Materialism

Materialism is a term used in two different senses: (1) The mentality of those who prefer material wealth, bodily comforts and sensuous pleasures over the "higher" intellectual and "nobler" spiritual aspirations of men; (2) The doctrine that all changes are brought about by material entities, processes and events, and that all human ideas, choices and value judgments can be reduced to material causes which one day will be explained by the natural sciences.