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This program seems to want to get rid of phlogiston theory by proposing that fire does not exist. 74.192.15.216 ( talk) 12:57, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Bryan and Adam, Since Fred allowed me to have a link to Occam's Sword at Wikinfo for the Occam's Razor entry, I thought it would also be alright to have one here. If its not ok with either of you let me know. Phil 14:36 Jun 25, 2004
Hey guys, While I'm not a native speaker of English, the last sentence seems to be convoluted:
I couldn't find any mention of what is "objectors's premise" (nor "objector's" or "objectors'"). It should be changed to at least a grammatically correct version, however since I'm not sure which version is proper I can't change it. -- olya 04:57, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
To the hanged man: I noticed you made some changes to my last edit here. I'm wondering what you found inaccurate about what I said. Could you please explain? Alienus 06:37, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Recent edits seem to stray a little from a NPOV... e.g. "In the end, Eliminative Materialists must acknowledge that their theory is self-defeating, or simply cease to engage in dialogues with their opponents."
Perhaps someone with a little more knowledge of the area can address the issues here.
- Vaughan 22:03, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I expanded the article, but we still need a better "Arguments for eliminativism" section, further explaining the theory-theory. -- Kripkenstein 12:42, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Expanded arguments for, but not the "theory" theory. -- Lacatosias 13:57, 14 February 2006 (UTC) {{}}
"Eliminativists believe that no coherent neural basis will be found for many everyday psychological concepts such as belief or desire and that behaviour and experience can only be adequately explained on the biological level."
In case you didn't notice, neurons are on the biological level. Either the first half of the sentece is right, or the second half is, but not both.
Is anyone familiar with Bickle's (1998) ideas about "smooth" versus "bumpy" reductions? In his book, Psychoneural Reduction: The New Wave, Bickle lays out a framework in which reductions are the main framework, and the question is just how much the two frameworks need to be modified so that they fit together. So, in the case of reductive materialism, he would suggest a fairly smooth reduction, while in the case of eliminative materialism, a fairly bumpy reduction. The bumpier the reduction, the more theory change required, and the more likely that one of the two frameworks is likely to be eliminated (the extreme case of a bumpy reduction). Paul Churchland finds this framework quite useful, and has used Bickle's book as the starting point for one of his grad philosophy classes. Perhaps some mention of that would be useful here? Edhubbard 14:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I've created a new image for the EM framework. Essentially, I've added some shading to the Folk Psychology box to illustrate two things 1) Different EM theorists make different bets about which bits of FP will be eliminated and which will be reduced (see my additions re: Dennet v. the Churchlands), and this new version illustrates that range of positions and 2) My reading of Dennett and the Churchlands suggests that they do not believe that neuroscience will completely eliminate all higher level theories, of vocabularies. Therefore, there must be some higher order vocabulary, even if it is radically different from the vocabulary of FP that we currently employ. If people think that this image and this discussion could improve the article, I will be happy to change the main page. If not, no worries, it only took a few minutes to add the gradient. Edhubbard 21:56, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I have re-added in the term "propositional attitudes" in reference to the Churchlands' views. since there is a subtle distinction to be made here. In general, there are different ways to concieve of the Intentionality relationship between our mental contents and the objects in the world. One common way, related to Searle's thinking (drawing on speech act theory), Fodor's language of thought, and many others, is to think of the Intentionality relationship like a set of sentences (propositions) whose content is identified with a "that" clause. Joe belives that X, Rene assumes that y, etc. However, there are other ways to concieve of the intentionality relation, for example as an imagistic isomorophism between mental contents and physical objects in the world. The Churchlands are opposed to this propositional view of Intentionality, but do not deny that there is something like an intentionality relation that needs to be satisfied between our mental contents and the objects in the world. Pat Churchland's PhD student (and now UCSD faculty member) Rick Grush dealt with the "architecture of representation" in his PhD dissertation, and how a non-propositional attitude system could still be thought of a representational or Intentional system. Edhubbard 22:57, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 01:40, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm glad to see this small improvment in the GA process actually. It shuld not be limited to just references though. I was going to delist this myself, even though I wrote the whole thing!! I don't have the time or desire to do the in-line cites now though.-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:50, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone oppose eliminativism on the grounds that folk psych not a theory but more akin to a system of classification that ( despite intial appearances) makes no actual emprical claims?
In addressing the issue of self-refutation, the article states that exponents (not proponents, which implies a truth-value) of the theory state it in a way that not does require a truth value. However, the introduction appears to completely ignore this, describing the theroy entirely in terms of the truth or falseness of a proposition. Perhaps the introduction should refrain from formulating the theory in terms of any propositions with truth values. Otherwise, it would seem to be taking an express position on the self-refutation argument. If the theory isn't really saying that consciousness is false -- if it's just asserting non-consciousness, without making any assertion about the truth of consciousness as a theory -- this should be made clear. Best, -- Shirahadasha 22:51, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Some are eliminativists about qualia but not propositional attitudes, and vice-versa. This should be included.
One way to summarize the difference between the Churchlands's views and Dennett's view is that the Churchlands are eliminativists when it comes to propositional attitudes, but reductionists concerning qualia, while Dennett is a reductionist with respect to propositional attitudes, and an eliminativist concerning qualia.[16] -- Francesco Franco 08:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Dennett is most certainly NOT a reductionist about propositional attitudes. There would be no reason for him to create his "stance" theory of various types of predication if the functional and intentional vocabularies were reducible from the latter to the former or from either to the physical. Dennett is not an eliminativist about qualia because he doesn't think there is any coherent notion to eliminate--"Quining Qualia" is not his attempt to suggest that we not countenance the objects of qualia-laden vocabulary on the grounds that such vocabulary simply isn't adequately explanatory; Dennett is trying to argue that the notion of qualia is simply incoherent. 150.212.4.123 ( talk) 21:17, 30 August 2010 (UTC)Nathan Zimmerman
Skinner was a materialist. I think mentioning the psychologist without noting others and explanation of the differences among them is misleading. -- Kenneth M Burke 21:18, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Anyone want to help with the eliminativism section of the reductionism article? It's unsourced and I know next to nothing about it. Some cleanup and citations would greatly improve that section of the page. Thanks. Cazort ( talk) 20:25, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Is there any empirical evidence for this? It's seems to me that Churchland has no real arguments or evidence to support his hypothesis, and that his argument basically boils down to not much more than that he belives most people are stupid, therefore what most people belive can not be true. I see nothing in the article that suggest that this is anything but a crackpot theory. Passw0rd ( talk) 19:06, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I edited the false atheism definition and materialism definition.
Original: Eliminativism about a class of entities is the view that that class of entities does not exist.[3] For example, atheism is eliminativist about God and other supernatural entities; all forms of materialism are eliminativist about the soul;
Atheism does not equal denial of other supernatural entities (and weak atheism does not deny God).
Materialism does not deny the soul if that is defined as material, which it sometimes is. Materialism can only be said to always deny non-material entities. -- Deleet ( talk) 08:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
From what I can gather, eliminative materialism is basically the belief than humans are philosophical zombies, at least parts of the article seem to depict eliminative materlialism that way. I think the article should be more clear on some things, such as what is meant by the statement that there is no class of mental entities for the subjective experience of pain. Does that mean that pain can not be experienced, i.e. we are philosophical zombies, or does it just mean that pain is a poorly defined word that can refer to a range of experiences resulting from the activation of different neuronal networks whose activation leads to a range of subjective experiences of different types of what we collectively refer to as pain. - MistySpock ( talk) 22:13, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing Sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I went through the article and made various changes, please look them over. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good Article. Altogether the article is well-written and is still in great shape after its passing in 2006. Continue to improve the article making sure all new information is properly sourced and neutral. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I have updated the article history to reflect this review. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 ( talk • contrib) 20:05, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I've reverted the recent bold revision per WP:BRD:
Please propose changes and seek WP:CONSENSUS for them. Thanks.— Machine Elf 1735 11:37, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
In the introduction, the article appears to equate qualia with subjective experiences, but I am not sure whether or not they are indeed similar. For instance, I often hear that Dennett does not deny subjective experience, though he denies immaterial qualia, suggesting there is a difference that is being overlooked. I won't edit the article right now, but I want to know if there is there is any justification for doing so. 99.234.145.34 ( talk) 16:45, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
Illusionism (consciousness) redirects here. But this article makes no mention of illusionism (introspective illusion gets a mention but is something else again). In the context of consciousness theory, what is the relationship between eliminative materialism and illusionism? — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 17:00, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
The large amount of content added 5 Oct 2020 needs to be rewritten in encyclopedic voice. It should also be checked carefully against the sources; I suspect more than a little original research. (Actually, it reads as possible copyvio but I can't find any matches to support that.) Schazjmd (talk) 20:14, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Article has had two banners on it for two years, and the raised issues raised on the talk page by @ Schazjmd: about content added in 2020 seem to have largely gone unaddressed. Additionally, the majority of revisions since then have been hidden for WP:COPYVIO, from content added in those same series of edits. WP:QF criteria 3, and possibly 2. - car chasm ( talk) 06:29, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
It's a difficult topic and there's no way around that. At the same time, philosophers are by and large not neuroscientists, so even someone highly informed about the topic may struggle with this section. Is there any way to improve it without dumbing it down? 2603:7081:1603:A300:1141:BDAB:9C4E:6D99 ( talk) 18:28, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Eliminative materialism article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
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Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | Eliminative materialism has been listed as one of the Philosophy and religion good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it. | |||||||||||||||
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Current status: Good article |
![]() | This article is rated GA-class on Wikipedia's
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This program seems to want to get rid of phlogiston theory by proposing that fire does not exist. 74.192.15.216 ( talk) 12:57, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Bryan and Adam, Since Fred allowed me to have a link to Occam's Sword at Wikinfo for the Occam's Razor entry, I thought it would also be alright to have one here. If its not ok with either of you let me know. Phil 14:36 Jun 25, 2004
Hey guys, While I'm not a native speaker of English, the last sentence seems to be convoluted:
I couldn't find any mention of what is "objectors's premise" (nor "objector's" or "objectors'"). It should be changed to at least a grammatically correct version, however since I'm not sure which version is proper I can't change it. -- olya 04:57, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
To the hanged man: I noticed you made some changes to my last edit here. I'm wondering what you found inaccurate about what I said. Could you please explain? Alienus 06:37, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Recent edits seem to stray a little from a NPOV... e.g. "In the end, Eliminative Materialists must acknowledge that their theory is self-defeating, or simply cease to engage in dialogues with their opponents."
Perhaps someone with a little more knowledge of the area can address the issues here.
- Vaughan 22:03, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
I expanded the article, but we still need a better "Arguments for eliminativism" section, further explaining the theory-theory. -- Kripkenstein 12:42, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Expanded arguments for, but not the "theory" theory. -- Lacatosias 13:57, 14 February 2006 (UTC) {{}}
"Eliminativists believe that no coherent neural basis will be found for many everyday psychological concepts such as belief or desire and that behaviour and experience can only be adequately explained on the biological level."
In case you didn't notice, neurons are on the biological level. Either the first half of the sentece is right, or the second half is, but not both.
Is anyone familiar with Bickle's (1998) ideas about "smooth" versus "bumpy" reductions? In his book, Psychoneural Reduction: The New Wave, Bickle lays out a framework in which reductions are the main framework, and the question is just how much the two frameworks need to be modified so that they fit together. So, in the case of reductive materialism, he would suggest a fairly smooth reduction, while in the case of eliminative materialism, a fairly bumpy reduction. The bumpier the reduction, the more theory change required, and the more likely that one of the two frameworks is likely to be eliminated (the extreme case of a bumpy reduction). Paul Churchland finds this framework quite useful, and has used Bickle's book as the starting point for one of his grad philosophy classes. Perhaps some mention of that would be useful here? Edhubbard 14:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I've created a new image for the EM framework. Essentially, I've added some shading to the Folk Psychology box to illustrate two things 1) Different EM theorists make different bets about which bits of FP will be eliminated and which will be reduced (see my additions re: Dennet v. the Churchlands), and this new version illustrates that range of positions and 2) My reading of Dennett and the Churchlands suggests that they do not believe that neuroscience will completely eliminate all higher level theories, of vocabularies. Therefore, there must be some higher order vocabulary, even if it is radically different from the vocabulary of FP that we currently employ. If people think that this image and this discussion could improve the article, I will be happy to change the main page. If not, no worries, it only took a few minutes to add the gradient. Edhubbard 21:56, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I have re-added in the term "propositional attitudes" in reference to the Churchlands' views. since there is a subtle distinction to be made here. In general, there are different ways to concieve of the Intentionality relationship between our mental contents and the objects in the world. One common way, related to Searle's thinking (drawing on speech act theory), Fodor's language of thought, and many others, is to think of the Intentionality relationship like a set of sentences (propositions) whose content is identified with a "that" clause. Joe belives that X, Rene assumes that y, etc. However, there are other ways to concieve of the intentionality relation, for example as an imagistic isomorophism between mental contents and physical objects in the world. The Churchlands are opposed to this propositional view of Intentionality, but do not deny that there is something like an intentionality relation that needs to be satisfied between our mental contents and the objects in the world. Pat Churchland's PhD student (and now UCSD faculty member) Rick Grush dealt with the "architecture of representation" in his PhD dissertation, and how a non-propositional attitude system could still be thought of a representational or Intentional system. Edhubbard 22:57, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. Agne 01:40, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm glad to see this small improvment in the GA process actually. It shuld not be limited to just references though. I was going to delist this myself, even though I wrote the whole thing!! I don't have the time or desire to do the in-line cites now though.-- Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 07:50, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Does anyone oppose eliminativism on the grounds that folk psych not a theory but more akin to a system of classification that ( despite intial appearances) makes no actual emprical claims?
In addressing the issue of self-refutation, the article states that exponents (not proponents, which implies a truth-value) of the theory state it in a way that not does require a truth value. However, the introduction appears to completely ignore this, describing the theroy entirely in terms of the truth or falseness of a proposition. Perhaps the introduction should refrain from formulating the theory in terms of any propositions with truth values. Otherwise, it would seem to be taking an express position on the self-refutation argument. If the theory isn't really saying that consciousness is false -- if it's just asserting non-consciousness, without making any assertion about the truth of consciousness as a theory -- this should be made clear. Best, -- Shirahadasha 22:51, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Some are eliminativists about qualia but not propositional attitudes, and vice-versa. This should be included.
One way to summarize the difference between the Churchlands's views and Dennett's view is that the Churchlands are eliminativists when it comes to propositional attitudes, but reductionists concerning qualia, while Dennett is a reductionist with respect to propositional attitudes, and an eliminativist concerning qualia.[16] -- Francesco Franco 08:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
Dennett is most certainly NOT a reductionist about propositional attitudes. There would be no reason for him to create his "stance" theory of various types of predication if the functional and intentional vocabularies were reducible from the latter to the former or from either to the physical. Dennett is not an eliminativist about qualia because he doesn't think there is any coherent notion to eliminate--"Quining Qualia" is not his attempt to suggest that we not countenance the objects of qualia-laden vocabulary on the grounds that such vocabulary simply isn't adequately explanatory; Dennett is trying to argue that the notion of qualia is simply incoherent. 150.212.4.123 ( talk) 21:17, 30 August 2010 (UTC)Nathan Zimmerman
Skinner was a materialist. I think mentioning the psychologist without noting others and explanation of the differences among them is misleading. -- Kenneth M Burke 21:18, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Anyone want to help with the eliminativism section of the reductionism article? It's unsourced and I know next to nothing about it. Some cleanup and citations would greatly improve that section of the page. Thanks. Cazort ( talk) 20:25, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Is there any empirical evidence for this? It's seems to me that Churchland has no real arguments or evidence to support his hypothesis, and that his argument basically boils down to not much more than that he belives most people are stupid, therefore what most people belive can not be true. I see nothing in the article that suggest that this is anything but a crackpot theory. Passw0rd ( talk) 19:06, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I edited the false atheism definition and materialism definition.
Original: Eliminativism about a class of entities is the view that that class of entities does not exist.[3] For example, atheism is eliminativist about God and other supernatural entities; all forms of materialism are eliminativist about the soul;
Atheism does not equal denial of other supernatural entities (and weak atheism does not deny God).
Materialism does not deny the soul if that is defined as material, which it sometimes is. Materialism can only be said to always deny non-material entities. -- Deleet ( talk) 08:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
From what I can gather, eliminative materialism is basically the belief than humans are philosophical zombies, at least parts of the article seem to depict eliminative materlialism that way. I think the article should be more clear on some things, such as what is meant by the statement that there is no class of mental entities for the subjective experience of pain. Does that mean that pain can not be experienced, i.e. we are philosophical zombies, or does it just mean that pain is a poorly defined word that can refer to a range of experiences resulting from the activation of different neuronal networks whose activation leads to a range of subjective experiences of different types of what we collectively refer to as pain. - MistySpock ( talk) 22:13, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing Sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I went through the article and made various changes, please look them over. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good Article. Altogether the article is well-written and is still in great shape after its passing in 2006. Continue to improve the article making sure all new information is properly sourced and neutral. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I have updated the article history to reflect this review. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 ( talk • contrib) 20:05, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
I've reverted the recent bold revision per WP:BRD:
Please propose changes and seek WP:CONSENSUS for them. Thanks.— Machine Elf 1735 11:37, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
In the introduction, the article appears to equate qualia with subjective experiences, but I am not sure whether or not they are indeed similar. For instance, I often hear that Dennett does not deny subjective experience, though he denies immaterial qualia, suggesting there is a difference that is being overlooked. I won't edit the article right now, but I want to know if there is there is any justification for doing so. 99.234.145.34 ( talk) 16:45, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
Illusionism (consciousness) redirects here. But this article makes no mention of illusionism (introspective illusion gets a mention but is something else again). In the context of consciousness theory, what is the relationship between eliminative materialism and illusionism? — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 17:00, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
The large amount of content added 5 Oct 2020 needs to be rewritten in encyclopedic voice. It should also be checked carefully against the sources; I suspect more than a little original research. (Actually, it reads as possible copyvio but I can't find any matches to support that.) Schazjmd (talk) 20:14, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Article has had two banners on it for two years, and the raised issues raised on the talk page by @ Schazjmd: about content added in 2020 seem to have largely gone unaddressed. Additionally, the majority of revisions since then have been hidden for WP:COPYVIO, from content added in those same series of edits. WP:QF criteria 3, and possibly 2. - car chasm ( talk) 06:29, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
It's a difficult topic and there's no way around that. At the same time, philosophers are by and large not neuroscientists, so even someone highly informed about the topic may struggle with this section. Is there any way to improve it without dumbing it down? 2603:7081:1603:A300:1141:BDAB:9C4E:6D99 ( talk) 18:28, 11 March 2024 (UTC)