when it was pronounced heretical by the Roman Catholic church. In its place he devised a theory of vortices in which space was entirely filled with matter, in various states, whirling about the sun. Descartes also created four rules for obtaining certainty, which are: To admit nothing as true unless I recognized it as such. To divide each difficulty into as many parts as possible. To think in an orderly fashion and to treat things as ordered even if they are not. Finally, to make enumerations so complete and reviews so general that nothing is omitted. Materialism (still alive and well) is the view that everything that actually exists is material, or physical. “Man as machine.” Many philosophers and scientists now use the terms `material' and `physical' interchangeably. Characterized in this way, as a doctrine about what exists, materialism is an ontological, or a metaphysical, view; it is not just an epistemological view about how we know or just a semantic view about the meaning of terms.According to this doctrine, matter is the ultimate reality, and the phenomenon of consciousness is explained by physiochemical changes in the nervous system. Materialism is thus the antithesis of idealism, in which the supremacy of mind is affirmed and matter is characterized as an aspect or objectification of mind. Extreme or absolute materialism is known as materialistic monism. In modern times philosophical materialism has been largely influenced by the doctrine of evolution and may indeed be said to have been assimilated in the wider theory of evolution. Supporters of the theory of evolution go beyond the mere antitheism or atheism of materialism and seek positively to show how the diversities and differences in creation are the result of natural as opposed to supernatural processes. Darwinism via Charles Darwin, 1809-1882, moved to those deluxe apartments in the sky. Social Darwinism is a term coined in the late 19th century to describ...
