Reductive Materialism

Reductive Materialism may be confused with eliminative materialism, though this is only because they both start with a fundamental premise: all mental states are ultimately material. But, they differ in their approach so as to what should then be done. The reductive materialist is less-radical than eliminativism by simply stating that the mental states that we have can ultimately be explained and are correlated to physical processes occurring the brain - while the eliminativist argues that such talk of mental states like 'pain' should be completely eliminated. Though, because of their commonalities, they are often referenced synonymously. Reductive materialism is a type of monism that argues that there is only one thing in the world: the material; so even though we may 'feel' like we have a mind/soul or experience immaterial things, they are ultimately reducible to physical processes that are happening. To use an accepted scientific example, water is fundamentally reducible to H20. Likewise, mental states are reducible to physical descriptions.