Philosophical History of Materialism

Note: “Materialism” is the view that everything that exists is material (or physical) and that all phenomena—including mental states and consciousness—are entirely the result of material/physical interactions, without residue. In recent times, “physicalism” has become the more acceptable term. In fact, “materialism” and “physicalism” are roughly equivalent ontological terms, often used interchangeably, although physicalism can cover wider territory, including properties that the laws of physics describe, e.g., space, time, energy, matter. Moreover, physicalism can connote more epistemological matters in terms of how we can know things. Materialism can be distinguished as the more restrictive term, meaning all that is real is matter and its equivalents. It connotes more ontological concerns in terms of what really exists. In this Landscape, we go more with “materialism,” which also maintains historical continuity.

The philosophical history of materialism began in ancient Greece and India and has developed over the millennia, often in response to religious, idealist, or dualist traditions. It was accelerated by the scientific revolution, especially, in recent decades, by the cognitive and neurosciences.

Ancient Greece (6th and 5th centuries BCE)

Thales argued that everything comes from water, a physical substance. Anaximenes maintained that air is the primary substance. Heraclitus held that fire is fundamental; change is essential to reality. Empedocles proposed that four elements (earth, air, fire, water) combine to make all things. Leucippus and Democritus, the most significant early materialists, argued that the universe is composed of infinite, indivisible, solid particles called "atoms" moving in an infinite void.

Ancient India: Cārvāka (or Lokāyata) school (around 600 BCE)

The Cārvāka school rejected supernaturalism, the authority of the Vedas, the existence of an immaterial soul, and the concept of an afterlife. They held that only what can be perceived directly through the senses is real. Everything, including consciousness, arises from combinations of the four elements (earth, water, fire, and air) and perishes when these elements disperse. Hedonistic ethic: the only meaningful goal in life is to pursue pleasure and avoid pain in this world, as there is no higher purpose or afterlife.

Hellenistic and Roman Periods

Epicurus (4th & 3rd centuries BCE) based his philosophy on Democritus, added ethics. Lucretius (1st century BCE) provided poetic defense of materialism and atomism.

Early Modern Period, Scientific Revolution (17th–18th centuries)

Galileo, Descartes, and Newton pioneered mechanistic models of nature. Thomas Hobbes advocated mechanistic materialism—mind is a motion in matter. La Mettrie argued that humans are biological automata. Locke maintained that all knowledge comes from sensory experience of the material world. Baron d'Holbach developed comprehensive naturalistic and atheistic materialism. Denis Diderot (1713–1784) proposed a dynamic materialism anticipating ideas of emergence.

19th Century

Scientific Developments: Advances in biology (Darwin) and physics (Dalton, Carnot, Helmholtz, Maxwell, Boltzmann) reinforced materialism.

Dialectical Materialism (Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels): Matter is primary, and consciousness arises from socio-material conditions. Historical materialism: history progresses through material economic forces. Engels systematized this into "dialectical materialism."

20th Century

Logical Positivism & Behaviorism: Philosophers like Rudolf Carnap and scientists like B. F. Skinner pushed a reductive, scientific materialism. Behaviorism viewed mental states as external (not internal) activities.

Identity Theory: U. T. Place, J. J. C. Smart, and David Armstrong maintained that mental states are identical with brain states (mind = brain).

Eliminative Materialism: Paul and Patricia Churchland advocated radical materialism: common-sense mental terms don't refer to real things; neuroscience will prevail. Daniel Dennett and Keith Frankish argued that first-person, subjective experience is a kind of cognitive or introspective deception (Illusionism).

Physicalism (as successor to Materialism): Everything is ultimately physical but allows for non-reductive theories (e.g., functionalism, supervenience, non-reductive physical, property dualism).

Contemporary Materialism: Reinforced by neuroscience, cognitive science, embodied and enactive cognition, emergentism (consciousness emerges from physical substrates), artificial intelligence, and the cognitive science of religion.