To Eliminate or Not to Eliminate: The Science and Metaphysics of Non-Existence
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Todd Jones, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Nevada Las Vegas — A central debate in philosophy of mind continues to be whether developments in neuroscience should convince us to be eliminativists regarding folk psychological terms. In a series of recent papers, Bill Ramsey, an eliminativist pioneer, has argued that many scholars have misconstrued what eliminativism really is. Eliminativism, Ramsey argues, should be reserved for claims that some X’s do not exist. In this talk, however, I argue that what it is to not exist is not clear. When scientists say “X does not exist,” they may mean numerous different things. Saying that we should not eliminate X’s unless they do not exist, then, is not enough to demarcate when we should be eliminativists
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UNLV Dept. of Philosophy