See also: Materialism (homonymy)
The term materialism indicates a frame of mind which consists in making use of the Réalité as bases of its lifestyle and to constitute the knowledge and knowledge.
History
The term is invented by Leibniz in 1702, and is asserted for the first time by Mettrie towards 1748. However and thus retrospectively, the first materialists, known as mechanists , are Philosophe S of the Antiquité: Héraclite, Démocrite, Leucippe, Diogène, Épicure, Lucrèce. Are traditional philosophy a long time reduced the materialism of the philosophers of the Antiquité to questions of physics about the continuity of the Matière (there matter grains? the Atom S do they evolve/move in the vacuum? etc). However, by consulting Diogène Laërce, one notes that the works written by the thinkers materialists of the Antiquité are for the ethical majority of the works of . Thus, as of the Antiquity, the materialists preach the use of the matter and the Réel as bases fundamental to explain the phenomena, to philosophize and produce the knowledge. For the materialists, there is only matter and the operation of the world can be included/understood only on the basis of what is observable or will be it. It is thus the basic principle of the development of the Connaissance S in Science S (in the broad sense) which one finds in the middle of the materialism. In that, the opposition is radical with the stoical Parménide, Plato, , then the fathers of the Christian Church, and finally the German Idéalisme, with Kant and Hegel, for which the true and perfect world exists apart from any matter and of all observable Réalité. The Vérité of the world can be reached only by the thought, the reality of the world and its Matière being only a Représentation and an imperfect approximation of the truth. This basic difference which exists since antiquity can be taken as the irreducible distinction between the idealistic current and the current materialist.
Possible meanings
There exist several meanings at the end materialism according to the contexts.
Ethical materialism
It indicates a provision of thought which consists in being reduced to reality on the questions of Morale. No moral value is transcendent or universal since they all are resulting from the human cultures and the innate characters of the species. A moral value is thus a Phénomène which one can study as a molecule in physics or a language in philology is studied. The moral value is a human consequence depending on the contexts, of the stories individual and collective, etc It does not have a " existence; in soi". There is thus no universalism as regards morals. On this ground, thinkers like Spinoza or Nietzsche will work to escape the Relativisme as regards values by seeking means of distinguishing the values morals which are favourable or harmful with the life. For the materialists, the man as an individual is " with-dessus" of its values morals, he is the creator. This thought is opposed directly to the idealistic thought for which the values morals exist of any eternity in the operation of the Universe, humanity having only to observe these rules of life. The fracture with the idealism is done on this point. Historically, the stake of this difference was and remains colossal: the political regimes always supported the idealistic orientation since it inclines the individual to simply follow enacted rules. Contrary, the orientation materialist brings back the individual to his personal liabilities as for his choices and its way of living daily. “Personal liabilities” not being to confuse with “paradoxical free will” of the determinism materialist.
Scientific materialism
For the scientific materialism, the Pensée is brought back to purely material facts or a epiphenomene constitutes some. The constitution of the scientific knowledge always rests on the comparison: theory-experiment or theory-observation, it is this comparison which validates or invalid a theory. In this direction, the idea of the world is subjected so that is really the world, from where the orientation materialist which is the base of any knowledge. It is this condition which makes it possible to reject any form to know founded about detached imagination of any reality (Ground punt, creation of the world 6000 years ago, heart like body manufacturing blood, etc).Contrary, the tale, the myth, the dogma or science fiction is not occupied to know if the ideas suggested are in agreement with reality.
The design materialist of the history
The design materialist of the history (sometimes called historical materialism or new materialism) is a vision of origin Marxiste of analysis of the history, social struggles and evolutions economic and policies based on their material causes : history of the Social classes, their reports/ratios, and of their evolution. It was defined and implemented in particular by Karl Marx ( Class struggles in France , 18 brumaire of Louis Bonaparte , the Capital), Rosa Luxemburg ( Grève of mass, parties and trade unions , the Russian Revolution ) and Anton Pannekoek ( historical Materialism ). The historians materialists attach on the other hand much less importance to the dynasties or the religions for example, regarded products of their time and their reports/ratios social and not as events influencing deeply the course of the history. The sociologist max Weber will work much on these aspects. Of the same Pierre Bourdieu which will prolong the concept of capital to make it ready to return account of the social reports/ratios and fights between social groups. Their work shows that if the historical materialism of Marxist origin is a grid of powerful analysis and remains incontestably a projection spectacular in the economic study and social, it remains incomplete because neglecting any factor not raising directly of the economic possession of capital. It is what will lead Pierre Bourdieu to qualify the Marxist materialism of materialism " court" or " réducteur".
The materialism consumerist
In the vulgar direction, the term of materialism is employed to indicate the general attitude or the behavior of that which sticks with pleasure to the tangible properties, the money values and the Plaisir S materials. The possession and the accumulation of the goods to the mode are a dominating character trait at a person " matérialiste" (with the vulgar direction of the term). In the artistic field, the materialism is an inclination to give to the things a realistic and sensual representation.See also the modern concept of " Materialism culturel" by Marvin Harris.
Principle
The materialism is working an hypothesis, a postulate of operation for the constitution of the knowledge. Any knowledge is constituted starting from the observation or of the experimentation of reality. The human being noted always Phénomène S (and epiphenomene S) around him and proposed explanations with an aim of including/understanding the operation of its environment and the observable world in general (all this with an aim of facilitating and of supporting its existence). The materialism proposes two bases for the constitution of the knowledge:- it is necessary to try to explain the phenomena with the minimum of external assumptions possible, from where the option always to reduce the explanations to Phénomène S having for origin the Matière (for example, the Conscience is a Phénomène having for origin the operation of the human Cerveau). One often calls theory the explanations suggested when they propose a framework and concepts to explain the Phénomène S.
- any explanatory assumption formulated (or Théorie) must be checked and validated by confrontation with the Observation or the Expérience.
Constitution of the To know (or the Science) within the framework of the materialism
For the materialism the Confrontation between:- on the one hand, the Assumption S, explanations and the Theory S suggested,
- and, on the other hand, the Experiment S and the Observation S of the world,
The purpose of to explain a Phénomène is to propose a To know solid and valid. I.e. a knowledge which one can transpose and use thereafter in other situations in the same way standard, even in other fields if that is possible. The idea is that an explanation which is not checked is not used for nothing with the direction where it is only one possible conjecture among thousands of others that each and everyone can imagine and invent. If it is not validated, a theory is not used for nothing (in particular, it can be used to make progress the To know or the Science); one cannot trust with it to simply explain more things because one is not sure that it gives indeed an account of the phenomena observed and the operation of reality. It can be only one eccentric proposal that only the validation makes it possible to consolidate.
- Example: one believed during very a long time that the Cœur created the Sang, that it was a divine machine which produced blood ad infinitum. This assumption is at the base of the techniques of bleedings in the old Médecine in Occident: bad and sick blood was eliminated by bleedings to facilitate the production of healthy blood by the heart. For reasons which do not relate to the subject present, it was a long time prohibited to so yes check or not this assumption of the creative heart of blood was valid. When one finally could observe the human body to look at how the organization really functions, it was possible to say that the explanation of the creative heart of blood was false. The heart is a pump. Confrontation with the observation of the operation of the body made it possible to cancel an assumption and to confirm the heart like pump.
- Example: the Egyptians knew already the diameter of our planet (in step of camels!). In the top the Middle Ages, the Occident represented the Earth like punt. This Représentation did not have direct impact on the social organization, at that time where the Culture was the fact of the Christian Monastère S . However, with this Assumption, the techniques of localization of the ships could not progress. In Bottom the Middle Ages, the development of navigation as from the 12th century required to pass to the assumption of rotundity. The representation of a round Ground at Ptolémée and Aristote, which was adopted by the Islamic geographers and astronomers, agreed with the geographical statements of the navigators who launched out in the Grandes discoveries of the Renaissance. Also, among all the possible explanations of a Phenomenon, modern science proposes to keep only those which one can check by the Expérience and/or the human Observation. If a theory is validated, the explanations which it provides prove in theory able to explain other phenomena and to reveal new procedure which are capable to help new comprehension Phénomène S, and so on. One can thus make use of it to make progress the To know. The knowledge makes it possible as for him to look after, of launching rockets, building cars, to protect the Environnement, to build houses, etc a theory which is not validated is an assumption that it will be necessary to check. A theory which is not validated because it is not in agreement with reality (Expérience or observation) must be modified to take account of what it does not take into account. It is the process of progression of the knowledge.
The last developments of sciences and technology showed that the validation of a Théorie is a very complex process, in which obtaining a scientific certainty became more difficult to seize. Indeed, taking into account the Christian bottom in the Western thought, one regarded a long time as obvious the unicity and the universality of the scientific description of a phenomenon (the movement Scientiste at the end of the 19th century will be by many regards the apogee of this false thought). Fortunately, the scientific revolutions of the beginning of the 20th century brought the concept of field of validity of a scientific theory which explains why a scientific theory is valid only under certain conditions which indicate in which cases it is possible to use such or such theory. Left these conditions of use, the results of a theory do not have any relationship with reality since the theory is employed anyhow. There will not be idea to make the kitchen with a drilling machine, it is the same thing in science: a scientific tool (a theory is a scientific tool) must be used within its framework of application. For example:
- One believed a long time in the universality of the mechanics of Newton (Newton “modestly” baptized it: " Universal law of Gravitation"), but the results highlighted which it is valid only is low speeds and for not very important masses. I.e. under these conditions, the predictions which it makes it possible to obtain are in concord with the results of the observations (one can use it for cars, falls of body on Earth, etc). But with high speeds and for very important masses, the results and the observations start to be different (it is noted it when one studies the movement of planets in the solar system). When one studies phenomena with enormous masses (neutron star for example) or high speeds with 1/10e speed of light, the predictions given by the theory of Newton do not have then anything any more to see with the results of the observations: one left the field of validity of the mechanical of Newton.
- Certains models of Turbulence in Thermohydraulique is valid theories under certain conditions (on the fluids considered, the Température S, the Pression S, etc).
- the Lumière can be described by an undulatory theory but also by a corpuscular theory. Both are valid and the use of one or the other of the two theories will depend on the studied phenomena, therefore field of validity which should be considered.
The rule is simple: If one does not respect the field of validity of a scientific theory, one can make him say anything. Typically, the appearance of the Statistical in modern physics with the quantum Mechanical to describe the Atomic behavior and Sub-atomique of the matter made it possible many ignorant people to say that the " hasard" returned in the life of the every day. Except that it is not a question of " hasard" since the quantum Mécanique very precisely calculates probabilities of interaction (and that the validity of these results is very well checked) and that this scientific theory functions only on the scale Microscopique (Atomique and Sub-atomique), and that it is completely unusable on the scale Macroscopique (in other words: on our scale).
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