From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!psych.toronto.edu!christo Wed Feb 26 12:54:41 EST 1992
Article 4026 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
Subject: Re: making sense of eliminative materialism
Message-ID: <1992Feb25.233842.16198@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
References: <1992Feb21.200219.3773@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1992Feb23.001700.19963@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Feb25.181424.14392@aio.jsc.nasa.gov>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1992 23:38:42 GMT

In article <1992Feb25.181424.14392@aio.jsc.nasa.gov> dlyndes@deltahp.jsc.nasa.gov writes:
>[Christopher Green]
>
>|> Suggestion #2. Argue that the Churchlands don't need to reply to this. 
>|> After all, they're not really reductionists. They don't want to explain
>|> mental predicates in terms of neurology (the sort of reduction Fodor
>|> was attaking). They want to toss out mental predicates entirely in favor
>|> of neurological -- or "informational" -- ones. The problems is, of
>|> course, that even if they don't want an account of mental predicates,
>|> most of the rest of us do. Their analogies to phlogiston and alchmey
>|> are seriously flawed.
>
>I strikes me that the case for accounting for our "intuitions" derived from
>"folk psychology" is even stronger than that.  Folk psychology is quite
>successful in its own realm.  

Probably the very reason that "most of the rest of us do."

>We are pretty good at figuring out what
>people BELIEVE, HOPE, WISH, etc, and we make fairly reliable predictions
>about how those people will behave based on those ascriptions.  

I tend to agree with you, but this is one of those half-empty/half-full
problems. Everytime you show me (well, not ME, but, say Stich or Sejnowski
or the Churchlands) an example of a good prediction, they'll show you a
bad one. Granted, the want-can-do school currently makes better global
predictions than any other, but the Churchlands borrow on their promisory
note at every turn (much as did Skinner on his) and until we get really
stingy they're going to get loans that IMHO they won't ultimatle be
good for.
> Any
>adequate psychology - whether eliminative, reductionist, dualistic or
>whatnot - should be able to explain why folk psychology is as successful
>as it is, and why its success is limited in the ways that it is.  I do
>not see how this explanation could be made except by saying something
>about what beliefs, hopes, etc REALLY are.
>
>-- 
>+-------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
>| David K. Lyndes                     | "I assure you that all reasonable     |
>| Barrios Technology                  |  precautions have been and are being  |
>| email: dlyndes@deltahp.jsc.nasa.gov |  taken." - General Margrave           |
>+-------------------------------------+---------------------------------------+
>| The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employer nor of God. |
>+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+


-- 
Christopher D. Green                christo@psych.toronto.edu
Psychology Department               cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto
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