19th and 20th Century Naturalism:
Marx, Darwin, and Freud
See Sophie's World, pages 385-446




I.
 Introduction: 19th and 20th Century Naturalism and Materialism




II.
 Carl Marx: A Naturalistic/Materialist Attempt to Describe and Change Society





A.
 Dialectic Materialism






1.
 Society's Material Bases and Contingent Superstructure


2.
 The Dialectic Between Society's Material Bases and its Superstructure





B.
 Three Levels of Society's Material Bases






1.
 Conditions of Production


2.
 Means of Production


3.
 Production Relations: Ownership of the Means of Production





C.
 Marx' View of Labor






1.
 Work as Shaper of Identity


2.
 Capitalist Alienation of the Worker from His/Her Work


3.
 Exploitation





D.
 Revolution






1.
 The Communist Manifesto (1848)


2.
 Dictatorship of the Proletariat


3.
 The Classless Society





E.
 Two Forms of Socialist Revolution






1.
 Social Democracy


2.
 Leninism





F.
 Conclusion: The Legacy of Communism








III.
 Charles Darwin(1809-1882): A Naturalistic/ Materialist Attempt to Explain the History of Living Organisms





A.
 Darwin's Early Years


1.
 Theology at Cambridge (1831)


2.
 Travels on the Beagle





B.
 Two Main Theses of The Origin of Species


1.
 No immutable natural organisms


2.
 Natural Selection





C.
 The Origins of Life


1.
 Darwin's Tentative Proposal: the "Hot Little Pool"


2.
 DNA, the Substance Common to All Living Organisms


3.
 The Crucial Role of Oxygen: Once Free Oxygen is Present, the Dawn of "New" Life is Precluded








IV.
 Sigmund Freud: A Naturalistic/ Materialist Attempt to Explain Human Psychology





A.
 Components of the Psyche






1.
 Id


2.
 Ego


3.
 Superego





B.
 The Unconscious/Subconscious and Repression






1.
 The Conscious/Unconscious Divide


2.
 Mechanisms by which the Conscious and Subconscious Interact



a. Repression (Banishing memories from consciousness)



b. Rationalization (Inventing false motives)



c. Projection (Assigning feelings to others when they are really our own)



d. Dreaming (Symbolically representing our wishes)





C.
 Psychoanalysis and Repressed Trauma





D.
 "False Memories": A Problem for Freudian Psychoanalysis