Eliminative Materialism Flashcards
Who are the key thinkers behind eliminativism ?
Paul and Patricia Churchland
What is folk psychology ?
A conceptual framework employing concepts like belief, desires , fears , memories. Etc …
We use folk psychology to explain and predict our own human behaviour and other people’s behaviour.
What is the difference between strict and weak eliminativism?
(INTentionality !!! )
Why is strict eliminativism harder to support
Weak eliminativism advocates for the removal of outdated terms used to describe mental states e.g. The term ‘madness’ is not an accurate description of mental illness. Neurological terms can certainly explain this better.
However strict / strong eliminatibidts promote the elimination of intentionality when describing mental states as intentionality cannot be part of a physical description of the brain.
This goes too far.
Strict eliminativism seems impossible as intentionality is a fundamental part of our mental description e.g. Our beliefs.
It seems impossible to communicate that was are for example - thinking about Descartes if we cannot articulate what we are thinking about.
Is eliminativism a reductive theory ?
No !
Not reductive
Cannot reduce folk psychological terms to physical terms as folk psychological terms are nonesense !
How do eliminativists argue that folk psychology is analogous to Phlogiston
Phlogiston - a false idea that has been eliminated is arguably Analogus to folk psychology.
Just as science progressed to eliminate phlogiston in place of a better theory, our language should develop to eliminate the common sense folk psychology and replace them with accurate neurological terms that best reflect the reality in our minds
What is the criticism of eliminative materialism - the intuitive certainty of the existence of my mind takes priority over other considerations ?
Eliminativism could be critticised on the basis that it is counter intuitive.
It could be argued that it is intuitive that we have intentional content, e.g. Desires and beliefs (this could be supported by Descartes’ certainty “I think”). Nothing seems more intuitive than our own minds. It could be states that eliminative materialism is not a strong enough argument to justify giving up that intuition
What is intentional content ?
Intentionality is a thought or mental state which aims at an object.
Beliefs, desires and emotions all have INTentionality and are intentional mental states.
And intentional content of a mental state is the answer to “what are you thinking about ?”
How might an eliminativist respond to the criticism 1 - the intuitive certainty of the existence of my mind takes priority over other considerations ??? (2)
1- other intuitive ideas have been outdated and replaced e.g. The intuition that the Sun moves around the earth or that the earth is flat.
Discovery prompts the broadening of our intuitions. Intuition alone does not lead to certainty and has been historically and will continue to be disproved in the name of discovery.
Just because it seems counter intuitive, doesn’t mean it is false.
2- more significantly , this criticism seems to misunderstand churchlands claimX
Just as people who argued against phlogiston didn’t deny that things burnt, Churchland does not deny the existence of psychological phenomena that we conceptualise as “thinking” occur. He just denies that folk psychology is the correct theory of its nature.
This criticism therefore fails to fully understand Churchland’s claims.
NOT DAMAGING
What is the criticism of eliminativism about how folk psychology has good predictive and explanatory power ?
Folk psychology has been criticised for its explanatory failures concerning mental illness and sleep, but it can be objected that folk psychology is not intended to be a theory of these aspects of mental life - only meant to explain human behaviour.
In this regard it is overwhelmingly successful. E.g. When predicting why you went to the cinema last night in neurological terms would not seem possible , certianly not compared to folk psychology’s good predictive power.
Folk psychology has good explanatory advantages. For example - cognitive behavioural therapy is very successful based on folk psychology. This is very useful in explaining and treating anxiety. Eliminative mat would advocate for dismissing these terms clearly progressing rather than holding back humanity.
Also , it has good explanatory power making it easy to teach babies communication skills compared to the difficulty and near impossible task of potentially teaching a baby to communicate in neurological terms.
Eliminativism is therefore incorrect dismissing the good progressive explanatory power of folk psychology
How might an eliminativism repond to the Idea that folk psychology has good predictive explanatory power ?
Is this successful ?
Eliminativism could reply that folk psychological developments are still relatively superficial. These are less powerful that the kinds of explanations that can be found in science.
Just because it has good explanatory power in some regard , overall to progress humanity’s
language development, this should be dismissed for more accurate neurological terms
Evaluation. - can explain things better in folk psychology terms so until neuroscience can provide an explanation that doesn’t involve intentional content - beliefs and desires , folk psychology id the only successful idea
What is the criticism of eliminativism that it is self refuting ?
Eliminativism makes claims and assertions about how we should remove folk psychology. In order to assure something , it must be believed.
Eliminativists therefore believe that their claims are true.
There therefore must exist beliefs for eliminativists to believe them,
therefore eliminativism is false as it advocates for the removal for the very intentional content that it relies upon to state the argument.
It is therefore self refuting as you cannot present the argument against folk psychology without presenting folk psychology .
How could the criticism of eliminativism being self refuting be responded to ?
Further response ?
Evaluation?
Tit could be stated that it is only self refuting if you presuppose that it exists.
There could be a parallel with vitalism - the idea that we had a vital force keeping us alive, when people argued against this, a vitalist would say that if the objectors were correct, they would all be dead. This relies on a presupposition
In the same way that this idea turned out to be false, the presupossition that folk psychology is correct could be false. Criticism - not damaging.
However - analogy fails as vitalises offer a different account to what life is and accept intentional content whereas eliminativists claim they do not need intentional content to make claims
It is inconceivable to give an alternative account of meaning without using intentional contentZ
We cannot conceive of folk psychology being false as this presupposes the folk psychological concept of intentional content .
Further, folk psychology is not an empirical theory but a condition of intelligibility A a condition for reasoning thinking and making claims which cannot be eliminated
