would be an example of lower-story philosophies. Some might say that theological discourses, which require reason to yield to faith, also fall into that category.
3. Describe what an atom of matter is like, according to a materialist philosopher like Democritus or Hobbes.
An atom of matter, according to Democritus, is indivisible, incapable of being divided into any part. Assemblies of atoms, which can take multiple or an almost infinite number of material shapes, constitute what we see of material reality, or bodies, and their variety may seem infinite because of the variety of material that is perceived. However, two things distinguished Democritus's materialism. First, he said that the irreducible atoms, of which material bodies are made, obey the laws of nature and are immutable, irrespective of how they are perceived. They are reality. Second, the bodies that are perceived are not as real as atoms because they are divisible, down to atoms. That makes material reality illusory. Hobbes's materialism is like that of Democritus in that he sees material bodies as the only reality. Thoughts are the illusion, and physical reality is the only reality worthy the name. Mental states do not have a reality independent of the brain; emotion and psychology and even the "mind" are features of brain activity. Now physical, material reality is mutable, or anyway in motion, which is how reality can be recognized in the first place. But there is certainly no reality to the insubstantial or intangible or nonphenomenal.
4. What is the difference among the three materialist views of the pattern in which matter moves?
Descartes' view that matter was the motion of "extension," or more exactly geometrical extension: shape, size, and divisibility. The Cartesian idea of matter is that variations in shape and size account for other features attributed to or associated with sense perception of material reality, such as light, heat, sound, taste, a...