Abstract

Contemporary philosophy of mind is dominated by two complementary views: functionalism--the idea that the mental can be accounted for in terms of abstract causal features of physical systems, and representationalism--the idea that the intentional features of the mental can be accounted for by postulating mental representations. ;Both these views face fundamental criticisms. Functionalism, by equating mental phenomena with abstract causal structures, robs the mental of genuine causal significance. Furthermore, the role of interpretation in the theory undermines its completeness, by using intentionality in the account of intentionality, thus setting up a circularity. This interpretive aspect of the theory also has unfortunate consequences with respect to the possibility of realism towards the mental. But, since anti-realism about the mental is incoherent, insofar as functionalism implies anti-realism, it is itself incoherent. ;As to representationalism, it too suffers from a fundamental circularity. Intentionality is to be accounted for by representations in the head. But representations are dependent on users--on entities who can make use of one thing to stand for another. Such entities are intentional themselves, so representations cannot be foundational in an account of intentionality. ;In contrast to functionalism and representationalism, a successful theory of mind must allow the mental genuine ontological equality with the physical, and acknowledge the fact of intentional causation. That is, the current notion of "the physical" should be given up as a paradigm of the real