Contemporary Materialism: Its Ontology and Epistemology [electronic resource] / edited by Gustavo E. Romero, Javier Pérez-Jara, Lino Camprubí.

Foreword -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1. What is Materialism? History and Concepts (Javier Pérez-Jara, Gustavo E. Romero, and Lino Camprubí) -- 2. Systemic Materialism (Gustavo E. Romero) -- 3. Discontinuous Materialism (Javier Pérez-Jara) -- 4. Quantum Matter (Gustavo E. Romero) -- 5. Spacetime is material (Luciano Combi) -- 6. Systemic Materialism in Biology (Rafael González del Solar) -- 7. Mind and Matter (Íñigo Ongay de Felipe) -- 8. Materialism and the History of Science (Lino Camprubí) -- 9. Materialism, Logic, and Mathematics (Carlos M. Madrid Casado) -- 10. The Material Nature of Software (Miguel A. Quintanilla Fisac) -- 11. Mathematics Refer to Material Entities / Mathematics do not Refer to Material Entities (Gustavo E. Romero and Carlos M. Madrid Casado) -- 12. Emergent Materialism Implies Continuism / Emergent Materialism Does Not Imply Continuism (Íñigo Ongay and Javier Pérez-Jara) -- 13. Materialism is False / Materialism is Not False (Graham Harman and Javier Pérez-Jara) -- Name Index -- Subject Index.

Materialism has been the subject of extensive and rich controversies since Robert Boyle introduced the term for the first time in the 17th century. But what is materialism and what can it offer today? The term is usually defined as the worldview according to which everything real is material. Nevertheless, there is no philosophical consensus about whether the meaning of matter can be enlarged beyond the physical. As a consequence, materialism is often defined in stark exclusive and reductionist terms: whatever exists is either physical or ontologically reducible to it. This conception, if consistent, mutilates reality, excluding the ontological significance of political, economic, sociocultural, anthropological and psychological realities. Starting from a new history of materialism, the present book focuses on the central ontological and epistemological debates aroused by today's leading materialist approaches, including some little known to an anglophone readership. The key concepts of matter, system, emergence, space and time, life, mind, and software are checked over and updated. Controversial issues such as the nature of mathematics and the place of reductionism are also discussed from different materialist approaches. As a result, materialism emerges as a powerful, indispensable scientifically-supported worldview with a surprising wealth of nuances and possibilities.