I think we have actually made some progress in making sense of eliminativism, in the sense that we have a clear definition of eliminativism as the view that propositional attitudes are embedded in folk psychology, a false theory whose posits will be eliminated in a matured neuroscience.
We have also agreed that eliminativism faces some problems in construing its philsoophy as genuinely realist. Traditionally, a scientific realist is committed to the truth, as opposed to merely the empirical adequacy, of scientific theories. But if having a true theory means having true beliefs, we have a problem. The Churchlands, like Steven Stich and William Lycan, in the late 80s and early 90s, were moving toward a pragmatism that dethrones truth. Of course, Churchland proclaimed that new theories would provide us some thing better than truth, but what would that be, something more true that truth? Dennett had argued on pragmatic grounds for folk psychology while denying that it was ultimately true. But if truth is replaced by something pragmatic, then these justifications for FP are as good as there can be. As I wrote in 1991:
"The dethronement of truth opens up the possibility of a much looser form of pragmatism: a non-propositional cognitive science may be the best way to go, propsotional attitude attributions are prefectly justified in other contexts, and there just isn't any question of limning the true and ultimate structure of reality. This may not be acceptable to eliminativists like Churchland, but one would like ot know why not."
Belief in the unity of science, for example, which is one of Churchland's fundamental commitments, is undermined by going pragmatist.
However, it is now suggested that perhaps a non-propostional concept of accuracy can save eliminativism. I'm not sure it makes sense; i think the concepts used are parasitic upon the older "folk' concepts. But that is what is at issue.
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Note that pragmatism and EM are totally different theses, and neither follows from the other. I am a realist, and look at EM as a viable hypothesis about mental contents (i.e., they exist, but are nonpropositional in structure), about the ultimate explanation of animal behavior. In other words, Paul's pragmatism is idiosyncratic, and can't fairly be treated as something essential (or even related in any obvious way) to EM.
As for Shakespeare, the EMers have always said that language, which is the model of all contents for the prop att lovers, is an anemic picture of the rich internal representational states (e.g., as we have in visual consciousness). It wouldnt' be surprising if we found, in the future, that certain authors' writings were much better at using language in a way that more closely mapped the natural contours of the internal representational mileau, as Merleau-Ponty did with his "propositional" descriptions of nonpropositional phenomenological contents.
Chapter 2 of Paul's new book covers, in detail, his theory of conceptual content and concept acquisition in neural nets.
He also spends about five pages explicitly discussing the realism question. He lays out in more detail how he thinks we can get more or less accurate internal maps of the world which we use to navigate (and we do know that brains use internal maps to steer about in the world: and the maps aren't just of space but more abstract features of the world). He also admits that there is no way to stand outside our own conceptual framework to compare it to the things themselves and see how good the fit is between the two. He discusses what this means for the pragmatic realist like himself.
I'm not sure when it will be out, but the working title is 'Outer Spaces and Inner Spaces: The New Epistemology.'
It is pretty clear that his theory does not employ propositional contents. Even Fodor agrees with this. If you wanted, therefore, to say that truth and falsity are properties of Paul's conceptual spaces, then you would have to say that truth and falsity can be a property of nonpropositional contents. Otherwise, some other normative target is required for the conceptual spaces, and I think Paul has found a natural, and reasonable, one.
As a scientist, I prefer not to worry about the philosophy, but do the best science of the brain I can and see what comes out. If it conforms to the philosophers' armchair analysis, that's fine. If it doesn't, then the philosopers' are going to have to adapt.
I won't defend EM anymore. I am an agnostic, and his new book will defend a big-picture view better than I ever could.
BDK wrote: As a scientist, I prefer not to worry about the philosophy, but do the best science of the brain I can and see what comes out. If it conforms to the philosophers' armchair analysis, that's fine. If it doesn't, then the philosopers' are going to have to adapt.
VR: They may adapt by rejecting metaphysical realism about the relevant science, saying that the science may be empirically adequate but it can't be true.
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