Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

Zachary R. Murphy
University of Michigan – Flint
Eliminating the Eliminators;
A Review and Refutation of Eliminative Materialism
In Philosophy of Mind the concept of qualia has caused much controversy. The quale (singular of
qualia) of a mental event is what is experienced of that mental event; it is the feeling of pain or joy,
emotions, or desires. The trouble with these qualia is that philosophers have not been adequately able to
either reduce them to physical events or find some way around the Causal Closure of the Physical principle.
They cannot be easily reduced to physical events because there is not an obvious physical substance of pain,
emotion, or desire and so it is not as easy as saying “Look! There’s that qualia we’ve been looking for.” This
inability to find qualia would lend to the idea that qualia are non-physical, but then we must find a way to
get around the causal Closure of the Physical principle. The Causal Closure of the Physical principle states
that no non-physical entity can have causal efficacy in a physical system, in other words the non-physical
qualia would have no power in the physical world. Thus qualia are left in an odd state: seemingly nonphysical
but at the same time seeming to have an enormous impact on our daily lives.
Eliminative Materialism handles these elusive qualia by claiming that they do not exist. Since qualia
can have no influence in the physical word due to the Causal Closure of the Physical, it does not matter to
the physical system whether or not qualia exist. Thus by Occam’s Razor it makes fewer assumptions to say
that they do not exist since it does not matter if they do exist or do not exist. Therefore, the Eliminative
Materialists conclude, qualia do not exist. Daniel Dennett exemplifies this argument in his essay Quining
Qualia with what he calls an intuition pump concerning Mr. Chase and Mr. Sanborn.
In this essay I will show that Dennett’s intuition pump necessitates the existence of the very qualia
he is arguing against.
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