A doctrinaire commitment to the philosophy that only matter exists, extended beyond its useful boundaries into dogmatic denial of any phenomena that might challenge it—consciousness, meaning, subjective experience, or emergent properties. Late‑stage materialism refuses to engage with findings from its own methodology (e.g., the hard problem of consciousness) and instead explains away anomalies by calling them "illusions" or "
folk psychology." It functions as a metaphysical
faith, defended with the same fervor as the religious worldviews it claims to oppose. Materialism becomes a closed
system, immune to
revision.
Late-Stage Materialism Example: "He insisted that
love was '
just chemicals' and that anyone who felt otherwise was deluded—late‑stage materialism, reducing all value to
physics and mistaking reduction for explanation."