Materialism 

Materialism is the view that the only thing that exists is matter; if anything else, such as mental events, exists, then it is reducible to matter.

"Materialism" has also frequently been understood to designate an entire scientific, "rationalistic" world view, particularly by religious thinkers opposed to it and also by Marxists. It is typically contrasted both with dualism and with phenomenalism[?] (which is also called idealism), and like those theories, has had a long history with many varieties and many distinguished proponents. Materialism has also developed as a pejorative label for a lifestyle pursuing wealth, money, and objects rather than spiritual development.

The definition of "matter" in modern philosophical materialism extends to all scientifically observable entities such as energy, forces, and the curvature of space.

Compare with Vitalism.

The varieties of materialism

Incomplete: mention French materialism

The history of materialism

Ancient Greek philosophers like Parmenides, Epicurus, and even Aristotle may be called materialists. Later on, the materialist tradition was represented by Thomas Hobbes and Pierre Gassendi, in opposition to Rene Descartes' attempts to provide the natural sciences[?] with dualist foundations. Later materialists were Denis Diderot and other French enlightenment thinkers, as well as Ludwig Feuerbach.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, turning the idealist dialectics of Georg Hegel "upside down", provided materialism with a view on processes of quantitative and qualitative change called dialectical materialism, and with a materialist account of the course of history, known as historical materialism.

In recent years, Paul Churchland[?] and Patricia Churchland[?] have advocated an extreme form of materialism, eliminativist materialism, which holds that mental phenomena simply do not exist at all--that talk of the mental is a reflection of a totally spurious "folk psychology[?]" that simply has no basis in fact, something like the way that folk science speaks of demon-caused illness.

Tesman, our time has come. LOVBORG. [Rising.] Mine too, Judge Brack. HEDDA. [Pinching her arm.] They can hear you! LOVBORG. [To BRACK.] You were good enough to invite me. LOVBORG. Yes, many thanks. LOVBORG. [To TESMAN, putting the parcel of MS. in his pocket.] I should like TESMAN. Fancy--that will be delightful. But, Hedda dear, how is Mrs. Elvsted HEDDA. Oh, that can be managed somehow. again and fetch her. [Approaching.] At ten.html">ten or thereabouts, Mrs. HEDDA. Certainly. That will do capitally. Hedda. MRS. ELVSTED. [Trying to conceal her anxiety.] Well then, Mr. Lovborg--I shall LOVBORG. [With his hat in his hand.] Pray do, Mrs. Elvsted. a lively time, as a certain fair lady puts it. BRACK. Why unseen? Brack. TESMAN. [Also laughing.] Come, you're a nice one Hedda! Fancy that! LOVBORG. [Bowing.] About ten o'clock, then, same time, BERTA enters from the inner room with a lighted out by the way she came. Hedda--what will come of all this? leaves in his hair--flushed and fearless--- HEDDA. And then, you see.html">see--then he will have regained control over himself. MRS. ELVSTED. Oh God!--if he would only come as you see him.

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