key term - Eliminative Materialism

Definition

Eliminative materialism is a philosophical position that rejects the existence of mental states and propositional attitudes, such as beliefs, desires, and intentions, in favor of a purely physical, neurological account of the mind. It holds that our commonsense psychological concepts do not refer to real phenomena and should be eliminated from our scientific understanding of the world.

5 Must Know Facts For Your Next Test

1. Eliminative materialists argue that our common-sense notions of mental states are false and should be replaced by a more accurate, scientific understanding of the brain.
2. Proponents of eliminative materialism, such as Paul Churchland and Patricia Churchland, believe that as neuroscience advances, it will become clear that traditional psychological concepts are incoherent and should be abandoned.
3. Eliminative materialists contend that mental states are not real, causal entities, but rather are merely convenient fictions used to explain behavior, and that a complete understanding of the brain will render them obsolete.
4. The eliminativist position challenges the intuitive view that we have direct, privileged access to our own mental states, and suggests that our self-knowledge is more limited than we typically assume.
5. Eliminative materialism is a radical form of physicalism that has significant implications for our understanding of the mind, consciousness, and the nature of human agency and responsibility.

Review Questions

• Explain how eliminative materialism challenges the commonsense notion of mental states.
  • Eliminative materialism rejects the existence of mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and intentions, as real, causal entities. Instead, it proposes that these commonsense psychological concepts do not refer to any genuine phenomena and should be eliminated from our scientific understanding of the mind. Eliminativists argue that as neuroscience advances, it will become clear that these traditional notions are incoherent and should be replaced by a more accurate, physical account of the brain and its functioning.
• Describe the relationship between eliminative materialism and reductionism.
  • Eliminative materialism is a form of reductionism, as it seeks to explain complex mental phenomena by reducing them to their fundamental physical, neurological components. Eliminativists believe that a complete understanding of the brain and its underlying neurological processes will render traditional psychological concepts, such as beliefs and desires, obsolete. This reductionist approach challenges the intuitive view that we have direct, privileged access to our own mental states and suggests that our self-knowledge is more limited than we typically assume.
• Evaluate the implications of eliminative materialism for our understanding of consciousness and human agency.
  • If eliminative materialism is correct, it would have significant implications for our understanding of consciousness and human agency. By rejecting the existence of mental states, eliminativists call into question the very notion of subjective, first-person experience and the idea that we have free will or control over our actions. This radical physicalist position suggests that our sense of self, our beliefs, and our decisions are ultimately just the result of complex neurological processes, rather than the product of genuine mental states. This challenges our intuitive understanding of consciousness and human agency, and raises profound questions about the nature of the mind and our place in the physical world.

Related terms

Physicalism:

The view that everything that exists is physical or supervenes on the physical, and that mental states are reducible to or identical with physical states of the brain.

Reductionism: The belief that complex phenomena can be explained by reducing them to their fundamental components or basic principles.

Neuroscience: The scientific study of the nervous system, including the structure and function of the brain, with the goal of understanding how the brain gives rise to mental phenomena.