Someone sent me an email asking about Orson Pratt's famous (or infamous?) tract from the 19th century on Mormon materialism. For those not familiar with "The Absurdities of Immaterialism" I have up a version with a few typos along with a page long overdue for an update that lists some of the possible influences on Pratt. I think Pratt is one of those figures who was important for "trailblazing" for Mormon theology, but as an actual theologian or philosopher was definitely lacking. For instance his arguments against immaterialism end up begging the question. (IMO) In other words they end up being little more than a critique of immaterialism from a position of materialism. But of course there are more problems.
Two recent blog posts on physicalism and materialism highlight the problem. The issue ends up being the problem of defining either. In the 19th century where there was a naive view that atomism was correct, defining it was simple. Whatever had extension in space was material. But of course field theories put a dent into that. With General Relativity defining extension in that way was problematic, not to mention the problems within Quantum Mechanics. Chris over at Mumblings and Grumblings has a good post on this. The problem is that if we define materialism or physicalism in terms of current physics, we risk the danger that beset the 19th century philosophers. Physics is a moving target and thus its objects are up for grabs. If we define it in terms of some ideal physics we are then left with no way of now being able to define what is or isn't physical nor make much by way of argument on the issue. (I should add that I don't see this as much of a problem as some do)
The other problem appears to be that science does deal with "immaterial entities." I put that in scare quotes because exactly how immaterial they actually are is up for grabs. No I don't mean light, since that to me is bound by time and space - just not in the way the 19th century atomists thought. Rather I am thinking of psychology, economics and so forth. Clearly they, at least in part, study the mind. But is the mind material? I think that most scientists think that it can in theory be reduced to material. But of course not all philosophers agree. I don't bring this up to suggest that all isn't material. (I tend to think it is in a loose sense of the term) Rather I bring it up to suggest that defining materialism or physicalism in terms of science is problematic. (The post "Conceivability" at Undetached Rabbit Parts touches upon this)
My own view is that one can simply loosely define it as whatever is "in space" and "in time." However that is problematic if relativistic theories in fundamental physics turn out to be true. I've mentioned those many times here. That is the idea that space and time aren't 'fundamental' but emerge out of something more primordial. The idea goes back to Leibniz who thought that space was emergent out of the relationship between monads. This contrasted with Newton who felt matter was in space. So we have the container model of space and the relational matter of space. The same thing holds for time.
I think that materialists would still consider things material even if space and time was emergent, but perhaps not. After all Leibniz' monads were definitely immaterial and it seems hard to discern how one could be a relationalist and still be a materialist. One way might be to say that nothing can exist without relations and thus as a spacial entity. Whether that works or not, I think one quickly sees the problem.
I've closed comments in order to avoid spam since I don't check this older blog as much anymore.
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Blogged by Clark Goble