Dr.Robert C. Koons - "The Waning of Materialism"

Dr. Robert Koons, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, author of Realism Regained (2000) and Paradoxes of Belief (2009), and co-editor of The Waning of Materialism (2010), gave a public lecture entitled "The Waning of Materialism: How the Revival of Aristotle's Philosophy is Reshaping the Intellectual Landscape" on January 22, 2014, from 5:30 pm -- 7:00 pm in the Playa Room at Texas Tech University.
For more information: westernciv.ttu.edu
Music: "Increments Towards Serenity" By: Jared C. Balogh www.alteredstat....
freemusicarchiv...

[@ToxicallyMasculinelol]

great lecture, really unfortunate about the audio and everyone in the audience having the flu

[@JHarder1000]

This is excellent!

[@michaelogrady232]

Materialism always has been an irrational proposition.

[@jfvirey]

At 3:36, he says "Rerum Novarum" instead of "De Natura Rerum." That's quite a funny slip of the tongue. It must have made Leo XIII smile up there.

[@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns]

Stop it.

[@cuttheknot4781]

Ultimately, the highest point of humans' "intellectual" climax/understanding may very well be our appreciation for the length of grass for which we
Grasp with our clenched fists right before our light go out.

[@11kravitzn]

The biggest obstacle for theists is that their wishful thinking makes it impossible for them accurately to perceive the problems they face and address them, and their constant apologetics makes it impossible for them to communicate those problems as problems, assuming they could bring themselves to admit it. Keep dreaming in medieval metaphysics.

[@numericalcode]

Minor point: DNA was discovered before 1953. That was the year its correct structure was first proposed.

[@aidanhickey5610]

Brilliant lecture... What a shame that Dr Koons was obliged to deliver it in a TB hospital.

[@TheProdigalMeowMeowMeowReturns]

That opening music gave me rage.

[@bloui1033]

john searle is at berkeley NOT stanford.

[@jacobsmith3239]

I generally agree about materialism's lack of explanatory power when it comes to the issues Koons speaks about but I think he misrepresents materialism pretty gravely. Namely, he says that all materialist models seek to reduce the macro to the micro, or at least claim that the movements of the small/prior dictate the larger/latter events. It seems that there are several schools of materialism that would not claim this. For example, most critical theorists are materialists, but would not claim that phenomena are completely reducible to their fore-structures. Alain Badiou and Jaques Derrida come to mind here (given it is a question whether one could call them critical theorists).

[@kyler9323]

Koons would probably argue that all theories of materialism are logically reducible to atomism.

[@smashandburn1]

Koons is addressing debates in contemporary philosophy of mind, not talking about "critical theory."

[@sneed3529]

Any materialist that claims materialism does not reduce the macro to the micro is simply ignorant of the ramifications of his or her own philosophy of mind - or they are just property dualists in denial.

[@22rae2]

Idealism, materialism, dualism - is that all? Why skip NEUTRAL MONISM, a.k.a the substance of things is neither material, nor mental.

[@Darksaga28]

because it's nonsense

[@matthewluisantero5051]

Because it's false

[@BirdofHerm3s]

Because it's silly

[@neptasur]

Neutral Monism is what happens when one wants desperately to be an anti-Aristotelian but can't find any rational way to do so.

[@ob4161]

Because it's baloney.

[@rizdekd3912]

Without even watching the video, I could tell you that materialism is never going to be a popular worldview. Even though I am pretty sure materialism is true, it is a rather dull uninteresting POV and it requires so much more work. It's much more psychologically rewarding and easier to imagine some sort of spirit world. With spirit world you get gods who answer prayers, the chance of living forever after you die and seeing long lost relatives, loved-ones and pets, the hope of vengeance for wrong-doers ('vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord"), and 'real' meaning and value without having to work to understand why things are meaningful/valuable or right/wrong. It is easier to just say 'god did it' than actually think through the hard issues of why humans value things...why we have morality.
And contrary to the popular myth that folks adopt atheism or materialism so they don't have to abide by morality, it does no such thing. In fact a better case can be made that one can much more easily just adjust one's personal view of what god is/wants than to willfully think god doesn't exist. As we see around the world and throughout time, the vast vast majority of people are/were not materialists and most believed there is/was a god. Yet the stark contrast in how they viewed morality and how they thought they ought to treat their fellow man show the simple belief in god does NOTHING to make people treat others well. The most religious were sometimes the most cruel.

[@gethimrock]

You should watch the video. Also the most people ever killed in human history was during the 20th century which was the peak of materialism so it’s clearly much much worse than religion

[@rizdekd3912]

@@gethimrock Not proportionately. Cain killed 1/4 of the worlds population all because of how his sacrifice was received or not received. But seriously, isn't this just the 'great falling away' that was prophecied? Why would it be waning if it is leading up to the end times? But there probably is something to the idea that believing there is a god who's watching what you do and believing a god is going to help you do better if you think the right thoughts likely DOES make people better. So while there probably isn't a god of the sort folks believe in, it's probably better that they do plus the get all the benefits I noted in my earlier post.

[@TJ-kk5zf]

You don't have the first idea about idealism. You look kind of foolish in this comment.

[@REDPUMPERNICKEL]

The fact that our thoughts represent
while at the same time being of a radically different nature
from the represented,
in conjunction with the logic inherent in thought interaction,
is what very strongly inclines us
to belief in non-thought-constituted existents
(i.e. things-in-themselves, the noumena).
It seems to me extremely likely that
both thoughts and things exist
though their existences must necessarily
be of radically different kinds.
I think it all comes down to the fundamental difference between
material existence and movement.
(Movement is relative so not a property of an object).
Since being conscious is self evidently a process and
process is an abstract notion entailing a collection of relative movements
which themselves are immaterial
we have a clue as to why thoughts and minds
seem immaterial to us.