Britannica defines materialism as the view that 'all facts (including facts about the human mind and will and the course of human history) are causally dependent upon physical processes, or even reducible to them'.
The issue with this definition is the use of 'physical processes'. What is physical process? Are there non-physical processes? How could anyone even begin to test for that, no matter what it means. It seems to me that there are processes, either known or unknown to us. If they interact with what our senses (and/or scientific instruments which are an extension of our senses) they can be detected. If not, we can simply know nothing about them. Thus, calling known processes physical does not seem to add anything. By extension, materialism makes not sense either. There in only the world, and the facts within it, either known, or unknown. Maybe also parallel universes, but I digress.
Materialism, as a philosophical concept, is relatively well defined but remains subject to interpretation and debate depending on the context in which it is used. There are multiple versions of materialism, each with its own nuances:
While these versions of materialism are conceptually distinct and generally well-defined within their respective domains, debates persist. For instance:
- In philosophy of mind, the hard problem of consciousness challenges materialism’s ability to explain subjective experience.
- In historical materialism, critics argue that ideology and culture play a greater role than purely economic forces.
- In social theory, consumerist materialism is debated in terms of its psychological and ethical implications.
So, while materialism as a broad category is well articulated, its sufficiency as an explanatory framework continues to be contested across disciplines.
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