Online research in philosophy

The isomorphism between relational structures advocated by Palmer corresponds quite closely to Paul Churchland's theory of “state-space semantics,” so much so that one can be used to elucidate problematic areas in the other. The resulting hybrid shows eliminative materialism to be superior to functionalism as a theory of mental phenomena and seems to provide the best ontology for cognitive science.

This is a book about sensory states and their apparent characteristics. It confronts a whole series of metaphysical and epistemological questions and presents an argument for type materialism: the view that sensory states are identical with the neural states with which they are correlated. According to type materialism, sensations are only possessed by human beings and members of related biological species; silicon-based androids cannot have sensations. The author rebuts several other rival theories (dualism, double aspect theory, eliminative materialism, functionalism), and explores a number of important issues: the forms and limits of introspective awareness of sensations, the semantic properties of sensory concepts, knowledge of other minds, and unity of consciousness. The book is a significant contribution to the philosophy of mind, and has much to say to psychologists and cognitive scientists.

           Eliminative materialism, as William Lycan (this volume) tells us, is materialism plus the claim that no creature has ever had a belief, desire, intention, hope, wish, or other “folk-psychological†state. Some contemporary philosophers claim that eliminative materialism is very likely true. They sketch certain potential scenarios, for the way theory might develop in cognitive science and neuroscience, that they claim are fairly likely; and they maintain that if such scenarios turned out to be the truth about humans, then eliminative materialism would be true.            Broadly speaking, there are two ways to reply to such arguments, for those who maintain that eliminative materialism is false (or that the likelihood of its being true is very low). One way is to argue that the scenarios the eliminativists envision are themselves extremely unlikely—that we can be very confident, given what we now know (including nontendentious scientific knowledge), that those scenarios will not come to pass. The other is to argue that even if they did come to pass, this would not undermine common-sense psychology anyway. People would still have beliefs, etc. The two strategies are not incompatible; one could pursue them both. But the second strategy attacks eliminativism at a more fundamental level. And if it can be successfully carried out, then the dialectical state of play will be strikingly secure for folk psychology. For, then it will turn out that folk psychology simply is not hostage to the kinds of potential empirical-theoretical developments that the eliminativists envision. It doesn’t matter, as far as the integrity of folk psychology is concerned, whether or not such scenarios are likely to come to pass. Eliminativist arguments inevitably rely, often only implicitly, on certain assumptions about what it takes for a creature to have beliefs, desires, and other folk-psychological states—assumptions about some alleged necessary condition(s) for being a true believer (to adapt this colorful usage from Dennett 1987)..

Eliminative materialism (or eliminativism) is the radical claim that our ordinary, common-sense understanding of the mind is deeply wrong and that some or all of the mental states posited by common-sense do not actually exist. Descartes famously challenged much of what we take for granted, but he insisted that, for the most part, we can be confident about the content of our own minds. Eliminative materialists go further than Descartes on this point, since they challenge of the existence of various mental states that Descartes took for granted.

The aim of this essay is to explore the potential for an epistemology consistent with eliminative materialism based on work in connectionist modeling.

Eliminative materialism, as William Lycan (this volume) tells us, is materialism plus the claim that no creature has ever had a belief, desire, intention, hope, wish, or other “folk-psychological” state. Some contemporary philosophers claim that eliminative materialism is very likely true. They sketch certain potential scenarios, for the way theory might develop in cognitive science and neuroscience, that they claim are fairly likely; and they maintain that if such.

Richard Rorty's eliminative materialism is an attack on dualism that has frequently been misrepresented and incorrectly criticized. By taking account of the mistakes that philosophers have made concerning eliminative materialism, a proper definition of the doctrine and a clarification of its relation to traditional materialism will emerge, as well as an understanding of its true strengths and weaknesses. The discussion centers around the original manner in which Rorty defended eliminative materialism by means of analogies to the elimination of talk about demons and talk about macroscopic physical objects.