This thesis is a criticism of the theory in the philosophy of mind known as "eliminative materialism". While this theory has been advocated by a number of philosophers, none have pressed its thesis harder than Paul Churchland. Consequently, Churchland's work in this area has been the focus of current debates in the philosophy of mind.
Although several philosophers have developed significant objections to Churchland's formulation of the thesis, Churchland has always been ready with a convincing reply. For this reason I propose to attack Churchland on as fundamental a level as seems possible, namely, by questioning his prE~supposition that folk-psychological explanation is a species of causal explanation. Without this presupposition there is little reason to expect Churchland's proposed theoretical elimination of folk psychology by neuroscience;
for
folk-psychological
explanation
(principally,
reasongiving)
must
be
characterized
as
a
species
of
causal
explanation
if
it
is to be replaced by
a
better
causalexplanatory
theory of behaviour.
I
argue
that reason-giving explanations
are
not
a
species
of
causal explanation.
By undermining
one
of
the
central presuppositions of eliminative materialism,
I
hope
to cast sufficient doubt on Churchland's thesis. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/15828 |
| Date | 02 1900 |
| Creators | Campbell, Neil |
| Contributors | Allen, Barry, Philosophy |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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