Fundamentally materialism is a particular view on ontological question of basic constituents of our existence.It claims that fundamental constituents of our world is material or physical not spiritual.Many people believe in the existence of soul that is responsible for mental phenomena and different from physical body. Such a soul is believed exist even after the death and gives a sense of purpose and meaning to their existence.This makes materialism a very contentious issue that questions the fundamental premise of their existence.Both its supporters and critics argue for a more social significance, supporters equate it with rationalism and progressive attitude, while opponents deride by equating with hedonism and rejection of morality. The book Materialism by Robin Gordon Brown and James Ladyman is an introductory text dealing with both the historical and philosophical aspects. It explains the history of materialist thought in ancient India and Greek and its relevance to development of modern western thought particularly the age of Enlightenment and the development of modern science.Philosophically it summarizes the notion of materialism, the challenge posed by developments in modern science science particularly quantum physics and current formulation of physicalism that takes into account these challenges seriously. Authors considers the notion of materialism as fundamentally a ontological position and insist against it implying hedonism or inherently standing for social change.
The discussion of materialism in ancient world is started with Carvaka school in ancient India which argued consciousness is emergent property of material constituents and there is no after life. Against the Vedic orthodoxy they argued that Vedas were written to fool people and get free food. This discussion is a welcome step in dispelling the orientalist notion of spiritual east that ignores the rationalist thought in India. I wish the author also discussed proto-materialist atomism in Vaisesika, Buddhist and Jaina schools, realism in Mimamsa, and rationalism in Nyaya and Buddhist logicians.
In the context of ancient Greek and Roman period the author's mainly discusses the works of Democritus, Epicurus and later Lucretius mainly their atomism and questioning of authority will be an continuing inspiration. The destruction of materialist and other schools in Alexandria and ascendancy of christian church and its dogmatism and curtailing of freedom of opinion is the biggest tragedy in our history. If it hadn't happen world would have had more rapid progress atleast in its understanding of the universe.Epicureans were killed mercilessly may be because they held a opinion that seemed more dangerous than the idea of non-existence of gods i.e. gods exists but don't care about human beings.
The discovery of Greek and Roman works particularly the works of Lucretius resulted in rejuvenated interest in atomism and materialism. The authors traces how it lead to scientific revolution to the development of scientific philosophy and formed the basis of the worldview of Enlightenment. It is a fascinating journey and shows the diversity of opinions and the dialogue between them. In the work of Feuerbach and Marx it got equated with progressive social outlook and acquired a militant zeal. I wish the authors had clarified the difference between dialectical materialism and materialism has a ontological position.
The simplistic notion of materialism rejects the existence of spirits,ghosts etc independent of the material body and offers a picture of world consisting of atoms interacting in space similar to billiard balls.This encouraged developments in physics and chemistry particularly atomic theory and the evolutionary theory of Darwin resulted in further support for materialism. But the development of modern physics particularly General theory of Relativity and Quantum Physics threatens the notion of space and matter(particle) implicit in the formulation of materialism.The theories of fundamental physical are expressed in the framework of mathematics and completely alien to our everyday world.
In the light of this the materialism is modified to physicalism.It doesn't say anything about final constituents of physical world but only predicts that it will not be mental and spiritual. This is a falsifiable claim based on observation that even after radical changes scientific theories have not postulated the existence of mental entity at fundamental level.The main issue is to explain the existence of mental phenomena in a physical world. Authors defends the notion of supervenient physicalism which doesn't deny the existence of mental phenomena but argues that it is supervenient on physical constituents. So it denies the possibility of change in mental phenomena while the underlying physical aspects are unaffected.
The notion of free will, concept of supervenience especially hierarchical and local aspects of it and place of morality in a naturalistic world all requires further discussion. The physicalist notion of self raises skepticism about existence of free will, supervenience seems to obscure than explain,morality particularly the aspects of agency and responsibility are radically questioned by the physicalism.
Overall the book is a good introduction, its lucid style and minimum use of technical concepts makes it suitable for people who wants to read about materialism and lack background in philosophy.
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