Eliminative materialism Flashcards
What is Folk psychology?
Common sense explanation of concepts intended to explain aspects of human behaviour/ intentional states
Eg. Scared, experience, thought, belief
Eg. You get drinks because you are “thirsty”
What is eliminative materialism?
The claim that the use of folk psychology radically misrepresents the true nature of human beings/inadqeute account of our nature
Eg. Being in pain isn’t an accurate representation of our nature, its actually receptors sending message to a brain
Eg. The sun setting is inaccurate: Its actually the earth shifting
Instead, concepts of folk psychology should be eliminated and replaced by accounts of neuroscience
What do the Churchlands say about folk psychology
Folk psychology is an empirical theory, and may turn out to be false as the central concepts that it uses may not refer to anything that exists.
What are Paul churchlands 3 reasons as to why folk psychology will turn out to be false?
- Many aspects of mental life that folk psychology cannot explain (Mental illness, sleep, perception, learning) To explain these we need concepts that FS doesn’t have.
- There has been no progress of folk psychology since its greek authors 2.5k years ago
3.Folk psychology cannot be made coherent with other scientific theories (Intentionality)
-Concludes that folk psychology doesn’t fit in with theories such as neuroscience and should be abandoned
Further explanation of Paul’s 3rd objection (Intentionality)
Intentionality names the property of which thoughts are directed onto an object (Thoughts are about things/objects/events)
Eg. I might have a thought about Paris, and my state of mind is directed towards an object. But physical things aren’t “About” anything
A molecular structure described in physical terms, isn’t about anything
The chemical process of digestion (acid breaking down food) isn’t about anything and doesn’t represent anything
So how could intentional mental states be states of brain
What is the objection “Our certainty of existence of mental states takes priority over other considerations” argument
Argues EM is counter intuitive
-There is nothing more immediately and directly ovbious than the fact that we have thoughts, desires, beliefs)
Descarte also took “I think” to be his first certainty
-Therefore nothing could be more certain than the fact that I have mental states
no argument could be strong enough to justify giving up such a belief
What is the reply to “Our certainty of existence of mental states takes priority over other considerations”
-Claims objection misunderstands Churchlands claim
They do not deny the existence of psychological phenomena, accepts that phenomena we conceptualise as thinking occurs, but they deny that folk psychology is the correct theory
They claim that neuroscience provides the correct account of what these are, and we will still experience these things even if we understand it in neurophysiological terms
What is the FP has best predictive and explanatory power objection
Claims Paul criticising FP for its explanatory failures (Mental illness, sleep, learning) is unfair as FP is not intended to be a theory of mental life but it is intended for an explanation of human action, in which it is successful in doing so
Eg. If P1 is asked why P2 goes to cinema, P1 can explain by discussing P2’s love of films
In contrast, neuroscience is almost useless at explaining why P2 goes to the cinema
-In addition, to elimate concepts of belief, desires and intentional mental states also would remove parts of scientific psychology on top of FK
-We don’t have good reason to think FK will be eliminated as neuroscience develops, and Fk will continue to be a part of the most powerful explanatory theory
What is the reply to the FP best explanatory power argument?
-Argues objections are not strong: we need to know how human behavior relates to mental life, and theories (FP and Neuroscience) explaining its aspects are unsatisfactory
Folk psychological explanations of behaviour are less powerful than other scientific explanations. Only way to address this issue is through neuroscience
