Lexicon of Arguments

Philosophical and Scientific Issues in Dispute
 
[german]


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Theses I
Theses II

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I 57f
Putnam’s functionalism is another (earlier) than that of Lewis. It is directed against the computer model of the mind. It believes in the idea of ​​a "program of the mind" which might be realized materially somewhere else already, e.g. in the totality of a rail system with freight transport.
I 58
Lewis: his functionalism has nothing to do with that. But according to him, it might well be that machines cannot have a mind a priori.
- - -
IV XI
Functionalism/Lewis: I don't know if I am a functionalist: I reject at least two main theses:
1 Vs the thesis that someone only feels pain when he is in a state that the role of pain occupies for him.
Lewis: It should depend on what role this state also plays in other individuals of its kind.
>Causal role/Lewis.
2 Vs the thesis that "pain" is a rigid desigator for what all share who feel pain. Rather, the word non-rigidly denotes the state that the role of pain plays in various given ways.
Certainly there is a state, because all those who feel pain have in common, namely "to have pain" But that is not the pain itself. And it is not the role of pain either! It is a "diagonal sense".
>Pain/Lewis.
- - -
Schwarz I 146
Analytical functionalism/terminology/Schwarz: this is how Lewis's position is sometimes called because of its holistic characterization. (Block, 1978(1), 271ff).
>Holism, >Analytical/synthetical.
I 148
"analytical": because the characterization of causal roles in Lewis is supposed to be analytical.
But if functionalism is to be understood as a theory of Vs identity, then Lewis is not a functionalist, but an identity theorist.
Standard objections VsFunctionalism do not affect Lewis at all: Bsp mental states:
Mental states/Lewis: for their characterization it also needs a substantial connection to the perceived environment, etc. Therefore there is no danger that we have to ascribe feelings to the Chinese economy.
>Mental states.


1. Ned Block [1978]: “Troubles with Functionalism”. In C.W. Savage (Hg.) Perception and
Cognition: Issues in the Foundations of Psychology, Minneapolis: Minnesota University
Press

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