The Self‐Consciousness Argument: Functionalism and the Corruption of Content
The Waning of Materialism March 25, 2010 George Bealer
Functionalism, the most cogent form of contemporary materialism, fails to account for thoughts with embedded psychological attitudes. Reductive functionalism, which tries to define mental states in physical terms, faces a dilemma: it must either accept definitional circularity incompatible with materialism or use Ramsified definitions that misdescribe self-conscious thoughts. Language-of-thought functionalism leads to epiphenomenalism, and attempts to avoid circularity via a Tarskian hierarchy founder on the type-free nature of introspection. The only viable functionalism is non-reductive, accepting mental properties as ontologically primary, on a par with physical properties.