Electric Agora (archive)

Tag: Eliminative Materialism

  • Prolegomena for a Pluralist Metaphysics: Concluding Thoughts

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ The aim of these prolegomena has been to advocate on behalf of a pluralist metaphysics, but what is a metaphysics? Prior to the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries, a metaphysics was a First Philosophy: a set of propositions the purpose of which is to describe […]

  • Discussions with Crispin on the Prolegomena: Vol. 1

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ____ The first of what will be several dialogues with Crispin Sartwell (Dickinson College) on my Prolegomena for a Pluralist Metaphysics. https://youtu.be/AVU-vDtJoIo

  • Prolegomena for a Pluralist Metaphysics: Ontological Commitment

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ My working idea in these prolegomena is that (a) philosophers feel forced to embrace various “desperate” positions (Panpsychism, Dualism, Illusionism, etc.), because of a number of (often venerated) assumptions that they’ve taken on board, all of which happen to be wrong, and (b) the re-examination of those assumptions, within the […]

  • Course Notes – Paul Churchland, “Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes”

    by Daniel A. Kaufman https://ruccs.rutgers.edu/images/personal-zenon-pylyshyn/class-info/FP2012_readings/Churchland_EliminativeMaterialsm.pdf In the philosophy of mind, apart from sensations, with their perplexing “qualia,” intentional states, the so-called “propositional attitudes,” have proven materialism’s biggest headache.  Materialism’s greatest hope, functionalism – and particularly its computational variety – ran into trouble with the propositional attitudes by way of the Chinese (or at least, one […]