A Materialist Phil of Mind

It is the oldest philsophical

tradition in Western civilization
Originated by a series of pre-
Socratic Greek philosophers in
the 6th and 5th B.C.
It reached its full classical form in
the atomism of Democritus and
Epicurus in the 4th B.C.
 Why atomism?
Epicurus argued that ultimate reality
consisted of invisible and indivisible bits of
matter called atoms. ( what about now?)
ATOM
 But what basically does a
materialist believe in?
 To a materialist, there is no need to invoke
Supernatural God, spiritual deities to
explain things that happen
 It has always assumed that life is wholly
the product of natural processes.
Of course, the most important ciri of
materialism is its emphasis on direct
observation of nature and insisting
on explaining everything that
happens in the world of the law of
nature
 EXAMPLES OFSUBATOMIC
PARTICLES
 LEPTON
 MESON
 BARYON
 FERMIONS
 ELECTRONS
 BOSONS
THE FIRST FEW SECONDS OF THE UNIVERSE
 From the very beginning,
materialists have always based
their theory on things that can be
observed and investigated. They
base their theory on the best
scientific evidence at hand.
 The triumphs of science in the 20th
Century have been so stunning that
today a majority of philosophers, at
least in the English speaking world,
identify themselves as materialist of
one kind or another.
Note that material, physical
and matter are used
interchangeably
APA BENDA INI?
TSUNAMI IN UNIMAS?
BLUE BALOON???
BIG MUSHROOM?
HEAT OF LOVE?
 When someone today describes
herself as a materialist, they
generally mean they stand
somewhere in a spectrum defined at
one end as reductive materialism,
and the other end as eliminative
materialism (two different extrems)
 But when we talk about
Reductive/ Eliminative
Materialism, what essentially
do we Reduce and
Eliminate???
 Reductive and Eliminative
Materialism describes the two
extreme end of the processs known
as intertheoretic reduction.
But there is also one other
form of materialism that is
NON-reductive. We would
look at this later.
 There are basically two ways of
making scientific progress in theory
formation.
- Theory Reduction
-Theory Replacement
But before that what exactly is a
THEORY?

1.CAN YOU TELL ME?

2.WHY DO WE NEED TO
FORMULATE THEORY?
This intertheoretic reduction exists in
two forms.
Form 1
If we have two competing theories
trying to explain certain things, and if
the new theory better explains the
old one, then the old theory would be
reduced to the new one.
 The sun rotates around the
earth
WHY???
 Theory A: Because we need to sleep at
nite
 Theory B: Because God wants it so
 Theory C: Because the Sun need to rest at
nite.
 Theory C: Because of Gravity.
 What is this?
Theory Reduction or
Replacement???
 The concept of the old theory are
mirrored by concepts in the new
theory. The older concepts can be
said to designate (refer) to nothing
but what the new concept designate
(refer to)
 A successful reduction of this kind was
the incorporation and clarification of
Newton law of motion in Einstein theory
of Relativity
 What is fire? It is just Oxidation process.
Just like the process of rusting of steel.
 What is light? Light is just
electromagnetic radiation {Reduction}
 What is water? It is nothing but H O.
2
 Gene is identical to DNA molecule.
 So, what is mind in this context?
Mind is being REDUCED to some
physical states. It is just brain states.
Form 2: Eliminative Materialism
 Now, here we do not reduce one
thing/theory to the other.
 Instead, we completely displace or
eliminate the earlier entity/theory to be
replaced by the new one.
Theory Replacement: A new theory
simply replaces the older one.
 Example of this kind of elimination
 The theory of demonic possession (syaitan)
when you get sick eliminated/replaced by the
theory of dieasease
 The theory of pholgiston (mysterious property
said to resoponsible for burning) being
eliminated/replaced by the discovery of
oxygen as the cause of the burning of fire.
 Can you think of other examples
 Elimination of a thunder God to be replaced
by electrical current as the cause of Thunder.
We would look more closely at
REDUCTIVE MATERIALISM
in future. For now, lets
concentrate on
ELIMINATIVISM.
 In the context of mind, an
eliminative materialist believe
that mental state (belief,
consciousness, desire) all are
NOT needed and would be
replaced in the future by brain
states
 WHAT ELIMINATIVISM SAYS IS
THAT THE MENTAL STATES AND
PROCESSES THAT WE TALK
ABOUT AND USE TO DESCRIBE
AND EXPLAIN PEOPLE’S
BEHAVIOR DO NOT EXIST
 Like the God that Greek folklore
(cerita dongeng) invoked to explain
the outcome of battle or the witches
used to explain as the cause of
diesase in ancient time, similarly
MIND do not exist.
 They are saying, in other
words that mind don’t exist,
our ‘vague’ talk about things
like feelings, thoughts,
desires, beliefs need to be
eliminated (dihapuskan) and
replaced with PRECISE
scientific terms refering only to
brain states.
 ‘Belief,’ ‘Desire’ and other familiar
mental state or expressions are
among the theoretical terms of a
commonsense theory of the mind.
This theory is often called the FOLK
psychology (commonsense
psychology)
 According to eliminativism, FOLK
psychology is a seriously mistaken
theory. Many of the claims it makes
about the states and processes that
give rise to behavior are FALSE
 A MATURE neuroscience that
explains how the mind/brain works
and how it produces the behavior we
observe would have NO need to
refer to the commonsense
psychological/mental states and
processes used by folk psychology.
 Beliefs, Desires, and the rest would
not be a part of the ONTOLOGY
(what that exist) of a mature scientific
psychology.
 Proponents of Eliminativism

 Churchland, PM (1981) “Eliminative

Materialism and the Propositional Attitude”
 Churchland, PS (1986). Neurophilosophy.
 Churchland, PM (1989) “Folk Psychology and
the Explanation of Human Behavior” in
Churchland, A Neurocomputational
Perspective. Cambridge, MA.
 USEFUL WEBSITES
 DAVID CHALMER’S WEBSITE (CUTE)
 STANFORD ENCYCLOPEADIA OF
PHILOSOPHY (ONLINE)
 PETER SUBER’S WEBSITE
 JAMES PRYOR’S WEBSITE
 PHILOSOPHY BOOKS AND
ENCYCLOPEADIA IN THE LIBRAY
Let’s take a more detail look
the
doctrine of MATERIALISM
Lets look now in more detail
some central idea of
materialist conception of
nature (in the context of the
mind/body problem). How do
they see the world.
 (1)Humans are, or fully constituted by
entitites of the kind posited in physics. There
are no special soul that leave the body after
death.
 (2)The human body is a causally complete
physico-chemical system, that is everything in
us is fully explainable in physical-chemical
terms
 (3)The possession of any property by, or
within, a human being is ultimately
explainable in physical chemical terms. {key
word is property}
 These three
assertions/principles are
widely regarded as shared
principle that is not
controversial/or in dispute.
Meaning that ALL materialists
would hold these three
principles.
 (4)Mentality is REAL. Humans possess
mental events and states, and give rise
to mental properties.
 (5)Much of human behavior is
describable as ACTION, and action is
mentally explainable
 (6)Much of human mental life is
mentalistically explainable.
 Mentalistic explaination is a species of
causal explaination; that is it could be
used to the causal agent of behavior. In
other words, we could use mental items
(belief, desire, etc) to explain or account
for our behaviors.
We have talked about reductive
materialism earlier. Now, in the
context of (1) to (7), the most
straightforward form of reductive
materialism would REDUCE the
mentalistic talk of items (4) to (7) to
neuroscience or the physical brain.
 REDUCTION?
 WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
 What is the distinction between fire and
the rust (karat) of iron?
 Are they two phenomena?
 No, Fire and Rusting result from the same
oxidization processes.
 We REDUCE here what appear to be two
phenomena into one.
What is the most important
philosophical position that
take up this reductive
position?
 It is of course the identity
theory and some version of
behaviorism.
But if you are a eliminative
materialist, how would you
view item (1) to (7)
Basically, item (1) to (3) would
stay. But they would argue
that items (4) to (7) are false.
Bcos they do not believe that
mental items exist. Refer to
palmer
 TO RECAP
Eliminative materialists believe that
some of our present concepts about
mental entities (beliefs, hopes,
desires) are so fundamentally flawed
that they would someday be entirely
replaced by a scientifically accurate
account that completely do without
having to refer to mental items to
explain things
 Now, what we have seen just now is
ONE form of materialism.
REDUCTIVE MATERIALISM. There
is another form called NON-reductive
Materialism.
(But what is it? What do they believe
in?)
 Non-reductive Materialism does not
believe that mental properties could
be REDUCED to brain stuff. Can you
name two philosopical positions that
take up a NON-reductive views??
They are

1)Functionalism (we would

have more detail look at the
theory later)
2)Anomalous Monism
 For those who hold this
position, they do not believe
that items (4) to (7) could be
REDUCED to brain/body.
 To Recap

 Reductive Physicalism  Mental

properties are reducible to and hence
ultimately turn out to be physical
properties
 Nonreductive Physicalism  Mental
properties constitute an autonomous
domain that resists reduction to the
physical domain.
Various Positions of Materialism
 Behaviorism
 Identity Theories
 Functionalism
 Instrumentalism
Is behaviorism a Reductive or
Non-reductive form of
materialism???