Materialism

Summary

Dominique Pagani approaches materialism by distinguishing it from naturalism: the artificial is also material, and the origin of a thing is not the same as its cause1. He adds that mind is not opposed to matter. It is a "historical matter" opposed to natural matter, and Mozart's music is matter too. In Hegel, he follows the place of the tool, which gives labour its permanence and makes transmission, and therefore history, possible. He also reads the 1803 text on the pin manufactory, in which money appears as a "material concept"2. When a viewer confines him to a choice between mechanistic and Marxist materialism, he replies that he accepts the former, but only within the field of the natural sciences. He denies it the claim to explain a line of Racine3. He maintains that matter is not to be confused with the sensible and that science starts from statements, not from facts. For him, reflection is not a mechanical copy and has a dialectical dimension3. He links these questions to the Kantian distinction between nature and freedom and to praxis13.

1. 1#12 Return to the logics of the subject2 Jul 2020
2. 2A chapter of Marx written by Hegel22 May 2021
3. 3Nature vs. freedom?8 Oct 2026

Introduction produced automatically from the 3 sessions on this theme, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the sessions.