The Materialist Theory

The view that I have selected and decided to analysed, explained and defend is the materialist theory. The main reason for my choice of this view over the idealist one is that, in my opinion, empiricism shows us humans and provide hard evidence which I will detailed in this opinion piece that matter does exists and we are surrounded by it on a day to day basis. The great Philosopher John Locke express his opinion which I clearly agree with that our minds have no ideas and concepts when we are born, as such we develop and gain knowledge over time from experiences. Without experiencing sensation or reflection we generally would not be able to differentiate the differences between physical properties such as shapes, size, texture or colour. For …show more content…
Many people find the Materialist view about the nature of physical object believable. This is mainly because if we can imagine that all human minds commence as an empty cup and does not contain any ideas or memory of physical objects when we are born, as such we have no knowledge at this time. If we have knowledge of physical objects that does not come from experience, then most likely we have to be aware of it. A newborn cannot know what is a I Phone and will only acquire that knowledge as we go through life experiences. Any ordinary humans like myself and most people will never question the existence of a physical object if we can see, touch or taste it and would not one moment think that it only exists in the mine as an idea. On the other hand we do retain these ideas and once experienced an object physically then we will never forget it even if they are not present to our senses. We can never forget what an I Phone looks like even if it is not there for us to see or touch once we experience if before. Therefore from experiments and observations one can conclude that ice will always be cold, steel heavy and hard and this is what these particular physical objects will always look like to normal people. …show more content…
Some people find the Materialist view very hard to believe mainly because it is difficult to explain how secondary qualities cause ideas in one’s mine for example colour, taste, sound, heat or even pain since they do not resemble anything in the object. These individuals are of the opinion that physical objects perceived by the senses are what we perceived it to be and are ideas in our minds which does not derive from experience. Let’s have a look at heat does it really exists without we perceiving it? Most people opposing my view will argue that if they are expose to heat then pain will occur and they will experience it, most to us will say it is in them and not in the physical object that produce the heat. Experiments shows that water can feel both cold and warm at the same time if someone place both hands in warm water before each hand were subjected to cold and hot temperature individually. How can this be happening, clearly this must be an idea in their minds and not what the senses perceived. Similar experiments continued to demonstrate that taste will vary if I am sick or not, colour depends on the density of the air which it is viewed in and sound everyone knows if there are in a concert hall that is not acoustically constructed the quality will vary depending on where they sit. Therefore opponents to my view strongly believe that perception is nothing other than an idea in their minds.