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Materialism
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Bronze bust of Epicurus with a full beard and draped clothing, displayed on a round inscribed base at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. English philosopher Thomas Hobbes Rudolf Carnap David Lewis
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Bronze bust of Epicurus with a full beard and draped clothing, displayed on a round inscribed base at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.
Epicurus Epicurus, bronze bust from a Greek original, c. 280ā€“270 bce; in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples.

Materialism

philosophy
Written by
John Jamieson Carswell Smart
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University, Canberra. Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Adelaide, Australia. Author of Philosophy...
John Jamieson Carswell Smart
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Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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ā€¢History

Materialism, in philosophy, the view that all facts (including facts about the human mind and will and the course of human history) are causally dependent upon physical processes, or even reducible to them. The word materialism has been used in modern times to refer to a family of metaphysical theories (i.e., theories of the nature of reality) that can best be defined by saying that a theory tends to be called materialist if it is...

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