1. What do these statements have in common?
Water is a basic element. It cannot be broken down into anything simpler.
The Black Death was caused by “bad air”.
The sky is a sphere that turns daily, allowing the sun and clouds to appear as if they’re moving.
Heat is a subtle fluid called caloric that gets suffused through material bodies.
Objects contain sound particles that are dispersed into the air when the object is struck.
The earth is flat.

2. What do these statements have in common?
Water is a basic element. It cannot be broken down into anything simpler.
The Black Death was caused by “bad air”.
The sky is a sphere that turns daily, allowing the sun and clouds to appear as if they’re moving.
Heat is a subtle fluid called caloric that gets suffused through material bodies.
Objects contain sound particles that are dispersed into the air when the object is struck.
The earth is flat.
These are all examples of ideas that have been eliminated from our current view of the world as they have been shown to be outright wrong or seriously mistaken.

3. What does this have to do with mind?
We know there is a strong connection between the brain and the mind. Behaviour seems to be caused by particular events in the brain etc. The question we tried to answer with the MBTIT topic was: “Will the common-sense ontology of beliefs and desires reduce to the neuroscientific ontology of brain states and processes?” Or to put it more simply: “Are mental states just another way of talking about brain states?”

4. What have we seen so far?
Dualists – No reduction of mental states to brain states. They are two separate things. Neuroscience can’t provide a science of the mind.
Mind Brain Type Identity Theory – Mental states can be reduced to brain states, they are the same thing we just use different words for different reasons. Neuroscience therefore will eventually be able to provide a science of the mind, we’ll just keep using the mental terms because they have useful meanings.

5. Eliminative Materialism
We now have a slightly different type of theory to look at, known as eliminative materialism, philosophers supporting this view argue that we cannot reduce mental states to brain states because mental states as we currently understand them do not exist. They are not a thing. They are folk-psychology. Instead we should eliminate all talk of mental states and replace them with neuroscientific terms instead.

6. Churchland
Who – Paul Churchland When – 1942-??? Where – Canada Noted Contribution – Neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind particularly eliminative materialism. Important Point – Sometimes confused with his wife Patricia Churchland, as their works share many ideas. They are sometimes discussed in books and journals as one person.

7. Key Ideas – Folk Psychology
Folk psychology for Churchland is the human capacity to explain and predict the behaviour of other people using non-scientific or technical terms. Pain, pleasure, excitement and anxiety are all considered folk psychology, they don’t refer to any specific scientific process, instead we’ve formed common sense empirical laws and theories about how to use them in language and when looking at the world. For example: They tell us about the behaviour someone might currently be engaged in / what they might do in the future and what we can expect if we engage them.
But is folk psychology actually any good at the job we use it for?
Are there circumstances where our predictions / statements based on these terms might turn out to be inaccurate?
If this were a science, what would we do to check this?
What common sense terms might we use to describe the current state of this child mentally? What obvious evidence do we have for it?

8. The Scientific Approach
How do we test scientific laws? If it turns out that particular laws are not fully accurate what do we do with them? If it turns out that particular laws do not fully explain whatever it is they are concerned with what do we do with them? Is it possible to do the same with psychology?

9. Laws in Science
Scientific theories seek to explain some aspect of the world. Very often these explanations hypothesise that certain things exist, and the explanation works by appealing to these things and their properties.
Rutherford postulated the existence of atoms (long before we confirmed it) to explain why tiny particles changed direction when shot through gold leaf.
Biologists postulated the existence of germs (bacteria and viruses) to explain diseases.
These theories were backed up later by a huge body of evidence and as a result we continue to make use of them (and importantly, the language they entail) today. They help us to form laws and other theories about the way the world and universe works.

10. Eliminating Language
However there are also a huge amount of unsuccessful theories in science:
The Black Death was caused by “bad air”.
Heat is a subtle fluid called caloric that gets suffused through material bodies.
Phlogiston is a substance that explains why certain objects burn or are more flammable than others.
These theories were later proven wrong and were abandoned along with the language they entail. “Bad air” “Caloric” and “Phlogiston” don’t exist.
We have eliminated these terms from our understanding of science and as a result they’re not really used in language either.

11. Eliminating Folk Psychology
It’s absolutely crucial here that you understand something – Churchland is not saying that we don’t experience belief, desire, happiness etc. He’s just saying that the way we refer to these things is inaccurate and messy.
He thinks we would be better served using neuroscientific terminology (certain neurons firing, serotonin levels up or down etc.) because in the long run this will give us a much more accurate view of our mind.
If the terms used in folk-psychology (belief, pain, desire etc.) can be shown to be flawed or mistaken in some way should we abandon them in lieu of more accurate terms? Churchland thinks we should, he believes that these terms are misguided at best and that we should replace them with more accurate, clear neuroscientific language instead. This is the basis of eliminative materialism.
Any idea why he might think this language is false or mistaken?

12. Questions So Far… What do we mean when we talk about folk psychology?
Give 2 examples of terms that we have eliminated from scientific language.
What is Churchlands belief about folk psychology? (i.e. outline the basic idea of eliminative materialism)

13. Folk psychology - false?
Churchland supports this claim with 3 reasons:
1. There are many aspect of mental life that folk psychology cannot successfully explain.
Current folk-psychology terms are inadequate when it comes to explaining things like intelligence, learning or even emotions. We have to appeal instead to neuroscience.
Perhaps more importantly, they are severely inadequate when it comes to explaining mental illness. It is the reason we often find them so hard to describe and thus diagnose.
Terms like “stress” and “feeling down” don’t actually help us explain anything properly. It would be better for us to eliminate these concepts from our language.

14. Folk psychology - false?
Churchland supports this claim with 3 reasons:
1. There are many aspect of mental life that folk psychology cannot successfully explain.
Remember this is not to say that there are no mental illnesses, nor is it trying to downplay their severity, instead Churchland is arguing that our current use of language is woefully underequipped to explain what’s actually going on. Just as we dropped talk of “bad air” to explain the black death we should abandon folk-psychology in favour of something more accurate and useful - neuroscience.
Terms like “stress” and “feeling down” don’t actually help us explain anything properly. It would be better for us to eliminate these concepts from our language.

15. Folk psychology - false?
Churchland supports this claim with 3 reasons:
2. There has been very little progress in the advancement of folk psychology since the Greeks 2500 years ago.
Since the Greeks and Romans first identified the language we use when discussing particular mental states, the rules and elements governing this language haven’t changed a huge amount.
Considering we’ve already shown that the theory is not complete, failing to explain a number of things, this is a hugely long time for a concept to stagnate. For it to fit alongside successful theories (i.e. scientific ones) it should be developing and expanding and offering more explanations.
By contrast, neuroscience has taken massive leaps forward, particularly in the 20th Century. Our understanding of how the brain works is now more advanced than ever and we discover new information every day.

16. Folk psychology - false?
Churchland supports this claim with 3 reasons:
3. Folk psychology harmonises poorly with the rest of our scientific understanding of human beings.
Whilst there is a huge crossover between biology, neuroscience and evolutionary theory, folk psychology remains an outsider.
If these “mental terms” cannot be accommodated in the rest of science, it gives us good reason to ditch them. Churchland likens this concept to that of alchemy when modern chemistry began, people who’d believed it for years began to see very quickly their ideas and theories were wrong and inconsistent with the wider body of evidence and were forced to abandon them.
We seem to struggle when explaining things like “intentionality” (physical things are not “about” anything) or “qualia” (not something we can access physically) in physicalist terms.
Meanwhile talk of our brain states coincides neatly with what we observe biologically and physically.
Which seems to be the more reliable and accurate use of language?

17. In summary - All together
Folk psychology is the term for the language we use when describing, explaining and predicting other peoples behaviour. It is the language of mental states.
Churchland wants to argue that folk psychology does not fit with empirically robust theories (things that have been demonstrated to be true and are supported with evidence) and so we have reason to abandon it.
We have good reason to support this view that folk psychology is false:
It does not explain many mental phenomena.
It hasn’t advanced in 2500 years.
It cannot be made consistent with many other scientific theories.
In short, if Churchland is right, all talk of emotions, beliefs and desires should be eliminated from our language and replaced with the much more accurate, clear and detailed language of neuroscience.

18. Summary Questions – Textbook 329
What 3 reasons does Churchland give for folk psychology being false?
How would eliminative materialism translate into our use of language?
Can you identify any reasons this theory is stronger than other concepts we’ve looked at?

19. behaviourism B1
B = Behaviour