Akademik

The view that the world is entirely composed of matter. Philosophers now tend to prefer the term physicalism, since physics has shown that matter itself resolves into forces and energy, and is just one amongst other physically respectable denizens of the universe. Materialism in this philosophical sense has a history stretching back to Greek atomism, and emerges in the modern period in Hobbes's Leviathan, and the works of La Mettrie . It is opposed to mind–body dualism, but it has nothing to do with the excessive desire for goods and wealth, which is a different meaning of the term. See also central state materialism, dialectical materialism, historical materialism.