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Functionalism, Misc

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  1. Murat Aydede, Syntax, Content and Functionalism: What is Wrong with the Syntactic Theory of Mind.
    I argue that Stich's Syntactic Theory of Mind (STM) and a naturalistic narrow content functionalism run on a Language of Though story have the same exact structure. I elaborate on the argument that narrow content functionalism is either irremediably holistic in a rather destructive sense, or else doesn't have the resources for individuating contents interpersonally. So I show that, contrary to his own advertisement, Stich's STM has exactly the same problems (like holism, vagueness, observer-relativity, etc.) that he claims plague content-based (...)
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  2. Vadim Batitsky (1998). A Formal Rebuttal of the Central Argument for Functionalism. Erkenntnis 49 (2):201-20.
    The central argument for functionalism is the so-called argument from multiple realizations. According to this argument, because a functionally characterized system admits a potential infinity of structurally diverse physical realizations, the functional organization of such systems cannot be captured in a law-like manner at the level of physical description (and, thus, must be treated as a principally autonomous domain of inquiry). I offer a rebuttal of this argument based on formal modeling of its premises in the framework of automata theory. (...)
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  3. George Bealer (2001). The Self-Consciousness Argument: Why Tooley's Criticisms Fail. Philosophical Studies 105 (3):281-307.
    Ontological functionalism's defining tenet is that mental properties canbe defined wholly in terms of the general pattern of interaction ofontologically prior realizations. Ideological (or nonreductive)functionalism's defining tenet is that mental properties can only bedefined nonreductively, in terms of the general pattern of theirinteraction with one another. My Self-consciousness Argumentestablishes: (1) ontological functionalism is mistaken because itsproposed definitions wrongly admit realizations (vs. mentalproperties) into the contents of self-consciousness; (2)ideological (nonreductive) functionalism is the only viable alternativefor functionalists. Michael Tooley's critique misses the (...)
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  4. George Bealer (2000). Fregean Equivocation and Ramsification on Sparse Theories: Response to McCullagh. Mind and Language 15 (5):500-510.
    This paper begins with a brief summary of the Self-consciousness Argument, developed in the author'ss paper "Self-consciousness.".
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  5. George Bealer (1997). Self-Consciousness. Philosophical Review 106 (1):69-117.
    Self-consciousness constitutes an insurmountable obstacle to functionalism. Either the standard functional definitions of mental relations wrongly require the contents of self-consciousness to be propositions involving.
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  6. George Bealer (1985). Mind and Anti-Mind: Why Thinking has No Functional Definition. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 9 (1):283-328.
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  7. George Bealer (1978). An Inconsistency in Functionalism. Synthese 38 (July):333-372.
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  8. William P. Bechtel (1984). Autonomous Psychology: What It Should and Should Not Entail. Philosophy of Science Association 1984:43 - 55.
    In the wake of the cognitivist revolution in psychology, a number of philosophers (e.g., Putnam and Fodor) have argued that the functional ontology underlying cognitivism allows for the autonomy of psychology from neuroscience. It is contended that these arguments do not support the kind of autonomy proposed and that, in any case, such autonomy would be misguided. The last claim is supported by considering the consequences such autonomy would have for a number of research programmes in cognitive psychology. It is (...)
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  9. Hanoch Ben-Yami (1999). An Argument Against Functionalism. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77 (3):320-324.
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  10. Ned Block (1996). What is Functionalism? In Donald M. Borchert (ed.), [Book Chapter]. MacMillan.
    What is Functionalism? Functionalism is one of the major proposals that have been offered as solutions to the mind/body problem. Solutions to the mind/body problem usually try to answer questions such as: What is the ultimate nature of the mental? At the most general level, what makes a mental state mental? Or more specifically, What do thoughts have in common in virtue of which they are thoughts? That is, what makes a thought a thought? What makes a pain a pain? (...)
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  11. Ned Block (1980). Functionalism. In Ned Block (ed.), Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology.
    What is Functionalism? Functionalism is one of the major proposals that have been offered as solutions to the mind/body problem. Solutions to the mind/body problem usually try to answer questions such as: What is the ultimate nature of the mental? At the most general level, what makes a mental state mental? Or more specifically, What do thoughts have in common in virtue of which they are thoughts? That is, what makes a thought a thought? What makes a pain a pain? (...)
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  12. Ned Block (1978). Troubles with Functionalism. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 9:261-325.
    The functionalist view of the nature of the mind is now widely accepted. Like behaviorism and physicalism, functionalism seeks to answer the question "What are mental states?" I shall be concerned with identity thesis formulations of functionalism. They say, for example, that pain is a functional state, just as identity thesis formulations of physicalism say that pain is a physical state.
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  13. Ned Block & Jerry A. Fodor (1972). What Psychological States Are Not. Philosophical Review 81 (April):159-81.
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  14. Paul M. Churchland (2005). Functionalism at Forty: A Critical Retrospective. Journal of Philosophy 102 (1):33-50.
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  15. S. Marc Cohen (1992). Hylomorphism and Functionalism. In Martha Nussbaum & Amelie Rorty (eds.), Essays on Aristotle’s De Anima.
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  16. Robert C. Cummins (1975). Functional Analysis. Journal of Philosophy 72 (November):741-64.
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  17. Suzanne Cunningham (1991). A Darwinian Approach to Functionalism. Journal of Philosophical Research 16:145-157.
    I argue against the claim of certain functionalists, like Jerry Fodor, that theories of psychological states ought to abstract from the physiology of the systems that exhibit such states. Taking seriously Darwin’s claim that living organisms struggle to survive, and that their “mental powers” are adaptations that assist them in this struggle, I argue that not only emotions but also paradigm cognitive states like beliefs are intimately bound up with the physiology of the organism and its efforts to maintain its (...)
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  18. Marian David (1997). Kim's Functionalism. Philosophical Perspectives 11:133-48.
    In some recent articles, Jaegwon Kim has argued that non-reductive physicalism is a myth: when it comes to the mind-body problem, the only serious options are reductionism, eliminativism, and dualism.[1] And when it comes to reductionism, Kim is inclined to regard a functionalist theory of the mind as the best available option—mostly because it offers the best explanation of mind-body supervenience. In this paper, I will discuss Kim’s views about functionalism. They may be contended on two general grounds. First, some (...)
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  19. Ronald P. Endicott (2011). Flat Versus Dimensioned: The What and the How of Functional Realization. Journal of Philosophical Research 36:191-208.
    I resolve an argument over “flat” versus “dimensioned” theories of realization. The theories concern, in part, whether realized and realizing properties are instantiated by the same individual (the flat theory) or different individuals in a part-whole relationship (the dimensioned theory). Carl Gillett has argued that the two views conflict, and that flat theories should be rejected on grounds that they fail to capture scientific cases involving a dimensioned relation between individuals and their constituent parts. I argue on the contrary that (...)
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  20. Michael Esfeld & Christian Sachse (2007). Theory Reduction by Means of Functional Sub-Types. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 21 (1):1 – 17.
    The paper sets out a new strategy for theory reduction by means of functional sub-types. This strategy is intended to get around the multiple realization objection. We use Kim's argument for token identity (ontological reductionism) based on the causal exclusion problem as starting point. We then extend ontological reductionism to epistemological reductionism (theory reduction). We show how one can distinguish within any functional type between functional sub-types. Each of these sub-types is coextensive with one type of realizer. By this means, (...)
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  21. John Martin Fischer (1985). Functionalism and Propositions. Philosophical Studies 48 (November):295-311.
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  22. Bernard Gendron (1970). On the Relation of Neurological and Psychological Theories: A Critique of the Hardware Thesis. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 8:483-95.
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  23. Brie Gertler (2000). Functionalism's Methodological Predicament. Southern Journal of Philosophy 38 (1):77-94.
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  24. Andrew Gleeson (2001). Animal Animation. Philosophia 28 (1-4):137-169.
    The original publication can be found at www.springerlink.com.
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  25. Peter Godfrey-Smith (2009). Triviality Arguments Against Functionalism. Philosophical Studies 145 (2):273 - 295.
    “Triviality arguments” against functionalism in the philosophy of mind hold that the claim that some complex physical system exhibits a given functional organization is either trivial or has much less content than is usually supposed. I survey several earlier arguments of this kind, and present a new one that overcomes some limitations in the earlier arguments. Resisting triviality arguments is possible, but requires functionalists to revise popular views about the “autonomy” of functional description.
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  26. Ronald C. Hoy (1980). Dispositions, Logical States, and Mental Occurrents. Synthese 44 (June):207-40.
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  27. Gregory Johnson (2009). Mechanisms and Functional Brain Areas. Minds and Machines 19 (2):255-271.
    Explanations of how psychological capacities are carried out often invoke functional brain areas. I argue that such explanations cannot succeed. Psychological capacities are carried out by identifiable entities and their activities in the brain, but functional brain areas are not the relevant entities. I proceed by assuming that if functional brain areas did carry out psychological capacities, then these brain areas could be included in descriptions of mechanisms. And if functional brain areas participate in mechanisms, then they must engage in (...)
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  28. William Kalke (1969). What's Wrong with Fodor's and Putnam's Functionalism. Noûs 3 (February):83-93.
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  29. Robert C. Koons (2003). Functionalism Without Physicalism: Outline of an Emergentist Program. Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design 2 (3-3).
    The historical association between functionalism and physicalism is not an unbreakable one. There are reasons for finding some version of a functional account of the mental attractive that are independent of the plausibility of physicalism. I develop a non-physicalist version of func- tionalism and explain how this model is able to secure genuine emergence of the mental, despite Kim’s arguments that such emergence theories are incoherent. The kind of teleological emergence of the mental required by this model is in fact (...)
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  30. Paul M. Livingston (2005). Functionalism and Logical Analysis. In David Woodruff Smith & Amie L. Thomasson (eds.), Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
    After more than thirty-five years of debate and discussion, versions of the functionalist theory of mind originating in the work of Hilary Putnam, Jerry Fodor, and David Lewis still remain the most popular positions among philosophers of mind on the nature of mental states and processes. Functionalism has enjoyed such popularity owing, at least in part, to its claim to offer a plausible and compelling description of the nature of the mental that is also consistent with an underlying physicalist or (...)
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  31. Kirk A. Ludwig (1998). Functionalism, Causation and Causal Relevance. Psyche 4 (3).
    causal relevance, a three-place relation between event types, and circumstances, and argue for a logical independence condition on properties standing in the causal relevance relation relative to circumstances. In section 3, I apply these results to show that functionally defined states are not causally relevant to the output or state transitions in terms of which they are defined. In section 4, I extend this result to what that output in turn causes and to intervening mechanisms. In section 5, I examine (...)
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  32. William G. Lycan (2003). Chomsky on the Mind - Body Problem. In Chomsky and His Critics. Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing.
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  33. William G. Lycan (1981). Form, Function and Feel. Journal of Philosophy 78 (January):24-50.
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  34. J. D. Mackenzie (1984). Functionalism and Psychologism. Dialogue 23 (June):239-248.
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  35. Pete Mandik, Fine-Grained Supervenience, Cognitive Neuroscience, and the Future of Functionalism.
    The majority of contemporary philosophers of mind are physicalists. The majority of physicalists, however, are non-reductive physicalists. As nonreductive physicalists, these philosophers hold that a system's mental properties are different from a system's physical properties, that is, they hold that the sum total of mental facts about some system is a different set of facts than the sum total of physical facts about the same system. As physicalists, however, these nonreductivists hold that mental facts are nonetheless determined by physical facts, (...)
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  36. Mohan Matthen (2000). What is a Hand? What is a Mind? Revue Internationale de Philosophie (214):653-672.
    Argues that biological organs, including mental capacities, should be identified by homology (not function).
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  37. Mark McCullagh (2000). Functionalism and Self-Consciousness. Mind and Language 15 (5):481-499.
    I offer a philosophically well-motivated solution to a problem that George Bealer has identified, which he claims is fatal to functionalism. The problem is that there seems to be no way to generate a satisfactory Ramsey sentence of a psychological theory in which mental-state predicates occur within the scopes of mental-state predicates. My central claim is that the functional roles in terms of which a creature capable of self-consciousness identifies her own mental states must be roles that items could play (...)
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  38. Brian P. Mclaughlin (2006). Is Role-Functionalism Committed to Epiphenomenalism? Journal of Consciousness Studies 13 (1-2):39-66.
    Role-functionalism for mental events attempts to avoid epiphenomenalism without psychophysical identities. The paper addresses the question of whether it can succeed. It is argued that there is considerable reason to believe it cannot avoid epiphenomenalism, and that if it cannot, then it is untenable. It is pointed out, however, that even if role- functionalism is indeed an untenable theory of mental events, a role-functionalism account of mental dispositions has some intuitive plausibility.
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  39. Marc A. Moffett (2010). Against a Posteriori Functionalism. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 40 (1):pp. 83-106.
    There are two constraints on any functionalist solution to the Mind-Body Problem construed as an answer to the question, “What is the relationship between the mental properties and relations (hereafter, simply the mental properties) and physical properties and relations?” The first constraint is that it must actually address the Mind-Body Problem and not simply redefine the debate in terms of other, more tractable, properties (e.g., the species-specific property of having human-pain). Such moves can be seen to be spurious by the (...)
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  40. Derk Pereboom (1991). Why a Scientific Realist Cannot Be a Functionalist. Synthese 88 (September):341-58.
    According to functionalism, mental state types consist solely in relations to inputs, outputs, and other mental states. I argue that two central claims of a prominent and plausible type of scientific realism conflict with the functionalist position. These claims are that natural kinds in a mature science are not reducible to natural kinds in any other, and that all dispositional features of natural kinds can be explained at the type-level. These claims, when applied to psychology, have the consequence that at (...)
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  41. Gualtiero Piccinini (2004). Functionalism, Computationalism, & Mental States. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 35 (4):811-833.
    Some philosophers have conflated functionalism and computationalism. I reconstruct how this came about and uncover two assumptions that made the conflation possible. They are the assumptions that (i) psychological functional analyses are computational descriptions and (ii) everything may be described as performing computations. I argue that, if we want to improve our understanding of both the metaphysics of mental states and the functional relations between them, we should reject these assumptions.
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  42. David Pineda (2001). Functionalism and Nonreductive Physicalism. Theoria 16 (40):43-63.
    Most philosophers of mind nowadays espouse two metaphysical views: Nonreductive Physicalism and the causal efficacy of the mental. Throughout this work I will refer to the conjunction of both claims as the Causal Autonomy of the Mental. Nevertheless, this position is threatened by a number of difficulties which are far more serious than one would imagine given the broad consensus that it has generated during the last decades. This paper purports to offer a careful examination of some of these difficulties (...)
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  43. Thomas W. Polger, Against the Argument From Functional Explanation.
    There is an argument for functionalism—and _ipso facto_ against identity theory—that can be sketched as follows: We are, or want to be, or should be dedicated to functional explanations in the sciences, or at least the special sciences. Therefore—according to the principle that what exists is what our ideal theories say exists—we are, or want to be, or should be committed to metaphysical functionalism. Let us call this the _argument from functional_ _explanation_. I will try to reveal the motivation for (...)
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  44. Thomas W. Polger (1998). Escaping the Epiphenomenal Trap. Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology.
    I describe a feature of the debate between Functionalists and Anti-Functionalists in philosophy of mind that I call The Epiphenomenal Trap. I argue that the dialectic is a trap because neither side can resolve the central metaphysical issue as it has been put. That is because the debate typically trades in possible explanations. So long as Functionalists and Anti-Functionalists continue to debate whether functionalist explanations are possible, the central metaphysical issue cannot be resolved.
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  45. Robert C. Richardson (1979). Functionalism and Reductionism. Philosophy of Science 46 (4):533-58.
    It is here argued that functionalist constraints on psychology do not preclude the applicability of classic forms of reduction and, therefore, do not support claims to a principled, or de jure, autonomy of psychology. In Part I, after isolating one minimal restriction any functionalist theory must impose on its categories, it is shown that any functionalism imposing an additional constraint of de facto autonomy must also be committed to a pure functionalist--that is, a computationalist--model for psychology. Using an extended parallel (...)
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  46. Don Ross (1995). Minimal Strong Functionalism. Journal of Philosophical Research 20:237-268.
    This paper is motivated by the concern that increasingly fewer philosophers of mind seem prepared to call themselves ‘functionalists’ these days. I suggest that this has less to do with explicit arguments presented against functionalism than with a gradual decay in the clarity of the term’s reference. This decay has two sources: functionalism has involved several different, logically independent research commitments, and it has become tightly associated, to an unnecessary degree, with classical computationalism, a program which is now under severe (...)
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  47. Elliott Sober (1990). Putting the Function Back Into Functionalism. In William G. Lycan (ed.), Mind and Cognition. Blackwell.
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  48. Elliott Sober (1985). Panglossian Functionalism and the Philosophy of Mind. Synthese 64 (August):165-93.
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  49. Michael Tooley (2001). Functional Concepts, Referentially Opaque Contexts, Causal Relations, and the Definition of Theoretical Terms. Philosophical Studies 105 (3):251-79.
    In his recent article, ``Self-Consciousness', George Bealer has set outa novel and interesting argument against functionalism in the philosophyof mind. I shall attempt to show, however, that Bealer's argument cannotbe sustained.In arguing for this conclusion, I shall be defending three main theses.The first is connected with the problem of defining theoreticalpredicates that occur in theories where the following two features arepresent: first, the theoretical predicate in question occurswithin both extensional and non-extensional contexts; secondly, thetheory in question asserts that the relevant (...)
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  50. Alan Weir (2001). More Trouble for Functionalism. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 101 (3):267-293.
    In this paper I highlight certain logical and metaphysical issues which arise in the characterisation of functionalism-in particular its ready coherence with a physicalist ontology, its structuralism and the impredicativity of functionalist specifications. I then utilise these points in an attempt to demonstrate fatal flaws in the functionalist programme. I argue that the brand of functionalism inspired by David Lewis fails to accommodate multiple realisability though such accommodation was vaunted as a key improvement over the identity theory. More standard accounts (...)
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  51. Kathleen V. Wilkes (1981). Functionalism, Psychology and the Philosophy of Mind. Philosophical Topics 12 (1):147-67.
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  52. Nick Zangwill (1992). Variable Realization: Not Proven. Philosophical Quarterly 42 (167):214-19.
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  53. Jing Zhu (2006). In Defence of Functionalism. Philosophia 34 (1):95-99.
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