Some philosophers suspect that the functionalist account of mind supports a psychologistic account of logic. One who has argued for a connection of this kind is Remmel T. Nunn. If the connection holds, it might be a powerful support for the currently unfashionable position of psychologism; conversely, it might be a damaging objection to functionalism. In either case, to estabjish the connection would be an achievement of considerable philosophic interest.

Before embarking upon the project of reformulating psychoanalysis in the 'scientific' terminology of cognitive science, we should first clearly define what psychoanalysis is about and what it is not about. Cognitive science is based upon a functionalistic philosophy of the mind. As a consequence such a project would require a functionalistic core theory of psychoanalysis. But Freud's claim of the therapeutic effect of psychoanalysis, attained through the rendering conscious of what is unconscious or the making personal of what is experienced (...) by the neurotic patient as impersonal, cannot be explained by a functionalistic theory of the mind We examine Freud's claim and conclude that there ought to be a philosophy of qualia at the core of psychoanalysis. (shrink)

Recent functionalist accounts of the mental, at least on the part of philosophers, have often been a result of dissatisfaction with the reductionist accounts championed by such physicalists as Place, Smart and Feigl. In particular this new account gained momentum from the growing belief that our map of the mental, at least in regard to the higher cognitive functions, does not seem to be a map of the brain and its processes. The more we find out about the working brain, (...) the less we are able to cling to the belief that our talk about beliefs, evaluations, intentions, desires and motives gives us information about the structure or functioning of our brains. (shrink)

David Lewis's position, often called analytic functionalism, was inspired by Ryle's analytic behaviorism, which took psychological predicates to express complex sets of behavioral dispositions. In this chapter, the author reviews some tenets of Lewis's philosophy of mind and begins with some comments on the methodology Lewis employed in his analysis of psychological terms, which has become standard in functionalist accounts across philosophy. Then, he discusses the difference between what are often called “realizer functionalism” and “role functionalism,” and (...) argues that Lewis made the wrong choice. In Lewis's argument for the identity theory, the identity of mental states with biological states follows logically from folk‐psychological definitions and broadly physical facts. A central part of folk psychology concerns the interaction of beliefs, desires, and choices. The chapter presents Lewis's often misunderstood account of intentionality. It also presents few pessimistic remarks on the prospect of analyzing phenomenal truths in terms of functional role. (shrink)

Functionalism, which views consciousness as the product of the processing of stimuli by the brain, is perhaps the dominant view among researchers in the cognitive sciences and associated fields. However, as a workable scientific model of consciousness, it has been marred by a singular lack of tangible success, except at the broadest levels of explanation. This paper argues that this is not an accident, and that in its standard construal it is simply too unwieldy to assume the burden of (...) full-fledged theory. In its place, a reduced functionalism is introduced by applying the principle of parsimony successively to the elements of standard functionalism until only a minimal framework remains. This simpler account states that consciousness is a function of instantaneous causal relations between processing elements rather the putative algorithm such relations are instantiating. It is then argued as a corollary that the only such relations that matter are those in which reciprocal influences are at play. Thus, purely afferent and efferent causal relations are pruned from consideration. The theory resulting from the addition of this corollary is shown to have good correspondence with a number of recent neurophysiologically-motivated approaches to consciousness, including those that stress the importance of reentry, those that view synchrony as a key independent variable, and those that highlight the importance of the accessibility of conscious contents to multiple processing modules. In addition, the theory is shown to be consistent with recent results in the literature on masking, and those in the literature on binocular rivalry. The paper concludes by arguing that the theoretical and empirical difficulties inherent in consciousness research imply that the principle of parsimony must occupy a more central role in consciousness research than it would in ordinary scientific discourse. (shrink)

Functionalism, the philosophical theory that defines mental states in terms of their causal relations to stimuli, overt behaviour, and other inner mental states, has often been accused of being unable to account for the qualitative character of our experimential states. Many times such objections to functionalism take the form of conceivability arguments. One is asked to imagine situations where organisms who are in a functional state that is claimed to be a particular experience either have the qualitative character (...) of that experience altered or absent altogether. Many of these arguments are surprisingly advanced by materialist philosophers. I argue that if the conceivability arguments were successful against functionalism, then they would be successful against their alternative materialist views as well. So the conceivability arguments alone do not provide a good reason for materialists to abandon functionalism. I further argue that functionalism is best understood to be an empirical theory, and if it is so understood then the conceivability arguments have no force against it at all. A further consequence that emerges is that on an empirical functionalist view, qualia, if real, are properties in the domain of psychology. (shrink)

I shall characterize normative functionalism and contrast it with its causal counterpart. After tracing both stripes of functionalism to the work of the classical American pragmatists, I then argue that they are not exclusive alternatives. Instead, both might be required for an appropriately illuminating account of human rational activity.

In this essay, I propose a functionalist theory of grounding (functionalist-grounding). Specifically, I argue that grounding is a second-order phenomenon that is realized by relations that play the noncausal explanatoriness role. I also show that functionalist-grounding can deal with a powerful challenge. Appeals to explanatory unificationism have been made to argue that the success of noncausal explanations does not depend on the existence of grounding relations. Against this, I argue that a systematization involving functionalist-grounding is superior to its anti-relational counterpart.

This is the first of four papers prompted by a recent literature about a doctrine dubbed spacetime functionalism. This paper gives our general framework for discussing functionalism. Following Lewis, we take it as a species of reduction. We start by expounding reduction in a broadly Nagelian sense. Then we argue that Lewis’ functionalism is an improvement on Nagelian reduction.This paper sets the scene for the other papers, which will apply our framework to theories of space and time. (...) (So those papers address the space and time literature: both recent and older, and physical as well as philosophical literature. But the four papers can be read independently.)Overall, we come to praise spacetime functionalism, not to bury it. But we criticize the recent philosophical literature for failing to stress: functionalism’s being a species of reduction (in particular: reduction of chrono-geometry to the physics of matter and radiation);functionalism’s idea, not just of specifying a concept by its functional role, but of specifying several concepts simultaneously by their roles;functionalism’s providing bridge laws that are mandatory, not optional: they are statements of identity (or co-extension) that are conclusions of a deductive argument, rather than contingent guesses or verbal stipulations; and once we infer them, we have a reduction in a Nagelian sense.On the other hand, some of the older philosophical literature, and the mathematical physics literature, is faithful to these ideas (i) to (iii)—as are Torretti’s writings. (But of course, the word ‘functionalism’ is not used; and themes like simultaneous unique definition are not articulated.) Thus in various papers, falling under various research programmes, the unique definability of a chrono-geometric concept (or concepts) in terms of matter and radiation, and a corresponding bridge law and reduction, is secured by a precise theorem. Hence our desire to celebrate these results as rigorous renditions of spacetime functionalism. (shrink)

I consider a grand, yet neglected proposal put forward by Shoemaker—a functionalist theory of all properties. I argue that two possible ways of developing this proposal meet with substantial objections. However, if we are prepared to endorse an ontology of tropes, one of these functionalist analyses can be developed into an original and informative theory of properties.

According to functionalism, the family internalizes and transmits society’s supposed value consensus from one generation to the next, and such socialization explains morality, social order, and cultural uniformities. I present three investigations that challenge the concept of functionalist socialization, and propose alternative theories that may better explain observations. First, I present evidence from developmental psychology based largely on American subjects and an ethnographic report from Burkina Faso which suggest that the characters of children are not formed by parental socialization. (...) Second, I report data from Europe which suggest that the weaker is family and its supervision, the stronger is character and internalized morality. Third, I report an account of European modernization which suggests that weaker family ties broaden extrafamilial associations and generalize moral orientation. Finally, I suggest that Schelling’s game-theoretic account of social conventions is a better explanation of cultural continuities and discontinuities than is functionalism. (shrink)

In discussing the famous case of Otto, a patient with Alzheimer’s disease who carries around a notebook to keep important information, Clark and Chalmers argue that some of Otto’s beliefs are physically realized in the notebook. In other words, some of Otto’s beliefs are extended into the environment. Their main argument is a functionalist one. Some of Otto’s beliefs are physically realized in the notebook because, first, some of the beliefs of Inga, a healthy person who remembers important information in (...) her head, are physically realized in her internal memory storage, and, second, there is no relevant functional difference between the role of the notebook for Otto and the role of the internal memory storage for Inga. The paper presents a new objection to this argument. I call it “the systems reply” to the functionalist argument since it is structurally analogous to the “the systems reply” to Searle’s Chinese room argument. According to the systems reply to the functionalist argument, what actually follows from their argument is not that beliefs of Otto are physically realized in the notebook but rather that the beliefs of the hybrid system consisting of Otto and his notebook are physically realized in the notebook. This paper also discusses Sprevak’s claim that the functionalist argument entails radical versions of extended mental states and shows that his argument is also vulnerable to the systems reply. (shrink)

I argue that standard functionalism leads to absurd conclusions as to the number of minds that would exist in the universe if persons were duplicated. Rather than yielding the conclusion that making a molecule-by-molecule copy of a material person would result in two persons, it leads to the conclusion that three persons, or perhaps only one person, would result. This is absurd and standard functionalism should be abandoned. Social varieties of functionalism fare no better, though there is (...) an Aristotelian variety of functionalism that accepts irreducible finality that escapes this particular reductio. (shrink)

Multiple supervenience is a problematic notion whose role can well be served by a contextualized or properly restricted standard notion of supervenience. It is furthermore not needed to defend functionalism against Kim's charge that cross-classifying taxonomies imply a serious form of dualism; nor does Ross & Spurrett's (R&S's) Kitcherian account of the metaphysics of causation crucially depend on multiple supervenience.

In a recent article (Inquiry, Vol. 19 [1976]), J. W. Meiland addresses the issue of psychologism in logic, which holds that logic is a branch of psychology and that logical laws (such as the Principle of Non?Contradiction) are contingent upon the nature of the mind. Meiland examines Husserl's critique of psychologism, argues that Husserl is not convincing, and offers two new objections to the psychologistic thesis. In this paper I attempt to rebut those objections. In question are the acceptable criteria (...) for determining the possibility or impossibility of systems of logic significantly different from our own. I argue that a criteriological application of our accepted laws of logic to this question commits a circular fallacy. I then argue that, even if we accept logical consistency as a criterion for possibility, a plausible argument for the possibility of valid alternative logics can be constructed by using the functionalist analogy between minds and automata. Finally, I attempt to rebut the claim that in logic the only changes possible are conceptual changes that would not permit a proposition to be both true and false. (shrink)

Inferences are familiar movements of thought, but despite important recent work on the topic, we do not yet have a fully satisfying theory of inference. Here I provide a functionalist theory of inference. I argue that the functionalist framework allows us the flexibility to meet various demands on a theory of inference that have been proposed (such as that it must explain inferential Moorean phenomena and epistemological ‘taking’). While also allowing us to compare, contrast, adapt, and combine features of extant (...) theories of inference into one unified theory. In fleshing out the inference role, I also criticize the common assumption that inference requires rule-following. (shrink)

Functionalism about truth is the view that truth is an explanatorily significant but multiply-realizable property. According to this view the properties that realize truth vary from domain to domain, but the property of truth is a single, higher-order, domain insensitive property. We argue that this view faces a challenge similar to the one that Jaegwon Kim laid out for the multiple realization thesis. The challenge is that the higher-order property of truth is equivalent to an explanatorily idle disjunction of (...) its realization bases. This consequence undermines the alethic functionalists’ non-deflationary ambitions. A plausible response to Kim’s argument fails to carry over to alethic functionalism on account of significant differences between alethic functionalism and psychological functionalism. Lynch’s revised view in his book Truth as One and Many ( 2009 ) fails to answer our challenge. The upshot is that, while mental functionalism may survive Kim’s argument, it mortally wounds functionalism about truth. (shrink)

Functionalism in the philosophy of mind is the doctrine that what makes something a mental state of a particular type does not depend on its internal constitution, but rather on the way it functions, or the role it plays, in the system of which it is a part. This doctrine is rooted in Aristotle's conception of the soul, and has antecedents in Hobbes's conception of the mind as a “calculating machine”, but it has become fully articulated (and popularly endorsed) (...) only in the last third of the 20th century. Though the term ‘functionalism’ is used to designate a variety of positions in a variety of other disciplines, including psychology, sociology, economics, and architecture, this entry focuses exclusively on functionalism as a philosophical thesis about the nature of mental states. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop some internal problems with Alvin Plantanga's proper functionalist epistemology. I focus on: (1) how we know that a belief is the result of proper function and the special difficulties this occasions for religious beliefs; (2) what a properly functioning person should believe in various circumstances, and (3) the problem of design -- whether the claim that God designed us can be reconciled with the claim that He was subject to trade-offs, compromises and unintended by-products. These (...) serious internal problems cast doubt upon proper functionalism's fruitfulness as a theory of knowledge. (shrink)

Proper functionalism explicates epistemic warrant in terms of the function and normal functioning of the belief-forming process. There are two standard substantive views of the sources of functions in the literature in epistemology: God (intelligent design) or Mother Nature (evolution by natural selection). Both appear to confront the Swampman objection: couldn’t there be a mind with warranted beliefs neither designed by God nor the product of evolution by natural selection? Is there another substantive view that avoids the Swampman objection? (...) There are two. The first is the generalized selected-effects theory of functions. The second is the organizational theory of functions. Both, however, require some history to assign functions, for both are etiological theories of functions: past effects help explain current function. Swampman can then acquire functions, perhaps soon after creation, though he has none at the moment of inception. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide a critical examination of Warren Schmaus’s recently systematized “functionalist” approach to the study of collective representations. I examine both the logical and the conceptual viability of Schmaus’s brand of “functionalism” and the relation between his rational reconstruction and philosophical critique of Durkheim and the latter’s original set of proposals. I conclude that, due to its reliance on certain problematic philosophical theses, Schmaus’s functionalism ultimately falls short of providing a coherent alternative to the Durkhemian (...) position or serving as a useful starting point from which to understand the origins of abstract categories in concrete experience. (shrink)

The author examines the 1945 and 1948 versions of the Davis-Moore functionalist theory of stratification. The analysis explores the basic postulates, assumptions, and logical articulation of the theory and isolates its distinctively functionalist components. This is followed by a historical account of the major criticisms leveled at the theory. The critics have succeeded in showing the fallacious and tautologous character of the functionalist components, thus, in effect, destroying the theory as a theory. Despite this destruction, various portions of the Davis-Moore (...) theory are shown to be usable, to contain valuable insights, and to be capable of further development. (shrink)

The paper defends Functionalism against the charge that it would make mental properties inefficacious. It outlines two ways of formulating the doctrine that mental properties are Functional properties and shows that both allow mental properties to be efficacious. The first (Lewis) approach takes functional properties to be the occupants of causal roles. Block [1990] has argued that mental properties should not be characterized in this way because it would make them properties of the ?implementing science?, e. g. neuroscience. I (...) show why this is not a problem. The second way of formulating the doctrine takes functional properties to be causal role properties. I claim that mental properties so understood would only be inefficacious if a law-centred rather than a property-centred approach is adopted to the introduction of efficacy into the world. I develop a property-centred account that explains how mental properties can be efficacacious without introducing systematic overdetermination. At the close, I provide a better characterization of the difference between these two approaches and offer an explanation as to why my way of resolving the problems has been missed. (shrink)

It has recently become quite fashionable for one to defend a functionalist theory of mental states. However, as with most trends, functionalism has come under fire in certain philosophical quarters. In this paper, I shall not take up the question of whether any version of functionalism is true. I shall instead discuss a particular objection to a specific brand of functionalism.

I consider the broad perspectives in biology known as ‘functionalism’ and ‘structuralism’, as well as a modern version of functionalism, ‘adaptationism’. I do not take a position on which of these perspectives is preferable; my concern is with the prior question, how should they be understood? Adapting van Fraassen’s argument for treating materialism as a stance, rather than a factual belief with propositional content, in the first part of the paper I offer an argument for construing functionalism (...) and structuralism as stances also. The argument draws especially on Gould’s insights concerning functionalism and structuralism, in particular their apparent historical continuity from the pre-Darwinian period through to today. In the second part of the paper I consider Godfrey-Smith’s distinction between empirical and explanatory adaptationism, and suggest that while the former is an empirical scientific hypothesis, the latter is closely related to the functionalist stance. (shrink)

In the pure powers ontology (PPO), basic physical properties have wholly dispositional essences. PPO has clear advantages over categoricalist ontologies, which suffer from familiar epistemological and metaphysical problems. However, opponents argue that because it contains no qualitative properties, PPO lacks the resources to individuate powers, and generates a regress. The challenge for those who take such arguments seriously is to introduce qualitative properties without reintroducing the problems that PPO was meant to solve. In this paper, I distinguish the core claim (...) of PPO: (i) basic physical properties have dispositional essences, from a hitherto unnoticed assumption: (ii) the dispositional essences of basic physical properties exclusively involve type-causal relations to other basic physical properties. I reject (ii), making room for a structuralist ontology in which all basic physical properties are pure powers, individuated by their places in a causal structure that includes not only other powers, but also physically realized qualitative properties such as shapes, patterns and structures. Such qualities individuate pure powers in the way that non-mental input and output properties individuate realized mental properties in functionalist theories of mind, except that here it is basic physical powers that are individuated by relations to realized non-powers. I distinguish one Platonic and two Aristotelian version of this theory, and argue that the Aristotelian versions require that grounding is not always a relative fundamentality relation, because the powers ground the qualities that individuate them. By considering ontic structural realism, I argue that symmetric grounding is the best way to make sense of relational individuation in structuralist ontologies, and is therefore no additional commitment of the one proposed here. (shrink)

We argue that the causal account offered by analytic functionalism provides the best account of the folk psychological theory of mind, and that people ordinarily define mental states relative to the causal roles these states occupy in relation to environmental impingements, external behaviors, and other mental states. We present new empirical evidence, as well as review several key studies on mental state ascription to diverse types of entities such as robots, cyborgs, corporations and God, and explain how this evidence (...) supports a functional account. We also respond to two challenges to this view based on the embodiment hypothesis, or the claim that physical realizers matter over and above functional role, and qualia. In both cases we conclude that research to date best supports a functional account of ordinary mental state concepts. (shrink)

In her 2007 paper, “Argument Has No Function” Jean Goodwin takes exception with what she calls the “explicit function claims”, arguing that not only are function-based accounts of argumentation insufficiently motivated, but they fail to ground claims to normativity. In this paper I stake out the beginnings of a functionalist answer to Goodwin.

I wish to defend a functionalist approach to the mind-body problem. I use the word ‘functionalist’ with some reluctance, however; for although it has become the conventional label for the sort of approach taken by such philosophers as H. Putnam and D. C. Dennett, I believe it is somewhat misleading. The functionalist, as I understand him, tries to show how there can be machine analogues of mental states and then argues that just as we are not inclined to postulate an (...) ontological dualism between simulated mental states and the machine's physical states, we need not postulate a dualism between mind and body. The functionalist also argues, however, that it is wrong to identify the mental states or simulated mental states with the physical states.Recently functionalism has come under attack, first for not being a coherent alternative, and secondly for not being able to provide an adequate account of sensations. I believe that the first objection is misguided and shall deal with it in section I. However, I agree that functionalists have not provided an adequate account of sensations, but I shall try to help remedy this in section II. (shrink)

Within translation studies, functionalist translations and even more specifically, translations guided by Skopos theory are very much purposeful activities. Skopos theory applied to Bible translation, however, is sometimes met with resistance by practitioners who believe that Skopos theory betrays too much of the source text. This article began by outlining Skopos theory and the additional notion of loyalty as introduced by Christiane Nord. Even with loyalty applied to the theory, many Bible translation practitioners continue to fear it. After the initial (...) presentation of Skopos theory plus loyalty, the Hebrew lexeme חֶסֶד ( ḥesed ) was introduced in this article and discussed in relation to its biblical use. The discussion of ḥesed was then widened to functionalist Bible translation to redeem the loyalty notion as applied to Bible translation. This article claimed that ḥesed as loyalty further helps to protect both the source text and target audiences from radical or unacceptable translations. Contribution: Bible translation is a purposeful activity. This article attempted to allay the fears that some Bible translation practitioners have about the possibility of radical translations undertaken using Skopos theory. Loyalty as understood through the lens of the Hebrew חֶסֶד ( ḥesed ) was utilised afresh to allay these fears. (shrink)

Functionalism as a philosophical position has been recently applied to the case of emotion research. However, a number of objections have been raised against applying such a view to scientific theorizing on emotions. In this article, I argue that functionalism is still a viable strategy for emotion research. To do this, I present functionalism in philosophy of mind and offer a sketch of its application to emotions. I then discuss three recent objections raised against it and respond (...) to each of them. These objections claim that functionalism is intractable because (i) it does not support a scientifically interesting taxonomy of emotions for experimental settings, (ii) it is inherently teleological, and (iii) it cannot be falsified. I argue that these objections either rely on a simplified version of functionalism as a philosophical position or they pose challenges that functionalists can readily address. Lastly, I conclude by drawing some lessons these objections suggest for a tractable functionalist account of emotions. (shrink)

One job for theories of mental representation is to distinguish between different kinds of mental representation: beliefs, desires, intentions, perceptual states, etc. What makes a mental state a belief that p rather than a desire that p or a visual representation that p? Functionalism is a leading approach for doing so: for individuating mental states. Functionalism is designed to allow that psychological states can be multiply realized. Mark Sprevak has argued that, for a functionalist account of psychological states (...) to apply to creatures that are organised in a very different way to humans (call them Martians), the way a psychological state is functionally individuated has to be relatively coarse-grained (Sprevak 2009). Psychological research might show that human beliefs are directly available to consciousness, that they are formed as the result of deliberate judgement, and so on, but theorists would be precluded from including these roles in their account of belief, if Sprevak is right. The argument for coarse-grained individuation fails if we distinguish functionalism about what it takes to be a psychological state in general from functionalism about a particular state type such as belief. Functionalism individuates a psychological state like believing that p partly by reference to its relations to other psychological states: desiring that p, perceiving that p, intending that p, etc. Functionalist motivations do indeed suggest that Martians with a functional organisation and physical substrate quite unlike humans could have psychological states, but not that they should have states with the interrelated collection of functional roles to count as beliefs, desires, intentions, etc. Thus, theorists are not precluded from including functional relations to consciousness or deliberate judgement in their account of (human) belief, consistent with allowing that Martians would have their own collection of functionally interrelated psychological states. Sprevak’s coarse-grained functionalism implies an implausibly liberal form of extended cognition. The point about functional interrelations allows us to avoid that conclusion without jettisoning functionalism (as Sprevak suggests we should): records in a human notebook may not enter into the right interrelations with other human psychological states to count as beliefs; nor do they enter into any interrelations with Martian psychological states. Functionalism can therefore allow that Martians have psychological states while holding that few if any of the beliefs we humans have are, as a matter of fact, extended. (shrink)

Lockean accounts of personal identity face a problem of too many thinkers arising from their denial that we are identical to our animals and the assumption that our animals can think. Sydney Shoemaker has responded to this problem by arguing that it is a consequence of functionalism that only things with psychological persistence conditions can have mental properties, and thus that animals cannot think. I discuss Shoemaker’s argument and demonstrate two ways in which it fails. Functionalism does not (...) rid the Lockean of the problem of too many thinkers. (shrink)

Recent work by Jaegwon Kim and others suggest that functionalism leaves mental properties causally inefficacious in some sense. I examine three lines of argument for this conclusion. The first appeals to Occam's Razor; the second appeals to a ban on overdetermination; and the third charges that the kind of response I favor to these arguments forces me to give up "the homogeneity of mental and physical causation". I show how each argument fails. While I concede that a positive theory (...) of mental causation is desirable, there is no reason to think that functionalism renders such a theory unattainable. (shrink)

Functionalism about mental phenomena must account for their multiple realizability. According to standard doctrine, this can be achieved by allowing our folk theory's realization formula to be multiply satisfied by distinct physical properties. If at all, uniqueness can then be restored by suitable relativization to populations or worlds. Recent arguments suggest that this is a dead end. Here the attempt is made to devise a novel type of functionalism that accounts for multiple realizability but rejects the standard doctrine (...) and thus proves immune to those arguments. The distinctive feature of this novel type of functionalism is its use of plural quantification in ramsification, which allows it to retain uniqueness of satisfaction despite multiple realizability while respecting naturalness requirements on physical properties. (shrink)

“Triviality arguments” against functionalism in the philosophy of mind hold that the claim that some complex physical system exhibits a given functional organization is either trivial or has much less content than is usually supposed. I survey several earlier arguments of this kind, and present a new one that overcomes some limitations in the earlier arguments. Resisting triviality arguments is possible, but requires functionalists to revise popular views about the “autonomy” of functional description.

Alethic functionalism is a sophisticated version of alethic pluralism according to which truth per se is a functional property supervening on lower level truth properties. After presenting alethic functionalism, I discuss four objections to it. I raise a new objection to alethic functionalism that if Objectivity, Norm of Belief, and End of Inquiry are the three truisms, correspondence is necessary and sufficient to satisfy the truisms, so that alethic functionalism capitulates to a correspondence theory of truth. (...) Second, I present a new argument that on alethic functionalism, truth per se is explanatorily epiphenomenal. Third, examining the case of mixed compound propositions shows that the principle which alethic functionalism adopts for determining which lower level truth property is required for a mixed compound proposition to be true has counterintuitive results and is arbitrary. Finally, I argue that alethic functionalism is unable to account for the intuition that a true truth attribution is true because of the proposition(s) to which truth is attributed. (shrink)

The paper contains an argument against functionalist theories of consciousness. The argument exploits an intuition to the effect that parts of an individual's brain that are not in use at a time t, can have no bearing on whether that individual is conscious at t. After presenting the argument, I defend it against two possible objections, and then distinguish it from two arguments to which it appears, on the surface to be similar.

Functionalism, a philosophical theory, has empirical consequences. Functionalism predicts that where systematic transformations of sensory input occur and are followed by behavioral accommodation in which normal function of the organism is restored such that the causes and effects of the subject's psychological states return to those of the period prior to the transformation, there will be a return of qualia or subjective experiences to those present prior to the transform. A transformation of this type that has long been (...) of philosophical interest is the possibility of an inverted spectrum. Hilary Putnam argues that the physical possibility of acquired spectrum inversion refutes functionalism. I argue, however, that in the absence of empirical results no a priori arguments against functionalism, such as Putnam's, can be cogent. I sketch an experimental situation which would produce acquired spectrum inversion. The mere existence of qualia inversion would constitute no refutation of functionalism; only its persistence after behavioral accommodation to the inversion would properly count against functionalism. The cumulative empirical evidence from experiments on image inversion suggests that the results of actual spectrum inversion would confirm rather than refute functionalism. (shrink)

The prospect of consciousness in artificial systems is closely tied to the viability of functionalism about consciousness. Even if consciousness arises from the abstract functional relationships between the parts of a system, it does not follow that any digital system that implements the right functional organization would be conscious. Functionalism requires constraints on what it takes to properly implement an organization. Existing proposals for constraints on implementation relate to the integrity of the parts and states of the realizers (...) of roles in a functional organization. This paper presents and motivates three novel integrity constraints on proper implementation not satisfied by current neural network models. It is proposed that for a system to be conscious, there must be a straightforward relationship between the material entities that compose the system and the realizers of functional roles, that the realizers of the functional roles must play their roles due to internal causal powers, and that they must continue to exist over time. (shrink)

Some philosophers have conflated functionalism and computationalism. I reconstruct how this came about and uncover two assumptions that made the conflation possible. They are the assumptions that (i) psychological functional analyses are computational descriptions and (ii) everything may be described as performing computations. I argue that, if we want to improve our understanding of both the metaphysics of mental states and the functional relations between them, we should reject these assumptions.

In prior work, we have argued that spacetime functionalism provides tools for clarifying the conceptual difficulties specifically linked to the emergence of spacetime in certain approaches to quantum gravity. We argue in this article that spacetime functionalism in quantum gravity is radically different from other functionalist approaches that have been suggested in quantum mechanics and general relativity: in contrast to these latter cases, it does not compete with purely interpretative alternatives, but is rather intertwined with the physical theorizing (...) itself at the level of quantum gravity. Spacetime functionalism allows one to articulate a coherent realist perspective in the context of quantum gravity, and to relate it to a straightforward realist understanding of general relativity. (shrink)