Mr Streitfeld<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

I fail to understand in what way your view can be characterized as ‘functionalist’.  You seem to be, like Ryle, a logical behaviorist.

Historically, functionalism was formulated in opposition to logical behaviorism, due to the latter’s apparent inability to provide purely behavioral definitions of psychological states (see Putnam’s “The Nature of Mental States”).  The most fundamental tenets of functionalism are (1) that behavior is mediated by internal states, and (2) that these states are inter-definable as mental states by the ‘pattern’ of their causal relations.  By design, functionalism is inconsistent with logical behaviorism.

I believe you misunderstand functionalism where you assert its point is that “the language of mental states does not pick out particular existent events, states, or processes at all.”  This is true for logical behaviorism but not for functionalism, which holds that to be in pain is to be in a particular state of the brain (or its equivalent), a state that had a specific causal history and that will have specific causal consequences.  An implication of functionalism is that, in principle, one could look in the brain and find the particular internal state that is identical with an instance of pain.  Where functionalism is ‘non-specific’ is only in its claim that, like a computational state, a token pain need not be realized in a particular type of material.  This is not the same as the assertion that it does not pick out a particular event.

Since you express the views of a logical behaviorist, could you please explain in what sense you take your view to be functionalist?

regards,

David