Materialism Philosophy
Materialism philosophy comes in too different brands. There is metaphysical materialism which is concerned with the nature of things that exist. There is also political materialism which is concerned with human behaviour and social organisation. This article is concerned only with the former type of philosophical materialism. In recent decades there has been a massive growth in popular science books written by eminent scientists with the non-science specialist in mind. Some of the best known of these have been extremely careless in their philosophical presentations. Materialism is presented by some, as fact, when it is not fact. Indeed, it is false and has been discarded as a philosophical position by scientists approximately a hundred years ago. The main proponent of a materialist philosophy in recent years has been Richard Dawkins. I can well understand him taking on the unscientific groups who seek to undermine rational understanding but to do so by presenting science wrapped in a materialist philosophy is to my mind a grave mistake. Quite simply materialism as a philosophy is dead and has been dead for a century.
I am all in favour of promoting science and the rational understanding of the world in which we live, but pretending that science and rationalism need to embrace materialist philosophy does not help. There are ways of viewing the world that do not entail a philosophical materialist interpretation and there are ways of understanding the world non-materially that do not contradict any known scientific facts. Too frequently science is presented as materialist to counter some irrational position when materialism itself is equally objectionable. Dawkins speaks of evolutionary theory as an idea that refutes God. It does not. There may be arguments against the theist God but evolutionary theory is not one of them. Dawkins also presents life and human existence as a purely random and accidental occurrence. This may well be a true representation of the universe, but it is by no means clear that we are here by mere randomness. There is certainly no scientific evidence to believe such a proposition and it is equally valid to assume that the universe must be here in the way it is and could not exist in any other way. This is a philosophical question that science has been unable to answer. There are many scientists who would argue the point if were not for the fear of being grouped amongst the irrational. Philosophical materialism is not a scientific fact and presenting it as such does not help. Materialism philosophy needs to be exposed for the redundant philosophy that it is. If we wish to argue for a rational and scientific understanding of reality then dropping the already discredited theories is important. Rant over.
December 16, 2007 at 7:52 pm
This same thing came to mind as I reviewed the recent works of rambling atheists. To to be philosophical materialist is to say you don’t believe in mathematics. If you believe in mathematics even though you cannot see, touch, feel, taste or smell it then you are not a philosophical materialist and should not present yourself as one.
January 11, 2008 at 3:01 am
to me dawkins seems to stuck in Cause-and effect science to make any substantial statement on god and universe at large. Personally I still hold to field theory.
I am glad i found your wonderful blog on pan-theism. still taking it in.
September 9, 2008 at 7:08 pm
I wonder if the works of rambling atheists are any less relevant than the works of rambling theists?
Once again the lack of a universal semantic precludes arriving at a common understanding.
What is a proof?
What does it mean to exist?
Philosophical Materialism claims that matter is all that has (so far) been phenomenally proven to be physically present in spacetime. That of course requires one to define existence as having mass and occupying space.
It does not make the claim (as indicated above) that matter is all that exists; only that it cannot be proven empirically that anything other than matter exists.
The first great challenge in metaphysics is to agree on a universal set of premises from which to approach existential questions. Until we all are able to begin our inquiry with the same set of tools we will not make progress toward a common understanding of what constitutes either proof or existence.
. . this is a great blog . . keep it up . .
February 23, 2009 at 11:20 pm
(1) I think I get your point about materialism being dead for over a century. But I dare to disagree. Modern physics has hardly done away with matter, it just explained it in more complex ways.
True, quantum fields, spinors and strings are not exactly matter. But they are concepts with a precise mathematical definition, whose interactions can (in principle) be deduced in a purely formal and objective manner, and the basic building blocks of physics are few. Mental states, on the other hand, are nowhere – nowhere! – to be found in physical theories.
Materialism, therefore, is not dead – it just so happens that “matter” is no longer understood as tiny balls of solid spacial extension.
(2) “Dawkins also presents life and human existence as a purely random and accidental occurrence. This may well be a true representation of the universe, but it is by no means clear that we are here by mere randomness.”
Really now, have you ever read a book by Dawkins? He is very adamant in pointing out that evolution is absolutely not random. I have heard him make that point so often in debates that I am really disappointed that you spread this misconception.
Evolution, in Dawkins’ sense, is an orderly, highly complex self-organizing system of replicating agents. By a complicated system of feedback and mutation, by the constant pressure of survival, by natural selection and by the abundant availability of energy (just in case anybody wants to invoke the second principle of thermodynamics), over millions of years these agents have better and better adapted to the environment, and are now forming a multitude of biological organisms with a vast complexity that boggles the mind. Oh, and minds, yes. Some animals evolved to have minds, whatever the nature of mind is.
This process is the opposite of randomness. The odds of a human being (or even a mouse or a honey bee) just forming randomly, accidentally, out of fundamental chemical components is so utterly small that it could practically never happen. This, of course, is not an rgument against evolution, since evolution is clearly not a random process (even though it involves random mutations).
To be clear, I share your disdain for materialism, and I agree that materialism is in no way a precondition for evolution, and that evolution is not necessarily atheistic. But your representation of evolution, particularly the way Dawkins understands and explains evolution, is deeply flawed.
(3) Otherwise, I really like your blog. Why have there been no new articles for over a year?