Luigi Parodi
University of Turin
Trenton Merricks, in his 2001 book titled Persons and Objects, provides some arguments in support of a strong form of eliminativism, denying the existence of objects while, on the other hand, defending the existence of persons and living organisms. In the first section of this paper, I will present some classical accounts of eliminativism in the philosophy of the mind and show how usually eliminativism is believed to be incompatible with emergentism. In the second section, I will present Merricks’ eliminativism and briefly assess its merits and its shortcomings. Finally, I will try to interpret Merricks’ eliminativism in the terms of emergence, showing how an integrated perspective might be possible.
Key words: eliminativism – emergence – mereology – metaphysics – ontology
Chair: Andreas Frenzel
Time: September 8th, 10:40-11:10
Location: SR 1.006
SOPhiA 2026 