Is Eliminative materialism self-refuting?
Many writers have argued that eliminative materialism is in some sense self-refuting (Baker, 1987; Boghossian, 1990, 1991; Reppert, 1992). A common way this charge is made is to insist that a capacity or activity that is somehow invoked by the eliminativist is itself something that requires the existence of beliefs.
What is the claim of Eliminative materialism about the self?
Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism) is a materialist position in the philosophy of mind. Its primary claim is that people’s common-sense understanding of the mind (or folk psychology) is false and that certain classes of mental states that most people believe in do not exist.
What is Churchland’s eliminative materialism?
Eliminative Materialism (1984)* 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.
What does it mean for an argument to be self-refuting?
A self-refuting idea or self-defeating idea is an idea or statement whose falsehood is a logical consequence of the act or situation of holding them to be true.
How did David Hume conclude that there is no self?
We cannot observe ourselves, or what we are, in a unified way. There is no impression of the “self” that ties our particular impressions together. Hume argues that our concept of the self is a result of our natural habit of attributing unified existence to any collection of associated parts.
Is solipsism self-refuting?
The argument aims at the conclusion that solipsism is self-refuting, because any statement of solipsism implies that those conditions are met with which solipsism is incompatible.
Is the eliminative form of materialism self refuting?
Several other philosophers also argue that eliminative materialism is self-refuting. However, other forms of materialism may escape this kind of argument because, rather than eliminating the mental, they seek to identify it with, or reduce it to, the material.
Why is the idea that nothing exists except matter self refuting?
Eliminative materialism. The philosopher Mary Midgley states that the idea that nothing exists except matter is also self-refuting because if it were true neither it, nor any other idea, would exist, and similarly that an argument to that effect would be self-refuting because it would deny its own existence.
What makes eliminative materialism a good theory of the mind?
One of the theories they discussed was eliminative materialism, the idea that there is no mind, really; it’s just the brain buzzing. Use Up/Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease volume. Here is a partial transcript with some notes: 01:55 | What defines a good theory of the mind?
Who is better an eliminative materialist or Descartes?
Eliminative materialists go further than Descartes on this point, since they challenge the existence of various mental states that Descartes took for granted. 1. A Brief History 2. Contemporary Eliminative Materialism