Corns, J. (2016) Pain eliminativism: scientific and traditional. Synthese, 193(9), pp. 2949-2971. (doi: 10.1007/s11229-015-0897-8)
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Abstract
Traditional eliminativism is the view that a term should be eliminated from everyday speech due to failures of reference. Following Edouard Machery, we may distinguish this traditional eliminativism about a kind and its term from a scientific eliminativism according to which a term should be eliminated from scientific discourse due to a lack of referential utility. The distinction matters if any terms are rightly retained for daily life despite being rightly eliminated from scientific inquiry. In this article, I argue that while scientific eliminativism for pain may be plausible, traditional eliminativism for pain is not. I discuss the pain eliminativisms offered by Daniel Dennett and Valerie Hardcastle and argue that both theorists, at best, provide support for scientific eliminativism for pain, but leave the folk-psychological notion of pain unscathed. One might, however, think that scientific eliminativism itself entails traditional eliminativism—for pain and any other kind and corresponding term. I argue that this is not the case. Scientific eliminativism for pain does not entail traditional eliminativism about anything.
| Item Type: | Articles |
|---|---|
| Status: | Published |
| Refereed: | Yes |
| Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: | Corns, Dr Jennifer |
| Authors: | Corns, J. |
| College/School: | College of Arts & Humanities > School of Humanities > Philosophy |
| Journal Name: | Synthese |
| Publisher: | Springer |
| ISSN: | 0039-7857 |
| ISSN (Online): | 1573-0964 |
| Published Online: | 18 September 2015 |
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