Head to head
Eliminative Materialism vs Higher-Order Thought Theory
Churchland’s Eliminative Materialism and Rosenthal’s Higher-Order Thought, 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.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryDavid Rosenthal holds that a mental state is conscious when its subject has a higher-order thought that he or she is in that state, a thought that need not itself be conscious and does not seem to rest on inference. Mental qualities such as the redness of a sensation exist whether or not they are conscious; Rosenthal explains them separately, by how they map the perceptible properties we can discriminate.
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.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryA state’s being conscious consists in the subject being aware of it by way of a suitable higher-order thought that one is in that state.
Big questions
Eliminative MaterialismNo position
Higher-Order Thought TheoryPossibleSince consciousness depends on having suitable higher-order thoughts about one’s own states, a system able to form such thoughts would meet the condition in principle.
Does consciousness survive death?Both agree
Eliminative MaterialismNoSince the mind is the brain, nothing mental survives the brain’s death.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryNoConscious states are natural states of an organism, so nothing remains conscious once those states stop occurring.
Eliminative MaterialismNo position
Higher-Order Thought TheoryPossibleIf the relevant first-order states and higher-order thoughts were reproduced, the view gives no principled reason the copy would lack consciousness.
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.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryHumanistic onlyThe theory is a naturalistic account of mental states and carries no cosmic purpose.
Nature of mind
Ontology
Eliminative MaterialismPhysicalism (eliminative)
Higher-Order Thought TheoryPhysicalism (naturalistic functionalism)
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.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryMental states, their qualities, and the higher-order thoughts that make them conscious are all natural states of the organism; Rosenthal expects neural correlates of consciousness to be whatever mechanism produces the higher-order awareness.
Fundamental or emergent
Eliminative MaterialismNeither
Higher-Order Thought TheoryEmergent
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.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryMental qualities are fixed by their role in perceptual discrimination and occupy a ‘quality space’ that mirrors the similarities among perceptible properties. Because these qualities do not depend on consciousness, a sensation can have qualitative character without being conscious, as in subliminal perception.
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.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryA non-inferential higher-order thought that one is in a given state, which makes that first-order state conscious even when the thought itself is unconscious.
Where it is
Eliminative MaterialismIn the brain.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryNot stated
What it does
Eliminative MaterialismBehavior is caused by neural processes; neuroscience is expected to explain it better than folk psychology does.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryNot stated
Evidence and criticism
Testability
Eliminative MaterialismConceptually testable
Higher-Order Thought TheoryConceptually 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.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryNot 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.
Higher-Order Thought TheoryFirst-order theorists argue that higher-order awareness is an unneeded extra ingredient, and deflationists say being aware of a conscious state is like ‘smiling a smile’. Rosenthal replies that a deflated awareness cannot explain the contrast between conscious and unconscious states.
Sources
Key sources
Eliminative Materialism
- Neurophilosophy, Patricia Churchland (1986)
- Churchland’s Eliminative Materialism (Landscape of Consciousness), Patricia Churchland
Higher-Order Thought Theory
- Rosenthal’s Higher-Order Thought, Landscape of Consciousness, David Rosenthal (2005)