Eliminative Realism Flashcards
What is Eliminative Realism?
the materialistic view that there has never been and never will be a mind. The idea of a mind is part of folk psychology
What is Folk Psychology?
The set of common sense generalizations of the mind (Platitudes). Used in the explanation and prediction of human behaviour. Mental States/Events such as sad are merely theoretical entities.
What are propositional attitudes?
e.g. I believe it will rain. the inner states of people that supposedly play characteristic roles in causing those people’s behavior.
What is Rorty’s tribe analogy?
Rorty describes a tribe that has doctors which ascribe demons to each mental illness. This is their folk psychology. There are different kinds of demons that cause each mental illness. Of course this is very similar to the way we talk about viruses and bacteria. Ours is scientific but theirs is folk psychology. Should we stop them from using the idea of demons?
What is Dennett’s argument for the elimination of qualia?
Qualia has a loose meaning. No one can say anything about qualia because it is private and subjective. There is no way of measuring qualia or even inverted qualia. Therefore the language of qualia can have no meaning. What is it that we can be referring to if no one else can see it? Because qualia is UNFALSIFIABLE it becomes meaningless and empty and so the only meaningful words are language of brain activity.
