Eliminative materialism

Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism) is a materialist position in the philosophy of mind. Its primary claim is 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. Some eliminativists claim that no neural correlates will be found for many everyday psychological concepts, such as belief and desire, and that behaviour and experience can only be adequately explained on the biological level. Other versions entail the non-existence of conscious mental states such as pains and visual perceptions.

Eliminativism about a class of entities is the view that that class of entities does not exist. For example, atheism is eliminativist about God and other supernaturnatural entities; all forms of materialism are eliminativist about the soul; modern chemists are eliminativist about phlogiston; and modern physicists are eliminativist about the existence of ether.

Eliminative materialism is the relatively new (1960s-70s) idea that certain classes of mental entities that commonsense 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 Pat Churchland, and eliminativism about qualia (subjective experience), as expressed by Daniel Dennett and Georges Rey.

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