13 upvotes, 3 direct replies (showing 3)
Materialism has nothing to do with a so-called "mythical" substance, "unobservable" and "metaphysical" to the idealists and agnostics.
It has to do with the fundamental divide in philosophy over whether or not objective reality (being) is primary or whether mind or thought is primary. Empricists and agnostics always uphold the "new" science and try to leverage changes in our understanding of the basic components of objective reality to re-insert the idealist primacy of mind, of subjective idealism, in a disguised and contradictory form that needs to utilize science, which is instinctively materialist, in order to doubt materialism. By relying on discover of laws of nature, whatever that may be, is a fatal admission to materialism that thought and mind reflect objective reality and are merely its highest product.
Comment by Ill-Software8713 at 25/02/2025 at 01:19 UTC
7 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Agreed.
Anyone who doesn’t make an absolute ontological distinction between ideas and matter simply muddy the waters with ambiguous terms.
We have already lived through the confusing time of Ostwald and Mach’s energetism in the early 20th century and it was a mess precisely because of that framing of materialism as a specific kind of matter and rhetoric of it’s disappearance.
Comment by GRAND_INQUEEFITOR at 26/02/2025 at 18:02 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
As a layperson, I'm curious to get your thoughts on some terminology. In your view, is there any fundamental difference between materialism (as you define it) and physicalism?
I ask because a recently posted article[1] highlighted the difference between old-school "materialism" (a *normative* doctrine that mandated that physics needs to be explained in terms of the behavior and interactions of matter and only matter) and "physicalism" (the view that all "real" phenomena supervene on physics, whether or not it involves "matter").
1: https://iai.tv/articles/we-dont-understand-matter-any-better-than-mind-auid-3065
It seems to me that the contemporary usage of the word 'materialism' —the one you used— is a lot closer to what the linked article calls physicalism, that is, a monism based on physics-described reality (after all, and not to put too fine a point on it, bosons are physical, but they're not matter). Is this fair?
Comment by IntransigentErudite at 26/02/2025 at 19:03 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Wait, being is nothing, its pure mediation. The mind is nothing. Beings are things but being is not a particular thing, it no-thing at all, hence not objective or subjective.