> Materialism as used here _is_ a theory. It is opposed to "idealism" by
> Engels in defining what he calls the basic question of philosophy in
> _Ludwig Feuerbach_.
Materialism does not assume the modular aspects of theory or the "testing" aspects of a hypothesis. Materialism is a philosophical orientation and is necessarily pre-theoretical. Epicurus and Lucretius were no more theoreticians than Augustine of Hippo, no matter that both Epicurus and Lucretius were materialists.
On the other-hand there were plenty of philosophic "idealists" who developed theories or contributed to theory development. Newton & Ernst Mach come to mind in physics. Wallace comes to mind in evolutionary biology.
One should distinguish the many uses of the term "theory" of course and probably others have discussed this.
It should be considered a happy necessity to distinguish, "scientific theories" (quantum mechanics and the neo-Darwinian synthesis for example) from "research programs" (Chomsky's minimalist program for example or Edleman's "neural Darwinism", for example) and hypotheses, no matter how "structured" as models the latter are. One should also distinguish theories from well articulated and conscious "philosophical systems" and more or less conscious "world-views".
This may strike Doug as another imitation of the parody of the hierarchies of Matthew Arnold. I don't know. I have always liked Matthew Arnold as a writer to think about, and as a cultural politician to reject. I think Coleridge is more my kind of conservative.
Jerry
> With all due respect to auto mechanics, the vast
> majority do not discuss this issue _as_ auto mechanics. Some auto
> mechanics might have an interest in philosophy as a hobby, pretty much
> unrelated to their "day job", and then might discuss it , have an
> opinion on it. At any rate, it would be acting as an intellectual of
> some sort that the mechanic would discuss materialism or have an opinion
> on materialism, not as an "engineer-physicist-mechanic". Questions of
> materialism vs idealism don't arise in dealing with the problems of
> fixing a car.
>
> Also, the choice of the category "auto-mechanic" in contrast with
> "intellectual" probably derives from a notion that
> "physicists-engineers-mechanics" are more likely to hold materialist and
> not idealist positions on the issue. But, lots of famous physicists have
> been philosophical idealists. Newton was a believer in God ( Belief in
> God is an idealist position; see Engels's discussion of this in
> _Socialism: Utopian or Scientific). Mach was an idealist, a
> neo-Kantian. Heisenberg of uncertainty principle fame was an
> philosophical idealist, and his uncertainty principle was put forth as
> an underpinning to that idealist position. Einstein seems to have been
> a materialist, explicitly disagreeing with Mach that atoms were just
> thought-structures or some such.
>
> The original review that gave rise to this thread, seems to be from a
> neo-phyte rightwinger dipping into a time warp for threadbare anti-left
> material; and the article is pretty much a mishmash, conflating
> "liberal" with Marxist , and some other things. But I bet there is
> really very, very little Marxism taught in the US schools, so this
> article might stir up more interest in Marxism than is already there.
>
> As to the anthology... might be worth critiquing.
>
> Charles
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