Abstract

Scientific inquiry has revealed that pain is a complex and heterogonous phenomenon that is neither localized to a circumscribed region in the brain nor realized by a unique neurological mechanism. This discovery has inspired the application of a new version of eliminativism–scientific eliminativism–to pain. Based on this view, pain is not a natural kind and should be eliminated from scientific theorizing. Scientific eliminativism applied to pain is purportedly distinct from eliminative materialism because the former does not require elimination of the term ‘pain’ from its quotidian uses in folk psychology. In this paper, I challenge the distinction between scientific eliminativism and eliminative materialism and argue that the two versions of eliminativism make the same claims. I argue further that endorsement of scientific eliminativism for pain leads to elimination of the category of pain from folk psychology. To avoid this outcome, I formulate a proposal that obviates the need for eliminativism in any domain.