Materialism

Materialism is a metaphysical view falling under the class of ‘monist’ theories, that claims that everything that exists in the world is only one sort of thing: material. Materialism is distinguished from physicalism practically only in name - as materialism discusses ‘matter’ while physicalism discusses ‘physics’ and physical processes, and physicalism has had history of being used as a linguistic term (see the Vienna Circle’s use of it) while materialism is a distinctly metaphysical one. There is a question, then, about the nature of this wholly material world - is it reducible or irreducible? More precisely, if it is reducible, then this must mean that every phenomena in the world can be reduced and seen to be merely material or physical. If it is irreducible, then this means that certain things are irreducibly defined - take the phenomena of the mind, for example; the mental mind could be said to work in a materialist worldview if it is simply classified as an irreducible and emergent property of physical processes - which leaves certain things not fully explainable. Lastly, there are epistemological questions: primarily, is the reason why we may claim a materialist worldview because of a posteriori (empirical) evidence? Or is it possible to make an argument a priori for this view? While this view of materialism/physicalism is popular, in a sense, amongst empiricist-oriented scientists, this is not strictly necessary and the view has its critiques, even today.