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Definition: materialism from Philip's Encyclopedia

System of philosophical thought that explains the nature of the world as dependent on matter. The doctrine was formulated in the 4th century bc by Democritus. Plato developed the contrasting philosophy of idealism. The early followers of Buddhism were also materialists. Dialectical materialism as formulated by Karl Marx is a modern development of the older theory. See also Epicurus; monism


materialism

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
in philosophy, a widely held system of thought that explains the nature of the world as entirely dependent on matter, the fundamental and final reality beyond which nothing need be sought. Certain periods in history, usually those associated with scientific advance, are marked by strong materialistic tendencies. The doctrine was formulated as early as the 4th cent. B.C. by Democritus , in whose system of atomism all phenomena are explained by atoms and their motions in space. Other early Greek teaching, such as that of Epicurus and Stoicism , also conceived of reality as material in its nature. The theory was later renewed in the 17th cent. by Pierre Gassendi and Thomas Hobbes, who believed that the sphere of consciousness essentially belongs to the corporeal world, or the senses. The investigations of John Locke were adapted to materialist positions by David Hartley and Joseph Priestley. They were a part of the materialist development of the 18th cent., strongly manifested in France, …
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Full text Article Materialism

From World of Sociology, Gale
While the term “materialism” is used popularly to refer to an emphasis on the ownership of material possessions, in sociology it refers to a theory of social organization and material production developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . Materialism explains social structure as resulting from the…
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Full text Article materialism

From Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology
This concept can be understood in two rather different ways. In everyday language, it is used as a moral judgment of a person or philosophy, ascribing to them an excessive devotion to possessions or sensory pleasures. In a more technical vocabulary, it means any secular philosophy or system which…
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Full text Article Materialism

From Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science
According to the doctrine of materialism, the mind is no more than a complex arrangement of physical matter. This is maintained by most philosophers of mind and presupposed by cognitive science, but it is difficult to make precise and it faces some formidable objections. Materialism is, in full, the…
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Full text Article Materialism

From Encyclopedia of American Studies
Karl Marx. Prints and Photographs Division,...
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Full text Article materialism

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
In metaphysics , the doctrine that all of reality is essentially of the nature of matter. In the philosophy of mind , one form of materialism, sometimes called central-state materialism, asserts that states of the mind are identical to states of the human brain. In order to account for the possible…
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The term “materialism” has two main philosophical meanings. First, it refers to the belief that matter is all that exists, so that ideas and concepts are illusory. This outlook is often known today as “eliminative materialism.” Second, it can also designate the belief that ideas are determined by…
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Full text Article MATERIALISM

From Dictionary of Visual Discourse: A Dialectical Lexicon of Terms
The term materialism has a wide range of contested meanings and connotations within philosophy, the human sciences and popular usage. Among these: The metaphysical claim that everything in the universe can be reduced to matter and motion (or the efficient causation that operates through the material…
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From Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought
1 . Metaphysics. A somewhat outmoded label for the philosophy that denies that the mind and its contents have a peculiar nature separate from physical reality and subject to autonomous laws of constitution and development. The ‘materialism’ of the Enlightenment held that nothing exists except…
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From Encyclopedia of Ethics
Materialism, as understood here, is the view that only money and possessions matter, that each is necessary and that together they are sufficient for the good life. As the materialist sees it, wealth and PROPERTY are the only things that count, and nothing is of value to a person unless that value…
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From Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology
At first sight, the concerns of materialism seem to be diametrically opposed to the concerns of theology. If God is Spirit (John 4:24), and if the term ‘spirit’ is understood in a disembodied sense, matter appears to be foreign to theology. This impression of an irreconcilable conflict between…
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