Materialism And Dualism: The Relationship Between Mind And Body

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Human beings are made of matter, made of matter with the functions they were intended to have. They have weight, solidity and consist of liquids and gases. But unlike other material objects (e.g. rocks) humans can structure judgements and reason about their existence. Shortly put, we humans have minds.
Humans are characterised as having both a mind (which is the nonphysical part) and a body/brain (which is the physical part). This is recognized as dualism. Dualism is the supposed aspect that the mind and body exist as individual entities. The mind-body problem is about: what is the relationship between mind and body? Are we able to define the difference between and the relationship between these two things? Is it fair to say that they are separate, …show more content…

Thus, according to the theory of materialism all things consist of material and everything that is considered a phenomena is a result of material interactions, with no involvement of spirit or consciousness. Materialism is a type of monism, but still stands as its own thing.
Materialism goes back to the ancient Greeks, where philosophers like Thales and Parmenides contributed towards the formulation of Materialism. But later, during the heavy influence of Christianity, denial of the spirit and the holy son was massively condemned and materialism was not spoken about. Until the 17th Century, when materialism was revived once again by philosopher Thomas Hobbes and the scientist Pierre Gassendi, among other French Enlightenment thinkers. Dualism was still the more favoured choice, because of its compatibility with Christianity. But in the 19th and 20th Century Materialism grew with the new scientific …show more content…

It all rested on presumptions that were metascientific, though never metaphysical in the Aristotelian sense. Which is that the theory of materialism reached beyond factual science, but never beyond physical reality. These hypotheses were that material or natural reality formed a constant material continuum. Nature as a whole, had no beginning or end, it was eternal. Self-sustaining material. The only foundation being there was the material being, and that some type of natural substance control all visible phenomena. The philosopher Lucretius named this eternal fact of material the

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