Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T21:14:03.763Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Functionalism and the Absent Qualia Argument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Reinaldo Elugardo
Reinaldo Elugardo*
Affiliation:
University of San Diego
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

And supposing there were a machine, so constructed as to think, feel, and have perception, it might be conceived as increased in size, while keeping the same proportions, so that one might go into it as into a mill. That being so, we should, on examining its interior, find only parts which work on one another, and never anything by which to explain a perception.

Gottlieb Leibniz, The Mondadology, Section 17

Functionalism, as it is currently understood, is the view that each type of mental state is identical with a state that is a causal consequent of certain kinds of inputs and other mental states and which, in turn, causally brings about certain kinds of outputs and other mental states.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , June 1983 , pp. 161 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1983

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

[1] Block, Ned J. ‘Troubles with Functionalism,’ in Savage, C. Wade ed., Perception and Cognition: Issues in the Foundations of Psychology. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 9 (Minneapolis, MN: 1978), 261–325Google Scholar
[2] Block, Ned J. ‘Are Absent Qualia Impossible?', Philosophical Review, 89 (1980) 257-74Google Scholar
[3] Keith, Campbell Body and Mind (New York 1970)Google Scholar
[4] Davis, Lawrence H. ‘Functional Definitions and How It Feels to be in Pain,' mimeographGoogle Scholar
[5] Field, Hartry ‘Mental Representations,’ Erkenntnis, 13 (1978) 9–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[6] Goldman, Alvin ‘Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge,’ Journal of Philosophy, 73 (1976) 771-91CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[7] Kirk, Robert ‘Zombies versus Materialists,’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 48 (1974) 135-52CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[8] Kirk, Robert ‘Sentience and Behavior,’ Mind, 83 (1974) 43–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[9] Sydney, Shoemaker ‘Functionalism and Qualia,’ Philosophical Studies, 27 (1975) 271–315Google Scholar