In passing remarks, some commentators have noted that for Nagel, physicalism is true. It has even been argued that Nagel seeks to find the best path to follow to achieve future physicalism. I advance these observations by adding that for Nagel, we should discuss the consciousness problem not in terms of physical and mental issues but in terms of our desire to include consciousness in an objective/scientific account, and we can achieve this only by revising our self-conception, i.e., folk psychology, to develop a more detached view of experience. Through the project of objective phenomenology, Nagel aims to achieve some sort of objective, detached, and scientific explanation of the subjective nature of experience. This project seeks to make the truth of physicalism intelligible and consciousness more amenable to scientific study, potentially raising an even broader concept than the one physicalism originally proposes.
The article provides an analysis of Paul and Patricia Churchland’s eliminative materialism. I will distinguish two lines of argument in their eliminativism: one seeking to eliminate folk psychology and the second criticising Jerry Fodor’s language of thought hypothesis. Then I will closely examine the second line of argument, and show that it represents the main motive of Churchland’s work since the end of 1980s and demonstrate why the success of the argument against the language of thought hypothesis does not constitute a reason for the elimination of folk psychology. Finally, I will examine the consequences of this approach for the role of folk psychology in the study of mind and show that the weakened eliminativist position still fulfils the original aim of Churchland’s program. and Článek se věnuje rozboru eliminativního materialismu Paula a Patricie Churchlandových. V jejich eliminativismu rozliším dvě argumentační linie: jednu usilující o eliminaci lidové psychologie a druhou kritizující hypotézu jazyka myšlení Jerryho Fodora. Následně se blíže zaměřím na tuto druhou linii a ukáži, že představuje hlavní motiv práce Churchlandových od konce 80. let 20. století, a dále předvedu, proč úspěch argumentace proti hypotéze jazyka myšlení nezakládá důvod k eliminaci lidové psychologie. V závěru text přezkoumám důsledky tohoto přístupu pro roli lidové psychologie ve zkoumání mysli a ukazuje, že tato oslabená eliminativistická pozice stále naplňuje původní záměr programu Churchlandových.
In this paper, we defend the main claims of our earlier paper “Mental Fictionalism as an Undermotivated Theory” (in The Monist) from Gábor Bács’s criticism, which appeared in his “Mental fictionalism and epiphenomenal qualia” (in Dialectica). In our earlier paper, we tried to show that mental fictionalism is an undermotivated theory, so there is no good reason to give up the realist approach to the folk psychological discourse. The core of Bács’s criticism consists in that our argumentation rests on an equivocation concerning the folk psychological concepts of conscious experiences. In our present argumentation, at first, we shortly recapitulate our earlier argumentation and Bács’s main objection to it. After that, we argue against the case of equivocation, claiming that it rests on a highly implausible and unsupported verificationist approach. Lastly, in answering another remark of Bács’s, we discuss the possibility of a realist mental fictionalism and conclude that it is an incoherent standpoint.