Online research in philosophy

Functionalism in the philosophy of mind rests on the claim that mental states are multiply realizable; mental states can be realized by or instantiated in a variety of distinct physical structures. To see them as multiply realizable we take mental states as causal roles rather than particular physical structures. As such, functionalism can be contrasted with metaphysical accounts which treat mental states as instances of a mental substance. Instead of puzzling over the relationship between mental and physical kinds, functionalists understand our talk of minds as a way of describing the functions of bodies. The attraction of a functionalist position is obvious. It seems to solve the traditional problem of mind-body dualism, while simultaneously reconciling the apparent irreducibility of psychological discourse with a broadly physicalistic or materialistic ontology.

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? Cartesian Dualism said the ultimate nature of the mental was to be found in a special mental substance. Behaviorism identified mental states with behavioral dispositions; physicalism in its most influential version identifies mental states with brain states. Functionalism says that mental states are constituted by their causal relations to one another and to sensory inputs and behavioral outputs. Functionalism is one of the major theoretical developments of Twentieth Century analytic philosophy, and provides the conceptual underpinnings of much work in cognitive science.

Functionalists think an event's causes and effects, its 'causal role', determines whether it is a mental state and, if so, which kind. Functionalists see this causal role principle as supporting their orthodox materialism, their commitment to the neuroscientist's ontology. I examine and refute the functionalist's causal principle and the orthodox materialism that attends that principle.

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..

In this paper I distinguish three alternatives to the functionalist account of qualitative states such as pain. The physicalist-functionalist holds that (1) there could be subjects functionally equivalent to us whose mental states differed in their qualitative character from ours, (2) there could be subjects functionally equivalent to us whose mental states lacked qualitative character altogether and (3) there could not be subjects like us in all objective respects whose qualitative states differed from ours. The physicalist-functionalist holds (1) and (3) but denies (2). The transcendentalist holds (1) and (2) and denies (3). I argue that both versions of physicalist-functionalism inherit the problem of property dualism which originally helped to motivate functionalist theories of mind. I also argue that neither version of physicalist-functionalism can distinguish in a principled way between those neurophysiological properties of a subject which are relevant to the qualitative character of that subject's mental states and those which are not. I conclude that the only alternative to a functionalist account of qualitative states is a transcendentalist account and that this alternative is not likely to appeal to the critics of functionalism.

Which comes first, realization or multiple realization? Hilary Putnam (1960) invoked the term ‘realization’ to refer to the relation that holds between physical devices and abstract computing machines, such as Turing machines or probabilistic automata. Putnam (1967) hypothesized that the relation between brain and mind is also realization. He contrasted his hypothesis—which he dubbed “functionalism”—with the competing hypotheses that mental states are to be identified with syndromes of behavior and behavioral dispositions, or that mental states are to be identified with brain processes. Instead, functionalism proposes that mental states are to be identified with functional states of whole organisms. Importantly, Putnam regards functionalism as an empirical hypothesis, and one whose explication appeals to some technical notions, particularly to the idea of a probabilistic automaton.