︎ Materialism, Ancient and Modern: In Sciences, Philosophy and Computing

September 13, 2023

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The course is based on the l monograph co-written by the instructors and Greg Michaelson: Materialism Ancient to Modern. We will discuss the fundamental differences between the notion of dialectic/dialektikein antiquity and that characteristic of modernity beginning with Hegel. Also we will examine the status of "space" in the beginnings of European and/or Greek philosophy and its intertwining with the ontology (of the impossibility of) nothingness, discussing Parmenides, Aristotle, Epicurus, Lucrecius and Marx's Doctoral dissertation.  Interaction between classical materialism and practice:  Lucretius’ observations of processes going on in the real world, from the dripping of water, and wearing away of gold rings ->   atoms, so small as to be invisible. Archimedes: 'mechanical method’, anticipated the calculus of Newton, first formal treatment of mechanical materialism with its underlying theme of conservation laws. In Galen an alternative, materialist view , the 'pneumatic' theory of  nervous system distorted by Xtians to idealist notion of the spirit. Materialism in time: the determinism of Hamilton; the replacement of teleology by Darwinian notions of selection; the notion of successive modes of material production in Smith and Engels. Time's arrow fundamental challenge to mechanical materialists like Maxwell and Boltzmann. The revival of atomism by the latter theorist encountered robust opposition in the late 19th century from Mach and Poincare. Einstein and Lenin demolish Machist objections. This then opens quantum mechanics. In what sense is this Mehanical materialism? Reconciling EPR paradox with Bell and Hamiltonian determinism? Hegelian influence on Marxism has been overstated, Marx's early atomism underestimated. 1930s Soviet debate between the Deborinists and the Mechanists, Mao and Stalin on Dialectical materialism, in the context of this controversy, Mao's restates the principles of the Newtonian materialist method. Althusserian school for retained relict idealist themes despite critique of Hegel should have relied on Soviet writers like Markov.

(Paul Cockshott and Katerina Kolozova)