Contemporary Materialism: Its Ontology and Epistemology (1st ed. 2022) (Synthese Library #447)

By: and and

Sign Up Now! Already a Member? Log In
You must be logged into Bookshare to access this title. Learn about membership options, or view our freely available titles.

Synopsis
This book provides an up-to-date revision of materialism’s central tenets, its main varieties, and the place of materialistic philosophy vis a vis scientific knowledge.Materialism has been the subject of extensive and rich controversies since Robert Boyle introduced the term for the first time in the 17th century. But what is materialism and what can it offer today? The term is usually defined as the worldview according to which everything real is material. Nevertheless, there is no philosophical consensus about whether the meaning of matter can be enlarged beyond the physical. As a consequence, materialism is often defined in stark exclusive and reductionist terms: whatever exists is either physical or ontologically reducible to it. This conception, if consistent, mutilates reality, excluding the ontological significance of political, economic, sociocultural, anthropological and psychological realities. Starting from a new history of materialism, the present book focuses on the central ontological and epistemological debates aroused by today’s leading materialist approaches, including some little known to an anglophone readership. The key concepts of matter, system, emergence, space and time, life, mind, and software are checked over and updated. Controversial issues such as the nature of mathematics and the place of reductionism are also discussed from different materialist approaches. As a result, materialism emerges as a powerful, indispensable scientifically-supported worldview with a surprising wealth of nuances and possibilities.
Copyright:
2022

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:
9783030894887
Related ISBNs:
9783030894870
Publisher:
Springer International Publishing
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Nonfiction, Science, Philosophy
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.
Edited by:
Gustavo E. Romero
Edited by:
Javier Pérez-Jara
Edited by:
Lino Camprubí

Reviews

No Rating Yet