ABSTRACT
We are living in a material world. To say this is not just to say that the affluent consumer societies of the Western world are excessively materialistic. It is not just to claim that our priorities and our values have become increasingly embedded in the ownership of material possessions. These claims may be true, and at a later stage of this book, I shall examine that possibility further. But there is something much more basic involved in saying that we live in a material world.
