Is Eliminative Materialism/ Folk
Psychology Convincing?
Statement of Intent: Eliminative Materialism is not convincing. This is because, folk psychology still has
powerful explanatory power remans the best hypothesis for our behaviour. Secondly, I will show that
eliminative materialism misunderstands the purpose of folk psychology and therefore makes a crucial
mistake in its conclusion of its judgement. Lastly and most crucially, the argument itself is self-refuting so
fundamentally eliminative materialism is flawed. Eliminative Materialism is fundamentally based on folk
psychology being false and therefore if I show it not to be the case then all is goooddd.
RICE 1:
R: The hypothesis that we have Intentional mental states remains the best hypothesis for explaining
human behaviour, and won’t be replaced in favour of a neuroscientific theory that eliminates Intentionality
I: Folk Psychology is not a good empirical theory at all. A good empirical theory is one that doesn't have a
lot of explanatory failures, potential for future development, and cohere with other empirical theories. Folk
Psychology does not tick any of those boxes. There are severe explanatory gaps e.g folk psychology is
unable to explain mental illness, imagination, sleep, memory. Folk Psychology has seem little growth is is
largely stagnant in its development and folk psychology doesn't cohere with other empirical theories (e/g
particle physics, organic chemistry etc) mainly cause folk psychology is committed to intentionality which
is mysterious and not seen in the other sciences because physical processes are never ABOUT
something. In comparison, nearoscience is progressing much quicker, can explain a wider variety of these
things and also does cohere with physics and therefore nearoscience is the best hypothesis for explaning
human behaviour so should be replaced and eliminate folk psychological terms.
C: It is being quite unfair to folk psychology and misunderstands the purpose of it. Folk psychology was
never intended to explain things such as mental illnesses and sleep and therefore it is not a weakness of
the theory to be unable to account for them. The purpose of folk psychology is to explain human
behaviour and actions and if that is its purpose then it has in fact been very successful particularly in its
predictive and explanatory power. If you know someone’s desires and what they belief with folk
psychology you can predict what they will do. For example if you ask someone why they went to the
cinema they can respond that they love films etc. By contrast neuroscience is useless at predicting what
you will do and won’t be able to explain why you went to the cinema.
I: We need to know how human action or behaviour relates to the rest of mental life. To have different
theories explain different aspects (eg, predictive, explanatory etc) is very unsatisfactory as they are very
different theories of mind. Not only this tbh the developments in folk psychology are very superficial - the
explanatory power is much less power then the kinds of explanations we find in science. eg. going to the
cinema because you love film isn’t as powerful as an explanation then neurons firing etc which is more
accurate and concrete empirical evidence. and therefore the only way to ‘increase’ the explanatory power
is to look to neuroscience. For example, it turns out that some people are more easily addicted to
substances (food, alcohol, smoking, drugs) than others. We might, common-sensically, say that they have
less ‘will-power’. But it turns out that they have different dopamine systems (dopamine is a neurochemical
that relates to motivation and a sense of pleasure or ‘reward’ when you get what you want). So now what
should we think about ‘will-power’? What is it? Is there really anything such thing?
C: The eliminative materialist is underestimating the impact folk psychology has and is wrong to think it is
severly outdated. Furthermore folk psychology has been fundamental in the development of psychology
as we know today as ideas such as unconscious beliefs and desires come from folk psychology. In
modern psychology here are many findings and theories which use folk psychological concepts - to
eliminate as such will eliminate a lot of scientific psychology as well as folk psychology. Folk psychology
Is Eliminative Materialism/ Folk Psychology Convincing? 1
Psychology Convincing?
Statement of Intent: Eliminative Materialism is not convincing. This is because, folk psychology still has
powerful explanatory power remans the best hypothesis for our behaviour. Secondly, I will show that
eliminative materialism misunderstands the purpose of folk psychology and therefore makes a crucial
mistake in its conclusion of its judgement. Lastly and most crucially, the argument itself is self-refuting so
fundamentally eliminative materialism is flawed. Eliminative Materialism is fundamentally based on folk
psychology being false and therefore if I show it not to be the case then all is goooddd.
RICE 1:
R: The hypothesis that we have Intentional mental states remains the best hypothesis for explaining
human behaviour, and won’t be replaced in favour of a neuroscientific theory that eliminates Intentionality
I: Folk Psychology is not a good empirical theory at all. A good empirical theory is one that doesn't have a
lot of explanatory failures, potential for future development, and cohere with other empirical theories. Folk
Psychology does not tick any of those boxes. There are severe explanatory gaps e.g folk psychology is
unable to explain mental illness, imagination, sleep, memory. Folk Psychology has seem little growth is is
largely stagnant in its development and folk psychology doesn't cohere with other empirical theories (e/g
particle physics, organic chemistry etc) mainly cause folk psychology is committed to intentionality which
is mysterious and not seen in the other sciences because physical processes are never ABOUT
something. In comparison, nearoscience is progressing much quicker, can explain a wider variety of these
things and also does cohere with physics and therefore nearoscience is the best hypothesis for explaning
human behaviour so should be replaced and eliminate folk psychological terms.
C: It is being quite unfair to folk psychology and misunderstands the purpose of it. Folk psychology was
never intended to explain things such as mental illnesses and sleep and therefore it is not a weakness of
the theory to be unable to account for them. The purpose of folk psychology is to explain human
behaviour and actions and if that is its purpose then it has in fact been very successful particularly in its
predictive and explanatory power. If you know someone’s desires and what they belief with folk
psychology you can predict what they will do. For example if you ask someone why they went to the
cinema they can respond that they love films etc. By contrast neuroscience is useless at predicting what
you will do and won’t be able to explain why you went to the cinema.
I: We need to know how human action or behaviour relates to the rest of mental life. To have different
theories explain different aspects (eg, predictive, explanatory etc) is very unsatisfactory as they are very
different theories of mind. Not only this tbh the developments in folk psychology are very superficial - the
explanatory power is much less power then the kinds of explanations we find in science. eg. going to the
cinema because you love film isn’t as powerful as an explanation then neurons firing etc which is more
accurate and concrete empirical evidence. and therefore the only way to ‘increase’ the explanatory power
is to look to neuroscience. For example, it turns out that some people are more easily addicted to
substances (food, alcohol, smoking, drugs) than others. We might, common-sensically, say that they have
less ‘will-power’. But it turns out that they have different dopamine systems (dopamine is a neurochemical
that relates to motivation and a sense of pleasure or ‘reward’ when you get what you want). So now what
should we think about ‘will-power’? What is it? Is there really anything such thing?
C: The eliminative materialist is underestimating the impact folk psychology has and is wrong to think it is
severly outdated. Furthermore folk psychology has been fundamental in the development of psychology
as we know today as ideas such as unconscious beliefs and desires come from folk psychology. In
modern psychology here are many findings and theories which use folk psychological concepts - to
eliminate as such will eliminate a lot of scientific psychology as well as folk psychology. Folk psychology
Is Eliminative Materialism/ Folk Psychology Convincing? 1
