Materialism

Materialism

Author: Abdu'l-Missagh Ghadirian

Publisher:

Published: 2017-11-17

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9780853986072

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This book advocates for a sensible balance between the spiritual and material aspects of life.


Materialism: A Historico-Philosophical Introduction

Materialism: A Historico-Philosophical Introduction

Author: Charles T. Wolfe

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-01-06

Total Pages: 139

ISBN-13: 3319248200

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This book provides an overview of key features of (philosophical) materialism, in historical perspective. It is, thus, a study in the history and philosophy of materialism, with a particular focus on the early modern and Enlightenment periods, leading into the 19th and 20th centuries. For it was in the 18th century that the word was first used by a philosopher (La Mettrie) to refer to himself. Prior to that, ‘materialism’ was a pejorative term, used for wicked thinkers, as a near-synonym to ‘atheist’, ‘Spinozist’ or the delightful ‘Hobbist’. The book provides the different forms of materialism, particularly distinguished into claims about the material nature of the world and about the material nature of the mind, and then focus on materialist approaches to body and embodiment, selfhood, ethics, laws of nature, reductionism and determinism, and overall, its relationship to science. For materialism is often understood as a kind of philosophical facilitator of the sciences, and the author want to suggest that is not always the case. Materialism takes on different forms and guises in different historical, ideological and scientific contexts as well, and the author wants to do justice to that diversity. Figures discussed include Lucretius, Hobbes, Gassendi, Spinoza, Toland, Collins, La Mettrie, Diderot, d’Holbach and Priestley; Büchner, Bergson, J.J.C. Smart and D.M. Armstrong.


Marxism And The Moral Point Of View

Marxism And The Moral Point Of View

Author: Kai Nielsen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-11-28

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 0429718519

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Marxism and the Moral Point of View attempts to say what consistent Marxists working within the parameters of the canonical conceptions of Marxism should say about morality. This includes what they should say about the function of morality in society, about the extent of moral comment they can justifiably make, and about freedom, equality, and justice, including the justice of whole social formations. Karl Marx-and most Marxists follow him-was opposed.


Materialist Ethics and Life-Value

Materialist Ethics and Life-Value

Author: Jeff Noonan

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2012-02-02

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 0773588108

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Current patterns of global economic activity are not only unsustainable, but unethical - this claim is central to Materialist Ethics and Life-Value. Grounding the definition of ethical value in the natural and social requirements of life-support and life-development shared by all human beings, Jeff Noonan provides a new way of understanding the universal conception of "the good life." Noonan argues that the true crisis affecting the world today is not sluggish rates of economic growth but the model of measuring economic and social health in terms of money-value. In response, he develops an alternative understanding of good societies where the breadth and depth of life-activity and enjoyment are dependent on dominant institutions. The more social institutions satisfy the necessary requirements of human life, the more they empower each person to develop and enjoy the capacities that make human life valuable and meaningful. A well-reasoned synthesis of traditional philosophical concerns and contemporary critiques of global capitalism, this book is a forward-looking treatise that defends political struggle and reconsiders what is most important for a happy life.


Materialism

Materialism

Author: Abduʼl-Missagh Ghadirian

Publisher: George Ronald

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 9780853985471

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This book challenges the view that matter is the centrepiece of life - a view that denies spirituality, conscience and feeling. It advocates for a sensible balance between the spiritual and material aspects of life as two pillars of an equitable civilization.


Moral Darwinism

Moral Darwinism

Author: Benjamin Wiker

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 2009-09-20

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 9780830876365

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Abortion. Euthanasia. Infanticide. Sexual promiscuity. Ideas and actions once unthinkable have become commonplace. We seem to live in a different moral universe than we occupied just a few decades ago. Consent and noncoercion seem to be the last vestiges of a morality long left behind. Christian moral tenets are now easily dismissed and have been replaced with what is curiously presented as a superior, more magnanimous, respectful and even humble morality. How did we end up so far away from where we began? Can the decline be stopped? Ben Wiker, in this provocative and insightful book, traces the amazing story that explains our present cultural situation. Wiker finds the roots of our moral slide reaching all the way back to the ethical theory and atheistic cosmology of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. Christian teaching had been in contention with this worldview long before it reached its pinnacle with the rise and acceptance of Darwinism. But it was Darwinism, Wiker contends, that provided this ancient teaching with the seemingly modern and scientific basis that captured twentieth-century minds. Wiker demonstrates that this ancient atomistic and materialistic philosophy supplies the guiding force behind Darwinism and powerfully propels the hedonistic bent of our society while promoting itself under the guise of pure science. This book is a challenge not only to those who believe Darwinism to be purely scientific fact but to Christian who have at times inconsistently lived out their Christian moral convictions and so have failed to recognize and address the ancient corrosive underpinnings of our present moral and intellectual crisis.


Moral Materialism

Moral Materialism

Author: Ashish Dalela

Publisher: Shabda Press

Published: 2015-05-18

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 9789385384028

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Modern science describes the physical effects of material causes, but not the moral consequences of conscious choices. Is nature merely a rational place, or is it also a moral place? The question of morality has always been important for economists, sociologists, political theorists, and lawmakers. However, it has had almost no impact on the understanding of material nature in science. This book argues that the questions of morality can be connected to natural law in science when science is revised to describe nature as meaningful symbols rather than as meaningless things. The revision, of course, is entailed not just by issues of morality but also due to profound unsolved problems of incompleteness, indeterminism, irreversibility and incomputability in physics, mathematics, and computing theory. This book shows how the two kinds of problems are deeply connected. The book argues that the lawfulness in nature is different from that presented in current science. Nature comprises not just things but also our theories about those things. The world of things is determined but the world of theories is not-our theories represent our free will, and the interaction between free will and matter now has a causal consequence in the evolution of scientific theories. The moral consequences of free will represent the ideological evolution of the observer, and the correct theory represents the freedom from this evolution. Free will is therefore not the choice of arbitrary and false theories; free will is the choice of the correct theory. Once the correct theory is chosen, the observer is free of natural laws, since all phenomena are consistent with the correct theory.