I think there is a key distinction that needs to be made between physicalism and materialism.

Physicalism is the philosophical position which holds that all there is ontologically is physical substance. Whereas materialism is a term used by a many philosophers meaning different things, and confuses rather than illuminates- to make matters worse it’s also an insult.

For example Bachelard called himself a “materialist” but in fact he believed in transcendence and mathematical essentialism de facto. And Deleuze called himself a “materialist” despite positing the virtual and clearly not being one.

So using the term physicalist is just much more useful.

For me personally it’s irritating because I believe in a philosophy of immanence, I.e one which avoids transcendent categories. But not materialist because the monism is aspectival and includes virtuality and holds that matter is not an explanation for memory and consciousness.

The only nuance here is that the logical positivist used physicalism idiosyncratically in a linguistic sense, but who gives a shit about the logical positivists let’s be honest.

To cap off this thread with an explanation as to why these philosophers used the term materialism when they were not physicalists it’s always in reaction to the sharp dualism of rationalism and the privileging of the abstract soul above the body.