Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-fnpn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-26T19:03:03.839Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Psychofunctionalism and Chauvinism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Austen Clark
Austen Clark*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Tulsa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The psychofunctionalist claim that psychological terms can be defined through the use of an experimental theory has been criticized on the grounds that it is “chauvinistic“: that it denies mentality to any creature of which the selected theory is false. I analyze the “argument from science fiction” that is thought to establish this conclusion, and show that its plausibility rests on a scope ambiguity in formulations of functional definitions. One formulation is indeed chauvinistic, but an alternative rendering is not, and is perfectly consistent with ascribing mentality to creatures of which the selected psychological theory is false. This alternative interpretation of psychofunctionalism is set out in detail, defended from several objections, and finally tied to the semantics of ordinary language psychological terms.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , December 1986 , pp. 535 - 559
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association 1986

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.)

Footnotes

†

I would like to thank two anonymous references for Philosophy of Science, whose criticisms and suggestions helped me to make a number of improvements.

References

Block, Ned (1980), “Troubles with Functionalism”, in Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Block, Ned (ed.). Vol. 1. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. (First published in Perception and Cognition: Issues in the Foundations of Psychology, Savage, C. Wade (ed.). Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 9. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1978.)Google Scholar
Boring, E. G. (1942), Sensation and Perception in the History of Experimental Psychology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.Google Scholar
Carnap, Rudolf (1966), An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Gardner, Martin (ed.). New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Clark, Austen (1980), Psychological Models and Neural Mechanisms. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Goodman, Nelson (1977), The Structure of Appearance. 3rd edition. Boston and Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grice, H. P. (1975), “Method in Philosophical Psychology (From the Banal to the Bizarre)”, Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 48: 23–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quine, Quine Willard Van (1960), Word and Object. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard (1965), “Mind-Body Identity, Privacy and Categories”, The Review of Metaphysics 19: 24–54.Google Scholar
Searle, John (1980), “Minds, Brains, and Programs”, The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3(3): 417–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shoemaker, Sydney (1981), “Some Varieties of Functionalism”, Philosophical Topics 12(1): 93–119. (Reprinted in Mind, Brain, and Function, J. I. Biro and R. W. Shahan (eds.). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1982.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stich, Steven P. (1983), From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science. Cambridge: The MIT Press/A Bradford Book.Google Scholar