Materialism

Philosophical metaphysical position — holding that only matter (or physical processes) ultimately exists — that mind, consciousness, and all mental phenomena are either identical to, reducible to, or fully explicable by physical (brain) processes — the dominant metaphysical assumption of modern science and analytic philosophy.

Creates the foundational metaphysics of modern science — Materialism's insistence that only physical processes are real underwrites the entire methodology of modern science (only measure what is physical; exclude teleology and consciousness from explanation); its most ambitious formulation (eliminative materialism — mental states literally do not exist as described) and its most defended form (physicalism — mental states are real but fully physical) are the central positions in contemporary philosophy of mind.