P.S. Re Paul Churchland and eliminativism.

Ken Hanly khanly at mb.sympatico.ca
Tue Feb 8 20:45:14 PST 2000


I wish I could see Stich's later book but what I have at hand are a very few reference works, the backs of cereal boxes in English and French, and the Internet. But I am not surprised he has changed his mind because of the logical difficulties of trying to do away with the concepts of folk psychology, as pointed out in my earlier post. However, Justin is right that he wrote an earlier article that is really a classic statement of the elminativist position. I read the article carefully twice, just to make sure he really said what he seemed to be saying. Many philosophers do change their mind. Russell was all over the place on ethical issues and others as well, and we seem to have a Pre-Rawls Rawls, a Rawls Rawls , and a post-Rawls Rawls. And of course Nozick seems to have changed his views on human nature. In his later works he is far from the radical individualism of his classic libertarian rightings.

It may very well be that Paul Churchland has changed his position as well. I read a short review of his most recent book. Among other things he holds that there is most likely a detectable difference between the neural networks in criminal brains and in those of non-criminals. That seems to be a rather provocative statement. The reviewer does not mention whether CHurchland presents any empirical evidence to support his claim. Some criminal activity of course could be the result of brain damage but to suggest that criminals on the whole have different neural networks is another matter. Is the cure for criminality some updated version of electroshock?

Cheers, Ken Hanly

Lisa & Ian Murray wrote:


> I agree that Stich is an
> eliminativist. I was trying to recall his name but couldnt which is why I
> went into reference sources.
>
> ========
> Actually, he seems to be having some doubts. See his "Decontructing the
> Mind" from '96, Oxford P.
>
> Ian



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