Off-campus access
Using PhilPapers from home?
Click here to configure this browser for off-campus access.
- 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 target:he offers no criticism of (1) – except for an incidental, andincorrect, attack on certain self-intimation principles – and,since he himself proposes a certain form of nonreductive definition, hetacitly accepts (2). Finally, as with all other nonreductivedefinitions, Tooley's proposal can be shown to undermine functionalism'sultimate goal: its celebrated materialist solution to theMind-Body Problem. The explanation of these points will require adiscussion of: Frege-Russell disagreements regarding intensionalcontexts; the relationship between self-consciousness and thetraditional doctrine of acquaintance; the role of self-intimationprinciples in functionalist psychology; and the Kripke-Lewiscontroversy over the nature of theoretical terms.Reading list | Discuss | Edit | Categorize |My bibliography
| Export citation | Other links: springerlink.com kluweronline.com ingentaconnect.com dx.doi.org jstor.org | Scholar | At my library 
Similar books and articles
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 materialist ontology. Yet despite its continued popularity, many philosophers now think that functionalism leaves something out, in particular that functional explanations and analyses fail to account for consciousness, qualia, or phenomenal states of experience or awareness.¹ If the objection is correct, then functionalism fails in its inability..
Reading list
| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: books.google.com homepage.villanova.edu | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Other links: books.google.com homepage.villanova.edu | Scholar | At my library | More options ... The type-type reductive identity of the mental to the physical was once the dominant position in the mental causation debate. In time this consensus was overturned, largely due to its inability to handle the problem of multiple realizability. In its place a nonreductive position emerged which often included an adherence to functionalism. Functionalism construes mental properties as functional states of an organism, which in turn have specific physical realizers. This nonreductive form of functionalism, henceforth called role functionalism, has faced a number of criticisms itself. Chief among these is the concern that the realizer of the functional role is causally sufficient, so the role property does not make a contribution of its own. In this paper I argue that there is a way for unreduced functional properties to play a role after all. This is done by conceiving of functional properties as higher level functional properties of a macro system which determine that its realizers will play the roles that they play.
Reading list
| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: dx.doi.org springerlink.com | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Other links: dx.doi.org springerlink.com | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Philosophical approaches -- The history of the mind-body problem -- The philosophy of neuroscience -- Recent advances in functionalism I : homuncular functionalism -- Recent advances in functionalism II : teleological functionalism -- Representation and the physical basis of mental content -- Conscious and unconscious representations -- Brain dynamics, attention and movement -- Memory and perception -- The where and when of visual experience -- Multiple types of consciousness.
No categories
Reading list
| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Reading list
| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Scholar | At my library | More options ... 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 within creatures whose psychology is less complex than hers. (Bealer’s reply to this paper appears in the same issue of Mind & Language.).
Reading list
| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: blackwell-synergy.com ingentaconnect.com dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Other links: blackwell-synergy.com ingentaconnect.com dx.doi.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Reading list
| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: jstor.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Other links: jstor.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Reading list
| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Reading list
| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Other links: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov | Scholar | At my library | More options ... 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.
Reading list
| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: homepages.wmich.edu links.jstor.org jstor.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Other links: homepages.wmich.edu links.jstor.org jstor.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ... 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 theoretical states enterinto causal relations. What I shall argue is that a Ramsey-styleapproach to the definition of such theoretical terms requires twodistinct quantifiers: one which ranges over concepts, and theother which ranges over properties in the world.
Reading list
| Discuss | Edit | Categorize | My bibliography | Export citation | Other links: kluweronline.com springerlink.com ingentaconnect.com jstor.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ...
| | Other links: kluweronline.com springerlink.com ingentaconnect.com jstor.org | Scholar | At my library | More options ... Discussion of George Bealer, The self-consciousness argument: Why Tooley's criticisms fail
 Back
All discussions
Start a new thread
|
There are no threads in this forum |
Nothing in this forum yet.
