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Essay on Materialism

Materialism refers to a collection of personality traits. The contemporary world is full of people who possess materialistic trait. They have a belief that owning and acquisition of the right properties is the vital ingredients of happiness. These people think that success is judged by the things individual possesses. Philosophers and theologians have been complaining for long that materialism is contrary to moral life. More often the goal of gaining material wealth is regarded as empty and in result it prevents a person from being involved in a normal life. The consequences of pursuing materialistic lifestyle are the inability to reach the state of happiness in one’s life. The empirical studies, carried out to find the correlation between happiness and materialism , have confirmed negative correlation between the two.

Being materialistic is bad, as it leads to the creation of the world of difference in the way people treat other human beings. The materialistic people hardly treat others as their equals and often go extra mile to show off their wealth . They hardly care about anyone but themselves and frequently tend to exploit and trample people through the process of a dog eat dog world. It is, therefore, important for people to follow the teachings of the Bible and become moral. The little things we possess, we need to share with the poor as this will ensure equality in the society. Materialism nurtures corruption and causes the society to be impoverished.

Materialistic people use every available means to ensure that the rest of the people in the society remain poor. The aspect of materialism is more pronounced in the third world countries, where leaders are driven by greed and in the process embezzle public funds to maintain their status.

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Social Media Increasing the Number of Deaths in Teens

According to Biernesser et al. (2020), suicide is one of the leading causes of teenage deaths in the United States. One of the main factors contributing to the increased suicide cases among adolescents is social media use. Over the last ten years, the number of teens using social media has increased significantly. At the same…

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Home — Essay Samples — Economics — Economic Theory — Materialism

Essays on Materialism

Materialism has become a prevalent aspect of modern society, shaping the way individuals perceive and engage with the world around them. The relentless pursuit of material possessions and wealth has permeated various facets of life, influencing economic, social, and psychological dynamics. As such, the study of materialism and its implications has garnered significant attention from scholars, researchers, and individuals seeking to understand its impact on society. This essay aims to explore a wide range of topics related to materialism, providing valuable insights into its effects and implications for individuals, communities, and the broader global context.

The Importance of the Topic

The study of materialism is crucial for gaining a comprehensive understanding of the complex interplay between human behavior, societal values, and economic systems. By delving into the various dimensions of materialism, individuals can gain insights into its effects on mental health, relationships, environmental sustainability, and personal well-being. Moreover, exploring the topic of materialism can shed light on the underlying factors driving consumerism, economic inequality, and cultural norms, providing valuable knowledge for addressing these pressing issues. Understanding the implications of materialism is essential for fostering meaningful societal change and promoting individual well-being in a rapidly evolving world.

Advice on Choosing a Topic

When selecting a topic for an essay on materialism, it is essential to consider the specific dimensions of the issue that resonate with one's interests and academic pursuits. Whether exploring the psychological roots of materialism, its impact on relationships, or its influence on societal values, individuals should choose a topic that aligns with their passions and expertise. Additionally, it is beneficial to select a topic that has relevance and significance in the current societal context, allowing for meaningful contributions to the ongoing discourse on materialism. By carefully considering these factors, individuals can choose a topic that offers ample opportunities for in-depth analysis and critical insights.

Materialism Essay Topics

• The effects of materialism on society
• How materialism affects mental health
• Materialism and its impact on relationships
• The role of consumerism in perpetuating materialism
• Materialism and its influence on happiness and life satisfaction
• The connection between materialism and environmental degradation
• Materialism and its impact on personal values and ethics
• The role of social media in promoting materialism
• Materialism and its impact on economic inequality
• The psychological roots of materialism
• Materialism and its influence on decision-making
• The relationship between materialism and self-esteem
• Materialism and its impact on the pursuit of meaningful experiences
• The connection between materialism and debt
• Materialism and its influence on identity formation
• The impact of materialism on family dynamics
• Materialism and its role in shaping cultural norms
• The connection between materialism and mental clutter
• Materialism and its impact on personal well-being
• The relationship between materialism and social status
• The impact of materialism on societal values and priorities
• Materialism and its influence on educational choices
• The connection between materialism and work satisfaction
• Materialism and its impact on political decision-making
• The role of advertising in promoting materialism

The array of essay topics related to materialism provides a rich tapestry of themes and perspectives for exploration. By delving into the multifaceted aspects of materialism, individuals can gain valuable insights into its implications for society, relationships, mental health, and personal well-being. The study of materialism is vital for understanding the complex interplay between human behavior, societal values, and economic systems, offering opportunities for meaningful contributions to the ongoing discourse on materialism. As such, the diverse range of materialism essay topics serves as a valuable resource for individuals seeking to engage with this compelling and relevant issue.

Materialism in The Great Gatsby

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The Great Gatsby Materialistic Character Analysis

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Weaknesses of Materialism

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Materialism in William Wordsworth’s Poem "The World is Too Much with Us"

The concept of material culture and its dimensions, the use of cars to portray materialism in the great gatsby, material possessions and mortality depicted in momento mori, material possessions and personal values in 21st century america, material possessions vs experiential purchases for happiness, the mind-body problem: the enigma of consciousness, importance of materialism in anthropology, importance of materialism: balancing positive and negative impacts, symbolism in the necklace, relevant topics.

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Department of Philosophy

The waning of materialism: new essays on the mind-body problem.

Twenty-three philosophers examine the doctrine of materialism find it wanting. The case against materialism comprises arguments from conscious experience, from the unity and identity of the person, from intentionality, mental causation, and knowledge. The contributors include leaders in the fields of philosophy of mind, metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology, who respond ably to the most recent versions and defenses of materialism. The modal arguments of Kripke and Chalmers, Jackson's knowledge argument, Kim's exclusion problem, and Burge's anti-individualism all play a part in the building of a powerful cumulative case against the materialist research program. Several papers address the implications of contemporary brain and cognitive research (the psychophysics of color perception, blindsight, and the effects of commissurotomies), adding a posteriori arguments to the classical a priori critique of reductionism. All of the current versions of materialism--reductive and non-reductive, functionalist, eliminativist, and new wave materialism--come under sustained and trenchant attack. In addition, a wide variety of alternatives to the materialist conception of the person receive new and illuminating attention, including anti-materialist versions of naturalism, property dualism, Aristotelian and Thomistic hylomorphism, and non-Cartesian accounts of substance dualism.

University of Notre Dame

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

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Real Materialism and Other Essays

Galen Strawson, Real Materialism and Other Essays , Oxford UP, 2008, 478pp., $50.00 (pbk), ISBN 9780199267439.

Reviewed by Andrew Melnyk, University of Missouri

Nineteen previously published papers, with an introduction, make up Galen Strawson’s latest book; nearly all of them have been revised for republication only lightly or not at all. They address an impressively broad range of philosophical topics: the place of mind in the physical world, knowledge of the world in itself, color and color vocabulary, self-consciousness, conscious experiences, conceptions of oneself, intentionality in relation to conscious experience, freewill, causation, and Hume on causation. The papers are not all parts of a grand philosophical design, though they are thematically related to one another in various ways. The most important connecting thread is Strawson’s endorsement of what he calls realistic materialism , which, despite its name, actually denies the conventional materialism or physicalism that is widely, though by no means universally, assumed in current philosophy of mind. Perhaps half the book either defends realistic materialism or addresses issues in the philosophy of mind within the framework that it provides. The main appeal of the book, in my view, lies in the lively and undoubtedly intelligent contrarianism of its author, who provides abundant challenges to widely-held views, especially in the philosophy of mind, and in his large philosophical ambitions. He seems to me, for instance, to want to re-make contemporary philosophy of mind from scratch.

Alas, I have significant general misgivings about the book. There is needless repetition both within and across papers, even while key positions and moves are never made really clear. The book is bloated with material that should have been eliminated or ruthlessly condensed, but which was apparently included on the principle that no thought should ever go to waste. Relevant contemporary literature — I noticed this especially in the papers in the philosophy of mind — is either ignored or discussed in such general terms that it might as well have been ignored (e.g., Joe Levine’s work, the literature on representationalism, or Ruth Millikan’s work on intentionality). Rarely does the book engage in detail with the arguments of individual opponents, opponents being more likely to make an appearance, and to be dispatched, collectively. There is nothing like enough careful argumentation; indeed, Strawson’s official line is that tight arguments are over-rated (3). There is, however, a good amount of very feeble argumentation. One example: in “Real Intentionality: Why Intentionality Entails Consciousness”, Strawson objects to the view that “we need a survival-and-well-being-based normative notion of function in order to make sense of the notion of misrepresentation” as follows:

This cannot be right, for there is … no incoherence in the idea of a Pure Observer who can represent and misrepresent, and know it, in a way completely unconnected with any such notion of function. (288; emphasis in original)

As it stands, however, Strawson’s objection fails — and for a familiar reason. By saying that there is “no incoherence in the idea of a Pure Observer”, Strawson clearly means that his Pure Observer is conceivable in the sense of violating no a priori semantic constraints on the concept of representation. Those who advance the view targeted by Strawson’s objection (e.g., Millikan), however, explicitly present their view not as an analysis of the concept of representation that can be evaluated a priori by appeal to what is conceivable but instead as an a posteriori identity hypothesis as to what representation turns out to be . Indeed, they mustn’t present their view of representation as a conceptual analysis, for, given their view of what representation is, representations in general, and hence concepts, and hence the concept of representation in particular don’t have semantic analyses. The passage in which this unsuccessful objection occurs is not the only occasion on which Strawson makes what, in the current state of debate, will strike many as a very naïve use of the method of possible cases.

Despite these defects, the book still contains some very good material. I was fully persuaded, for example, by the paper arguing that Hume never held a regularity theory of causation (“David Hume: Objects and Power”), and I much enjoyed “The Impossibility of Ultimate Moral Responsibility”, as well as the acute discussion (in “Consciousness, Free Will, and the Unimportance of Determinism”) of whether it matters if determinism is true.

I was much less impressed with the work in the philosophy of mind, partly because it operates within the framework of Strawson’s realistic materialism, which I find to be an unsatisfactory basis for a philosophical research program — for reasons that I will now explain. Realistic materialism is presented in the first two papers of the book, the title essay “Real Materialism” and “Realistic Monism: Why Physicalism Entails Panpsychism”, and is a view of the place of the qualitative character of experiences in the wider world. 1 As I understand it, it comprises five claims:

1) Experiential phenomena are perfectly real.

2) Experiential phenomena are such that:

(i) they’re “part of fundamental reality” (35);

(ii) we know them to exist with certainty (23);

(iii) in having experience, “we are directly acquainted with certain features of the ultimate nature of reality” (25, 41);

(iv) “the having [of them] is the knowing” (25);

(v) “we can’t be radically in error about [their] nature” (55, note 7).

3) Not “all aspects” of experiential phenomena “can be described by current physics, or some non-revolutionary extension of it” (22).

4) Still, experiential phenomena are “physical in every respect” (23, 35, 37).

How can claim 4 and claim 3 be consistent? According to Strawson, we need (a) to distinguish between structural physical features and intrinsic physical features and (b) to adopt the epistemologically structuralist view that physics only gives us knowledge of the world’s structural features. Given (a) and (b), claim 3 is true if the qualitative character of an experience is not a structural physical feature of the world. Claim 4 can be true too, however, if, as Strawson holds:

5) The qualitative character of an experience is an intrinsic physical feature of the event of neurons firing (22, 37).

Real materialism, I should note, is not a novel position; as Strawson acknowledges, it is essentially the position proposed by Grover Maxwell in 1978 (51, note 126). Both are inspired by Russell, of course.

Claim 3 is a very strong claim, entailing the falsehood of every kind of conventional (non-eliminative) physicalism about experiential phenomena. Why should we accept claim 3, according to Strawson? Why, for example, should we disbelieve the type-identity view that phenomenal properties form a proper subset of neurophysiological properties? One might have expected Strawson to endorse familiar arguments for property dualism, e.g., Jackson’s knowledge argument or Kripke’s appeal to the necessity of identity, since, though they don’t establish that the qualitative characters of experience fail to be intrinsic physical features, they do (if successful) establish that they fail to be structural physical features. In fact, however, he doesn’t endorse these arguments, at least explicitly. 2 His official argument for claim 3 is that its negation amounts to eliminativism about experiential phenomena, which “is mad” (22). 3 That the negation of claim 3 amounts to eliminativism is said to follow “from the fact that current physics contains no predicates for experiential phenomena at all, and that no non-revolutionary extension of it could do so” (22, note 17; 56, note 9). Unfortunately, Strawson doesn’t here say how he knows this putative fact. In particular, he doesn’t say why he feels entitled to rule out the possibility that, exactly as type-identity physicalists suppose, certain immensely complex predicates from current physics in fact pick out the qualitative characters of experiential phenomena, even though this can’t be discovered a priori . 4 I conjecture, however, that one way he thinks he can rule out this possibility is by attending introspectively to his own experience (54-55, note 6). For, in his Introduction, he characterizes phenomenal properties as "properties whose whole and essential nature can be and is fully revealed in sensory experience " (12; my emphases). If this characterization of phenomenal properties is correct, then no phenomenal property can be such that some scientific term or concept picks out that very property in a way that represents more of the property’s essential nature, e.g., its internal structure, than is represented when we are directly acquainted with that property in experience. 5 But a complex predicate from current physics that picked out a phenomenal property would represent a great deal of the property’s internal structure that goes unrepresented when we are acquainted with that property in experience. So no complex predicate from current physics can pick out a phenomenal property.

Presumably, Strawson means the first premise of this argument — that phenomenal properties are “properties whose whole and essential nature can be and is fully revealed in sensory experience” — to follow somehow from claim 2. However, he gives no reason, at least that I could find, for believing claim 2. Nevertheless we do need a reason; claim 2 is not forced upon us as claim 1 is. For even if, as Strawson holds, introspection assures us that experiential phenomena exist and hence that claim 1 is true, claim 2 goes much further: it purports to describe experiential phenomena in philosophically sophisticated metaphysical and epistemological terms. Since introspection has evolved by natural selection, as Strawson would allow, it’s unlikely to be capable of informing us directly of claim 2 — or indeed of any claim of comparable philosophical theoreticity. Perhaps claim 2 can be inferred from weaker claims about experience more plausibly regarded as direct deliverances of introspection; if so, however, this will need to be shown. The same points apply, of course, if claim 2 is expanded to include the claim that phenomenal properties are “properties whose whole and essential nature can be and is fully revealed in sensory experience”.

Philosophers who accept claims 1, 2, and 3 usually go on to endorse some sort of dualism, of course, treating the qualitative character of an experience as something entirely non-physical, as something not even supervening on or realized by the physical, but not Strawson. Instead, in claim 5, he treats the qualitative character of an experience as an intrinsic physical feature of a neural event. On what grounds? One rationale for claim 5 is that, given claim 1, it follows, more or less, from claims 3 and 4 (see 71). I have already discussed support for claim 3. What about claim 4? Much empirical evidence exists for claim 4, in my view, but it’s evidence that experiential phenomena are structural physical phenomena, something that claim 3 actually contradicts. I know of no evidence that experiential phenomena are intrinsic physical phenomena (given Strawson’s assumption of epistemological structuralism about physics). So supporting claim 4 is problematic for a realistic materialist. Strawson’s endorsement of claim 4 seems in fact to rest on his attraction to a unified view of the world, the idea presumably being that, given claim 4, all features of the world are unified in being physical, whether structural-physical or intrinsic-physical (51). Nevertheless Strawson insists that we have no grasp of “the essential nature of the physical”, so he can’t substantiate the idea that the intrinsic features of the world that are the qualitative characters of experiences share a genuine physicality with the structural features of the world that physics reveals (46). This first rationale for claim 5 therefore fails.

A second rationale for claim 5 appeals to ontological economy (50, 59, 66). I think it can be reconstructed as follows:

Structural physical features exist, but structural physical features can’t exist unless intrinsic physical features do too, so intrinsic physical features exist. The qualitative characters of experiences exist also, but, according to claim 3, they aren’t structural physical features. So either they’re identical with intrinsic physical features, as claim 5 says, or they’re entirely non-physical features. The former option — claim 5 — is more economical, and hence, other things being equal, to be preferred.

Strawson doesn’t argue that other things are in fact equal. Are they? I don’t know, though the answer would turn in part on the relative abilities of realistic materialism and its best dualist rival to explain puzzling features of the mind. I also note that this rationale for claim 5 uses the recently-contested premise that structural physical features require intrinsic physical features, i.e., that the physical world couldn’t be purely structural. 6

The points made in the preceding paragraphs only partly explain why I’m not at all drawn to realistic materialism. There’s also the point that realistic materialism raises at least two inter-related questions to which, in its present form, it offers no answers. (i) According to Strawson, realistic materialism entails micropsychism , the view that “at least some ultimates are intrinsically experience-involving”, which he takes to imply that each ultimate involves a distinct subject of experience (71). Since human subjects of experience are not ultimates, and hence not the subjects of experience involved in ultimates, there must be some way in which the latter combine to form human subjects of experience. But how? Strawson raises this question himself, but he doesn’t try to answer it (72). This omission is serious, for so long as the question goes unanswered, realistic materialism hasn’t actually told us what my, or your, or any human subject’s experiencing of red is. Also, an answer to this question seems necessary for an answer to the second question. (ii) Realistic materialism, when joined with epistemological structuralism about physics, entails that we, i.e., human subjects of experience, can only know about the world’s structural features — except when we attend introspectively to the qualitative characters of our own experiences and thereby acquire knowledge of the intrinsic features of certain neural events in our own brains. But how is this supposed to work? Why does the epistemic handicap we labor under when we enquire scientifically disappear when instead we attend introspectively to our own experiences? What is it about introspection that gives it access to the intrinsic features of certain of our brain events? And why are the intrinsic features of only some, but not all, of our brain events accessible to introspection? These questions are not touched by realistic materialism in its present form.

A recurring theme in Strawson’s discussion of realistic materialism is that (i) we have no conception of what it is to be physical on the basis of which we might form any rational expectation at all that the mental couldn’t be physical and (ii) this point, though clearly appreciated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, has been missed by contemporary students of the mind-body problem (e.g., 20, 38-40, 54). I entirely agree that we have no conception of physicality, if physicality is construed in Strawsonian fashion as a genuine property, a genuine meta-property, in fact, that is possessed by all physical properties (20). Nevertheless I strongly doubt that any student of the mind-body problem in the second half of the twentieth century has ever thought that we do have such a conception — a break with the past perhaps reflected in the terminological shift, to which Strawson attaches no importance, from “materialism” (and “matter”) to “physicalism”. Recent students formulate the mind-body problem in a way that doesn’t require a conception of physicality as a meta-property. They can do so because, unlike philosophers of earlier generations, they are able to draw upon the concrete achievements of the various branches of science over the past hundred years. Thus, pace Strawson, the mind-body problem today — our mind-body problem — is to understand how our everyday descriptions of ourselves as thinkers, feelers, and reasoners fits together with the extraordinarily rich scientific descriptions of ourselves provided by cognitive neuroscience, molecular biology, biochemistry, and, yes, even fundamental physics (54). Of course, these scientific descriptions probably don’t represent the last word, but so what? They don’t need to in order for the mind-body problem to be worth addressing. It’s interesting, at least to many of us, to contemplate our best scientific guesses as to the nature of the world and then speculate on how they hang together. Any detailed solution to the mind-body problem that we produce will naturally inherit the provisional and tentative character of the scientific descriptions with which the problem was formulated, but if scientists can tolerate fallibility, why not philosophers too?

1 And hence a view about intentional states, since Strawson holds that intentional states are experiential states.

2 He does give an argument that differs only terminologically from Joe Levine’s well known Explanatory Gap argument (63).

3 In his Introduction, Strawson compares deniers of phenomenal consciousness to psychiatric patients (6; and see note 31)!

4 On 54, note 3, he cites an argument from his own earlier work, but I won’t discuss it here.

5 Compare “element having atomic number 79” with “gold”, “NaCl” with “salt”, and so on.

6 See chs. 2 and 3 of James Ladyman and Don Ross, Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

What is Materialism? History and Concepts

• First Online: 05 October 2021

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• Javier Pérez-Jara 12 , 13 ,
• Gustavo E. Romero 14 , 15 &
• Lino Camprubí 16  

Part of the book series: Synthese Library ((SYLI,volume 447))

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Despite the central presence of materialism in the history of philosophy, there is no universal consensus on the meaning of the word “matter” nor of the doctrine of philosophical materialism. Dictionaries of philosophy often identify this philosophy with its most reductionist and even eliminative versions, in line with Robert Boyle’s seventeenth century coinage of the term. But when we take the concept back in time to Greek philosophers and forward onto our own times, we recognize more inclusive forms of materialism as well as complex interplays with non-materialist thought about the place of matter in reality, including Christian philosophy and German idealism. We define philosophical materialism in its most general way both positively (the identification of reality with matter understood as changeability and plurality) and negatively (the negation of disembodied living beings and hypostatized ideas). This inclusive approach to philosophical materialism offers a new light to illuminate a critical history of the concept of matter and materialism from Ancient Greece to the present that is also attentive to scientific developments. By following the most important connections and discontinuities among theoretical frameworks on the idea of matter, we present a general thread that offers a rich and plural, but highly cohesive, field of investigation. Finally, we propose building on rich non-reductionist materialist philosophies, such as Mario Bunge’s systemic materialism and Gustavo Bueno’s discontinuous materialism, to elaborate powerful theoretical alternatives to both physicalism and spiritualism.

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Some of these philosophers, as we are going to see, used the language of traditional myth to talk about abstract philosophical conceptions; that is, they used that language as a set of rhetorical devices, along with giving traditional concepts (such as “cosmos”) a new philosophical meaning. Only a minority of them still held literal beliefs in traditional mythological elements (such as reincarnation). For that reason, although the new way of thinking that they created emerged from a specific sociocultural context (rather than appearing ex nihilo ), it had enough new and revolutionary features to be considered and classified apart.

Although Hesiod started his Theogony with an impersonal chaos (a prefiguration of later metaphysical notions), he also offered anthropomorphic explanations for the rest of natural phenomena.

According to some scholars, such as Jennifer Peck, Heraclitus’ notions of logos and God, although very similar, should not be identified, since Heraclitus’ logos is the pattern present in all things, whereas God refers to the principle of unity of opposites. It is undeniable that Heraclitus’ fragments are obscure, and often difficult to interpret; but what seems clear is that for him, the notions of God and logos , if not identical, are very similar and refer to the universal impersonal mechanism and structure of reality.

This philosopher introduced an important critique of Parmenides’ view of reality as a (Euclidean) giant sphere: since a sphere necessarily implies an outer space, reality has to be infinite .

For a full account of the atomists, with fragments, doxography and commentaries see Taylor ( 1999 ).

It is important to note that Plato talked about the Demiurge using the explicit language of myth. Since in several Dialogues Plato used other myths as allegorical teachings rather than literalist dogmas, it is also possible that his myth of the Demiurge has a non-literalist anthropomorphic reading. But while in other Platonic myths the allegorical reading is clear, in his myth of the Demiurge it is not. For that reason, it is more than likely that Plato, as Anaxagoras and Socrates before, held a real belief in some kind of personal mind that gave form to the world.

Aristotle also considered the existence of lesser “gods” who, along with the main God, move the planets, but they do so in a completely impersonal and blind way.

Although Epicurus considered Greek mythology’s gods as human fictions, he recommended his disciples to visit Greek temples and contemplate the serenity of the gods’ statues. Such activity could have psychological and ethical benefits.

The case of the relationships between Stoicism and Christianity is very interesting. Several Stoic ideas related to ethics and politics were accepted and transformed by some Christian thinkers, at the same time that they rejected Stoic metaphysics.

This is Docetism’s theological doctrine, according to which the body of Jesus was an illusion. But, despite its partial influence in other Christian communities, Docetism was soon perceived as a dangerous heresy by more powerful and popular forms of Christianity: see Wahlde ( 2015 ), Freeman ( 2011 ), and Papandrea ( 2016 ).

Through these binary oppositions between the sins generated by matter, and the virtues generated by the spirit, St. Paul did not seem no notice the theological contradiction that it was not matter, but the pure spirit of Satan who introduced evil in reality, before the creation of matter.

Even though Plato drew from the Orphic despise of matter, he did not plea for asceticism and mortification of the flesh. On the contrary, Plato encouraged good nutrition, bodily aesthetics, and sports.

Here, we use the concept of “neophobia” in Bunge’s critical sense, i.e as the metaphysical approach that denies ontological novelty in reality: “The most popular idea about novelty is that whatever appears to be new actually existed previously in a latent form: that all things and all facts are ’pregnant’ with whatever may arise from them. An early example of such neophobia is the conception of causes as containing their effects, as expressed by the scholastic formula ’There is nothing in the effect that had not been in the cause’.” (Bunge 2010 , p. 87).

According to which everything is connected with everything else through God (Bueno 1972 ).

Aquinas even defended that matter could be eternal, despite been created by God. Only by Revelation do we know that the material universe had a beginning in time: see Aquinas ( 1948 ) and Gilson ( 1960 ).

Sharing similar theological problems and concerns, these combination between negative and positive theologies also took place in medieval Judaism and Islam: see Kars ( 2019 ) and Fagenblat ( 2017 ), respectively.

The recovery of God’s anthropomorphic attributes was achieved through cataphatic theology, which sought to understand God in positive terms, emphasizing the divine attributes that we can find through the Revelation.

Hume’s (and, later, Stuart Mill’s) psychologism is different in that it can be considered an even softer version of this hypostatization of the psyche. Both authors downplay the organic and operational side of human existence, along with reducing abstract concepts, ideas and relations to psychological processes. But the independence of the mind respect of the nervous system is not held; it just suggested as a possibility.

Kant’s pure categories of the understanding are: unity, plurality, and totality for the concept of quantity; reality, negation, and limitation, for the concept of quality; inherence and subsistence, cause and effect, and community for the concept of relation; and possibility–impossibility, existence–nonexistence, and necessity and contingency, for the concept of mode (see Kant 2008 [1787]; Heidegger 1997 [1929]; and Strawson 2018 ).

It is well-known that Kant ( 2015 [1788]) introduced this God again in the Critique of Practical Reason as a postulate for moral action. But this does not contradict that, from an epistemological point of view, Kant held that the Christian God was just an idea.

Russell ( 1972 [1945]), p. 718.

Russell ( 1972 [1945]), p. 718. Russell also contended that “Modern philosophy begins with Descartes, whose fundamental certainty is the existence of himself and his thoughts, from which the external world is to be inferred. This was only the first stage in a development, through Berkeley and Kant, to Fichte, for whom everything is only an emanation of the ego. This was insanity, and, from this extreme, philosophy has been attempting, ever since, to escape into the world of every-day common sense.” Russell ( 1972 [1945]), p. XXI.

Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre was later reworked by Fichte in various versions. The most well-known version of the work was published in 1804, but other versions appeared posthumously.

That is, for Fichte, absolute reality cannot be (as Schelling will defend later) both subjective and objective.

The concept of Tathandlung reminds of Husserl’s Leistung . But Husserl’s transcendental idealism did not deny the Kantian “thing in it self” as Fichte did; it just placed it between brackets: see Pérez-Jara 2014 .

This book was published thanks to Kant’s support. As such, it was briefly mistaken by the public to be a fourth Kantian Critique. This confusion granted Fichte a considerable philosophical fame.

Important to note is that Schelling’s lectures on positive philosophy were attended by personalities such as Engels, Bakunin, Kierkegaard, and Humboldt.

The World as Will and Representation ’s first edition was published in late 1818, with the date 1819 on the title–page. In 1844, a second edition appeared. This edition was divided into two volumes: the first one was an edited version of the 1818 edition, while the second volume was a collection of commentaries about the ideas expounded in the first volume. In 1859, at the end of Schopenhauer’s life, a third expanded edition was published.

Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of sexuality brilliantly anticipates many hypotheses of evolutionary biology: see Pérez-Jara ( 2011 ).

Schopenhauer agreed with Schulze’s critique of Kant’s contradictory use of causality. For Schopenhauer, the thing in it self (i.e., the Will) is not the cause of our sensations. Rather, our sensations are a (non-causal) manifestation of the Will.

Here, we use the concept of organoleptic in its usual meaning of relative to our sensory experiences, so the “organoleptic world” is the set of phenomena, from the taste of wine to the colors of the sky, filtered through our sense organs.

For a very interesting philosophical analysis on this topic, see: Bueno ( 1972 ), pp. 50, 52, 60, 72, 283, 288.

Jarochewski ( 1975 ), p. 168.

Bunge ( 2010 ), p. 127.

Notable exceptions can be found in the work of J.C.C. Smart, Graham Nerlich, and Hugh Price who worked extensively on the ontology of spacetime and related problems.

On the other hand, Bunge ( 2010 ) opposed both approaches, because for him there cannot be states or events without entities. Romero, however, points out that materialist ontologies based on concrete things or particular events are formally equivalent (Romero 2013 , 2016 ): to consider things or events as basic is rather a matter or taste and not of fact.

Bunge ( 2010 ), p. 148.

It would also be interesting to wonder if these philosophers, in their daily lives (or even in their lectures and conferences) exclusively use complex neuroscientific terminology each time that they want to express that they feel tired, forgot something, feel disappointed, or are hungry.

Also, see in this volume his chapter and his discussion with Javier Pérez-Jara.

While Bueno himself referred to his system as “philosophical materialism” in the 1970s, as he was seeking to differentiate it from historical materialism, that conceptualization is too general and common to other philosophies; in later works, Bueno spoke of “discontinuous materialism”.

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Javier Pérez-Jara

Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

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Gustavo E. Romero

Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, La Plata, Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina

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Pérez-Jara, J., Romero, G.E., Camprubí, L. (2022). What is Materialism? History and Concepts. In: Romero, G.E., Pérez-Jara, J., Camprubí, L. (eds) Contemporary Materialism: Its Ontology and Epistemology. Synthese Library, vol 447. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89488-7_1

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87 Materialism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best materialism topic ideas & essay examples, 📝 simple & easy materialism essay titles, 👍 good essay topics on materialism, ❓ questions about materialism.

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• Faith and Materialism in Matthew 6:24-30 Due to simplicity, readers do not have to refer or infer to the original text in Greek or to the bible dictionary to get the meaning of the complex words in the text. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
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• Materialism: Rorty’s Response to the Antipodean Story This paper examines Rorty’s argument that in accepting the material reality of the universe, we can also accept that the physical universe shapes our beliefs and interpretations, and that our understanding of the universe is […]
• Materialism and the Theory of Consciousness He said that the fabric of the universe makes us susceptible to producing life, consciousness, and reason. The people who object to Nagel’s arguments claim that the theorist makes a lot of assumptions.
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• How Is Cultural Materialism Different From Postmodernism?
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1 Against Materialism

• Published: March 2010
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This chapter argues that there are no compelling arguments in favor of, and very powerful, seemingly unanswerable objections to, materialism in the philosophy of mind. The arguments for materialism that appeal to (a) the ‘principle’ of causal closure and (b) the doctrine of naturalism are argued to rest entirely on undefended assumptions. The central objection that materialist views fail to offer any account of conscious states that explains their experienced character is then developed with reference to both the familiar problem of qualitative content (using Frank Jackson's example of Mary, the color-experience-deprived neurophysiologist) and the problem of conscious intentional content. It is argued that none of the available responses to the Mary example are successful; and further that an entirely parallel argument can be made about conscious intentional content. The negative conclusion is that materialist views are false, but that no positive account of conscious content is presently available.

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Eliminative Materialism

Eliminative materialism (or eliminativism ) is the radical claim that our ordinary, common-sense understanding of the mind is deeply wrong and that some or all of the mental states posited by common-sense do not actually exist. Descartes famously challenged much of what we take for granted, but he insisted that, for the most part, we can be confident about the content of our own minds. Eliminative materialists go further than Descartes on this point, since they challenge of the existence of various mental states that Descartes took for granted.

1. A Brief History

2.1 folk psychology and the theory-theory, 2.2 eliminative theory change, 3.1 general theoretical problems with folk psychology, 3.2 specific problems with folk psychology, 3.3 eliminative materialism and the phenomenal, 4.1 the self-refutation objection, 4.2 rejecting the theory-theory, 4.3 defending the virtues of folk psychology, 4.4 eliminativism eliminated, 5. concluding comments, cited works, further readings, other internet resources, related entries.

In principle, anyone denying the existence of some type of thing is an eliminativist with regard to that type of thing. Thus, there have been a number of eliminativists about different aspects of human nature in the history of philosophy. For example, hard determinists like Holbach (1770) are eliminativists with regard to free will because they claim there is no dimension of human psychology that corresponds to our commonsense notion of freedom. Similarly, by denying that there is an ego or persisting subject of experience, Hume (1739) was arguably an eliminativist about the self. Reductive materialists can be viewed as eliminativists with respect to an immaterial soul.

Nevertheless, contemporary eliminative materialism — the sort of eliminativism that denies the existence of specific types of mental states — is a relatively new theory with a very short history. The term was first introduced by James Cornman in a 1968 article entitled “On the Elimination of ‘Sensations’ and Sensations” (Cornman, 1968). However, the basic idea goes back at least as far as C.D. Broad's classic, The Mind and its Place in Nature (Broad, 1925). Here Broad discusses, and quickly rejects, a type of “pure materialism” that treats mental states as attributes that apply to nothing in the world (pp. 607-611). Like many future writers (see section 4.1 below), Broad argued that such a view is self-contradictory since it (presumably) presupposes the reality of misjudgments which are themselves a type of mental state.

Apart from Broad's discussion, the main roots of eliminative materialism can be found in the writings of a number of mid-20th century philosophers, most notably Wilfred Sellars , W.V.O. Quine, Paul Feyerabend, and Richard Rorty . In his important 1956 article, “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind”, Sellars introduced the idea that our conception of mentality may be derived not from direct access to the inner workings of our own minds, but instead from a primitive theoretical framework that we inherit from our culture. While Sellars himself regarded this theoretical framework as empirically correct, his claim that our conception of the mind is theory-based, and at least in principle falsifiable, would be influential to later supporters of eliminativism.

In articles such as “Mental Events and the Brain” (1963), Paul Feyerabend explicitly endorsed the idea that common-sense psychology might prove to be radically false. Indeed, Feyerabend held that practically any version of materialism would severely undermine common-sense psychology. Like many of his contemporaries, Feyerabend argued that common-sense mental notions are essentially non-physical in character. Thus, for him, any form of physicalism would entail that there are no mental processes or states as understood by common-sense (1963, p. 295).

Like Feyerabend, Quine also endorsed the idea that mental notions like belief or sensation could simply be abandoned in favor of a more accurate physiological account. In a brief passage in Word and Object (1960), Quine suggests that terms denoting the physical correlates of mental states will be more useful and, as he puts it, “[t]he bodily states exist anyway; why add the others?” (p. 264). However, Quine goes on to question just how radical an eliminativist form of materialism would actually be, implying no significant difference between explicating mental states as physiological states, and eliminating mental state terms in favor of physical state terms. He asks, “Is physicalism a repudiation of mental objects after all, or a theory of them? Does it repudiate the mental state of pain or anger in favor of its physical concomitant, or does it identify the mental state with a state of the physical organism (and so a state of the physical organism with the mental state)” (p. 265)? Quine answers this question by rejecting it, suggesting there is no interesting difference between the two cases: “Some may therefore find comfort in reflecting that the distinction between an eliminative and an explicative physicalism is unreal” (p. 265).

Here we see a tension that runs throughout the writings of many early eliminative materialists. The problem involves a vacillation between two different conditions under which mental concepts and terms are dropped. The first scenario proposes that certain mental concepts will turn out to be empty, with mental state terms referring to nothing that actually exists. Historical analogs for this way of understanding eliminativism are cases where we (now) say it turned out there are no such things, such as demons and crystal spheres. The second scenario suggests that the conceptual framework provided by neurosciences (or some other physical account) can or should come to replace the common-sense framework we now use. Unlike the first scenario, the second allows that mental state terms may actually designate something real — it's just that what they designate turn out to be brain states, which will be more accurately described using the terminology of the relevant sciences. One possible model for this way of thinking about eliminativism might be the discontinuance of talk about germs in favor of more precise scientific terminology of infectious agents. Given these two different conceptions, early eliminativists would sometimes offer two different characterizations of their view: (a) There are no mental states, just brain states and, (b) There really are mental states, but they are just brain states (and we will come to view them that way) .

These alternative ways of understanding eliminative materialism produced considerable confusion about what, exactly, eliminative materialism entailed. Moreover, since it was difficult to see how the second version was significantly different from various forms of reductive materialism (hence, Quine's skepticism about the difference between elimination and explication) it also raised doubts about the distinctiveness of eliminative materialism.

Much of this was brought to light in the discussion generated by an influential 1965 article by Richard Rorty entitled, “Mind-Body Identity, Privacy, and Categories”. Rorty's so-called “disappearance” theory appeared to openly endorse both conceptions of eliminative materialism, suggesting that sensations do not actually exist and that they are nothing but brain processes (p. 28). As one might expect, the ensuing discussion focused on getting clear on what Rorty's theory actually claimed. For example, Cornman's article introducing the phrase ‘eliminative materialism’ claimed that Rorty was arguing that talk about sensations denotes brain states in much the same way that talk about Zeus's thunderbolts (allegedly) denotes electrical discharges. Unfortunately, besides suggesting a questionable perspective on reference, this interpretation raised further questions about what distinguished eliminativism from reductionism. In one helpful article by William Lycan and George Pappas (1972) — entitled, appropriately enough, “What Is Eliminative Materialism?” — the authors convincingly argued that you can't have it both ways. You can either claim that common sense mental notions do not pick out anything real and that mental terms are empty, in which case you are a true eliminative materialist; or you can claim that mental notions can be, in some way, reduced to neurological (or perhaps computational) states of the brain, in which case you are really just a good-old fashioned materialist/reductionist. In a follow-up article, Steven Savitt (1974) introduced the distinction between ontologically conservative (reductive) and ontologically radical (eliminative) theory change, which helped to further clarify and distinguish the central claims of eliminative materialism as it is understood today.

In more recent history, eliminative materialism has received attention from a broader range of writers, including many concerned not only with the metaphysics of the mind, but also the process of theory change, the status of semantic properties, the nature of psychological explanation and recent developments in cognitive science . Much of this attention has been fostered by the husband-wife team of Paul and Patricia Churchland, whose writings have forced many philosophers and cognitive scientists to take eliminativism more seriously. In his 1981 article, “Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes”, Paul Churchland presents several arguments in favor of dropping commonsense psychology that have shaped the modern debate about the status of ordinary notions like belief. Patricia Churchland's provocative 1986 book, Neurophilosophy , suggests that developments in neuroscience point to a bleak future for commonsense mental states. Another influential author has been Stephen Stich. His important 1983 book, From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science: The Case Against Belief , argues that even conventional computational psychology — which is often assumed to vindicate common-sense psychology — should reject taxonomies for cognitive states that correspond with belief-desire psychology. These authors' views are discussed in more detail in Sections 3 and 4 below.

2. Contemporary Eliminative Materialism

Modern versions of eliminative materialism claim that our common-sense understanding of psychological states and processes is deeply mistaken and that some or all of our ordinary notions of mental states will have no home, at any level of analysis, in a sophisticated and accurate account of the mind. In other words, it is the view that certain common-sense mental states, such as beliefs and desires, do not exist. To establish this claim, eliminativists typically endorse two central and controversial claims which we will examine below. Much of our discussion will focus upon our notion of belief, since it figures so prominently in contemporary discussions of eliminative materialism. However, many of the arguments presented below are thought to generalize to other mental notions — especially other propositional attitudes.

The standard argument for eliminative materialism begins with the Sellarsian thesis that we employ a theoretical framework to explain and predict intelligent behavior. Because this position claims that we use a theory when employing mental idiom, it is often referred to as the “theory-theory” (see the entry on folk psychology as a theory ), and is endorsed not only by eliminative materialists, but by many realists about mental states as well (like Sellars). Folk psychology is assumed to consist of both generalizations (or laws) and specific theoretical posits, denoted by our everyday psychological terms like ‘belief’ or ‘pain’. The generalizations are assumed to describe the various causal or counterfactual relations and regularities of the posits. For instance, a typical example of a folk psychological generalization would be:

If someone has the desire for X and the belief that the best way to get X is by doing Y , then (barring certain conditions) that person will tend to do Y .

Advocates of the theory-theory claim that generalizations like these function in folk psychology much like the laws and generalizations of scientific theories. At the same time, many theory-theorists allow that the laws of folk psychology are learned more informally than scientific theories, as part of our normal development (see, for example, P. M. Churchland, 1981 and Lewis, 1972).

According to theory-theorists, the posits of folk psychology are simply the mental states that figure in our everyday psychological explanations. Theory-theorists maintain the (controversial) position that, as theoretical posits, these states are not directly observed, though they are thought to account for observable effects like overt behavior. Theory-theorists also claim that common-sense assigns a number of properties to these states, such as causal, semantic and qualitative features. For instance, the theory-theory claims common-sense assigns two sorts of properties to beliefs. First, there are various causal properties. Beliefs are the sort of states that are caused in certain specific circumstances, interact with other cognitive states in various ways, and come to generate various sorts of behavior, depending on the agent's other desires and mental states. As functionalists have claimed, these causal roles appear to define our ordinary notion of belief and distinguish them from other types of mental states. Second, beliefs have intentionality ; that is, they each express a proposition or are about a particular state of affairs. This inherent intentionality (also called “meaning”, “content”, and “semantic character”), is commonly regarded as something special about beliefs and other propositional attitudes. Moreover, as we will see below, it is also a popular target of eliminative materialists who challenge the propriety and explanatory value of beliefs.

The second component of eliminative materialism is the thesis that folk psychology is profoundly wrong about the actual nature of the mind/brain. Eliminative materialists argue that the central tenets of folk psychology radically misdescribe cognitive processes; consequently, the posits of folk psychology pick out nothing that is real. Like dualists, eliminative materialists insist that ordinary mental states can not in any way be reduced to or identified with neurological events or processes. However, unlike dualists, eliminativists claim there is nothing more to the mind than what occurs in the brain. The reason mental states are irreducible is not because they are non-physical; rather, it is because mental states, as described by common-sense psychology, do not really exist.

To see this a little better, it will help to return to the important distinction made by Steven Savitt discussed in Section 1 between ontologically conservative (or retentive) theory change on the one hand, and ontologically radical (or eliminative) theory change on the other hand. Ontologically conservative theory change occurs when the entities and posits of the replaced theory are relocated, often with some degree of revision, in the replacing theory. For example, as our theory of light was gradually replaced by our understanding of electro-magnetic radiation, our conception of light was dramatically transformed as we recognized ways in which are old conception was mistaken or incomplete. Nevertheless, at no point did we come to say that there is really no such thing as light. Rather, light was eventually identified with a form of electro-magnetic radiation.

By contrast, our notion of demons did not come to find a new home in contemporary theories of mental disorder. There is nothing in the theories of schizophrenia, Tourette's Syndrome, neuro-pathology or any of the other modern explanations for bizarre behavior, that we can sensibly identify with malevolent spirits with supernatural powers. The notion of a demon is just too far removed from anything we now posit to explain behavior that once explained by demonology. Consequently, the transition from demonology to modern accounts of this behavior was ontologically radical. We dropped demons from our current ontology, and came to realize that the notion is empty — it refers to nothing real.

Eliminative materialists claim that an ontologically radical theory change of this sort awaits the theoretical posits of folk psychology. Just as we came to understand that there are no such things as demons (because nothing at all like demons appear in modern accounts of strange behavior), so too, eliminative materialists argue that various folk psychological concepts — like our concept of belief — will eventually be recognized as empty posits that fail to correspond with anything that actually exists. Since there is nothing that has the causal and semantic properties we attribute to beliefs (and many other mental states) it will turn out that there really are no such things.

A somewhat similar framework for understanding eliminative materialism is provided by David Lewis's discussion of functional definitions in psychology (1972) (see the entry on functionalism ). In Lewis's account, our commonsense mental notions can be treated as functionally defined theoretical terms that appear in a chain of Ramsey-sentences. The Ramsey-sentences are a formal reconstruction of the platitudes of commonsense psychology. They provide a set of roles or conditions that more or less must be met for the instantiation of any given state. If nothing comes close to actually filling the roles specified by this framework for a certain state, then we are warranted in saying that the theoretical posit in question doesn't refer and there is no such thing. Eliminative materialists claim that this is precisely what will happen with at least some of our folk mental notions.

3. Arguments For Eliminative Materialism

Because eliminative materialism is grounded in the claim that common sense psychology is radically false, arguments for eliminativism are generally arguments against the tenability of folk psychology. These arguments typically fall into one of two major families. One family involves arguments stemming from a broad range of considerations that pertain to the assessment of theories in general. The second family focuses upon deficiencies that are unique to folk psychology and its central posits.

Patricia and Paul Churchland have offered a number of arguments based on general considerations about theory evaluation. For example, they have argued that any promising and accurate theory should offer a fertile research program with considerable explanatory power. They note, however, that common-sense psychology appears to be stagnant, and there is a broad range of mental phenomena that folk psychology does not allow us to explain. Questions about why we dream, various aspects of mental illness, consciousness, memory and learning are completely ignored by folk psychology. According to the Churchlands, these considerations indicate that folk psychology may be in much worse shape than we commonly recognize (P. M. Churchland, 1981; P.S. Churchland, 1986). Another argument that appeals to general theoretical considerations offers an inductive inference based on the past record of folk theories. Folk physics, folk biology, folk epidemiology and the like all proved to be radically mistaken. Since folk theories generally turn out to be mistaken, it seems quite improbable that folk psychology will turn out true. Indeed, since folk psychology concerns a subject that is far more complex and difficult than any past folk theory, it seems wildly implausible that this one time we actually got things right (Churchland, P.M. 1981).

These general theoretical arguments do not seem to have significantly undermined the intuitive support that folk psychology enjoys. In response to the charge that folk psychology is stagnant, many have argued that this assessment is unfair, and that folk psychology has actually stimulated a number of fruitful research programs in scientific psychology (Greenwood, 1991; Horgan and Woodward, 1985). Moreover, defenders of folk psychology note that it hardly follows from the observation that a given theory is incomplete, or fails to explain everything, that it is therefore radically false (Horgan and Woodward, 1985). Defenders of folk psychology object that these theoretical considerations cannot outweigh the evidence provided by everyday, ordinary experience of our own minds, such as our introspective experience, which seems to vividly support the reality of mental states like beliefs.

Regarding this last point, eliminativists like the Churchlands warn that we should be deeply suspicious about the reliability of introspective “evidence” about the inner workings of the mind. If inner observation is as theory-laden as many now suppose outer perception to be, what we introspect may be largely determined by our folk psychological framework. In other words, “introspecting” beliefs may be just like people “seeing” demonic spirits or celestial spheres (Churchland, P.M., 1988). This skepticism about the reliability of introspection is bolstered by empirical work that calls into question the reliability of introspection (Nisbett and Wilson, 1977).

3.2.1 Challenging The Syntactic Structure Of Beliefs

Some writers have emphasized the apparent mismatch between the sentential structure of propositional attitudes on the one hand, and the actual neurological structures of the brain on the other hand. Whereas the former involves discrete symbols and a combinatorial syntax, the latter involves action potentials, spiking frequencies and spreading activation. As Patricia Churchland (1986) has argued, it is hard to see where in the brain we are going to find anything that even remotely resembles the sentence-like structure that appears to be essential to beliefs and other propositional attitudes.

In response to this line of reasoning, many have argued that it is mistake to treat folk psychology as committed to a quasi-linguistic structure to propositional attitudes (Horgan and Graham, 1991; Dennett, 1991). And even for those who find this reading of folk psychology plausible, there is a further difficulty regarding the relevance of neuroscience for determining the status of folk psychology. Some, such as Zenon Pylyshyn (1984), have insisted that just as the physical circuitry of a computer is the wrong level of analysis to look for computational symbol structures, so too, the detailed neurological wiring of the brain is the wrong level of organization to look for structures that might qualify as beliefs. Instead, if we view the mind as the brain's program, as many advocates of classical AI do, then folk posits exist at a level of analysis that is more abstract than the neuro-physical details. Consequently, many realists about the posits of folk psychology discount the importance of any apparent mis-match between neurological architecture and the alleged linguistic form of propositional attitudes (Fodor & Pylyshyn, 1988; McLaughlin & Warfield, 1994).

3.2.2 Challenging the Semantic Properties of Beliefs

The second type of argument against beliefs focuses upon their semantic properties and concludes that these sorts of properties make propositional attitudes ill-suited for even a computational theory of the mind. Stephen Stich (1983) has emphasized that folk psychology individuates beliefs by virtue of their semantic properties, e.g., we taxonomize states like beliefs by virtue of what they are about. However, according to Stich, there are a host of reasons for rejecting a semantic taxonomy for scientific psychology. Semantic taxonomies ignore causally salient aspects of cognitive states, involve a high degree of vagueness, and break down in the case of the mentally ill or the very young. In place of the semantic individuation method adopted by folk psychology, Stich argues for a syntactic taxonomy that is based upon the causally relevant syntactic or physical properties of a given cognitive state.

Yet, as Stich himself notes, even if it should turn out that folk posits do not belong in a scientific psychology, more is needed to establish that they do not actually exist. After all, we do not doubt the existence of several sorts of things (e.g., chairs, articles of clothing) that are defined in ways that make them ill-suited for science. If our best scientific account posited states that share many features with beliefs, such as similar causal roles, then even if the two taxonomies pulled apart in certain cases, we may still regard folk psychology as, in some sense, vindicated. While the scientific taxonomy may not list beliefs as basic cognitive states, it could conceivably still provide the resources for developing a realist interpretation of these and other folk psychological states.

3.2.3 Eliminativism and Connectionism: Challenging the Causal Discreteness of Beliefs

To get a stronger eliminativist conclusion, it would need to be shown that there is nothing in our scientific psychology that shares the central properties we attribute to beliefs, at any level of analysis. Ramsey, Stich and Garon (1990) have argued that certain connectionist models of memory and inference could serve as the basis for this stronger eliminativist sort of argument. Since some connectionist models store information in a highly distributed manner, there are no causally discrete, semantically evaluable data structures that represent specific propositions. It is not just that these models lack the sort of sentential, compositional representations assumed in more traditional (or language of thought) models. Rather, it is that in these networks there are no causally distinct structures that stand for anything specific. Consequently, there do not appear to be any structures in these networks — even at a syntactic level of analysis — that might serve as candidates for identifying beliefs and other propositional attitudes. Many critics of eliminativism claim it is virtually impossible to imagine what a psychological theory would look like that doesn't invoke propositional attitudes to explain cognition (Hannan, 1993). If Ramsey, Stich and Garon are right, the newer connectionist models may, for the first time, provide us with a plausible account of cognition that supports the denial of belief-like states.

Ramsey, Stich and Garon's argument assumes that in highly distributed networks, it is impossible to specify the semantic content of elements of the network that are causally responsible for various cognitive episodes. Some have responded to their argument by suggesting that, with highly sophisticated forms of analysis, it actually is possible to pick out causally relevant pieces of stored information (Forster and Saidel, 1994). Others have argued that, like the Churchlands, Ramsey, Stich and Garon have offered a mistaken interpretation of folk psychology, suggesting it requires far less in the way of explicit, discrete structures than they suggest (Dennett, 1991; Heil, 1991). This is a common criticism of eliminative materialism, and we will look at it more closely in the next section.

Although most discussions regarding eliminativism focus on the status of our notion of belief and other propositional attitudes, some philosophers have endorsed eliminativist claims about the phenomenal or qualitative states of the mind (see the entry on qualia ). For example, Daniel Dennett (1978) has argued that our concept of pain is fundamentally flawed because it includes essential properties, like infallibility and intrinsic awfulness, that cannot co-exist in light of a well-documented phenomenon know as “reactive disassociation”. In certain conditions, drugs like morphine cause subjects to report that they are experiencing excruciating pain, but that it is not unpleasant. It seems we are either wrong to think that people cannot be mistaken about being in pain (wrong about infallibility), or pain needn't be inherently awful (wrong about intrinsic awfulness). Dennett suggests that part of the reason we may have difficulty replicating pain in computational systems is because our concept is so defective that it picks out nothing real. A similar view about pain has been offered by Valerie Hardcastle (1999). Hardcastle argues that the neurological basis for pain sensations is so complex that no one thing answers to our folk conception. However, despite her own characterication of pain as a “myth”, Hardcastle's arguments appear to be aimed not at showing that pain is unreal, but rather that it is actually a more complicated phenomenon than suggested by our folk conception.

In another well-known article, “Quining Qualia” (1988), Dennett challenges not just our conception of pain, but all of our differnt notions qualitative states. His argument focuses on the apparently essential features of qualia, including their inherent subjectivity and their private nature. Dennett discusses several cases — both actual and imaginary — to expose ways in which these ordinary intuitions about qualia pull apart. In so doing, Dennett suggests our qualia concepts are fundamentally confused and fail to correspond with the actual inner workings of our cognitive system.

Some writers have suggested an eliminativist outlook not just with regard to particular states of consciousness, but with regard to phenomenal consciousness itself. For example, Georges Rey (1983, 1988) has argued that if we look at the various neurological or cognitive theories of what consciousness might amount to, such as internal monitoring or the possession of second-order representational states, it seems easy to imagine all of these features incorporated in a computational device that lacks anything we intuitively think of as “real” or robust consciousness. Rey suggests that the failure of these accounts to capture our ordinary notion of consciousness may be because the latter corresponds with no actual process or phenomenon; the “inner light” we associate with consciousness may be nothing more than a remnant of misguided Cartesian intuitions (see also Wilkes, 1988; 1995).

4. Arguments Against Eliminative Materialism

Like any theory that challenges our fundamental understanding of things, eliminative materialism has been subjected to a variety of criticisms. Here, I'll discuss four that have received considerable attention in recent years.

Many writers have argued that eliminative materialism is in some sense self-refuting (Baker, 1987; Boghossian, 1990, 1991; Reppert, 1992). A common way this charge is made is to insist that a capacity or activity that is somehow invoked by the eliminativist is itself something that requires the existence of beliefs. One popular candidate for this activity is the making of an assertion. The critic insists that to assert something one must believe it. Hence, for eliminative materialism to be asserted as a thesis, the eliminativist herself must believe that it is true. But if the eliminativist has such a belief, then there are beliefs and eliminativism is thereby proven false.

Eliminativists often respond to this objection by first noting that the bare thesis that there are no beliefs is not itself contradictory or conceptually incoherent. So properly understood, the complaint is not that eliminative materialism (qua-proposition) is self-refuting. Rather, it is that the eliminativist herself is doing something that disconfirms her own thesis. In the above example, the disconfirming act is the making of an assertion, as it is alleged by the critic that we must believe anything we assert with public language. However, this last claim is precisely the sort of folk-psychological assumption that the eliminative materialist is suggesting we should abandon. According to eliminative materialism, all of the various capacities that we now explain by appealing to beliefs do not actually involve beliefs at all. So the eliminativist will hold that the self-refutation critics beg the question against eliminative materialism. To run this sort of objection, the critic endorses some principle about the necessity of beliefs which itself presupposes that eliminative materialism must be false (P. S. Churchland, 1986; Cling, 1989; Devitt, 1990; Ramsey, 1991).

A more sophisticated version of the self-refutation ojection has been offered by Paul Boghossian with regard to eliminativist arguments based on the content of psychological states. Boghossian maintains that arguments for irrealism about the content of propositional attitudes work just as well in support of irrealism about all forms of content, including the content of ordinary linguistic expressions. Moreover, he argues that different forms of irrealism about linguistic content presuppose robust semantic notions, such as realist conceptions of truth and reference. This leads to the incoherent position that, for example, there are no truth conditions and yet certain sentences (or beliefs) about content are false (Boghossian, 1990, 1991). In response, Michael Devitt and Georges Rey argue that Boghossian's argument, despite its sophistication, nevertheless begs the question by ascribing to the eliminativist some version of truth-conditional semantics, whereas many eliminativists would reject such a view of linguistic expressions. While eliminativists would need to construct some sort of non-truth-conditional semantics, Devitt and Rey argue that the challenge of such a project reveals only that eliminativism is implausible, not that it is, as Boghossian claims, incoherent (Devitt, 1990; Devitt and Rey, 1991).

In section 2, we saw that eliminative materialism typically rests upon a particular understanding of the nature of folk psychology. The next criticism of eliminative materialism challenges the various characterizations of folk psychology provided by its advocates — in particular the view set forth by advocates of the theory-theory. This criticism comes from two very distinct traditions. The first tradition is at least partly due to the writings of Wittgenstein (1953) and Ryle (1949), and insists that (contra many eliminativists) common sense psychology is not a quasi-scientific theory used to explain or predict behavior, nor does it treat mental states like beliefs as discrete inner causes of behavior (Bogdan, 1991; Haldane, 1988; Hannan, 1993; Wilkes, 1993). What folk psychology actually does treat beliefs and desires as is much less clear in this tradition. One perspective (Dennett, 1987) is that propositional attitudes are actually dispositional states that we use to adopt a certain heuristic stance toward rational agents. According to this view, our talk about mental states should be interpreted as talk about abstracta that, although real, are not candidates for straightforward reduction or elimination as the result of cognitive science research. Moreover, since beliefs and other mental states are used for so many things besides the explanation of human behavior, it is far from clear that our explanatory theories about inner workings of the mind/brain have much relevance for their actual status.

Defenders of eliminative materialism often point out that folk theories typically have many functions beyond explaining and predicting, but that doesn't alter their theoretical status nor innoculate their posits from elimination (P.M. Churchland, 1993). Moreover, while eliminativists have typically framed the vulnerability of commonsense mental notions in terms of a false folk psychological theory, it is important to note that, at least in principle, eliminativism does not require such an assumption. Indeed, eliminativism only requires two basic claims: 1) that we share concepts of mental states that include some sort of requirements that any state or structure must meet to qualify as a mental state of that sort, and 2) the world is such that nothing comes close to meeting those requirements. The first of these claims is not terribly controversial and while the requirements for beliefs might come as part of an explanatory theory, they don't need to. Hence, one common criticism of eliminativism — that our invoking of beliefs and desires is not a theoretical or quasi-scientific endeavor — has very limited force. Cherubs, presumably, are not part of any sort of quasi-scientific theory, yet this alone is no reason to think they might exist. Even if it should turn out that we do not (or do not simply) posit beliefs and other propositional attitudes as part of some sort of explanatory-predictive framework, it may still turn out that there are no such things.

The second perspective criticizing the theory-theory is based on research in contemporary cognitive science, and stems from a different model of the nature of our explanatory and predictive practices (Gordon, 1986, 1992; Goldman, 1992). Known as the “simulation theory” , this alternative model holds that we predict and explain behavior not by using a theory, but by instead running an off-line simulation of how we would act in a comparable situation. That is, according to this picture, we disconnect our own decision-making sub-system and then feed it pretend beliefs and desires (and perhaps other relevant data) that we assume the agent whose behavior we are trying to predict is likely to possess. This allows us to generate both predictions and explanations of others by simply employing cognitive machinery that we already possess. In effect, the simulation theory claims that our reasoning about the minds and behavior of others is not significantly different from putting ourselves in their shoes. Thus, no full-blown theory of the mind is ever needed. Simulations theorists claim that, contrary to the assumptions of eliminative materialism, no theory of the mind exists that could one day prove false.

Both sides of this debate between the theory-theory and the simulation theory have used empirical work from developmental psychology to support their case (Stich and Nichols, 1992; Gordon, 1992). For example, theory-theorists have noted that developmental psychologists like Henry Wellman and Alison Gopnik have used various findings to suggest that children go through phases that are analogous to the phases one would go through when acquiring a theory (Gopnik and Wellman, 1992). Moreover, children appear to ascribe beliefs to themselves in the same way they ascribe beliefs to others. Theory-theorists have used considerations such as these to support their claim that our notion of belief is employed as the posit of a folk theory rather than input to a simulation model. At the same time, simulation theorists have employed the finding that 3-year-olds struggle with false belief ascriptions to suggest that children are actually ascribing their own knowledge to others, something that might be expected on the simulation account (Gordon, 1986).

Even among theory-theorists there is considerable disagreement about the plausibility of eliminative materialism. A third criticism of eliminative materialism is that it ignores the remarkable success of folk psychology, success that suggests it offers a more accurate account of mental processes than eliminativists appreciate. Apart from the strong intuitive evidence that seems to reveal beliefs and desires, we also enjoy a great deal of success when we use common sense psychology to predict the actions of other people. Many have noted that this high degree of success provides us with something like an inference-to-the-best-explanation argument in favor of common sense psychology and against eliminativism. The best explanation for the success we enjoy in explaining and predicting human and animal behavior is that folk psychology is roughly true, and that there really are beliefs (Kitcher, 1984; Fodor, 1987; Lahav, 1992).

A common eliminativist response to this argument is to re-emphasize a lesson from the philosophy of science; namely, that any theory — especially one that is as near and dear to us as folk psychology — can often appear successful even when it completely misrepresents reality. History demonstrates that we often discount anomalies, ignore failures as insignificant, and generally attribute more success to a popular theory than it deserves. Like the proponents of vitalism or phlogiston theory, we may be blind to the failings of folk psychology until an alternative account is in hand (P. M. Churchland, 1981; P. S. Churchland, 1986).

While many defenders of folk psychology insist that folk psychology is explanatorily strong, some defenders have gone in the opposite direction, arguing that it is committed to far less than eliminativists have typically assumed (Horgan, 1993; Horgan and Graham, 1991; Jackson and Pettit, 1990). According to these writers, folk psychology, while indeed a theory, is a relatively “austere” (i.e., ontologically non-committal) theory, and requires very little for vindication. Consequently, these authors conclude that when properly described, folk psychology can be seen as compatible with a very wide range of neuroscientific or cognitive developments, making eliminative materialism possible but unlikely.

Of course, folk theories are like any theories in that they can be partly right and partly wrong. Even writers who are sympathetic to eliminativism, such as John Bickle and Patricia Churchland (Bickle, 1992; P.M. Churchland, 1994) point out that the history of science is filled with with cases where the conceptual machinery of a flawed theory is neither smoothly carried over to a new theory, nor fully eliminated. Instead, it is substantially modified and reworked, with perhaps only some of its posits being dropped altogether. Thus, full-blown eliminative materialism and complete reductionism are end-points on a continuum with many possibilities falling somewhere in between. The term “revisionary materialism” is often invoked to denote the view that the theoretical framework of folk psychology will only be eliminated to a degree, and that various dimensions of our commensense conception of the mind will be at least partly vindicated.

One final argument against eliminative materialism comes from the recent writings of a former supporter, Stephen Stich (1991, 1996). Stich's argument is somewhat complex, but it can be presented in outline form here. Earlier we saw that eliminative materialism is committed to the claim that the posits of folk psychology fail to refer to anything. But as Stich points out, just what this claim amounts to is far from clear. For example, we might think that reference failure occurs as the result of some degree of mismatch between reality and the theory in which the posit is embedded. But there is no clear consensus on how much of a mismatch is necessary before we can say a given posit doesn't exist. Stich offers a variety of reasons for thinking that there are fundamental difficulties that will plague any attempt to provide principled criteria for distinguishing cases of reference success from cases of reference failure. Consequently, the question of whether a theory change should be ontologically conservative or radical has no clear answer. Because eliminative materialism rests on the assumption that folk psychology should be replaced in a way that is ontologically radical, Stich's account pulls the rug out from under the eliminativist. Of course, this is a problem for the folk psychology realist as well as the eliminativist, since Stich's skeptical argument challenges our grounds for distinguishing the two.

Eliminative materialism entails unsettling consequences not just about our conception of the mind, but also about the nature of morality, action, social and legal conventions, and practically every other aspect of human activity. As Jerry Fodor puts it, “if commonsense psychology were to collapse, that would be, beyond comparison, the greatest intellectual catastrophe in the history of our species …” (1987, p. xii). Thus, eliminative materialism has stimulated various projects partly designed to vindicate ordinary mental states and establish their respectability in a sophisticated account of the mind. For example, several projects pursued by philosophers in recent years have attempted to provide a reductive account of the semantic content of propositional attitudes that is entirely naturalistic (i.e., an account that only appeals to straightforward causal-physical relations and properties). Much of the impetus for these projects stems in part from the recognition that eliminative materialism cannot be as easily dismissed as earlier writers, like C. D. Broad, had originally assumed.

Of course, some claim that these concerns are quite premature, given the promissory nature of eliminative materialism. After all, a pivotal component of the eliminativist perspective is the idea that the correct theory of the mind, once discovered by psychologists, will not reveal a system or structure that includes anything like common-sense mental states. Thus, for eliminative materialism to get off the ground, we need to assume that scientific psychology is going to turn out a certain way. But why suppose that before scientific psychology gets there? What is the point of drawing such a drastic conclusion about the nature of mentality, when a central premise needed for that conclusion is a long ways from being known?

One response an eliminativist might offer here would be to consider the broader theoretical roles eliminative materialism can play in our quest for a successful theory of the mind. Various writers have stipulated necessary conditions that any theory of the mind must meet, and on some accounts these conditions include the explication of various mental states as understood by common sense. According to this view, if a theory doesn't include states that correspond with beliefs, or provide us with some sort of account of the nature of consciousness, then it needn't be taken seriously as a complete account of “real” mental phenomena. One virtue of eliminative materialism is that it liberates our theorizing from this restrictive perspective. Thus, the relationship between eliminative materialism and science may be more reciprocal than many have assumed. While it is true that eliminative materialism depends upon the development of a radical scientific theory of the mind, radical theorizing about the mind may itself rest upon our taking seriously the possibility that our common sense perspective may be profoundly mistaken.

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belief | connectionism | Feyerabend, Paul | folk psychology: as a theory | folk psychology: as mental simulation | functionalism | Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry (Baron) d' | Hume, David | intentionality | language of thought hypothesis | mental representation | mind: computational theory of | pain | physicalism | propositional attitude reports | qualia | Rorty, Richard | Sellars, Wilfrid | Wittgenstein, Ludwig

Acknowledgments

Thanks to David Chalmers for many helpful comments and suggestions.

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• How to write an argumentative essay | Examples & tips

How to Write an Argumentative Essay | Examples & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

An argumentative essay expresses an extended argument for a particular thesis statement . The author takes a clearly defined stance on their subject and builds up an evidence-based case for it.

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Table of contents

When do you write an argumentative essay, approaches to argumentative essays, introducing your argument, the body: developing your argument, concluding your argument, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about argumentative essays.

You might be assigned an argumentative essay as a writing exercise in high school or in a composition class. The prompt will often ask you to argue for one of two positions, and may include terms like “argue” or “argument.” It will frequently take the form of a question.

The prompt may also be more open-ended in terms of the possible arguments you could make.

Argumentative writing at college level

At university, the vast majority of essays or papers you write will involve some form of argumentation. For example, both rhetorical analysis and literary analysis essays involve making arguments about texts.

In this context, you won’t necessarily be told to write an argumentative essay—but making an evidence-based argument is an essential goal of most academic writing, and this should be your default approach unless you’re told otherwise.

Examples of argumentative essay prompts

At a university level, all the prompts below imply an argumentative essay as the appropriate response.

Your research should lead you to develop a specific position on the topic. The essay then argues for that position and aims to convince the reader by presenting your evidence, evaluation and analysis.

• Don’t just list all the effects you can think of.
• Do develop a focused argument about the overall effect and why it matters, backed up by evidence from sources.
• Don’t just provide a selection of data on the measures’ effectiveness.
• Do build up your own argument about which kinds of measures have been most or least effective, and why.
• Don’t just analyze a random selection of doppelgänger characters.
• Do form an argument about specific texts, comparing and contrasting how they express their thematic concerns through doppelgänger characters.

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An argumentative essay should be objective in its approach; your arguments should rely on logic and evidence, not on exaggeration or appeals to emotion.

There are many possible approaches to argumentative essays, but there are two common models that can help you start outlining your arguments: The Toulmin model and the Rogerian model.

Toulmin arguments

The Toulmin model consists of four steps, which may be repeated as many times as necessary for the argument:

• Make a claim
• Provide the grounds (evidence) for the claim
• Explain the warrant (how the grounds support the claim)
• Discuss possible rebuttals to the claim, identifying the limits of the argument and showing that you have considered alternative perspectives

The Toulmin model is a common approach in academic essays. You don’t have to use these specific terms (grounds, warrants, rebuttals), but establishing a clear connection between your claims and the evidence supporting them is crucial in an argumentative essay.

Say you’re making an argument about the effectiveness of workplace anti-discrimination measures. You might:

• Claim that unconscious bias training does not have the desired results, and resources would be better spent on other approaches
• Cite data to support your claim
• Explain how the data indicates that the method is ineffective
• Anticipate objections to your claim based on other data, indicating whether these objections are valid, and if not, why not.

Rogerian arguments

The Rogerian model also consists of four steps you might repeat throughout your essay:

• Discuss what the opposing position gets right and why people might hold this position
• Highlight the problems with this position
• Present your own position , showing how it addresses these problems
• Suggest a possible compromise —what elements of your position would proponents of the opposing position benefit from adopting?

This model builds up a clear picture of both sides of an argument and seeks a compromise. It is particularly useful when people tend to disagree strongly on the issue discussed, allowing you to approach opposing arguments in good faith.

Say you want to argue that the internet has had a positive impact on education. You might:

• Acknowledge that students rely too much on websites like Wikipedia
• Argue that teachers view Wikipedia as more unreliable than it really is
• Suggest that Wikipedia’s system of citations can actually teach students about referencing
• Suggest critical engagement with Wikipedia as a possible assignment for teachers who are skeptical of its usefulness.

You don’t necessarily have to pick one of these models—you may even use elements of both in different parts of your essay—but it’s worth considering them if you struggle to structure your arguments.

Regardless of which approach you take, your essay should always be structured using an introduction , a body , and a conclusion .

Like other academic essays, an argumentative essay begins with an introduction . The introduction serves to capture the reader’s interest, provide background information, present your thesis statement , and (in longer essays) to summarize the structure of the body.

Hover over different parts of the example below to see how a typical introduction works.

The spread of the internet has had a world-changing effect, not least on the world of education. The use of the internet in academic contexts is on the rise, and its role in learning is hotly debated. For many teachers who did not grow up with this technology, its effects seem alarming and potentially harmful. This concern, while understandable, is misguided. The negatives of internet use are outweighed by its critical benefits for students and educators—as a uniquely comprehensive and accessible information source; a means of exposure to and engagement with different perspectives; and a highly flexible learning environment.

The body of an argumentative essay is where you develop your arguments in detail. Here you’ll present evidence, analysis, and reasoning to convince the reader that your thesis statement is true.

In the standard five-paragraph format for short essays, the body takes up three of your five paragraphs. In longer essays, it will be more paragraphs, and might be divided into sections with headings.

Each paragraph covers its own topic, introduced with a topic sentence . Each of these topics must contribute to your overall argument; don’t include irrelevant information.

This example paragraph takes a Rogerian approach: It first acknowledges the merits of the opposing position and then highlights problems with that position.

Hover over different parts of the example to see how a body paragraph is constructed.

A common frustration for teachers is students’ use of Wikipedia as a source in their writing. Its prevalence among students is not exaggerated; a survey found that the vast majority of the students surveyed used Wikipedia (Head & Eisenberg, 2010). An article in The Guardian stresses a common objection to its use: “a reliance on Wikipedia can discourage students from engaging with genuine academic writing” (Coomer, 2013). Teachers are clearly not mistaken in viewing Wikipedia usage as ubiquitous among their students; but the claim that it discourages engagement with academic sources requires further investigation. This point is treated as self-evident by many teachers, but Wikipedia itself explicitly encourages students to look into other sources. Its articles often provide references to academic publications and include warning notes where citations are missing; the site’s own guidelines for research make clear that it should be used as a starting point, emphasizing that users should always “read the references and check whether they really do support what the article says” (“Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia,” 2020). Indeed, for many students, Wikipedia is their first encounter with the concepts of citation and referencing. The use of Wikipedia therefore has a positive side that merits deeper consideration than it often receives.

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An argumentative essay ends with a conclusion that summarizes and reflects on the arguments made in the body.

No new arguments or evidence appear here, but in longer essays you may discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your argument and suggest topics for future research. In all conclusions, you should stress the relevance and importance of your argument.

Hover over the following example to see the typical elements of a conclusion.

The internet has had a major positive impact on the world of education; occasional pitfalls aside, its value is evident in numerous applications. The future of teaching lies in the possibilities the internet opens up for communication, research, and interactivity. As the popularity of distance learning shows, students value the flexibility and accessibility offered by digital education, and educators should fully embrace these advantages. The internet’s dangers, real and imaginary, have been documented exhaustively by skeptics, but the internet is here to stay; it is time to focus seriously on its potential for good.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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An argumentative essay tends to be a longer essay involving independent research, and aims to make an original argument about a topic. Its thesis statement makes a contentious claim that must be supported in an objective, evidence-based way.

An expository essay also aims to be objective, but it doesn’t have to make an original argument. Rather, it aims to explain something (e.g., a process or idea) in a clear, concise way. Expository essays are often shorter assignments and rely less on research.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

The majority of the essays written at university are some sort of argumentative essay . Unless otherwise specified, you can assume that the goal of any essay you’re asked to write is argumentative: To convince the reader of your position using evidence and reasoning.

In composition classes you might be given assignments that specifically test your ability to write an argumentative essay. Look out for prompts including instructions like “argue,” “assess,” or “discuss” to see if this is the goal.

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Lucretius III: a history of motion

Adir de oliveira fonseca junior , universidade federal da bahia. [email protected].

Lucretius III: a history of motion is the final volume in a sequence of three studies by Thomas Nail on the De rerum natura ( DRN ). He proposes an innovative and politically engaged essay on DRN 5 and 6. Unafraid of anachronisms (which makes the book all the more stimulating and refreshing), Nail persuasively links Lucretius with dialectical materialism, ecology, queer theory, modern literature, biology and physics. While alluding to Karl Marx, Virginia Woolf and Michel Serres (among several other authors), Nail proposes a close reading of selected passages from DRN 5 and 6, and offers his own translations of them. In addition, the book contains several figures which enrich the discussion (on a personal note, I found the figures of Minoan artwork particularly valuable). Yet  the originality of Nail’s study lies in revealing how Lucretius’ ideas remain relevant in contemporary debates on pressing issues. Nail suggests that many of the structural problems that we are facing in the world (and even more acutely in the Global South) result from a linear, anthropocentric and idealist vision of nature and history. Indeed, capitalist discourse (which has generated climate collapse, the pandemic, widespread poverty and different kinds of inequality) is largely fueled by the myths of eternity, exponential growth and metaphysical salvation. However, as Nail brilliantly argues in his Introduction (and throughout the entire book), Lucretius’ kinetic views on matter, nature and the swerve forge a radically alternative approach to history. Just like matter, history is also material, indeterminate and tends towards dissolution.

Chapter 1, “Making history”, poses the question “What is the origin of history?”. In many ways, Lucretius could be credited with being the precursor of revolutionary theories in modern cosmology, physics and history. Yet Nail recognizes that, rather than looking for answers in Lucretius, we could turn to him as a guide for experimental and theoretical inquiries. Lucretius explores how it is possible to write a history of nature without denying his own mortal, human and material position within nature (cf. DRN 5.1-6). His account is neither objective nor subjective; rather, it is a historical expression of “an immanent history that moves through him” (p. 23).

Chapter 2, “The birth of the world”, poses another question: “What is the nature of the world?”. Focusing on DRN 5.91-508, Nail claims that history, including human history, is a process which consists of emergent and kinetic patterns, just like spirals. He associates Lucretius’ indeterminate swerve with Hesiod’s primordial Chaos, and relates Lucretius’ “performative and kinetic kinds of knowledge” (p. 41) to oracles. Then, Nail establishes a compelling link between the love of Venus and the strife of the Giants – here, one is tempted to recall Freud’s life and death drives (although Nail does not explicitly mention these Freudian concepts, the title of his seventh chapter, “Eros and civilisation”, alludes to Herbert Marcuse’s homonymous book, which combines ideas from Marx and Freud). [1] Nail concludes the chapter with a comment on the adjective daedala , used by Lucretius at DRN 5.233-234 (as well as at 1.7 and 228) to portray nature as a kind of labyrinth, with many threads and spiral meanders.

Chapter 3, “The death of the world”, does not immediately pose a question, but the first paragraph takes us back to the book’s initial discussion concerning climate change. Nail criticizes the influence of idealism on Western history, and radically proposes that Lucretius is “part of the antidote to our present ecological crisis” (p. 58). In his analysis of DRN 5.235-508, Nail draws a critical distinction between the “world” and “nature”. While nature is in a constant flux, everything that encompasses the world is perishable – everything except matter, the “indivisible material” ( solida cum corpore ; 5.552). However, Nail strongly emphasizes that although matter is indeterminate, it is neither passive nor random. In fact, he points out similarities between Lucretius’ and quantum physicists’ descriptions of matter and material processes. Besides enriching our reading of Lucretius, Nail’s particular method and style also combine to provide a model for classicists and scholars in general who, like himself, seek to overcome the “division between the humanities and sciences that currently plagues academia” (p. 69).

Chapter 4, “It’s a turbulent whirled”, focuses on DRN 5.509-770, lines which deal with the “structure and motion of the cosmos” and the “nature of historical movement more generally” (p. 71). Nail gives special attention to the term “step by step” ( pedetemptim ; DRN 5.533), which intimates that knowledge, just like nature, is experimental and progresses gradually. While, in the previous chapter, Nail invoked the image of Janus (5.373–5), the Roman god of transitions, here he analyzes the image of Summanus (521), the god of nocturnal lighting, dissipation and death. He proceeds to explore the images of whirls and cycles, and night and day, as manifestations of nature’s indeterminacy and emergent potential. In addition, Nail devotes a more extensive analysis to the figure of Mater Matuta (659). He associates her with Ino, who played a major role in the Mysteries of Samothrace which – like those at Eleusis – seemingly involved fertility rituals and reflected the iterative cycles of life and death. Nail also connects Matuta to Rhea, Demeter and Persephone, describing them as figures of “swerving flows” (p. 88). Finally, he creatively suggests that the DRN could be read as a “performative katabasis” , as it “guides the reader through an initiation into the mystical materialism of a dying world of flows and folds” (p. 89).

Chapter 5, “Evolutionary materialism”, expands this analysis of the “step-by-step” movement. Nail observes that Lucretius’ theory of transmutation was not restricted to living species only, but equally encompassed human culture and the entire cosmos – for this reason, he argues that “Lucretius was not just pre-Darwinian but was also post-Darwinian” (p. 93). Then, without further clarification, he borrows the term “ naturecultures ” from Donna Haraway to describe emergent historical processes. Focusing on DRN 5.772-925, Nail observes that nature has no plan, but is continually experimenting. He examines the images of tentacles and dendritic veins to describe the branching processes of nature and history – although he does not mention Deleuze and Guattari here, his account brings to mind their concept of the rhizome. [2] The chapter culminates with an inspiringly queer section, called “Monstrous matters”, where Lucretius’ portenta ( DRN 5.837, 845) and monstra (845) are explored. Nail demonstrates that nature’s abundance is not directly connected to sexual reproduction; and, evoking the biological concept of symbiogenesis, he lists a number of hybrid mythological characters, such as the Minotaur. Thus challenging traditional, “hetero-reproductive models of species” (p. 105), Lucretius’ text offers a queer ecology, one which encompasses nature’s multiple differences.

Chapter 6, “A brief history of language”, focuses on the last six hundred lines of the DRN . Nail describes this part of the poem as “an epic of human history within the greater epic of nature” (p. 109). He again employs the concept of “ naturecultures ” without explaining it thoroughly (but refers to a volume edited by Vicki Kirby in an endnote). [3] Ascribing to and extending the argument of material evolution, Nail observes that, for Lucretius (as well as for several recent theorists), fires played a significant role in the development of language, as they contributed to night-time social interactions. Gradually, humans started to form friendships and communicate ideas with their voices and gestures, producing speech. For Lucretius, human language fostered social cohesion above all else, and was thence “an immanent condition of material co-evolution and society” (p. 117).

Chapter 7,  “Eros and civilisation”, contains a beautiful reflection on art, pleasure and ethics. Nail boldly describes Lucretius’ philosophy of the good life as a kind of “aesthetic communism”, where people attempt to mitigate nature’s turbulence through art and otium , collectively. Yet, as Lucretius himself noted, some people try to deal with that same turbulence by seeking fame, wealth and power, which ultimately lead to endless effort, suffering and alienation from the senses ( DRN 5.1122-1233). As humans began fearing rather than enjoying life, they created legal societies governed by law and religion, and their minds became “split” ( dubiam mentem ; 1211). Yet, as Nail observes, the only type of knowledge that can free us humans from fear, pain and anxiety is the knowledge of indeterminacy. Human nature is also material, and “the point of life is not hard labour but pleasures” (p. 133). For Lucretius, “pleasure comes from dissipation and diversity” (p. 134), and nature teaches us to dissipate our cares with music, food, leisure and conversation ( DRN 5.1390-1398). According to Nail, this is a distinctive feature of Lucretius’ philosophy, who probably ascribed more importance to laughter and art than Epicurus did.

The three remaining chapters are dedicated to Book 6 of the DRN . Although these chapters are perhaps less insightful than the previous ones, they are still important as pieces which gradually pave the way for the denouement of Nail’s study. In Chapter 8, “A hymn to ruin”, Nail explores Lucretius’ use of ancient Athens in DRN 6, recognizing this city as a “human mother” (p. 149) and “the pinnacle of the arts” (p. 151). Then, focusing on DRN 6.17-23, Nail analyzes the image of the “leaky basket”, which Epicurus, according to Lucretius, employed to explain the nature of pleasure. In Nail’s words, “[p]leasures are not objects or states that one attains or accumulates, but rather processes and events that pass through us” (p. 154). Then, he analyzes the role of Calliope as Lucretius’ guide in DRN 6, as though she – in contrast to Venus – expressed a return “to a quiet and calm state [ requies ]”, and responded to a desire for “immanent dissipation” (p. 164).

In Chapter 9, “As above, so below”, Nail isolates Lucretius’ images of thunder, waves, bubbles and fiery vortices ( DRN 6.142-205). The most noteworthy section is probably “Our liquid earth”, where Nail recognizes a geophilosophy in Lucretius. He points out that, for Lucretius, “the earth has a kinetic agency” (p. 176), a desire to consume itself. Then, in the final section, Nail strongly criticizes the commentators who read Book 6 of the DRN through a pessimistic lens, when in fact “[t]he heart of Lucretius’ ethics is that we should not fear death by fetishising life” (p. 177). Nail will reinforce this argument in the volume’s Conclusion, where he censures Deleuze’s vitalist reading of Lucretius, and rebuts his hypothesis that the end of the DRN as we know it was a falsification by the Christians. [4]

In the final chapter, “Of poisons and plagues”, Nail explores the last part of the DRN . First, he invokes the Lucretian image of the birds dying as they flew over Lake Avernus ( DRN 6.747-748). Second, partially revisiting the discussion on the Mysteries from chapter 4, Nail concentrates on the Cumaean Sibyl and oracle, noting that oracles spring up on turbulent sites, and that every meaning emerges in a history of relations. Then, he comments on the material processes of unweaving expressed in the images of the snake’s movement, poisonous flowers, the oracle of Dodona, and the Roman goddess Fortuna (also mentioned in chapter 7). The main sections of the chapter, however, deal with the plague at Athens, with the analysis of DRN 6.1090ff. Nail suggests that, by concluding his philosophical poem with the “death-bearing wave” ( mortifer aestus ; 1138), Lucretius highlights the fact that “[w]e are not unique in our dissipation” (p. 193). Nail persuasively shows us that, rather than being pessimistic, Lucretius is poetically portraying the material process of dying, the indeterminacy and dissipation that traverses all nature, including us humans. Nail then alludes to Marx’s famous quote “All that is solid melts into air …”, and powerfully concludes the chapter with the affirmation that the DRN is an “anti-progress narrative” (p. 197).

To conclude, Nail’s work is a valuable contribution to scholarship on Lucretius in a materialist and ecologically-minded vein. Playfully combining philological close reading with multidisciplinary knowledge and a capacity to engage with contemporary issues, this volume will be of interest to a wide audience, including comparatists, historians and philosophers, but more particularly classicists who are interested in contemporary thought and committed to dialoguing with other disciplines.

[1] Sigmund Freud, Beyond the pleasure principle and other writings , trans. John Reddick (London: Penguin, 2003); and Herbert Marcuse, Eros and civilization: a philosophical inquiry into Freud (London: Routledge, 2023).

[2] See Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia , trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987).

[3] Vicki Kirby, ed., What if culture was nature all along? (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2017).

[4] Gilles Deleuze, “Appendix I: The simulacrum and ancient philosophy: 2. Lucretius and the simulacrum”, in The logic of sense , ed. Constantin V. Boundas, trans. Mark Lester and Charles Stivale (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 266–79.

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Hylomorphic Account Of The Human Person Against The Theory Of Materialism Argumentative Essay Samples

Type of paper: Argumentative Essay

Topic: Body , Life , Soul , Aristotle , Theory , Existence , Materialism , Karl Marx

Words: 1200

Published: 03/08/2023

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The posit that the human person is nothing but a body and that all its components and experiences can be explained regarding the body, without acknowledging the existence of a rational soul, forms the basis of the materialist theory (Cohen 2). The notion of materialism opposes the hylomorphic account of spirit as a reality different from matter a philosophical theory developed by Aristotle. According to Aristotle, living things are compounds of matter and form. He argues that a living thing soul (form) is what causes the existence of the body (matter) defines a soul as that which makes a living thing alive (Cohen 2). Furthermore, Aristotle argues that a body is related to the soul as matter is to form. Hylomorphism was Aristotle’s counter argument to Plato's argument of how a form could act on matter and the two cannot be separated in the way Plato suggested in his theory (Cohen 3). He criticized the materialistic position for excluding final causes (purposes of living things) when explaining the existence of the natural world. According to the materialism, only matter can be proven to exist in its physical form, and the soul is merely a composition of material elements that can be reduced to individual elements for example atoms (Cohen 5). Therefore, any reality like the existence of a soul cannot be referred to as material, and sensible knowledge is considered as non-existent (Cohen 7). Hylomorphism does not view the human person as mere matter. Thus, it gives us no reason to treat souls as separate units from bodies. The soul and body can be distinguished in our minds through logic so there is no contradiction in the belief that at death God can separate the body and soul. In his book,Viktor Frankl had to adapt to the harsh living conditions in the prisoners’ camp through a psychotherapeutic method in which he invoking his inner person, the soul to identify his purpose in life and the benefits of his purpose (Frankl 57) . Despite being treated as objects in prison Viktor knew there was more to his being than his body that had been reduced to an object of torture. By invoking their inner spirits the prisoner find a refuge from the desolation, emptiness, and spiritual poverty of their existence (Frankl 50). The theory of materialism suggests that immaterial minds could interact with a material world (Cohen 4). This notion poses a challenge in understanding the causal connections between immaterial minds and a material world. Viewing the person as a component of reducible elements also complicates the understanding of how material objects can exist over a period during which they lose some of their parts (Cohen 6). If bodies are simply aggregates of smaller bodies, with their only parts being integral parts, then any change to such a body will wreak havoc on our conception of what that body is (Cohen 3). Thus, the human person does not fit into the reductive concept of the materialism theory about the mind, because Hylomorphism perceives the mind to be more than just matter. Also, causality and free will are as a result of the soul and body interacting with each other as they are one. Free will implies that one cannot be forced to agree even though one might be able to force the mind to convey information (Hsieh 3). This case is also argued by Aquinas in his natural law theory. He argues whether there is in humans a natural law. According to him, a law is both in the creation ruler and the creation itself. Since living things act in regards to their nature, they obtain their purpose (final cause) from the natural law, which is the inner spirit (Thomas 91). God directs us through his spirit that he imprinted in our souls for our own benefit. Every human person has a free will that should be used in achieving our purpose on earth (Thomas 91) Aristotle’s four causes explain an object’s transformation from its potential to its actual purpose. The reality of a living thing is achieved from its mere idea through Aristotle’s four causes (Hsieh 4). First is the material cause, that from which something is generated and out of which it is made. Secondly, is the formal cause, the structure which the matter realizes and regarding which the matter comes to be something real (Hsieh 4). Thirdly, is the efficient cause, the agent responsible for a quantity of matter’s coming to be informed and fourthly, is the final cause, which is the purpose or goal of the compound of form and matter (Hsieh 4). The four causes can be seen, tested confirmed and applied to things that already exist making the theory more reliable (Hsieh 4). The theory of materialism does not consider the different kinds of souls especially the person who can engage in live activities like breathing and movement and breathing, thinking, eating, and growing (Hsieh 4). This approach is based on biology and is more reliable and varies with the materialism theory. Aristotle’s view on the form and matter distinction allows him to describe the living organism effectively as a form of matter that is inseparable (Hawkes 2). Aristotle also integrates his view of the soul with the four causes’ theory in showing that that the soul is the cause of many of the body activities like movement (Hawkes 3).Thus, the material cause of an organism is simply its physical body. The significant benefit of the causes’ integration is that it provides Aristotle with a conceptual framework to give a non-materialistic account of the mind (Hawkes 3). Contrary to Aristotle’s integration of the causes’ framework, is the materialism approach that regards the existence of bodies as obvious which complicates the issue of the mind existence on how one might account for the existence of minds (Hsieh 5). According to Jaegwon Kim, the basic mind-body problem is determining the existence of the mind in a physical world (Hsieh 7). The materialism theory cannot account for the causal and link between the body and mind. In contrast, the Hylomorphic approach gives a solution to this dilemma in that, Aristotle views the whole organism, as a composition of both the body and soul (Hawkes 7). The view that the two exist together and not as sole units, deals with the in the vain dilemma of accounting for the existence of the other unit and relations with each other (Hawkes 7).

Works Cited

Cohen, S. Marc. "Aristotle On Substance, Matter, and Form Metaphysics Γ: The Study Of Being Qua Being." 2006. Presentation. Frankl, Viktor E. Man's Search For Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006. Print. Hawkes, David. "Against Materialism in Literary Theory." The Return of Theory in Early Modern English Studies: Tarrying With The Subjunctive. Paul Cefalu and Bryan Reynolds. 1st ed. 2016. Print. Hsieh, Diana Mertz. "The Soul of Aristotle." 2.1 (2002): 1-7. Print. Thomas,. St. Thomas Aquinas, 1274-1974; Commemorative Studies. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1974. Print.

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