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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.
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