Reductive materialism is the view that all mental phenomena can be reduced to and identified with material processes. That is, each type of mental state or process is one and the same thing as some type of physical state or process in the brain or central nervous system. Whilst eliminative materialism suggests that folk psychology is incompatible with neuroscience and doesn’t exist, reductive materialism implies that it is, and furthermore they operate on a one-to-one relationship.
One of the biggest criticisms of folk psychology is its widespread shortcomings. So much of what is important to us remains shrouded in mystery even when we apply folk psychology to it. One of the examples Paul Churchland uses in his article is sleep. Despite spending almost two millennia concerned with its purpose we still don’t know what higher purpose sleep serves. Other examples used to illustrate the shortcomings of folk psychology are how learning transforms us into adults, how differences in intelligence are grounded, and how memory works.
However, to this we can reply that eliminative materialism merely exaggerates the defects in folk psychology. A rise in the success of neuroscience will have an effect on folk psychology, and minor alterations will have to be made, but to eliminate it as a theory is wrong since there are many arguments in favour of it which neuroscience, as yet, cannot argue.
For another argument we can turn to history to show that folk psychology has nearly always been wrong. In his article Churchland uses the examples of motion, structure and activity of the heavens, the nature of fire, and the nature of life, to show how folk psychology in the past has been proved foolish. Indeed, the only theory not to have been dispelled is that of folk psychology itself, which continues to haunt us. However, as Churchland states, when we are faced by such difficult phenomena to understand any theory, no matter how feeble, is unlikely to be displaced in a hurry.
However, to this we can apply the problem of qualia: the subjective qualities of conscious experience. For example the way chocolate tastes or the way pain feels. How could part of the physical universe come to have consciousness? How can we, just physical matter, come to explain how something feels, or experience? Using the example of a blind person, and trying to explain what the colour red is like to them, there is no way, even if they knew the location of every single atom in our bodies, that they could ever understand what the experience of seeing red was actually like. Therefore it follows that our experience is not a physical fact within us, it is something non-physical. Furthermore, surely it is just obvious that eliminative materialism is false due to the existence of certain states such as pain, happiness and love. Whilst to some extent this is the same problem that has arisen over the years, that things are just obvious (like witches?), the fact remains that all our observations are built on a conceptual framework. To any example the eliminative materialist throws at us we can reply, as Churchland states, by saying that what is being challenged here is the integrity of the background framework in which the observations are being expressed. So as opposed to witches ceasing to exist, we are merely saying that further knowledge is changing our perception of what we first perceived the idea to be.
A third argument for eliminative materialism says that folk psychology is incompatible with neuroscience, and must be eliminated. More and more examples are emerging that prove neuroscience as an explanation, rather than folk psychology, which is being shown to have more and more shortcomings. The underlying point here is that, as science develops, we are shunning folk psychology in favour of neuroscience as an explanation for states of mind such as pain and laughter, and eventually will be able to conclusively prove that states of mind like pain are just brain states. For example, when someone is in pain their brain is in a certain state, certain neurones are firing in their brain. For someone to be in pain just is for those neurones to be firing, pain is that particular brain state. Although we cannot show it now, there is nothing to suggest that science will not one day advance enough to allow us to see what brain state pain is, and furthermore laughter, feeling happy or love, and experiencing colour. Each of these different experiences is just a brain state. An argument to this however, is that when you feel a pain in your foot it is exactly that, a pain in your foot, not in your brain. However, sometimes when people have a limb amputated they still claim to be able to feel pain in that limb. If this is to be the case it can’t be right to say that we feel pain anywhere outside our brains, because we wouldn’t be able to feel pain if it weren’t for some process in our brains.
The only criticism that can be applied to this argument is that the term eliminative materialism, which implies that familiar mental states do not really exist, is in itself wrong. This statement can only be meaningful if it expresses a certain belief, an intention, and knowledge of the language, but if this is to run in line with the statement, familiar mental states do not exist, it must therefore be concluded that it is just a meaningless string of words or noises with no purpose. However, the eliminative materialist would reply to this that what, then, are the grounds for meaning within a statement? As Churchland states: if eliminative materialism is true, then meaningfulness must have some different source.
A final argument in favour of eliminative materialism concerns determinism. If it can be said that the physical universe is always fixed in advance by how things are physically it cannot then be said that we have any control over our actions, and furthermore that something non-physical, like our souls, can affect what happens at that physical level. The implication here is that there can be no room for souls (and folk psychology), and we are purely physical matter that can be explained by neuroscience.
An obvious criticism here is the assumption of determinism. Since it is impossible to prove whether we posses freewill or not it is not a fair argument and must be dismissed. However, were that proof possible it seems this is possibly the strongest argument in favour of eliminative materialism.
In conclusion, although I have presented arguments both for and against the elimination of folk psychology in favour of the developing neuroscience I would say this is the way forward. In my opinion the rapid advances of neuroscience will someday prove that the mind states are just brain states, and the past shortcomings, if not collapses, of folk psychology, are to conclusive to think otherwise. Furthermore, our minds must somehow be part of the physical universe: it seems that, if our minds weren’t physical, they wouldn’t be able to make our bodies move about, which they can. This again strongly implies that the mind is a purely physical thing, or doesn’t even exist at all: another aspect of folk psychology we can eliminate in favour of neuroscience. My biggest issue with this view is the qualia problem. Although science continues to develop in a way that should one day dispel this problem and prove it to be nothing more than a series of states we can show in the brain it continues to be a thorn in my argument.
Bibliography
Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau, Reason &Responsibility, 11th Edition (New York, Wadsworth Group, 2002)
Ted Honderich, Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995)
John Hospers, An introduction to Philosophical Analysis, 3rd Edition (London, Routledge, 1996)
Stephen Law, The Philosophy Files (London, Orion Children’s Books, 2000)
