Materialism …

Estudia: Phi, last time I saw you, I had rejected idealism as a rational position and I was wondering … does that make me a materialist by default?

Philo: Not at all. First of all, be clear about what you mean by materialist. This is a philosophical position advocated by the great names like Democritus, Marx, Skinner and others. These guys believe in existence alright, it’s just that they deny that there is any such thing as consciousness.

Estudia: How can they do that? After all, we showed that we exist and possess consciousness which is the faculty we use to perceive reality. That became obvious and you showed me how silly it was to deny that I didn’t have it.

Philo: That’s right, but the materialist see it as either a myth, which no one can find, or some chance useless brain function. They deny our means of thinking and hence all knowledge. They are really rejecting reason as absolute. We are just bodies without minds and our belief in consciousness is some kind of mystical hoping.

Estudia: This doesn’t make sense. Are you being serious or what?

Philo: You bet I am. The materialists think that their viewpoint is really the only natural and scientific approach to philosophy. They claim that if you believe in consciousness then you are really an idealist because you must believe this mystical or supernatural idea called consciousness when scientifically you can’t find it and it is just a natural process of brain function, so they say.

Estudia: Isn’t that true? I mean, isn’t consciousness really non-existent and don’t we just use our nervous system (brains in particular) to perceive reality. Isn’t this what you said?

Philo: Consciousness is not mystical. It is an attribute of us and all perceivable entities here on earth and maybe in other similar places. Consciousness is possessed under certain conditions by certain kinds or groups of living organisms. You can observe it by introspection directly. It has identity in that it has a specific nature. Yes, it appears to be centered in the brain but it follows certain laws of action. If helps us stay alive by letting us perceive the things around us and thus act accordingly. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about consciousness as we defined it. We don’t claim to separate it from matter or claim that it exists outside and/or above the individual animal that possesses it. Matter exists and so does consciousness.

Estudia: But what about the argument that I can perceive matter but not consciousness - at least by extrospection. Consciousness doesn’t have any physical properties.

Philo: Well, the same sort of thing can be said about hearing. You wouldn’t say the ear is not real just because your ear can’t perceive itself by introspection.

Estudia: Wait a minute. I’m really getting confused now. Can you define consciousness?

Philo: No, you can’t define consciousness except ostensively. It’s like an axiomatic concept. Every definition ultimately reduces to certain primary concepts — concepts you can only just point out. Look, you don’t define matter when you are talking about what objects are made out of. Physicists struggle with the definition of matter and have yet to reduce it to strings, or particles or whatever. When they do, or as they do, all that they can do to define the fundamental unit is to point at it or whatever they are looking at to detect the particle. Same thing with consciousness. We as philosophers can only point at it, but neuroscientists might some day be able to explain the attributes and functions of consciousness, but this would not alter any facts observed about consciousness.

Estudia: So the materialists are wrong?

Philo: Yes, they equate physics with science. Science is the gaining of systematic knowledge through the use of reason based on observations. You must use the methods and techniques suitable to the subject being analyzed. You don’t use biology to study history, or chemistry to understand economics. The behaviorist are materialists and they insist that consciousness is unreal because they can’t use the tools of physics to observe it. The monist are one group of materialists that insist that reality can have only one constituent, one fundamental building block from which everything can be derived. This contradicts the observations of reality. The dualist suggest that we believe in two realities. This is the Platonic or Cartesian school and it leads to the idea of mind-body opposition and to the belief that the soul is independent of the body. You must understand that this is nonsense and contradicts the facts of reality

Estudia: Well, it seems clear, I think. I better go and review my notes before you add any more to this metaphysics.

Philo: Don’t worry; there isn’t anything else to understand about our metaphysics. We’ve covered it all, maybe not in depth, but enough to get us by in any discussion on the nature of existence. Unless you come up with some question you can’t figure out on your own, we’ll move on to the next branch of philosophy.

Estudia: Ok, great. Más tarde. ¡Hasta luego¡