Vital materialism and the problem of ethics in the Radical Enlightenment Ghent University
From Hegel to Engels, Sartre and Ruyer (Ruyer, 1933), to name only a few, materialism is viewed as a necropolis, or the metaphysics befitting such an abode; many speak of matterU+2019s crudeness, bruteness, coldness or stupidity. Science or scientism, on this view, reduces the living world to U+2018dead matterU+2019, U+2018brutishU+2019, U+2018mechanical, lifeless matterU+2019, thereby also stripping it of its freedom (Crocker, 1959). ...