Cognitive naturalism and cognitive neuroscience: a defence of eliminativism and a discussion with G. Roth

The impact of cognitive neuroscience on the mind-body problem is examined by distinguishing many different reactions of philosophers to the emergence of this research field over the last thirty years. The conclusion of this analysis is that for the first time in the history of humankind explaining how human beings are intelligent without being obliged to refer to the existence of the soul has become as plausible as it is possible, in light of C. Darwin’s work, to explain the evolution of species without resorting to any ‘intelligent design’. Moreover, it is claimed that the reaction against such a naturalization of the mind is similar to the denial of Darwin’s theory of biological evolution by natural selection and comes from the same source, that is, the concern that by destroying the belief in the existence of God and free will materialism and naturalism will destroy the fundament of law and morals and more generally the fundament of any social life and human culture. Finally, the paper replies to this spiritualistic reaction from the standpoint of strong naturalism by examining the naturalism of the neuroscientist G. Roth and criticising his way of distinguishing the real world from the phenomenal world. Thus it is claimed that considering the distinction between conscious states and the corresponding brain processes as phenomenological and not ontological helps to understand that a materialistic, eliminativistic and reductionist view of the mind based on neurosciences can afford a new scientific image of human beings and of their social life without renouncing anything in the fields of ethics, art, love and in short the whole spiritual dimension of human life