Matter is a highfalutin abstraction supposedly comprising the substratum "stuff" of the world. But we do not encounter matter eo ipso. We experience perceptible shapes, forms, and events. While continuing his theme "we have never been modern," Bruno Latour writes of "the not-so-very material MATTER, 'idealism of materialism' of the Moderns. In turning toward the craftsmen, the ingenious engineers who actually build engines and machines…." it scarcely serves any purpose (see Inquiry into the Modes of Existence, 2013, 98, 209).

Matter has always been linked to a political idea, as the first science studies saw, especially all that plays out around the idea of ​​a passive mechanical matter entirely subject to a mechanical God, devoid of the least autonomy in the least of its workings and which avoids absolutely the possible "uprising" of the "masses", whether they be stones, plants, animals or republicans.

For more on this see, Shapin, Steven, and Simon Schaffer. Le Léviathan et la pompe à air - Hobbes et Boyle entre science et politique. Paris: La Découverte, 1993.

Thus, I do not think this proposition is worth entertaining. Not even for Bishop Berkeley, who is made into a caricature by many philosophers. Anticipating Samuel Johnson's famous refutation, he writes:

I do not argue against the existence of any one thing that we can apprehend either by sense or reflection. That the things I see with my eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really exist, I make not the least question. The only thing whose existence we deny is that which philosophers call Matter or corporeal substance. And in doing of this there is no damage done to the rest of mankind, who, I dare say, will never miss it.

George Berkeley, Treatise concerning Principles of Human Knowledge, §35, emphasis original

Matter is a highfalutin abstraction supposedly comprising the substratum "stuff" of the world. But we do not encounter matter eo ipso. We experience perceptible shapes, forms, and events. While continuing his theme "we have never been modern," Bruno Latour writes of "the not-so-very material MATTER, 'idealism of materialism' of the Moderns. In turning toward the craftsmen, the ingenious engineers who actually build engines and machines…." it scarcely serves any purpose (see Inquiry into the Modes of Existence, 2013, 98, 209).

Matter has always been linked to a political idea, as the first science studies saw, especially all that plays out around the idea of ​​a passive mechanical matter entirely subject to a mechanical God, devoid of the least autonomy in the least of its workings and which avoids absolutely the possible "uprising" of the "masses", whether they be stones, plants, animals or republicans.

For more on this see, Shapin, Steven, and Simon Schaffer. Le Léviathan et la pompe à air - Hobbes et Boyle entre science et politique. Paris: La Découverte, 1993.

Thus, I do not think this proposition is worth entertaining. Not even for Bishop Berkeley, who is made into a caricature by many philosophers. Anticipating Samuel Johnson's famous refutation, he writes:

I do not argue against the existence of any one thing that we can apprehend either by sense or reflection. That the things I see with my eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really exist, I make not the least question. The only thing whose existence we deny is that which philosophers call Matter or corporeal substance. And in doing of this there is no damage done to the rest of mankind, who, I dare say, will never miss it.

George Berkeley, Treatise concerning Principles of Human Knowledge, §35, emphasis original