Types of materialism
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The old days of optical or light microscope are almost gone, you can see almost everything thru an electronic or atomic microscope, and everything is becoming virtual, but despite all those scientific advancement, the causes that motivated men to create religion still exist in our society, as Engels wrote: Many scientists are materialist in their laboratories but they are idealist or metaphysical in their private life
Interesting but I notice that the title of the article — “How did we figure out atoms exist?” — is different from the wording in the link. I think it’s better. It assigns a more active role to the mind that “discover” which suggests that atoms were there waiting to be discovered rather than a phenomenon observed that needed to be interpreted.
A real, material, phenomenon, though.
Your Atomic Self: The Invisible Elements That Connect You to Everything Else in the Universe https://g.co/kgs/edCp6X
Adam Buick an idealist? I doubt it He has written several good articles on historical materialism
Are you denying material, physical reality, and saying it’s all in our minds?
No, of course not. Where did you get that idea from? Just because I mentioned that the mind has a role in understanding the real world? But even the view you seem to espouse — naive realism — accepts that the mind has a role even if only as a camera or mirror.
Here’s the case for dialectical materialism as distinct from 18th century French and 19th century German mechanical materialism:
I will read this, but I just wonder if many of you are so engrossed in Marx that you confuse that with everything, even the natural sciences like astronomy.
Atoms exist, even if the word atom is invented by humans to assist understanding and converse.
Why am I a “naive realist”?
I’m a party member, aren’t I?
I just don’t put Marx into everything.
(I wondered the other day what a suspicious character who resembled him in my Asterix book was up to).What’s next? “A Marxian Analysis of the Planets”?
Lauren Collee: ‘Marxist Astronomy The Milky Way According to Anton Pannekoek’:
https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/marxist-astronomy-the-milky-way-according-to-anton-pannekoek
Marx isn’t Dietzgen and Dietzgen’s views are pretty much those of modern philosophy of science.
Another similar way to think about it is “the map is not the territory”. All we are doing, and all we can do when we describe the world is make conceptual maps of it. But maps are always just descriptions not the world as it really is. How good the map is is determined by how well you can use it to do whatever task you are using it for.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation
I don’t know whether or not you are a naive realist (which Wikipedia says is “the idea that the senses provide us with direct awareness of objects as they really are”). I just thought you might be in view of your seeming rejection of any active role for the mind in understanding the world of reality.
Of course atoms exist but not as separate entities on their own but as part of the whole world of reality which humans have labelled “atoms”.
We are not talking about particular sciences but the theories of what science is, the philosophy of science if you like. Personally, I wouldn’t go along with saying that there is a “Marxist astronomy” any more than there is Marxist physics or Marxist chemistry as opposed to “bourgeois astronomy”. But I don’t think the author meant it in that sense.
I wouldn’t have thought Pannekoek or Marx would have accepted it either.
The author does clear up one thing for you:
“Pannekoek understood material reality to be a ‘continuous and unbounded stream in perpetual motion’”.
Are you saying it isn’t? If Marx is too much for you try Heraclitus:
“He viewed the world as constantly in flux, always “becoming” but never “being”. He expressed this in sayings like panta rhei (“Everything flows”) and “No man ever steps in the same river twice.” This changing aspect of his philosophy is contrasted with that of the ancient philosopher Parmenides, who believed in “being” and in the static nature of reality.”
To return to your original question; What kind of materialist are you: a Heraclitan or a Parmenidesan?
“the idea that the senses provide us with direct awareness of objects as they really are”).
I never said that and I would be wrong if I did.
” I just thought you might be in view of your seeming rejection of any active role for the mind in understanding the world of reality.”
I would be wrong to do that too.
“Pannekoek understood material reality to be a ‘continuous and unbounded stream in perpetual motion’”.
Something I have always said too. Even Taoism says that.
Good ol’ Heraclitus. He is right.
Marx too much for me? Rude!
Well, I’ll be an Heraclitan, thank you.
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