materialism | Materialism | Economic materialism | economic materialism |
The Captive Mind begins with a discussion of the novel Insatiability by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz and its plot device of Murti-Bing pills, which are used as a metaphor for dialectical materialism, but also for the deadening of the intellect caused by consumerism in Western society.
Bazarov also became interested in philosophy during the first decade of the 20th Century, coming to reject Marx's formulaic dialectical materialism in favor of the use of the scientific method to observe and theorize about human behavior, as espoused by the Austrian Ernst Mach and the German-Swiss philosopher Richard Avenarius.