Philosophy of Mind: Marxism, Materialism, and Dialectical Monism
About this episode
A philosophical discussion on Marxism, consciousness, and the mind-body problem, exploring various positions in the philosophy of mind and proposing a dialectical monism approach.
In this episode, Breht O'Shea and Alyson Escalante join forces for a deep philosophical conversation on Marxism, consciousness, and the mind-body problem. Using China Miéville's essay on consciousness and materialism as a starting point, they explore why the nature of subjective experience remains such a profound challenge for crude or reductionist forms of materialism -- and why this question matters for Marxists. Alyson begins by carefully summarizing Miéville's original essay and its challenge to conventional Marxist materialism. From there, Breht lays out several major positions in the philosophy of mind, including dualism, physicalism, idealism, panpsychism, neutral monism, emergentism, eliminativism, and epiphenomenalism. Together, they then work through two responses to Miéville's essay, clarifying the arguments, tensions, and stakes of the debate. In the second half, Breht argues for a different approach: a dialectical monism informed by dependent origination. Rather than reducing consciousness to matter, escaping into idealism, or treating mind and matter as separate substances, this view understands reality as a single, dynamic, relational process in which…
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