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Disappearance and Knowledge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Andrew D. Cling
Andrew D. Cling*
Affiliation:
Department of History and Philosophy, The University of Alabama in Huntsville
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Abstract

Paul Churchland argues that the continuity of human intellectual development provides evidence against folk psychology and traditional epistemology, since these latter find purchase only at the later stages of intellectual development. He supports this contention with an analogy from the history of thermodynamics. Careful attention to the thermodynamics analogy shows that the argument from continuity does not provide independent support for eliminative materialism. The argument also rests upon claims about continuity which do not support the claim that the continuity of intellectual development is evidence for the elimination of folk psychology. Traditional epistemology and folk psychology should not yet be abandoned.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , June 1990 , pp. 226 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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References

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