Abstract
The ascendancy of functionalism marks a period of optimism in the philosophy of mind. In recent years, functionalism has provided the dominant expression of the hope that beliefs, desires and intentions, as attributed by means of ‘that’-clauses, can be accommodated by a scientific theory of mental processes. I shall regard as functionalist those views which define psychological states in terms of causal relations among sensory inputs, internal states and behavioral outputs, all ultimately desirable in terms applied to automata; and my claim will be that attitudes, such as beliefs1 identified by ‘that’-clauses, can not be construed as functional states, on pain of contradiction.
Previously published in Philosophical Studies 48 (1985). This article is the basis for part of Chapter Three of Saving Belief: A Critique of Physicalism, Lynne Rudder Baker (Princeton University Press, 1988).
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Baker, L.R. (1989). A Farewell to Functionalism. In: Silvers, S. (eds) Rerepresentation. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 40. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2649-3_7
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