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Functionalism and the Absent Qualia Argument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Reinaldo Elugardo
Reinaldo Elugardo*
Affiliation:
University of San Diego
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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

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References

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