eliminative materialism Flashcards
(24 cards)
what does eliminative materialism claim about mental states
- some or all folk psychological mental states do not exist and fold psychology is radically mistaken
- FP like other poor scientific hypotheses should be eliminated in favour of the explanations of neuroscience
what is folk psychology
- ordinary and everyday concepts we use to understand and talk about the mind
- the mind, emotions like fear, free will, intentionality
what do eliminative materialists claim about folk psychology
- FP is a scientific, empirical hypothesis
- eliminative’s claims that it is a poor scientific hypothesis and so should be rejected and eliminated in favour of neuroscience
what are the 3 features of FP
- an ordinary understanding of the mind
- posits the existence of mental states
- enables the prediction and explanation of human behaviour
what are the three possible reasons given by Paul Churchland for FP being false
- it has poor predicative and explanatory power
- it has not made much progress
- it is incompatible with science
explain the first feature of FP that it involves an ordinary understanding of the mind
- an understanding which develops among ordinary people without any special education
- as opposed to a “scientific” understanding of the mind which would be the subject matter of specialists
explain the second feature of FP that it posits the existence of other minds
- it claims that inner mental states exists such as propositional attitudes, intentional states and phenomenal states
- it is this sense of an inner mind/subjective experience that Chalmers refers to as the hard problem of consciousness
explain the third feature of FP that it enables the prediction and explanation of human behaviour
- the positing of inner mental states allows for the prediction of human behaviour, that is it allows us to correctly anticipate how humans will act
- it also allows for the explanation of human behaviour, that is retroactively posit causal links to determine why humans do the things they do
- for example if someone sits in a free chair, having the mental state of being tired would explain why this is the case
explain the first reason from Churchland for why FP is likely to be false, that it has poor predicative and explanatory power
- FP doesn’t explain many things about the mind such as why we become tired and need sleep, how we learn, or how our perception worlds, or at predicting changes in the mind such as mental illnesses and neurological diseases like dementia
- however neuroscience is good at explaining how the brain works and and predicting how it will work
explain the 2nd reason from Churchland for why FP is likely to be false, that it has not made much progress
- FP still uses concepts that date back thousands of years age
- it has not advanced
- neuroscience has only been a scientific discipline since the 1950’s and has already made much progress in understanding the brain
explain the 3rd reason from Churchland for why FP is likely to be false, that it is incompatible with science
- FP posits the existence of unverifiable, private, inner mental states
- theses aren’t publicly observable and are non-physical so are incompatible with science
- neuroscience investigates the brain, which is publicly observable and physical, therefore compatible with science
how does the elimination of mental states differ from an analytic/ontological reduction
- EMist = engage in neither analytic nor ontological reduction
- if they did then that would mean that they acknowledge the existence of mental states in some form
- instead they deny the existence of mental states at all - and so there is nothing to analytically or ontologically reduce in the first place
give 4 reasons for EM being convincing
- explanatory power of neuroscience –> changes to the brain can explain behaviour and be used to predict behaviour
- weakness of FP –> poor explanatory power, little progress in 5000 years, incompatible with science
- coherence with science
- past concepts have been eliminated –> other empirical hypotheses have been eliminated when they have been shown to fail to properly explain states of affairs
what are the three objections to EM
- our certainty about the existence of our mental states takes priority over other considerations
- FP has good predicative and explanatory power, so is the best hypothesis
- the articulation of EM as a theory is self-refuting
what does Descartes claim his intuition of the cogito demonstrates and how might this undermine EM
- Descartes uses the waves of doubt to demonstrate that he can know one thing for certain, that he exists and does so as a mind, not a body necessarily
- this means that this is more certain than the things he can doubt, such as the existence of the EW and his senses
- so he is more certain that he exists as a mind than he is that the EW exists and his senses are reliable, since science rests on our senses, it is less reliable than this one certainty
outline formally the objection to EM
P1) I know through introspection that my mind and its mental states exist, I have direct awareness of my mind and these mental states
P2) This knowledge survives the radical doubt, such as the evil demon, which leaves the claims of science (and therefore EM) open to doubt
C) Therefore, any claims that might be supported by science, such as EM, will not cast doubt over my knowledge of my mind, and we are not justified in eliminating mental states
how could an eliminativist respond to the objection that our certainty about the existence of our mental states takes priority over other considerations
- they would say the objection misunderstand eliminativism
- EM does not claim that when we believe in somethings that there is nothing going on at all
- psychological phenomena, what we experience, are not denied
- however FP and the mental states it claims exist are not the best explanation for this phenomena
- neuroscience will provide a better explanation
outline the response to Churchland’s first criticism of FP, that it has poor predicative and explanatory power
- it is unfair to characterise FP in this way as it is not intended to provide an explanation or prediction of things like mental illness, sleep, memory
- accept that neuroscience is a good explainer of these
- however FP is good at predicting and explaining human behaviour and neuroscience is not
how might Churchland (an eliminativist) respond to FP actually having good predicative and explanatory power
- we need to know how human behaviour relates to the rest of mental life
- having two different sorts of theories, FP and neuroscience, explaining different aspects of the mind is unsatisfactory
- neuroscience can explain many things that FP cannot and may in the future be able to predict human behaviour
- there is less of a likelihood that FP will be able to explain the things that neuroscience already can
outline the response to Churchland’s second criticism of FP, that it has not made much progress and how might churchland respond
- there may be similarities between our understanding of mental states and that of people before us, however it is not true to say that there have been no developments
- we have a concept of the subconscious mind that the Ancient Greeks did not for example
- developments are still superficial, the explanations are still less powerful than than those we find elsewhere in science
- only neuroscience can provide a theory which develops adequately
outline the response to Churchland’s third criticism of FP, that it is incompatible with science and Churchlands response
- true that FP and mental states aren’t compatible with physicalist science at the moment, doesn’t mean this will always be the case
- FP does seem to be better than neuroscience at explaining and predicting human behaviour, it is conceivable that there will be a point when FP and science will be made compatible
- even though FP seems better than neuroscience at explaining and predicting human behaviour, we still do not know how FP relates to science more broadly
- the mental states posited by FP, such as intentionality and qualia have no clear way of being integrated into physicalist science
why might the statement “eliminative materialism is true” be self contradictory
- EM cannot be articulated since to do so would contradict the claims of EM
- FP involves all mental states, including our concepts of assertion, truth, belief
- EM cannot conceptualise their position without relying on the concepts used by FP, but these are the very concepts they seek to deny the existence of
- therefore, EM cannot be conceptualised or articulated, since to do so would be to undermine the very claim that is being made
outline the formal argument against EM that it is self-refuting
P1) According to FP, belief is a mental state
P2) The EM asserts that FP is false
P3) Assertions are the expressions of beliefs
C1) Therefore, the EM believes that FP is false
C2 Therefore, the EM believes that belief is not a genuine mental state
P4) C2 involves a contradiction; EM uses FP in order to argue that FP is incorrect
C3) Therefore, EM is self-refuting
how could an EM respond to EM being self-refuting
- argue it is begging the question –> assuming the conclusion within the argument
- resulting in a fallacious and therefore, invalid argument
- they claim that for this objection to work, one must assume the existence of mental states and therefore truth of FP in order to make the argument in the first place
- EM do not claim that the psychological phenomena that we experience exists, we still experience a belief in something for example, but they do disagree that the best explanation for this is that it is a mental state
- think that the term “belief” is a neutral concept, which could have either explanation
