WEBVTT NOTE 6. Materialism 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.600 Chapter 6 Materialism 2 00:00:04.600 --> 00:00:08.080 1. 3 00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:11.840 Two Varieties of Materialism 4 00:00:11.840 --> 00:00:18.360 The term materialism, as applied in contemporary speech, has two entirely different connotations. 5 00:00:18.360 --> 00:00:21.440 The first connotation refers to values. 6 00:00:21.440 --> 00:00:27.400 It characterizes the mentality of people who desire only material wealth, bodily satisfactions, 7 00:00:27.400 --> 00:00:29.620 and sensuous pleasures. 8 00:00:29.620 --> 00:00:35.980 The second connotation is ontological. It signifies the doctrine that all human thoughts, 9 00:00:35.980 --> 00:00:42.100 ideas, judgments of value and volitions are the product of physical, chemical and physiological 10 00:00:42.100 --> 00:00:49.260 processes going on in the human body. Consequently, materialism in this sense denies the meaningfulness 11 00:00:49.260 --> 00:00:55.740 of thymology and the sciences of human action, of praxeology as well as of history. The natural 12 00:00:55.740 --> 00:00:59.300 Material Sciences alone are scientific. 13 00:00:59.300 --> 00:01:04.380 We shall deal in this chapter only with this second connotation. 14 00:01:04.380 --> 00:01:10.380 The materialist thesis has never yet been proved or particularized. 15 00:01:10.380 --> 00:01:15.540 The materialists have brought forward no more than analogies and metaphors. 16 00:01:15.540 --> 00:01:20.200 They have compared the working of the human mind with the operation of a machine or with 17 00:01:20.200 --> 00:01:22.860 physiological processes. 18 00:01:22.860 --> 00:01:27.180 Both analogies are insignificant and do not explain anything. 19 00:01:27.180 --> 00:01:30.620 A machine is a device made by man. 20 00:01:30.620 --> 00:01:37.260 It is the realization of a design and it runs precisely according to the plan of its authors. 21 00:01:37.260 --> 00:01:42.860 What produces the product of its operation is not something within it but the purpose 22 00:01:42.860 --> 00:01:47.520 the constructor wanted to realize by means of its construction. 23 00:01:47.520 --> 00:01:53.320 It is the constructor and the operator who create the product, not the machine. 24 00:01:53.320 --> 00:01:59.320 To ascribe to a machine any activity is anthropomorphism and animism. 25 00:01:59.320 --> 00:02:02.280 The machine has no control over its running. 26 00:02:02.280 --> 00:02:03.840 It does not move. 27 00:02:03.840 --> 00:02:08.320 It is put into motion and kept in motion by men. 28 00:02:08.320 --> 00:02:13.840 It is a dead tool which is employed by men and comes to a standstill as soon as the effects 29 00:02:13.840 --> 00:02:16.940 of the operator's impulse cease. 30 00:02:16.940 --> 00:02:21.340 What the materialist who resorts to this machine metaphor would have to explain first of all 31 00:02:21.340 --> 00:02:26.180 is, who constructed this human machine and who operates it? 32 00:02:26.180 --> 00:02:29.800 In whose hands does it serve as a tool? 33 00:02:29.800 --> 00:02:34.220 It is difficult to see how any other answer could be given to this question than, it is 34 00:02:34.220 --> 00:02:35.220 the creator. 35 00:02:35.220 --> 00:02:40.900 It is customary to call an automatic contrivance self-acting. 36 00:02:40.900 --> 00:02:43.560 This idiom too is a metaphor. 37 00:02:43.560 --> 00:02:49.320 It is not the calculating machine that calculates, but the operator by means of a tool ingeniously 38 00:02:49.320 --> 00:02:51.640 devised by an inventor. 39 00:02:51.640 --> 00:02:54.300 The machine has no intelligence. 40 00:02:54.300 --> 00:03:01.040 It neither thinks nor chooses ends nor resorts to means for the realization of the ends sought. 41 00:03:01.040 --> 00:03:03.960 This is always done by men. 42 00:03:03.960 --> 00:03:09.160 The physiological analogy is more sensible than the mechanistic analogy. 43 00:03:09.160 --> 00:03:15.720 Banking is inseparably tied up with the physiological process. As far as the physiological thesis 44 00:03:15.720 --> 00:03:22.360 merely stresses this fact, it is not metaphorical, but it says very little. For the problem is 45 00:03:22.360 --> 00:03:27.840 precisely this, that we do not know anything about the physiological phenomena constituting 46 00:03:27.840 --> 00:03:34.560 the process that produces poems, theories and plans. Pathology provides abundant information 47 00:03:34.560 --> 00:03:39.120 about the impairment or total annihilation of mental faculties resulting from injuries 48 00:03:39.120 --> 00:03:41.180 of the brain. 49 00:03:41.180 --> 00:03:45.120 Anatomy provides no less abundant information about the chemical structure of the brain 50 00:03:45.120 --> 00:03:48.460 cells and their physiological behavior. 51 00:03:48.460 --> 00:03:54.140 But notwithstanding the advance in physiological knowledge, we do not know more about the mind-body 52 00:03:54.140 --> 00:03:59.120 problem than the old philosophers who first began to ponder it. 53 00:03:59.120 --> 00:04:04.420 None of the doctrines they advanced has been either proved or disproved by newly won physiological 54 00:04:04.420 --> 00:04:06.340 Financial Knowledge. 55 00:04:06.340 --> 00:04:11.240 Thoughts and ideas are not phantoms, they are real things. 56 00:04:11.240 --> 00:04:16.280 Although intangible and immaterial, they are factors in bringing about changes in the realm 57 00:04:16.280 --> 00:04:18.980 of tangible and material things. 58 00:04:18.980 --> 00:04:24.340 They are generated by some unknown process going on in a human being's body and can be 59 00:04:24.340 --> 00:04:29.580 perceived only by the same kind of process going on in the body of their author or in 60 00:04:29.580 --> 00:04:32.140 other human being's bodies. 61 00:04:32.140 --> 00:04:36.720 It can be called creative and original in so far as the impulse they give and the changes 62 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:40.120 they bring about depend on their emergence. 63 00:04:40.120 --> 00:04:46.060 We can ascertain what we wish to about the life of an idea and the effects of its existence. 64 00:04:46.060 --> 00:04:50.500 About its birth, we know only that it was engendered by an individual. 65 00:04:50.500 --> 00:04:53.860 We cannot trace its history further back. 66 00:04:53.860 --> 00:04:59.540 The emergence of an idea is an innovation, a new fact added to the world. 67 00:04:59.540 --> 00:05:05.400 It is, because of the deficiency of our knowledge, for human minds the origin of something new 68 00:05:05.400 --> 00:05:08.540 that did not exist before. 69 00:05:08.540 --> 00:05:13.340 What a satisfactory materialist doctrine would have to describe is the sequence of events 70 00:05:13.340 --> 00:05:17.980 going on in matter that produces a definite idea. 71 00:05:17.980 --> 00:05:23.220 It would have to explain why people agree or disagree with regard to definite problems. 72 00:05:23.220 --> 00:05:28.500 It would have to explain why one man succeeded in solving a problem which other people failed 73 00:05:28.500 --> 00:05:30.100 to Solve. 74 00:05:30.100 --> 00:05:35.440 But no materialistic doctrine has up to now tried to do this. 75 00:05:35.440 --> 00:05:40.740 The champions of materialism are intent upon pointing out the untenability of all other 76 00:05:40.740 --> 00:05:45.260 doctrines that have been advanced for the solution of the mind-body problem. 77 00:05:45.260 --> 00:05:49.420 They are especially zealous in fighting the theological interpretation. 78 00:05:49.420 --> 00:05:54.180 Yet the refutation of a doctrine does not prove the soundness of any other doctrine 79 00:05:54.180 --> 00:05:56.900 at variance with it. 80 00:05:56.900 --> 00:06:01.320 Perhaps it is too bold to venture for the human mind to speculate about its own nature 81 00:06:01.320 --> 00:06:03.180 and origin. 82 00:06:03.180 --> 00:06:08.560 It may be true, as agnosticism maintains, that knowledge about these problems is forever 83 00:06:08.560 --> 00:06:10.860 denied to mortal men. 84 00:06:10.860 --> 00:06:16.320 But even if this is so, it does not justify the logical positivists condemning the questions 85 00:06:16.320 --> 00:06:19.940 implied as meaningless and nonsensical. 86 00:06:19.940 --> 00:06:25.500 A question is not nonsensical merely because it cannot be answered satisfactorily by the 87 00:06:25.500 --> 00:06:36.800 The Secretion Analogy A notorious formulation of the materialist thesis states that thoughts 88 00:06:36.800 --> 00:06:44.520 stand in about the same relation to the brain as the gall to the liver or urine to the kidneys. 89 00:06:44.520 --> 00:06:50.020 As a rule, materialist authors are more cautious in their utterances, but essentially all they 90 00:06:50.020 --> 00:06:54.320 say is tantamount to this challenging dictum. 91 00:06:54.320 --> 00:06:58.860 The theory distinguishes between urine of a chemically normal composition and other types 92 00:06:58.860 --> 00:07:01.020 of urine. 93 00:07:01.020 --> 00:07:05.940 Deviation from the normal composition is accounted for by certain deviations in the body's physique 94 00:07:05.940 --> 00:07:11.640 or in the functioning of the body's organs from what is considered normal and healthy. 95 00:07:11.640 --> 00:07:15.520 These deviations too follow a regular pattern. 96 00:07:15.520 --> 00:07:20.760 A definite abnormal or a pathological state of the body is reflected in a corresponding 97 00:07:20.760 --> 00:07:24.360 Differing Alteration of the Urine's Chemical Composition 98 00:07:24.360 --> 00:07:30.480 The assimilation of certain foodstuffs, beverages and drugs brings about related phenomena in 99 00:07:30.480 --> 00:07:32.660 the urine's composition. 100 00:07:32.660 --> 00:07:38.880 With Hale people, those commonly called normal, urine is, within certain narrow margins, of 101 00:07:38.880 --> 00:07:41.120 the same chemical nature. 102 00:07:41.120 --> 00:07:43.940 It is different with thoughts and ideas. 103 00:07:43.940 --> 00:07:48.660 With them, there is no question of normalcy or of deviations from normalcy following a 104 00:07:48.660 --> 00:07:50.680 definite pattern. 105 00:07:50.680 --> 00:07:55.460 Even bodily injuries or the assimilation of certain drugs and beverages obstruct and trouble 106 00:07:55.460 --> 00:07:57.860 the mind's faculty to think. 107 00:07:57.860 --> 00:08:02.660 But even these derangements are not uniform with various people. 108 00:08:02.660 --> 00:08:07.720 Different people have different ideas and no materialist has ever succeeded in tracing 109 00:08:07.720 --> 00:08:12.680 back these differences to factors that could be described in terms of physics, chemistry 110 00:08:12.680 --> 00:08:14.840 or physiology. 111 00:08:14.840 --> 00:08:19.960 Any reference to the natural sciences and to material factors they are dealing with 112 00:08:19.960 --> 00:08:27.200 is vain when we ask why some people vote the Republican and others the Democratic ticket. 113 00:08:27.200 --> 00:08:31.560 Up to now, at least, the natural sciences have not succeeded in discovering any bodily 114 00:08:31.560 --> 00:08:38.160 or material traits to whose presence or absence the content of ideas and thoughts can be imputed. 115 00:08:38.160 --> 00:08:42.920 In fact, the problem of the diversity of the content of ideas and thoughts does not even 116 00:08:42.920 --> 00:08:45.440 arise in the natural sciences. 117 00:08:45.440 --> 00:08:51.080 They can deal only with objects that affect or modify sensuous intuition. 118 00:08:51.080 --> 00:08:55.560 But ideas and thoughts do not directly affect sensation. 119 00:08:55.560 --> 00:09:00.400 What characterizes them is meaning, and for the cognition of meaning the methods of the 120 00:09:00.400 --> 00:09:04.480 natural sciences are inappropriate. 121 00:09:04.480 --> 00:09:06.360 Ideas influence one another. 122 00:09:06.360 --> 00:09:09.440 They provide stimulation for the emergence of new ideas. 123 00:09:09.440 --> 00:09:13.280 They supersede or transform other ideas. 124 00:09:13.280 --> 00:09:18.260 All that materialism could offer for the treatment of these phenomena is a metaphorical reference 125 00:09:18.260 --> 00:09:20.740 to the notion of contagion. 126 00:09:20.740 --> 00:09:25.000 The comparison is superficial and does not explain anything. 127 00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:30.280 Diseases are communicated from body to body through the migrations of germs and viruses. 128 00:09:30.280 --> 00:09:35.020 Nobody knows anything about the migration of a factor that would transmit thoughts from 129 00:09:35.020 --> 00:09:37.560 man to man. 130 00:09:37.560 --> 00:09:39.860 3. 131 00:09:39.860 --> 00:09:46.860 The Political Implications of Materialism Materialism originated as a reaction against 132 00:09:46.860 --> 00:09:51.900 a primeval dualistic interpretation of man's being and essential nature. 133 00:09:51.900 --> 00:09:57.300 In the light of these beliefs, living man was a compound of two separable parts, a mortal 134 00:09:57.300 --> 00:10:00.580 body and an immortal soul. 135 00:10:00.580 --> 00:10:03.460 Death severed these two parts. 136 00:10:03.460 --> 00:10:08.360 The soul moved out of sight of the living and continued a shadow-like existence beyond 137 00:10:08.360 --> 00:10:12.260 and the Reach of Earthly Powers and the Realm of the Deceased. 138 00:10:12.260 --> 00:10:17.120 In exceptional cases it was permitted to a soul to reappear for a while in the sensible 139 00:10:17.120 --> 00:10:21.560 world of the living or for a still living man to pay a short visit to the fields of 140 00:10:21.560 --> 00:10:23.000 the dead. 141 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:28.280 These rather crude representations have been sublimated by religious doctrines and by idealistic 142 00:10:28.280 --> 00:10:29.880 philosophy. 143 00:10:29.880 --> 00:10:34.240 While the primitive descriptions of a realm of souls and the activities of its inhabitants 144 00:10:34.240 --> 00:10:39.200 Theoretics cannot bear critical examination and can easily be exposed to ridicule. 145 00:10:39.200 --> 00:10:44.680 It is impossible both for a prioristic reasoning and for the natural sciences to refute cogently 146 00:10:44.680 --> 00:10:48.440 the refined tenets of religious creeds. 147 00:10:48.440 --> 00:10:53.420 History can explode many of the historical narrations of theological literature. 148 00:10:53.420 --> 00:10:57.760 But higher criticism does not affect the core of the faith. 149 00:10:57.760 --> 00:11:02.760 Reason can neither prove nor disprove the essential religious doctrines. 150 00:11:02.760 --> 00:11:09.200 Materialism as it had developed in 18th century France was not merely a scientific doctrine. 151 00:11:09.200 --> 00:11:13.960 It was also a part of the vocabulary of the reformers who fought the abuses of the Ancien 152 00:11:13.960 --> 00:11:15.680 Régime. 153 00:11:15.680 --> 00:11:21.760 The prelates of the Church in Royal France were with few exceptions members of the aristocracy. 154 00:11:21.760 --> 00:11:25.200 Most of them were more interested in court intrigues than in the performance of their 155 00:11:25.200 --> 00:11:27.360 ecclesiastical duties. 156 00:11:27.360 --> 00:11:32.480 Their well-deserved unpopularity made anti-religious tendencies popular. 157 00:11:32.480 --> 00:11:37.480 The debates on materialism would have subsided about the middle of the 19th century if no 158 00:11:37.480 --> 00:11:40.360 political issues had been involved. 159 00:11:40.360 --> 00:11:44.820 People would have realized that contemporary science has not contributed anything to the 160 00:11:44.820 --> 00:11:50.560 elucidation or analysis of the physiological processes that generate definite ideas and 161 00:11:50.560 --> 00:11:55.960 that it is doubtful whether future scientists will succeed better in this task. 162 00:11:55.960 --> 00:12:00.740 The materialist dogma would have been regarded as a conjecture about a problem whose satisfactory 163 00:12:00.740 --> 00:12:05.360 Their solution seemed, at least for the time being, beyond the reach of man's search for 164 00:12:05.360 --> 00:12:06.840 knowledge. 165 00:12:06.840 --> 00:12:11.580 Its supporters would no longer have been in a position to consider it an irrefutable scientific 166 00:12:11.580 --> 00:12:17.040 truth and would not have been permitted to accuse its critics of obscurantism, ignorance 167 00:12:17.040 --> 00:12:18.760 and superstition. 168 00:12:18.760 --> 00:12:22.720 Agnosticism would have replaced materialism. 169 00:12:22.720 --> 00:12:27.480 But in most of the European and Latin American countries, Christian churches cooperated, 170 00:12:27.480 --> 00:12:33.440 at least to some extent, with the forces that opposed representative government and all institutions 171 00:12:33.440 --> 00:12:35.920 making for freedom. 172 00:12:35.920 --> 00:12:40.700 In these countries, one could hardly avoid attacking religion if one aimed at the realization 173 00:12:40.700 --> 00:12:47.080 of a program that, by and large, corresponded with the ideals of Jefferson and of Lincoln. 174 00:12:47.080 --> 00:12:52.840 The political implications of the materialism controversy prevented its fading away, prompted 175 00:12:52.840 --> 00:12:58.800 not by epistemological, philosophical or scientific considerations, but by purely political 176 00:12:58.800 --> 00:13:06.820 reasons, a desperate attempt was made to salvage the politically very convenient slogan, materialism. 177 00:13:06.820 --> 00:13:11.000 While the type of materialism that flourished until the middle of the nineteenth century 178 00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:17.060 receded into the background, gave way to agnosticism, and could not be regenerated by such rather 179 00:13:17.060 --> 00:13:25.860 A new type was developed by Karl Marx under the name of dialectical materialism.