What is primary - spirit or matter? Scientists argue about this throughout the history of the science of philosophy. Materialists recognize the primacy of all material things, i.e. material. All entities, they say, are formed by matter. Idealists, on the contrary, argue that the spirit has always existed and the whole external world is a manifestation of spiritual being.
The essence of the philosophy of materialism
The philosophical doctrine of materialism appeared in the era of antiquity. Philosophers of Ancient Greece and the Ancient East considered everything in the surrounding world, regardless of consciousness - everything consists of material formations and elements, claimed Thales, Democritus and others. In the era of the new era, materialism acquired a metaphysical orientation. Galileo and Newton said that everything in the world comes down to the mechanistic form of the motion of matter. Metaphysical materialism has been replaced by dialectical. Consistent materialism appeared in the theory of Marxism, when the basic principle of materialism extended not only to the material world, but also to nature. Feuerbach singled out inconsistent materialism, which recognized the spirit, but reduced all its functions to the creation of matter.
Materialist philosophers argue that the only substance that exists is matter, all entities are formed, and phenomena, including consciousness, are formed in the process of interaction of various matters. The world exists independently of our consciousness. For example, a stone exists regardless of a person’s idea of it, and what a person knows about it is the effect that the stone has on the human senses. A person can imagine that there is no stone, but from this the stone will not disappear from the world. So, say materialistic philosophers, the physical exists first, and then the psychic. Materialism does not deny the spiritual; it merely claims that consciousness is secondary to matter.
