Elements Of Modern Materialism - Softcover

Charles Knowlton

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0461870258 ISBN 13: 9780461870251

Publisher: HardPress, 1828

Synopsis

Elements Of Modern Materialism: Inculcating The Idea Of A Future State, In Which All Will Be More Happy, Under Whatever Circumstances They May Be Placed Than If They Experienced No Misery In This Life by Charles Knowlton. This late?18th/early?19th?century treatise advances a thorough materialist physiology of mind and life, arguing that passions, emotions, conscience, memory, dreaming, insanity, death, and morality arise from the nervous system (the sensorium) rather than from immaterial souls or supernatural causes. It sets out a sensorium?centered ontology where emotions are nervous actions, conscience is a neural phenomenon shaped by experience, and religion is a sensorial passion rather than a divine revelation. Instincts and habit are explained through organic tendencies rather than immaterial forces, while sleep, dreaming, and delirium are treated as product of nervous states. Morality is naturalized: happiness defines the good, and virtue derives from effects on nervous states. The author discusses the possibility of reconciling materialism with Christianity, critiques biblical literalism, and urges empirical examination of religious claims within a naturalistic framework.

Edition details

• Publisher: HardPress
• Publication date: 1828
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0461870258
• ISBN 13: 9780461870251
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464