Head to head
Bentley Hart’s Monism vs Eliminative Materialism
Bentley Hart’s Monism: Consciousness, Being, God and Churchland’s Eliminative Materialism, compared field by field from their entries in the Atlas.
At a glance
- Bentley Hart’s Monism belongs to the Idealism family in Kuhn's Landscape of Consciousness, Eliminative Materialism to Materialism.
- On life after death, Bentley Hart’s Monism says “Yes” and Eliminative Materialism says “No”.
- On meaning and purpose, Bentley Hart’s Monism says “Cosmic/Ultimate” and Eliminative Materialism says “Humanistic only”.
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The claim
In brief
Bentley Hart’s MonismThis is a metaphysical theory that constructs an ultimate unified monism by asserting the profound inseparability of consciousness (mind) and being (existence) itself. It posits that ultimate reality is God, who is the absolute unity of consciousness and being, fundamentally rejecting reductive physicalist explanations.
Eliminative MaterialismPaul and Patricia Churchland hold that common-sense psychology, our everyday talk of beliefs, desires, and experiences, is a radically false theory that a completed neuroscience will displace rather than smoothly reduce. Consciousness as we ordinarily conceive it is a brain-generated picture shaped by evolution, and our self-understanding, introspection included, will be rebuilt in neuroscientific terms.
What consciousness is
Bentley Hart’s MonismConsciousness and being (existence) are two inseparable aspects of a single, ultimate ontological reality.
Eliminative MaterialismWhat we call consciousness, as folk psychology describes it, does not exist in that form. The real phenomena are neural processes, which only a mature neuroscience will describe correctly.
Big questions
Bentley Hart’s MonismNoConsciousness is a restricted instance of infinite mind (God) and is not reducible to computation or physical processing. Therefore, artificial systems based purely on physical mechanisms cannot instantiate true consciousness.
Eliminative MaterialismNo position
Bentley Hart’s MonismYesConsciousness is identified with ultimate being and God, meaning it is fundamental and cannot be destroyed. Hart’s theology suggests individuals are destined for union with God, becoming 'uncreated'.
Eliminative MaterialismNoSince the mind is the brain, nothing mental survives the brain’s death.
Bentley Hart’s MonismNoConsciousness is metaphysically unified, physically infrangible mental agency , making it impossible to capture, duplicate, or upload via computational means, which would only replicate 'third-person' processes.
Eliminative MaterialismNo position
Bentley Hart’s MonismCosmic/UltimateThe entire reality is rationally coherent and grounded in God, the ultimate reason and consciousness, inherently supplying ultimate meaning, purpose, and value.
Eliminative MaterialismHumanistic onlyPatricia Churchland urges us to see ourselves as organisms in nature, understood by scientific methods, with no cosmic purpose.
Nature of mind
Ontology
Bentley Hart’s MonismIdealist Monism/Theistic Monism
Eliminative MaterialismPhysicalism (eliminative)
Mind and body
Bentley Hart’s MonismNon-reductive correlation/Theistic interaction (Justification: Hart argues the causal descriptions of material and mental spheres are radically disparate and incommensurable, making reductionism incoherent. Interaction, while problematic for materialists, is possible, perhaps through the power of God).
Eliminative MaterialismThe mind is the brain. Patricia Churchland calls her program a ‘unified theory of the mind-brain’ and treats claims that mind goes beyond brain as the residue of folk myths.
Fundamental or emergent
Bentley Hart’s MonismPrimitive
Eliminative MaterialismNeither
Qualia
Bentley Hart’s MonismQualitative aspects of experience (mental reality) are irreducible. The irreducibility of mind is the same as the irreducibility of being, suggesting qualia are grounded in ultimate intelligibility.
Eliminative MaterialismQualia as folk psychology and philosophers conceive them are expected to give way to neuroscientific description; the view treats consciousness as a kind of illusion generated by the brain.
How it works
Mechanism
Bentley Hart’s MonismThe unification of the conditions for knowledge (mind) and the conditions for existence (being) into a single, simple, ultimate act or reality (God).
Eliminative MaterialismTheory displacement. Folk psychology will be replaced the way outdated scientific theories were, its principles and ontology discarded rather than mapped onto brain states.
Where it is
Bentley Hart’s MonismUbiquitous/Cosmic (Justification: Consciousness, being unified with ultimate Being/God, is the ground of all reality, aligning with Idealist metaphysics).
Eliminative MaterialismIn the brain.
What it does
Bentley Hart’s MonismMind holds causal priority over matter. Conscious, unified mental acts depend upon the infinite mind (God). The theory rejects the causal closure of the physical.
Eliminative MaterialismBehavior is caused by neural processes; neuroscience is expected to explain it better than folk psychology does.
Evidence and criticism
Testability
Bentley Hart’s MonismSpeculative/Conceptually Testable (Justification: The theory is a high-level metaphysical framework founded on philosophical critiques; Hart questions the possibility of a science of mental reality under physicalist assumptions).
Eliminative MaterialismConceptually testable
Tests so far
Bentley Hart’s MonismNot stated
Eliminative MaterialismThe view stakes its claim on the future course of neuroscience; whether folk categories survive in mature brain science is the long-run test.
Criticisms
Bentley Hart’s MonismCritics find the conclusion to unify consciousness, being, and God 'strange'. The theory faces the standard challenge of articulating the continuity or interaction between the disparate mental and material spheres without invoking rejected concepts like strong emergence.
Eliminative MaterialismCritics say denying subjective experience defies both intuition and direct evidence; Galen Strawson calls the denial of experience ‘the strangest thing that has ever happened in the whole history of human thought’. There is also tension between Patricia Churchland’s talk of reduction to neurobiology and the eliminativist claim that folk psychology will be displaced rather than reduced.
Sources
Key sources
Bentley Hart’s Monism
- Mind, Being, God - Spiritual Science and the Science of Mind, Part Four (2022)
- Science, consciousness, information: spiritual science and the science of mind, Part One (2021)
- Does consciousness defeat materialism (Part 2) (2019)
Eliminative Materialism
- Neurophilosophy, Patricia Churchland (1986)
- Churchland’s Eliminative Materialism (Landscape of Consciousness), Patricia Churchland