Defending Materialism
The Uneasy History of the Atom in Science and Philosophy
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Product details:
- Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing (UK)
- Date of Publication 25 June 2026
- ISBN 9781350447332
- Binding Paperback
- No. of pages296 pages
- Size 234x156 mm
- Language
- Illustrations 10 bw illus 700
Categories
Short description:
A defence of materialist thought through the story of the atom, and its path through ancient and modern philosophy to grudging acceptance in the twentieth century.
MoreLong description:
Nobody doubted that atoms were real once atomic energy was developed, but in the early 20th-century and before their existence was widely doubted. Defending Materialism follows the political and theoretical background of this intense philosophical controversy, defending atomistic and mechanical materialism against idealist paradigms. These accounts range from the explicit idealism criticised by Lenin and Einstein to the implicit Hegelian idealism that influenced Soviet dialectical materialism.
Following several key threads, the authors trace how the idea of atoms has changed over the centuries, how ideology has influenced both sides of the idealism/materialism divide, and how the nature of time in physics, biology and human society can give a fresh view of historical materialism. Starting from the origins of materialism in ancient Greek thought and moving through its revival in Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin gives a full picture of the links between the Marxist tradition and the 'coarse materiality' to which the worlds of science and philosophy have found themselves both subscribed and averse.
Table of Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Philologico-philosophical Examination of the Conceptual Material proffered by Greek Antiquity and the Trans-millennial Exchanges it has Foregrounded
3. Classical Atomism
4. Dialectics, Materialism, Change From Epicurus to Marx via Aristotle
5. Historical and Mechanical Materialists
6. Idealist Reprise and Responses
7. Logic and Materialism
8. Logic and Dialectical Materialism
9. The Crisis in Logic and the Apotheosis of Anti-formalism
10. Language, Automata and Meaning
11. Dialectical and Stochastic Materialisms
Appendix: How the Ptolemaic Method Works
