Question

Write a brief (at least 5 sentences, but less than one page) essay response to the following questions:

What are the key differences between the following physicalist responses to the mind/body problem: reductivism, functionalism, and eliminativism? Of these three alternatives, which do you find more convincing, and why?

Answer 1

Eliminativism – According to this, the prudence of a person’s comprehension of the mind is profoundly mistaken and some curriculum of mental situations as proposed by common sense that most people believe, do not really happen. Example of Eliminativism would be that back in the 15^th century it was thought and accepted that the earth is flat and even several groups of scientists believed that in this until the journey of Columbus round the earth. Today we have the knowledge that earth was always round and not flat

In psychology, reductionism refers to a theory that seems to exaggerate human behaviour or mental procedures, and in doing that, it skips to describe the intricacies of the mind. Reductionism can be unwanted if it overlooks other factors that may be the cause of the theory of that particular subject. For example, Schizophrenia is a mental disorder and we believe that it is only caused by the ecological factors without recognizing genetic connections which are also the factors of the causation of this disease.

Functionalism - It is a philosophy about the character of psychosomatic situations. Functionalism is the identification of the psychological conditions are defined by what they do instead of what they are made up. Mental processes are dynamic. Functionalism is focused mainly on behaviour and mental activities. For example according to functionalist theory, pain may be characterized as a state that gravitates to be instigated by physical injury and it produces a belief that something is wrong with the body and the wishes that to be out of the body which origins nervousness and in the absence of that wish people tend to scowl or moan.