Great Ideas of Philosophy

1. The first step in developing such a theory is to acknowledge the wide use of mentalistic terms and seektheir reference.2. Thus, with qualia terms, such as red or melodic, the question is just what in reality such terms refer to.3. The answer is this: All such terms refer to states or events in the brain.4. This does not confer infallibility on the percipient or rule out self-deception. Rather, it puts a dividingline between the epistemic standing of any third-person report and that of any first-person report wherequalia are being reported.E. In its most interesting and most extreme form, this approach gives rise to what is called eliminativematerialism, which says that science need not worry about explaining the “mental,” because there are notminds as such, nor is there anything mental to explain.IV. To this point, reductionistic strategies by which to get from the mental to the physical have been emphasized.But philosophy of mind offers alternatives to brains and neural events.A. Any number of animals succeed in negotiating the challenges afforded by the environment with nervoussystems radically different from our own. What matters is that a given function is performed in such amanner as to yield adaptive success.B. For some contemporary philosophers, the soundest approach to problems in philosophy of mind is totranslate the mental into a set of functions.1. Daniel Dennett recommended that one adopt what he calls the intentional stance.2. Take the position that the actions of any complex system are goal-oriented, based on felt experiences,motives, and feelings.3. Examine the functional components in virtue of which this sort of evidence is produced.4. The functionalist account may well assume “mentality” or simply put it on “hold.”C. One version of functionalism that attracts wide attention is found in such specialized fields as artificialintelligence and expert systems.1. IBM’s chess-playing computer defeated Kasparov, one of the greatest chess masters of the age, in1997.2. What is philosophically interesting about such outcomes is not that computers can outperform humanbeings, but that the performance suggests that the best understanding of our own mental operations iscomputational.V. There are sound philosophical and conceptual reasons for caution here. It’s scarcely clear that a computer can“play” chess or can “play” any game at all or can, in any sense, have the cultural resources with which torecognize an activity as a game.A. But imagine if, in some defensible respects, computers were intelligent, had expert judgment, and could seethe world even more clearly than their inventors.B. None of the issues in philosophy of mind would be settled, because now the same issues would arise as wediscussed the mental life of computers!Recommended Reading:Robinson, D. N. Philosophy of Psychology. Columbia University Press, 1982.Questions to Consider:1. What is anomalous about anomalous monism?2. Is epiphenomenalism finally a dualism after all?3. If all knowledge is mediated and representational, what epistemological standard was employed to establish asmuch?©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 19