# Eliminative Materialism **Domain:** Philosophy of Mind / Cognitive Science **Doc Type:** Theory Node **Classification:** Ontological Revision Challenge **Maturity:** Established Debate **Related:** [[wiki/Consciousness|Consciousness]], [[wiki/Personal Identity|Personal Identity]], [[wiki/Cognitive Science|Cognitive Science]] --- ## Position **Eliminative Materialism** holds that some categories of commonsense psychology—such as beliefs or desires understood in their ordinary theoretical roles—may fail to map onto a mature neuroscience and could be eliminated rather than reduced. The view is a claim about theory change, not a denial that organisms behave, learn or suffer. ## Challenge to Preservation Continuity systems often treat folk-psychological categories as natural data fields: memory, preference, intention, personality and self. If those categories are coarse or mistaken, preserving their labels may reproduce an obsolete model rather than preserve the mechanisms that generate cognition. ## Architectural Consequence The system should retain raw and lower-level evidence where lawful, preserve model provenance and permit ontological revision. It must not make a present psychological schema the irreversible format of a person. Eliminativism does not justify ignoring first-person testimony; it warns against mistaking one explanatory vocabulary for final ontology. ## Sources - [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Eliminative Materialism](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/) - Paul M. Churchland, “Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes,” *Journal of Philosophy* 78 (1981). ## See Also [[wiki/State Sufficiency Problem|State Sufficiency Problem]] · [[wiki/Ontological Drift|Ontological Drift]] · [[wiki/Self-Model Ensemble|Self-Model Ensemble]]