Form, Function, and Feel

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. This content downloaded from 192.231.202.205 on Wed, 01 Apr 2015 12:08:30 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 24 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHYFrom the point of view of both the F-C model and Putnam's theory, however, the aitiational framework contains an important lacuna. Both the F-C model and Putnam's theory provide for some device that guarantees success in communication. In the F-C model identical representations of intensions, and, in the Putnam model, identical purely referential uses secure firm ground for communication. In the aitiational theory nothing guarantees communication. It is simply assumed that there is enough overlap among the aitiational schemes of speakers to make communication, in most cases, possible. The overlaps allow communication, or partial communication, between scientists from one generation to another, between scientists and laypersons, between children and adults, or simply among speakers on the same level.Is this a defect? Must something in a semantic theory guarantee communication?Nothing guarantees the human sharing of thoughts, emotions, and feelings. And yet the assumption that such sharing takes place frequently-no matter how imperfectly-is an assumption without which we could not make sense of human experience. J. M. E. MORAVCSIKStanford University FORM, FUNCTION, AND FEEL * IN the 1950's, U. T. Place and J. J. C. Smart proposed to identify mental states and events with neurophysiological states and events. A main advantage claimed for this identification was its avoidance of certain troublesome objections to earlier, behaviorist versions of materialism, objections designed to enforce our recalcitrant feeling that at least some mental states are genuinely inner states of persons and have distinctive, introspectible phenomenal characters. But complaints of this type have stayed with us, and are still raised against contemporary materialist views of all sorts. My purpose in this paper is to formulate and defend the ma-* Earlier versions of this paper have been presented at Tufts University, the University of Western Australia, and the 1978 Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference. I owe thanks to many people, especially to Dan Dennett, Ned Block, and David Armstrong for prolonged discussion of the issues treated here, and to the students and colleagues who attended my 1978 seminar at the University of Sydney for their many useful comments. 0022-362X/81/7801/0024 $02.60 e 1981 The Journal of Philosophy, Inc.This content downloaded from 192.231.202.205 on Wed, 01 Apr 2015 12:08:30 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions FORM, FUNCTION, AND FEEL 25terialist theory that I think has the best chance of turning aside these...

The Canberra Plan neglects ground

“…I mentioned this idea in (Block, 1978b) and it was taken further in (Lycan, 1981). In terms of the Ramsey approach mentioned earlier, the idea would be that the Ramsified theory T should not be a theory of common sense or of scientific psychology but rather a deeper theory of the neuroscience or physics of the brain.…”

A Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand (Second Edition)

“…The relevant role with which a mental state is to be identified is now to be characterised teleologically, in terms of what the state, or its containing neurophysiological device, is for-what the state or device is supposed to contribute to the subject's behavioural capabilities (Lycan 1981;Millikan 1984;Sober 1985;neander 1991; neander is australasia's leading proponent of the teleological perspective). in Sober's phrase, it 'put[s] the function back into functionalism', by speaking of 'proper' function, what a thing's job is.…”

The Mind as Neural Software? Understanding Functionalism, Computationalism, and Computational Functionalism

“…Whether abstract or concrete, Turing machines are mechanisms, subject to mechanistic explanation no more and no less than other mechanisms. 26 computational functionalism (e.g., Lycan 1981, Millikan 1984, Sober 1990. But I will soon argue that mechanisms are the most adequate framework within which to explicate computation.…”

“…Under this mechanistic version of functionalism, a system is individuated by its When mechanistic functionalism is further specified by employing teleological functions, the resulting doctrine is a close relative of teleological functionalism (Lycan 1981, Wilkes 1982, Millikan 1984, Sober 1990, Shapiro 1994, Rupert 2006. According to teleological functionalism, the mind is the teleological organization of the brain, or mental states are individuated by their teleological function.…”