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Single Idea 9285

[filed under theme 17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism ]

Full Idea

'Consciousness' is the name of a nonentity. ..Those who cling to it are clinging to a mere echo, the faint rumour left behind by the disappearing 'soul' upon the air of philosophy. ..I deny that it stands for an entity, but it does stand for a function.

Gist of Idea

'Consciousness' is a nonentity, a mere echo of the disappearing 'soul'

Source

William James (Does Consciousness Exist? [1904], Intro)

Book Ref

James,William: 'Selected Writings of William James', ed/tr. Bird,Graham [Everyman 1995], p.100

A Reaction

This kind of view is often treated as being preposterous, but I think it is correct. No one is denying the phenomenology, but it is the ontology which is at stake. Either you are a substance dualist, or mind must be eliminated as an 'entity'.

The 19 ideas with the same theme [there is no such thing as mind, only the brain]:

5997 Dicaearchus said soul does not exist, but is just a configuration of the body [Dicaearchus, by Fortenbaugh]
9285 'Consciousness' is a nonentity, a mere echo of the disappearing 'soul' [James]
3131 Quine expresses the instrumental version of eliminativism [Quine, by Rey]
2344 If we are going to eliminate folk psychology, we must also eliminate folk logic [Putnam]
5800 All mental facts are representation, which consists of informational functions [Dretske]
3377 Elimination can either be by translation or by causal explanation [Kim]
7366 It is arbitrary to say which moment of brain processing is conscious [Dennett]
7380 Visual experience is composed of neural activity, which we find pleasing [Dennett]
4988 Folk psychology may not be reducible, but that doesn't make it false [Kirk,R on Churchland,PM]
4987 Eliminative materialism says folk psychology will be replaced, not reduced [Churchland,PM]
4876 Maybe there is a minimum brain speed for supporting a mind [Dennett]
7656 I don't deny consciousness; it just isn't what people think it is [Dennett]
4984 All meaningful psychological statements can be translated into physics [Kirk,R]
2954 Identity theory likes the identity of lightning and electrical discharges [Lockwood]
3140 If you explain water as H2O, you have reduced water, but not eliminated it [Rey]
3134 Human behaviour can show law-like regularity, which eliminativism can't explain [Rey]
5342 Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser [Flanagan]
4609 It seems contradictory to be asked to believe that we can be eliminativist about beliefs [Heil]
6630 Eliminativism is incoherent if it eliminates reason and truth as well as propositional attitudes [Lowe]