I wouldn't characterize Hasker as charging the eliminativist with dishonesty. What he is saying is that functionalism is eliminativism in effect, in that it eliminates some salient features of propositional attitudes.
I meant that the functionalists are dishonest in a rather metaphorical sense of 'dishonest'.
An atheist might say I'm dishonest because as a Christian I don't own up to the severe ethical problem of reconciling certain Biblical injunctions with the notion that God is all-good and all-loving. So yes, incoherence comess into it. But it's not just incoherence in one's position. There's more.
What the atheist is claiming is not that I am literally dishonest, but that I fear or suspect that there is a serious problem there, and I don't do enough to examine it more closely.
There's also a loose sense of this metaphor which we can see in statements like:
"The only genuine,honest materialism is eliminative materialism, and for that reason I admire the Churchlands' intellectual honesty."
See what I'm saying?
It's a minor point, but it gets to the heart of Hasker's critique of functionalism:
"Look guys, I'm erecting the horns (if you'll pardon the expression) of a dilemma. Choose your poison--eliminativism or non-natural intentionality.
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If I'm reading him right, Hasker is basically arguing that functionalism is dishonest.
I.e., you have to have either eliminative materialism or the non-naturalizability of intentionality.
I wouldn't characterize Hasker as charging the eliminativist with dishonesty. What he is saying is that functionalism is eliminativism in effect, in that it eliminates some salient features of propositional attitudes.
Victor, I think you misread me.
I didn't the eliminitavist was dishonest. I said the functionalist is.
So Hasker is forcing materialists to be eliminitavists.
No, that was a typo. I meant the functionalist. It's one thing to take an incoherent position. It's another to be dishonest.
I meant that the functionalists are dishonest in a rather metaphorical sense of 'dishonest'.
An atheist might say I'm dishonest because as a Christian I don't own up to the severe ethical problem of reconciling certain Biblical injunctions with the notion that God is all-good and all-loving. So yes, incoherence comess into it. But it's not just incoherence in one's position. There's more.
What the atheist is claiming is not that I am literally dishonest, but that I fear or suspect that there is a serious problem there, and I don't do enough to examine it more closely.
There's also a loose sense of this metaphor which we can see in statements like:
"The only genuine,honest materialism is eliminative materialism, and for that reason I admire the Churchlands' intellectual honesty."
See what I'm saying?
It's a minor point, but it gets to the heart of Hasker's critique of functionalism:
"Look guys, I'm erecting the horns (if you'll pardon the expression) of a dilemma. Choose your poison--eliminativism or non-natural intentionality.
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