Mind: A Brief Introduction (John R. Searle) / quote 44 of 138
Materialism as the religion of our time
The single most influential family of views in the philosophy of mind throughout the twentieth century and leading into the twenty-first century is one version or another of materialism. Materialism is the view that the only reality that exists is material or physical reality, and consequently if mental states have a real existence, they must in some sense be reducible to, they must be nothing but, physical states of some kind. There is a sense in which materialism is the religion of our time, at least among most of the professional experts in the fields of philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and other disciplines that study the mind. Like more traditional religions, it is accepted without question and it provides the framework within which other questions can be posed, addressed, and answered.