Paper Title: An Introduction Materialist Theory of Mind in Western Philosophy
Author:
Abstract:
Materialism is the belief about what really exists. Everything that exists is material or physical. The materialistic philosophers attempt to establish that the whole universe is made of matter. Matter is the only ultimate constituent of the world. They believe that the human body is created by the four elements - earth, water, fire and air. And mind is nothing more than body. The mind can be known only through the various activities of the brain according to them. Materialist advocates that matter are real and matter causes the mind. Hence mental properties are identical with physical. Some contemporary philosophers have argued that minds do not exist at all and only the physical things exist. For them, everything, which happens in the mind, is the result of the events in the body. Our mental states like pains, beliefs, desires, etc. are fundamentally physical states. They deny that the mind exists independently. In this article, I show how materialist philosophers explain the mind. I first discuss the materialist views of soul or mind in ancient Greek philosophy. Various thinkers like Thales, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, Epicurus, Democritus, and many others supported materialistic theory of soul or mind. Heraclitus and Xenophanes have addressed the soul in materialism. I also cover some modern philosophers who have discussed the materialist soul.
Keywords:Soul, Mind, Body, dualism, Materialism.
DOI Link – https://doi.org/10.63431/AIJITR/2.III.2025.94-98
Review By – Dr. Amrita Dutta and Dr. Tapana Kumar De