Eliminative materialism

The nature of the mind in relation to the body is a widely debated and unsolved topic that has plagued the human quest for truth. The question has deep philosophical roots and has several titles, for example, the mind-body problem, mind-body interaction problem, or the hard problem of consciousness. Prima facie, the question may appear unnecessary as we ourselves obviously have minds, and we can physically feel and experience the world around us. Descartes famously stepped up the game on this…

This is the theory of physicalism, also known as materialism. To better explain, physicalist support the idea that psychology and biology are the same thing. Believers of this theory advocate for thoughts and feelings to be examined and discussed as biological mechanisms. This thesis is where cause and effect…

In philosophy, a theory that includes the viewing of the the mind and body as being separate kinds of substances or natures is known as mind- body dualism. This stance implies that the mind and body not only differ in meaning but refer to different kinds of entities. Thus, a person that proposes the concept of dualism would oppose any theory that identifies mind with the brain, conceived as a physical operant. Descartes reaches this conclusion by arguing that the nature of the mind is…

(a) Physicalism is defined as being able to describe everything in our world through physical processes. This means that all facts are the result of physical facts, including brain states. Also, because everything results from physical facts there are only physical facts. Everything is able to be broken down through any means whether through chemistry or biology or any other way to its smallest parts and still be explained by its physical parts. (b) Armstrong’s argument for physicalism is…

The discussion of morals and moral responsibility is deep-seated in the classic philosophical repertoire. A closely related matter, and a frequent objection to moral responsibility, is determinism, the idea that given the initial state and laws of the universe, all future events and outcomes are completely determined. Over the course of this paper, I describe a particular theory for how moral responsibility can exist even in a deterministic universe. One prominent view in the realm of moral…