Churchland's Eliminative Materialism Analysis

Let’s Eliminate Eliminative Materialism Throughout Churchland’s Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes, the argument in favor of eliminative materialism rests upon the establishment of folk psychology as a theory, subsequent rejection of said theory, and final illustration of the need to eliminate and replace it. Likewise, through criticism of functionalism as a barricade to elimination and establishment of this theory as a means to allow the confusion and error of folk psychology to persist, Churchland ultimately makes the argument that folk psychology must be eliminated and replaced with a scientifically sound explanation of the human condition. While Churchland’s argument is made and presented in a convincing and argumentatively …show more content…
Through this assertion and parallel, the case is ultimately made in favor of elimination rather than a simple reduction of folk psychology. As with the alchemists, whose concept of the elements vastly disagrees with modern day chemistry and quantum mechanics, the fault with adopting common sense theory lies in the attachment that grows with the theory’s prolonged existence sans rejection. By allowing scientifically false theories, as in the case of alchemy and folk psychology, to persist, their belief becomes “a thumb-worn part of everyman’s common sense,” and the case for elimination becomes more difficult. Through asserting that alchemy is a functional state and a poignant example of “the functionalist strategem,” Churchland ultimately rejects functionalism as a means to reconcile folk psychology as the functionalist approach reduces the common sense theory to an irreducible functional integrity, allowing the scientifically false theory to persist sans burden of naturalistic …show more content…
While the theory does hold in so far as it does not strictly require scientific foundations to eventually come to fruition, any hopes to apply such a theory to explain the human condition is directly correlated to the success of scientific research. This inapplicability thus marks eliminative materialism as little more than a proposal for the elimination of all other philosophical theories, and the theory fails to supply any inkling of hope that the advancement of science will result in eliminative materialism’s proposed findings. In analyzing this objection on the basis of the theory’s applicability, it is imperative to note the irony between the inapplicability of eliminative materialism and Churchland’s argument for the theory based on the inapplicability of folk psychology. It is not the case that eliminative materialism cannot eventually explain the mind-body problem, but in adopting this theory, the problem is no longer a problem for philosophers but instead for neuroscientists. Likewise, as science is constantly evolving and changing, as is the case for classical mechanics and quantum mechanics, shifting the burden to the sciences rests in the supposition that all of science will be solved, quod erat demonstrandum. However, this is such an erroneously optimistic supposition; while it is conceivable that a