eliminative materialism

Question 1

explain eliminative materialism

Answer 1

• “some or all common-sense (folk-psychological) mental states/properties do not exist and our common-sense understanding is radically mistaken
• folk-psychology refers to intentional states such as beliefs and desires, and qualia and other mental states (the common-sense way we talk about mental states) e.g. he ran away because he was scared
• eliminativism wants to eliminate folk psychology, it says it does not exist, it radically misrepresents the true nature of human beings
• folk-psychology needs to be eliminated and replaces by a more advanced account of mental states, neuroscience
• after the plague, many believed that ‘bad air’ was the cause for the illness
• with advances in science they realised that the actual cause was a disease which rats were carrying around, and so the concept of ‘bad air’ was eliminated and the plague was explained scientifically

Question 2

explain the issue for eliminative materialism: our certainty about the existence of our mental states takes priority over other considerations

Answer 2

• introspection refers to the ability to consciously look inside one’s own mind
• though introspection I can look into my own mind and I am directly aware of my beliefs, desires, and sensations
• it seems nonsensical and absurd to deny the existence of something which I am directly aware of
• so eliminativism is wrong to deny the existence of the mental states picked out by the concepts of folk-psychology

Question 3

explain the issue for eliminative materialism: folk psychology has good predictive and explanatory power (and so is the best hypothesis)

Answer 3

• folk-psychology allows us to predict human behaviour + explains why people do what they do
• e.g. if you know what I believe and desire you can predict my behaviour. if I believe it is raining and I desire to go to the shops and keep dry, then you can predict that I will use an umbrella
• it has also been around for at least 5000 years, and is probably as old as our species/language
• it is a universal across human cultures and has helped us create the complex societies we have
• if folk-psychology was useless, then surely it would have died out or been eliminated years ago, but it is still around
• the universality and antiquity of folk-psychology shows that it is actually a very successful account of human nature
• folk-psychology is the centre to client-based therapies and neuroscience does not yet have an alternative account of human nature

Question 4

explain an issue for eliminative materialism: the articulation of eliminative materialism as a theory is self-refuting

Answer 4

• eliminativism claims that mental states, such as beliefs, do not exist
• if beliefs don’t exist then it is not possible to believe that eliminative materialism is true
• and if the language used to articulate eliminative materialism doesnt express genuine beliefs then it is meaningless
• therefore, according to the eliminativists view it is not possible to believe and coherently articulate eliminativism
• and so the theory is self-refuting