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Disappearance and the Identity Theory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Extract
Among recent materialists, it has become increasingly common to waive questions of the reducibility or even the consistency of psychological and physiological domains of discourse and to argue for the eliminability of mentalistic conceptions in favor of descriptions of the physical workings of organisms.
A more paradigmatic reductionist account has the advantage of giving a clear standard by which we might judge the acceptability of physicalist views: materialism is correct if physical theory is capable of capturing psychological theory. Arguments over this, the identity theory, unfortunately enmeshed theorists in apparently endless disputes over the viability of topic neutral translations; hence, if it is possible for materialists to argue for their position without maintaining a general reduction, such a maneuver would have much to recommend it.
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- Copyright © The Authors 1981
References
1 ‘Mind-Body Identity, Privacy, and Categories’ (MBIPC). The Review of Metaphysics, 19 (1965). reprinted in Borst, C.V. ed., The Mind/Brain Identity Theory (London: MacMillan Co. 1970) 137–213;CrossRefGoogle Scholar ‘Incorrigibility as the Mark of the Mental’ (IMM), The Journal of Philosophy, 67 (1970) 399-424; and ‘In Defense of Eliminative Materialism’ (IDEM), The Review of Metaphysics, 24 (1970) 117-121. All further references to these articles will occur in the text preceded by the appropriate abbreviations.
2 ‘A Problem With Anomalous Monism,’ Philosophical Studies, 32 (1977) 179.
3 (Cambridge: M.I.T. Press 1960) 24-25.
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15 An abbreviated version of this paper was presented at the Eastern Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association in December of 1977. I thank Robert Shope for his comments on that version. Both the ideas contained and their form of presentation were greatly improved through the help (in comments or discussion) of Robert Audi, Donald Gustafson, and William Lycan.
Work on this paper was supported, in part, by the University Research Council at the University of Cincinnati.