page_title: Eliminative materialism
hierarchical_section_title: Eliminative materialism
caption_attribution_description: English: From Andreas Cellarius Harmonia Macrocosmica, 1660/61. Chart showing signs of the zodiac and the solar system with world at centre. Plate 2: SCENOGRAPHIA SYSTEMATIS MVNDANI PTOLEMAICI - Scenography of the Ptolemaic cosmography. Title: Scenographia systematis mvndani Ptolemaici [cartographic material]. Publisher: [Amsterdam&#160;: s.n., 1660] Physical Description: 1 map&#160;: col.&#160;; 38 cm. in diam. Notes: "444" in top right hand margin in pencil. Rex Nan Kivell Collection Map NK 10241. Call Number: MAP NK 10241 Amicus Number: 9995246 Français&#160;: Extrait de l'Harmonia Macroscomica d'Andreas Cellarius, 1660/61. Figure montrant les signes du zodiaque et le système solaire avec la Terre en son centre, selon le système de Ptolémée.
context_page_description: Eliminative materialism is the claim that people's common-sense understanding of the mind is false and that certain classes of mental states that most people believe in do not exist. It is a materialist position in the philosophy of mind. Some supporters of eliminativism argue that no coherent neural basis will be found for many everyday psychological concepts such as belief or desire, since they are poorly defined. Rather, they argue that psychological concepts of behaviour and experience should be judged by how well they reduce to the biological level. Other versions entail the non-existence of conscious mental states such as pain and visual perceptions.
  Eliminativism about a class of entities is the view that the class of entities does not exist. For example, materialism tends to be eliminativist about the soul; modern chemists are eliminativist about phlogiston; and modern physicists are eliminativist about the existence of luminiferous aether. Eliminative materialism is the relatively new idea that certain classes of mental entities that common sense takes for granted, such as beliefs, desires, and the subjective sensation of pain, do not exist.
context_section_description: Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism)  is the claim that people's common-sense understanding of the mind (or folk psychology) is false and that certain classes of mental states that most people believe in do not exist. It is a materialist position in the philosophy of mind. Some supporters of eliminativism argue that no coherent neural basis will be found for many everyday psychological concepts such as belief or desire, since they are poorly defined. Rather, they argue that psychological concepts of behaviour and experience should be judged by how well they reduce to the biological level. Other versions entail the non-existence of conscious mental states such as pain and visual perceptions.
  Eliminativism about a class of entities is the view that the class of entities does not exist. For example, materialism tends to be eliminativist about the soul; modern chemists are eliminativist about phlogiston; and modern physicists are eliminativist about the existence of luminiferous aether. Eliminative materialism is the relatively new (1960s–1970s) idea that certain classes of mental entities that common sense takes for granted, such as beliefs, desires, and the subjective sensation of pain, do not exist. The most common versions are eliminativism about propositional attitudes, as expressed by Paul and Patricia Churchland, and eliminativism about qualia (subjective interpretations about particular instances of subjective experience), as expressed by Daniel Dennett and Georges Rey. These philosophers often appeal to an introspection illusion.
  In the context of materialist understandings of psychology, eliminativism stands in opposition to reductive materialism  which argues that mental states as conventionally understood do exist, and that they directly correspond to the physical state of the nervous system.  An intermediate position is revisionary materialism, which will often argue that the mental state in question will prove to be somewhat reducible to physical phenomena—with some changes needed to the common sense concept.
  Since eliminative materialism claims that future research will fail to find a neuronal basis for various mental phenomena, it must necessarily wait for science to progress further. One might question the position on these grounds, but other philosophers like Churchland argue that eliminativism is often necessary in order to open the minds of thinkers to new evidence and better explanations.
caption: Eliminativists argue that modern belief in the existence of mental phenomena is analogous to the ancient belief in obsolete theories such as the geocentric model of the universe.
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