Eliminative Materialism

Paul M. Churchland

In this selection, Paul M. Churchland outlines and defends Eliminative Materialism view.

Patricia Churchland on Eliminative Materialism:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzT0jHJdq7Q

First of all…

❖ Eliminative materialism is a form of materialism.

❖ Materialism: only material objects exists

❖ It is in direct opposition to dualism.

Eliminative Materialism (Summary)

❖ Eliminative materialism is the view that our commonsense psychological framework is false and misleading and thus should be dropped.

❖ Other materialist theories of the mind, such as the identity theory or behaviorism, attempt a reduction of folk psychology to neuroscience, but eliminative materialism asserts that no such reduction is possible because our folk concepts are hopelessly confused.

Churchland begins by pointing out that such a radical view is not altogether unprecedented

in the history of ideas.

Folk Psychology

Phlogiston To take just one example, in the past many thought that there was a mysterious substance called “phlogiston” that was involved when something burned. But advances in science showed us that this idea was confused, and eventually everyone agreed that phlogiston does not exist.

Stephen Granade

Phlogiston - Ever Wonder Why?Why do things burn? Because phlogiston, that's why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZTD-vYhwj4

Thesis ❖ What eliminativism claims is that the intentional states and

processes that are alluded to in our everyday descriptions and explanations of people’s mental lives and their actions are myths.

❖ Like the gods that Homer invoked to explain the outcome of battles, or the witches that Inquisitors invoked to explain local catastrophes, they do not exist. According to eliminativists, there are no such things as beliefs or desires or hopes or fears or thoughts.

❖ These supposed states and processes are the badly misguided posits of a seriously mistaken theory, just like phlogiston and caloric fluid and the luminiferous ether.

What is Folk Psychology?

In philosophy of mind or cognitive science, folk-psychology, the human capacity to explain and predict human behavior with reference to common linguistic terms as opposed to technical jargon.

Replacing Folk Psychology❖ ‘Belief,’ ‘desire’ and other familiar intentional state expressions are among

the theoretical terms of a commonsense theory of the mind. This theory is often called ‘folk psychology’.

❖ Folk psychology is a seriously mistaken theory. Many of the claims it makes about the states and processes that give rise to behavior, and many of the presuppositions of those claims, are false.

❖ A mature science that explains how the mind/brain works and how it produces the behavior we observe will not refer to the commonsense intentional states and processes invoked by folk psychology. Beliefs, desires and the rest will not be part of the ontology of a mature scientific psychology.

❖ The intentional states of commonsense psychology do not exist.

Identity Theory and Eliminativism

❖ Identity Theory: Mental processes can simply be taken as brain processes. Hence, we can identify sensations and other mental phenomena with (physical) brain processes

❖ Eliminativism: Mental states and processes do not exist. Neuroscience will not illuminate our mental categories but replace them. As a consequence, there are no mental causes, only physical causes.

He provides three arguments in favor of eliminative materialism.

First, Churchland points to the widespread explanatory failures of folk psychology in support of the view that it is hopelessly confused.

❖ So much of what is central and familiar to us remains a complete mystery from within folk psychology.

❖ We do not know what sleep is, or why we have to have it, despite spending a full third of our lives in that condition.

❖ We do not understand how learning transforms each of us from a gaping infant to a cunning adult, or how differences in intelligence are grounded.

❖ We have not the slightest idea how memory works, or how we manage to retrieve relevant bits of information instantly from the awesome mass we have stored.

❖ We do not know what mental illness is, nor how to cure it.

Second, he argues via a sort of induction that most of our other folk theories about scientific phenomena have been eliminated

❖ Our early folk theories of the structure and activity of the heavens were wildly off the mark, and survive only as historical lessons in how wrong we can be.

❖ Our folk theories of the nature of fire, and the nature of life, were similarly absurd.

❖ And one could go on, since the vast majority of our past folk conceptions have been similarly exploded.

❖ All except folk psychology, which survives to this day and has only recently begun to feel pressure.

❖ But the phenomenon of conscious intelligence is surely a more complex and difficult phenomenon than any of those just listed.

❖ So far as accurate understanding is concerned, it would be a miracle if we had got that one right the very first time, when we fell down so badly on all the others.

Third, he points out that eliminative materialism seems more likely to be true than either the identity theory or behaviorism

❖ The focus again is on whether the concepts of folk psychology will find vindicating match-ups in a matured neuroscience.

❖ The eliminativist bets no.

Churchland concludes by considering and responding to three arguments against his

view.

The first is that one’s introspection reveals the existence of pains and beliefs and other folk psychological items.

❖ Churchland replies by pointing out that all observation occurs within a conceptual framework.

❖ Part of his position is that we need to get rid of our whole conceptual framework.

Second, someone might argue that the eliminative materialist cannot coherently assert his theory, because to assert it meaningfully would be to

have a belief that causes him to assert it.

❖ But Churchland replies that this objection relies on a contentious view about what makes assertions meaningful

Finally, someone might object that at the very least, the eliminative materialist is exaggerating things.

❖ Churchland concedes that this may be true and that we should certainly leave room for the possibility that some folk concepts will be reduced and some will be eliminated.

❖ However, he at least wants to make the point that we should take the possibility of elimination very seriously.