Eliminative materialism

Locke disagrees with both Berkeley and Descartes regarding ideas and knowledge and how they are acquired. Locke claims that the way we come about knowledge is through careful experimentation and observation. In Locke’s theory of Materialism there are two sources that make up experience, Sensation and Reflection. Sensation is the source of our ideas of external objects like rivers, mountains and houses. For example viewing a yellow object, the object itself is not colored yellow it…

In their 1985 work The Dialectical Biologist, authors Levins and Lewontin make the case for a dialectical-perspective-based approach to scientific inquiry and interpretation. Here we first summarize what is more rigorously referred to as the dialectical materialist (DM) perspective (Clark & York, 2005), then illustrate how science and social epidemiology (SE) fits within the framework developed therein. Next, we compare our own application of the dialectic framework to SE to the approach laid…

contradiction. The following essay will define historical materialism as described by Engels, as well as explaining the fundamental contradiction and the two contradictions that arise from it, and finally concluding with a brief explanation of Engels ' vision of the ultimate outcome of the historical development of capitalism. Engels discussed historical materialism in Theoretical and was one of the reoccurring themes in the reading. Historical materialism is the principle…

Far from being exhausted, Marxism is still very young, almost in its infancy; it has scarcely begun to develop. It remains, therefore, the philosophy of our time. We cannot go beyond it because we have not gone beyond the circumstances which engender it. J.P. SARTRE, Search for a method (NY 1968) p. 29 Introduction Living in times which Francis Fukuyama famously described as the ‘end of history’, when the last great bastions of communism fell together with the Berlin wall more than 20 years…

Friedrich Engels wrote The Condition of the Working Class to express his view of how the middle class pictured workers in 19th century England. He argued that while industry and commerce was abundant and thriving, he realized industrialists fed on the association of the accumulation of wealth and the dwindling of wealth. When discussed upon the standard accepted definition of economic strength, it suggested Engels was fabricating his personal accounts with the concept of societal separation. The…

Why is responsibility such a significant theme in An Inspector Calls? In An Inspector Calls, the central theme is responsibility. Priestley uses the Inspector as a representative to voice his opinions on the main theme and the idea of socialism. Throughout the play, he presents each character with a role of responsibility and tries to make them aware, through the Inspector, that they are all guilty of Eva's death. The Inspector wants The Birlings to share their responsibility; Priestley's focus…

Theory in Action: How Adam Smith and Marx & Engels understand UberX business model Uber, a smartphone application connecting Uber drivers and customers directly, enables customers to request an Uber cab to pick them up on site by simply tapping on their screen. Recently, Uber Company is undergoing waves of protests from drivers of UberX, a subdivision service of Uber in which drivers use their own vehicles. Drivers contend that they are earning much less than the company claims. This paper will…

Saint Joan of the Stockyards, play by Bertolt Brecht attempts to represent drama of life with regard to financial issues of 1930’s. He makes an attempt to dramatize the complex economic situations with the help of his study of Marxism and capitalism. This play portrays the depths of suffering which has a moving effect on audience. In Saint Joan of the Stockyards everything eventually comes down to the question of meeting ends and means. It also portrays the socio-economic difference in classes…

thus making the goods be a part of social production rather than an individual appropriation. (Engels, 99) Social order is greatly influenced by the capitalist mode of production and the mode of exchange. Capitalism is the product of historical materialism, which is how the basic principles of production came to be and hence came the realm of free competition, freedom of movement, equal rights of commodity…

This essay will discuss the major features and debates around the Marxist approach to society, where society is based upon conflict between groups, such as the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’ (Sociology Central, 2005). It will do this by going into details of Marxism and criticism from the 1930’s to the 1980’s. This will include, but is not limited to the theory of hegemony by Gramsci; Dunayevskaya’s discovery of state capitalism in the Soviet Union; Baran and Sweezy on monopoly capitalism and…