this world has to offer.
The term can be suitably employed to refer to the overall attitude or behaviour of attachment to material goods and the enjoyment derived of being in contact therewith. It also relates to similar pleasures attained from upholding monetary values whilst holding a complete disregard to anything that lies outside the grasp of those confined to a material realm. The unbridled possessing and hoarding of wealth is a character's trait typical of a materialist person ( in the pejorative sense of the term). in the arts scenario, materialism means an inclination to give things a realistic and sensual likeness so as to make them simulate life better.
Below is a neat passage which fitfully sums up the concept of materialism, explaining both the philosophical as well as its down-to-earth application by D.M. Armstrong from Oxford Companion of the Mind:
Classifications of theories are bad masters, but may be useful servants.
In the following classification of the main theories of the mind–body
relationship upheld by philosophers, it is to be understood that the
positions sketched are 'ideal types' to which actually held positions
may approximate in different degrees.
If we think of mind and
body as two opponents in a tug-of-war, then we can distinguish among
theories that try to drag body, and matter generally, over into the camp
of mind; those that try to drag mind over into the camp of body; and
those theories where an equal balance is maintained. This yields a
division into mentalist, materialist (physicalist), and dualist
theories.
It is convenient to begin by considering dualism. The major position here is
Cartesian dualism, named after Descartes,
the central figure in post-medieval philosophical discussion of the
mind–body problem. For a Cartesian dualist the mind and body are both
substances; but while the body is an extended, and so a material,
substance, the mind is an unextended, or spiritual, substance, subject
to completely different principles of operation from the body. It was
this doctrine that Gilbert Ryle caricatured as the myth of the ghost in the machine. It is in fact a serious and important theory.
Dualist theories are also to be found in a more sceptical form, which may be called
bundle dualism. The word 'bundle' springs from David Hume's
insistence that, when he turned his mental gaze upon his own mind, he
could discern no unitary substance but simply a 'bundle of perceptions',
a succession or stream of individual mental items or happenings. Hume
thought of these items as non-physical. A bundle dualist is one who
dissolves the mind in this general way, while leaving the body and other
material things intact.
Besides dividing dualism into Cartesian and bundle theories, it may also be divided according to a different principle.
Interactionist theories hold, what common sense asserts, that the body can act upon the mind and the mind can act upon the body. For
parallelist
theories, however, mind and body are incapable of acting upon each
other. Their processes run parallel, like two synchronized clocks, but
neither influences the other. There is an intermediate view according to
which, although the body (in particular, the brain) acts upon and
controls the mind, the mind is completely impotent to affect the body.
This intermediate view, especially when combined with a bundle theory of
mind, is the doctrine of
epiphenomenalism. It allows the
neurophysiologist, in particular, to recognize the independent reality
of the mental, yet acknowledge the controlling role of the brain in our
mental life and give a completely physicalist account of the brain and
the factors which act upon it.
Mentalist theories arise naturally
out of dualist theories, particularly where the dualist position is
combined with Descartes' own view that the mind is more immediately and
certainly known than anything material. If this view is taken, as it was
by many of the greatest philosophers who succeeded Descartes, it is
natural to begin by becoming sceptical of the existence of material
things. The problem that this raises was then usually solved by
readmitting the material world in a dematerialized or mentalized form. Berkeley,
for instance, solved the sceptical problem by reducing material things
to our sensations 'of' them. Berkeley thus reaches a mentalism where the
mind is conceived of as a spiritual substance, but bodies are reduced
to sensations of these minds.
It is possible to combine
Berkeley's reduction of matter to sensations with a bundle account of
the mind. In this way is reached the doctrine of
neutral monism,
according to which mind and matter are simply different ways of
organizing and marking off overlapping bundles of the same constituents.
This view is to be found in Ernst Mach and William James
, and was adopted at one stage by Bertrand Russell.
The 'neutral' constituents of mind and body are, however, only
dubiously neutral, and the theory is best classified as a form of
mentalism.
Just as Cartesian dualism may move towards mentalism,
so it may also move towards materialism. Surprisingly, Descartes' own
particular form of the theory lends itself to this development also.
Descartes was one of the pioneers in arguing for an anti-Aristotelian
view of the material world generally and the body in particular. First,
this involved the rejection of all teleological principles of
explanation in the non-mental sphere. Second, it involved taking the
then revolutionary, now scientifically orthodox, view that organic
nature involves no principles of operation that are not already to be
found operative in non-organic nature. Human and animal bodies are
simply machines (today we might say physicochemical mechanisms) working
according to physical principles.
A view of this sort naturally
leads on to the suggestion that it may be possible to give an account of
the mind also along the same principles. In this way, a completely
materialist account of nature is reached, and so a materialist account
of the mind.
The word 'materialism' sometimes misleads. The
materialist is not committed to a Newtonian 'billiard-ball' account of
matter. Keith Campbell has spoken of the 'relativity of materialism' —
its relativity to the physics of the day. Materialism is best
interpreted as the doctrine that the fundamental laws and principles of
nature are exhausted by the laws and principles of physics, however
'unmaterialistic' the latter laws and principles may be. Instead of
speaking of 'materialism' some writers use the term 'physicalism'.
Materialist accounts of the mind may be subdivided into
peripheralist and
centralist views. A more familiar name for the peripheralist view is
behaviorism:
the view that possession of a mind is constituted by nothing more than
the engaging in of especially sophisticated types of overt behaviour, or
being disposed to engage in such behaviour in suitable circumstances.
Behaviourism as a philosophical doctrine must be distinguished from the
mere methodological behaviourism of many psychologists who do not wish
to base scientific findings upon introspective reports of processes that
are not publicly observable.
Very much more fashionable at the
present time among philosophers inclined to materialism is the
centralist view, which identifies mental processes with purely physical
processes in the central nervous system. This view is sometimes called
central-state materialism or, even more frequently, the
identity
view. Unlike behaviourism, it allows the existence of 'inner' mental
processes which interact causally with the rest of the body.
It
remains to call attention to one important variety of theory
intermediate between orthodox dualism and orthodox materialism. It is a
'one-substance' view, denying that minds are things or collections of
things set over against the material substance which is the brain. But
it does involve a dualism of properties, because brain processes,
besides their physical properties, are conceived of as having further
non-physical properties which are supposed to make the brain processes
into
mental processes. Such views may be called
attribute or
dual-attribute
theories of the mind–body relationship. A theory of this sort could be
said to be a variety of identity view, since it also holds that mental
processes are identical with certain brain processes.
According to the doctrine of
panpsychism,
not simply brain processes but all physical things have a mental side,
aspect, or properties, even if in a primitive and undeveloped form.
Although
the dual-attribute view is important, it inherits the considerable
difficulty and confusion which surrounds the philosophical theory of
properties. There are many difficulties in giving a satisfactory account
of what it is for a thing to have a property, and these difficulties
transmit themselves to this sort of theory of the mind–body
relationship.
(Published 1987)
