Materiality Research…… or My Mind is Blown

This week I have done a lot of reading about Materiality and I am not afraid to say my head hurts.  Starting from DEMOCRITUS & LEUCIPPUS in the fifth century BCE and their understanding of the world and forms as being made up of atoms which are constantly smashing into each other to give new forms; to Plato’s Simile of The Cave and the rationalism of Descartes’ Cogito.  All the way to Husserl’s Phenomenology and Merleau-Ponty’s extension of this to include the body (he believed the mind-body connection was very important): The Phenomenology of Perception and Marx and Engel’s Dialectical Materialism.

 There is a plethora of information about what has been written about materiality and how we understand what is real.  I have decided to create a handout to accompany my presentation that goes into this in more detail as I do not think I will be able to cover much of the research within the short time we have to speak on the subject and I do want to risk over-running or not being able to cover my own research within the presentation.

I do however think it is vital to research the history of different bodies of thought regarding materiality as it makes the entire concept of our relationship to our senses and the material world far more sensical.