Defending Materialism: The Uneasy History of the Atom in Science and Philosophy

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. Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Figures Chapter 1: Introduction Overview Approach Chapters Chapter 2: Exploring the conceptual material presented by Greek Antiquity and the trans-millennial exchanges it has influenced Empty space as a precondition of movement Nothing comes from nothing, a principle that is valid to this date: Scientific and philosophical-ontological accounts of it Atomists Finitude – the indispensable condition for the solidity and fullness of being Movement and change enabled by negative or ‘empty matter’ Chapter 3: Classical atomism Archimedes Criticism of atomism by ancient materialists Newton The task of philosophy Definitions Time and space Laws His method of proof of gravity Book II The Hegelian critique of Newton Newton’s argument about orbital periods Du Châtelet Mechanical determinism Chapter 4: Dialectics, materialism, change from Epicurus to Marx via Aristotle Dialectics before its Hegelian reinvention Dialektikê, mechanicity and materiality of cognition Radical movement and historical materialism rather than dialectical materialism The foundations of Diamat and their contradictions Chapter 5: Historical and mechanical materialists Smith and Engels State derives from private property Diderot’s non-anthropocentric materialist world view The Newtonian Marx Work and power Rhetoric versus discovery Darwin and the end of teleology Ending teleology The new atomism Dalton Heat, matter and time Chapter 6: Idealist reprise and responses Opposition to Boltzmann Machism Critique of Mach’s electrostatic analogy Einstein demolishes Machist opposition to atoms Philosophical Machism and Lenin’s intervention Idealism and materialism in the quantum theory Chapter 7: Logic and materialism Introduction Logic overview Logic and dialectics Mathematical forms Syllogisms After Aristotle The laws of thought Logical operations and truth tables Mathematizing logic Frege and the foundations of mathematics Numbers and induction Infinity and infinitesimals To infinity, and beyond Chapter 8: Logic and dialectical materialism Hegel and logic Engels and logic Dietzgen, dialectical materialism and logic Russell’s paradox and Principia Mathematica Hilbert’s programme Meta-theory and logical schools Intuitionism From the Bolshevik revolution to Menshevizing Idealism Menshevizing idealism and logic Menshevizing Idealism and British Marxism Chapter 9: The crisis in logic and the apotheosis of anti-formalism Introduction Gödel and completeness Turing and termination The Church-Turing thesis British dialectical materialist responses Soviet logic after Menshevizing Idealism Digital computers Cybernetics Linguistics The revival of Soviet logic Stalin on linguistics Constructivism Chapter 10: Language, automata and meaning Language and meaning Model theory Badiou, model theory and materialism Automata Language games Grammars and automata Conclusion Chapter 11: Dialectical versus mechanist materialisms Information theory and materialism Physical meanings Randomness Audaces fortuna iuvat Soviet diamat Nature is connected and determined Nature is a state of continuous motion and change Natural quantitative change leads to qualitative change Contradictions are inherent in nature Mao’s account of dialectics Dialectics as problem solving Notes References INDEX