唯物主义

noun

materialism; the philosophical doctrine that matter is the fundamental substance of nature and that consciousness is a secondary phenomenon arising from material conditions

One of the two major schools in philosophy, contrasting with idealism (唯心主义). It holds that the world exists objectively, independent of human consciousness, and that the world is knowable. Historically developed through three stages: naive materialism, metaphysical materialism, and dialectical materialism.