The position in philosophy of mind that mental states are defined by their functional role, the pattern of causal relations they bear to sensory inputs, behavioural outputs and other mental states, rather than by the physical substrate that realises them. Hilary Putnam's 1967 paper Psychological Predicates set out the machine-state version and its multiple-realizability argument: since the same functional state could in principle be realised in a human brain, an alien physiology or a computer, mental states cannot be identical to any one type of physical state. Functionalism has faced qualia-based objections, including inverted-spectrum and absent-qualia scenarios, arguing that functional role leaves out phenomenal character.
Facts
Origin YearHilary Putnam, Psychological Predicates (later reprinted as The Nature of Mental States), 1967. Connections
Associated With
Putnam's 1967 paper set out the machine-state version and its multiple-realizability argument, though he later grew critical of functionalism himself.
Source Functionalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
In Branch
Sources
1. Functionalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Functionalism
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.
Functionalism, on early Putnam
The early functionalist theories of Putnam (1960, 1967; see also Block and Fodor 1972)
- Associated With: Hilary Putnam
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