Claim
Eliminative materialism
Overview
Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism) is a materialist position in philosophy of mind that expresses the idea that the majority of mental states in folk psychology do not exist. Some supporters of eliminativism argue that no coherent neural basis will be found for many everyday psychological concepts such as belief or desire, since they are poorly defined. The argument is that psychological concepts of behavior and experience should be judged by how well they reduce to the biological level. Other versions entail the nonexistence of conscious mental states such as pain and visual perceptions.
Eliminativism about a class of entities is the view that the class of entities does not exist. For example, materialism tends to be eliminativist about the soul; modern chemists are eliminativist about phlogiston; modern biologists are eliminativist about élan vital; and modern physicists are eliminativist about luminiferous ether. Eliminative materialism is the relatively new (1960s–70s) idea that certain classes of mental entities that common sense takes for granted, such as beliefs, desires, and the subjective sensation of pain, do not exist. The most common versions are eliminativism about propositional attitudes, as expressed by Paul and Patricia Churchland, and eliminativism about qualia (subjective interpretations about particular instances of subjective experience), as expressed by Daniel Dennett, Georges Rey, and Jacy Reese Anthis.
In the context of materialist understandings of psychology, eliminativism is the opposite of reductive materialism, which argues rather that mental states as conventionally understood do exist, and directly correspond to the physical state of the nervous system. An intermediate position, revisionary materialism, often argues the mental state in question will prove to be somewhat reducible to physical phenomena—with some changes needed to the commonsense concept.
Since eliminative materialism arguably claims that future research will fail to find a neuronal basis for various mental phenomena, it may need to wait for science to progress further. One might question the position on these grounds, but philosophers like Churchland argue that eliminativism is often necessary in order to open the minds of thinkers to new evidence and better explanations. Views closely related to eliminativism include illusionism and quietism.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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Thought moreover is simple, whilst the activities of the brain are compounded of the elementary activities of each of its parts. Furthermore, thought is spontaneous or free, whilst all material activity is determined _ab extra_; and the will can turn itself against all corporeal goods and appetites, which would be impossible were it a corporeal function. For these objective reasons the principle of psychic life must…
William James, The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1
States what Eliminative materialism is; the author is tied to Eliminative materialism in the knowledge graph.
For materialism denies reality to the objects of almost all the impulses which we most cherish. The real _meaning_ of the impulses, it says, is something which has no emotional interest for us whatever. Now, what is called 'extradition' is quite as characteristic of our emotions as of our senses: both point to an object as the cause of the present feeling. What an intensely objective reference lies in fear!
William James, The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy
States what Eliminative materialism is; the author is tied to Eliminative materialism in the knowledge graph.
Philosophers, on the other hand, have maintained often that matter is a mere fiction imagined by mind, and sometimes that mind is a mere property of a certain kind of matter. Those who maintain that mind is the reality and matter an evil dream are called "idealists"--a word which has a different meaning in philosophy from that which it bears in ordinary life. Those who argue that matter is the reality and mind a…
Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind
States what Eliminative materialism is.
Philosophers who discussed Eliminative materialism
- Wilfrid Sellars
- Patricia Churchland
- Paul Churchland
- Peter Hacker
- Paul Feyerabend
- Language of thought hypothesis
- Eugene Thacker
- Alexander Rosenberg
- Stephen Stich
- Keith Frankish
- Philip Goff (philosopher)
- Peter Glassen
Related ideas
- Belief
- Cognition
- Artificial intelligence
- General relativity
- Springer Science+Business Media
- Action potential
- Vitalism
- Physics (Aristotle)
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
- Learning
- Neural correlates of consciousness
- Luminiferous aether
- Intentionality
- Predicate (grammar)
- Metaethics
- Mental disorder
- Desire
- Materialism
- Classical mechanics
- Frank Cameron Jackson
- Richard Rorty
- Mental state
- Alvin Goldman
- Neuroscience
Place in the tradition
Part of Outline of philosophy.
Narrower topics:
- Action potential
- Behavior
- Connectionism
- Folk psychology
- John Polkinghorne
- Paul Boghossian
- Self-refuting idea
- Straw man
- Visual perception
- Élan vital
- Alexander Rosenberg
- Stephen Stich
- Keith Frankish
- Philip Goff (philosopher)
- Georges Rey
- Jacy Reese Anthis
- Jesse Prinz
- Evolutionary debunking
- Sentience Institute
- Cartesian materialism
- Inverted spectrum
- Macaque
- Self-driving car
- Theory-theory