Materialism
Oxford: the belief that money, possessions and physical comforts are more important than spiritual values.
Materalism holds that the only thing that can be truly proven to exist is matter. Thus, according to Materialism, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions, with no accounting of spirit or consciousness. As well as a general concept in Metaphysics, it is more specifically applied to the mind-body problem in Philosophy of Mind.
In common use, the word "materialist" refers to a person for whom collecting material goods is an important priority, or who primarily pursues wealth and luxury or otherwise displays conspicuous consumption. This can be more accurately termed Economic Materialism.
With its insistence on a single basic substance, it is a type of Monism (as opposed to Dualism or Pluralism), and it can be also considered a variety of Naturalism (the belief that nature is all exists, and that all things supernatural therefore do not exist). It stands (like the related concept of Physicalism) in contrast to Idealism (also known as Immaterialism) and Solipsism. Physicalism, however, has evolved with the physical sciences to incorporate farmore sophisticated notions of physicality than just matter, for example wave/particle relationships and non-material forces produced by particles.
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