The trouble with this bald claim is that it threatens eliminative materialism (EM) with unbelievability, unassertability, evidential groundlessness, self-stultification, self-referential falsehood, and other defects. The allegation is widely known: A sentence expressing the thesis of eliminative materialism would be just a concatenation of ink marks or a bare acoustical disturbance unless it meant something. But for inscriptions or vocalizations to mean anything they must have the right causal provenance, one that involves intentional states of various kinds in myriad possible ways. Moreover, assertions are actions, but actions are caused by desires and beliefs. Additionally, nothing could be evidence for a thesis unless there are agents who recognize it as evidence. Since eliminative materialism expressly denies the existence of beliefs and desires, and thereby precludes assertions and all other actions, as well as evidence for or against anything, it follows that its truth cannot be asserted, believed, hoped for, substantiated to any degree by any evidence, or rationally defended. Call this the incoherence problem.

The incoherence problem has rarely been a serious issue between defenders of EM (hereafter EMists) and their opponents.