Materialism Today

Abstract

Materialism is a family of ontofogies, or exfreme/y general doctrines about the world. What all the members of that family have in common is the thesis that everything that exists really is material — or, stated negatively, that immaterial objects such as ideas have no existence independent of material things such as brains. Aside from this common core, materialist ontologies may differ widely. It is only by adding further requirements that a definite materialist ontology will be individuated or built. We choose two: exactness and consistency with contemporary science. Let us peek at these conditions.