Abstract

The contemporary mind-body problem can be seen as a challenge for materialism to provide an account of what I call mental content. The contents of mental states are properties of one of two sorts: intentional or qualitative. The latter of these is the focus of this work, as I provide and defend a functionalist account of "qualia." ;In the first chapter, I defend materialism in two ways. First, I explain its overall plausibility; second, I expose the insuperable difficulties with several forms of dualism. Together, these make the case for materialism more than compelling. Nonetheless, in the second chapter I argue against accepting four different versions of materialism: behaviorism, the identity theory, eliminative materialism, and anomalous monism. ;This sets the stage for a discussion of functionalism, the doctrine that mental states are abstract causal states defined in terms of their relations to an organism's inputs, outputs, and other inner states. In the third chapter, I show that functionalist theories can avoid the difficulites of earlier forms of materialism, while capturing their correct insights. I distinguish four different versions of the view, and argue in favor of accepting homuncular functionalism. This type of functionalism fits the best with recent work in the cognitive sciences, and I believe provides us with the most plausible materialist account of qualia. ;The final two chapters are a detailed defense of functionalism against three objections designed to show that functionalist theories of the mind leave out the qualitative aspects of experience. I conclude that the objections fail, and further suggest a way of explaining qualia in terms of information transfer which occurs at the sub-personal level.