Overview

Eliminative illusionism is one of the boldest ideas in consciousness philosophy. It says: maybe what we call “raw inner feel” (qualia) is not what we think it is. Maybe the mind builds a convincing story about experience, and we confuse that story for a mysterious extra substance.

That sounds extreme at first. But this view exists for a reason: many philosophers and scientists think traditional ideas about consciousness are too vague, too magical, or impossible to connect to brain science.

This post explains the main voices in this column in simple language — what each person is trying to do, what they get right, and what critics push back on.

Quick orientation: eliminativism vs illusionism

Before the names, the key split:

  • Eliminativism: some everyday mental concepts (like folk ideas of “belief,” “qualia,” or “inner glow”) may be scientifically wrong and should be replaced.
  • Illusionism: conscious experience exists, but our introspection about its nature is misleading. The illusion is not that experience exists, but that it has the weird, irreducible properties we attribute to it.

So these views are not saying “nothing is happening.” They are saying “something is happening, but our self-explanation is distorted.”

Churchlands (Patricia and Paul Churchland)

The Churchlands are central eliminativists. Their core claim is that “folk psychology” (our everyday way of talking about mind) may end up like outdated pre-scientific theories.

Simple version:

  • People once explained disease with “bad humors.”
  • Modern biology replaced that model.
  • Likewise, future neuroscience may replace many common-sense mental categories.

Why this matters:

They forced philosophers to treat neuroscience as a possible revision of mental concepts, not just an add-on.

Main criticism:

Folk psychology, unlike humors, still works surprisingly well in everyday prediction. So maybe it is rough but not totally false.

Dennett

Daniel Dennett is often read as the bridge from strict eliminativism to sophisticated illusionism-like approaches.

His move:

  • Reject the idea of a “Cartesian theater” (a little inner screen where experience is presented).
  • Treat consciousness as distributed, dynamic, and functionally explainable.
  • Explain the sense of immediacy and inner certainty without adding non-physical essence.

Dennett’s strength is explanatory engineering: he asks how the brain could create the user-level appearance of rich inner life.

Critics say he explains access and behavior better than the “felt feel.” Supporters answer: that demand may itself be a conceptual trap.

Frankish

Keith Frankish is one of the clearest modern defenders of illusionism.

His key line:

  • We should be realists about mental states and reports.
  • But anti-realists about qualia as non-physical, intrinsic mental paint.

In plain language: your pain is real, your suffering is real, your report is real — but the theory that pain has a spooky extra property may be wrong.

Frankish is useful because he states the position without sarcasm or reductionist machismo; he treats it as a serious research program.

Humphrey

Nicholas Humphrey emphasizes the evolutionary and experiential framing of consciousness. Even when he differs in tone from strict eliminativists, he contributes a key idea:

  • Consciousness may be a biologically useful self-model that shapes motivation, social life, and meaning.

In this column, Humphrey helps show that “constructed” does not mean “fake.” A rainbow is constructed by physics and perception, but still real as a phenomenon.

Graziano

Michael Graziano’s Attention Schema Theory (AST) is one of the strongest scientific allies of illusionist-friendly thinking.

Core idea:

  • The brain builds a simplified model of its own attention (an “attention schema”).
  • That model underlies the belief that we have private, ineffable awareness.

Why powerful:

It gives a concrete mechanism for why people report consciousness the way they do.

Critique:

It may explain reports about awareness, but critics ask whether it explains phenomenal character itself or sidesteps it.

Blackmore

Susan Blackmore challenges “inner self” intuitions and fixed observer models. Her broader work (including meme theory and no-self lines) supports this column’s anti-essential stance:

  • What feels like a stable inner entity may be a process, not a thing.

She is valuable because she connects philosophical skepticism about qualia with practical, psychological, and contemplative perspectives.

Kammerer

François Kammerer is an important contemporary critic/analyst in this space, especially around illusionism’s strengths and limits.

His role in the map is crucial:

  • He pressure-tests whether illusionism actually dissolves the hard problem or just reframes it.
  • He helps sharpen definitions so the debate is not pure wordplay.

Think of him as quality control for the whole position.

Mandik

Pete Mandik’s work in representational and naturalistic philosophy of mind contributes to the same broader project:

  • explain conscious-seeming phenomena through cognitive/representational architecture,
  • avoid mystery inflation,
  • keep continuity with neuroscience.

Mandik-type approaches matter because they translate metaphysical claims into modelable cognitive terms.

Irvine

Elizabeth Irvine has worked on introspection, self-knowledge, and limits of first-person certainty. In this column, that matters a lot:

  • If introspection is less transparent than we assume, illusionist strategies become more plausible.

Her contribution is epistemic humility: feeling sure about our own minds does not guarantee theoretical accuracy.

Ostendorf

In the context of your list, Ostendorf functions as part of the contemporary comparative dialogue around anti-essential and model-based views of consciousness.

Practical takeaway:

  • Keep the debate empirical where possible,
  • keep concepts precise,
  • and avoid turning introspective language into untouchable metaphysics.

Strongest argument for this column

The strongest pro-illusionism point is this:

We already know the brain builds useful but simplified self-models in many domains. Why assume consciousness introspection is the one domain that is perfectly literal and complete?

This is a serious challenge to intuition-based anti-physicalism.

Strongest argument against this column

The strongest anti-illusionism point is this:

Even if introspection is imperfect, that does not erase the datum that there is something it is like to be conscious. A theory that treats this as mere confusion risks explaining away what most needs explanation.

That is why this debate stays alive.

Plain-language conclusion

Eliminative illusionism is not “consciousness is fake.” It is “our usual theory of consciousness might be wrong in deep ways.”

Whether you accept it or not, this column is valuable because it forces better questions:

  • Which parts of conscious experience are data?
  • Which parts are interpretation?
  • Which parts are narrative generated by the brain?

If your goal is clarity, this school is impossible to ignore.