Head to head
Eliminative Materialism vs Dennett’s Illusionism
Churchland’s Eliminative Materialism and Dennett’s Illusionism, compared field by field from their entries in the Atlas.
At a glance
- Both belong to the Materialism family in Kuhn's Landscape of Consciousness.
- They give the same kind of answer on life after death and meaning and purpose.
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The claim
In brief
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.
Dennett’s IllusionismDaniel Dennett argues that qualia, conceived as intrinsic, ineffable, private, and immediately known properties of experience, do not exist; they are philosophers’ inventions. Experience is real, but it is not what it seems from the inside: the brain’s unconscious processes produce a benign ‘user illusion’, and there is nothing to consciousness beyond the functions and dispositions involved.
What consciousness is
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.
Dennett’s IllusionismConsciousness is the functional activity of the brain, which presents itself to us as a user illusion. ‘There are no qualia.’
Big questions
Eliminative MaterialismNo position
Dennett’s IllusionismPossibleSince consciousness is nothing beyond functions and dispositions, a machine with the right functional organization could have it; Dennett does not take this up here.
Does consciousness survive death?Both agree
Eliminative MaterialismNoSince the mind is the brain, nothing mental survives the brain’s death.
Dennett’s IllusionismNoSince consciousness is a product of the brain’s processes, it ends when they end.
Does it give life meaning?Both agree
Eliminative MaterialismHumanistic onlyPatricia Churchland urges us to see ourselves as organisms in nature, understood by scientific methods, with no cosmic purpose.
Dennett’s IllusionismHumanistic onlyDennett’s materialism, and his place among the New Atheists, leave no room for cosmic purpose.
Nature of mind
Ontology
Eliminative MaterialismPhysicalism (eliminative)
Dennett’s IllusionismPhysicalism (illusionist)
Mind and body
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.
Dennett’s IllusionismConsciousness is wholly a product of the brain’s unconscious processes. Dennett rejects any inner, non-physical domain of felt properties.
Fundamental or emergent
Eliminative MaterialismNeither
Dennett’s IllusionismEmergent
Qualia
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.
Dennett’s IllusionismThere are no qualia in the traditional sense. Dennett calls the supposed intrinsic, ineffable, private properties ‘nothing but philosophers’ inventions’.
How it works
Mechanism
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.
Dennett’s IllusionismThe user illusion. As a computer’s desktop icons stand in for complex underlying processes, the brain presents itself to us in a simplified form we mistake for an inner world of qualities.
Where it is
Eliminative MaterialismIn the brain.
Dennett’s IllusionismIn the brain’s unconscious processes, with no inner theater.
What it does
Eliminative MaterialismBehavior is caused by neural processes; neuroscience is expected to explain it better than folk psychology does.
Dennett’s IllusionismThe user illusion is benign: it lets us manage ourselves without access to the brain’s underlying complexity.
Evidence and criticism
Testability
Eliminative MaterialismConceptually testable
Dennett’s IllusionismConceptually testable
Tests so far
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.
Dennett’s IllusionismNot stated
Criticisms
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.
Dennett’s IllusionismDennett is often read as denying that experience exists, and critics reply that an illusion of experience would itself be an experience. Dennett resisted the eliminativist label, though many philosophers apply it to his rejection of qualia.
Sources
Key sources
Eliminative Materialism
- Neurophilosophy, Patricia Churchland (1986)
- Churchland’s Eliminative Materialism (Landscape of Consciousness), Patricia Churchland
Dennett’s Illusionism
- Consciousness Explained, Daniel Dennett
- I've Been Thinking, Daniel Dennett (2023)
- Dennett’s Illusionism (Landscape of Consciousness), Daniel Dennett (1992)