Armstrong’s Revenge
Armstrong's Materialist Theory of Mind December 23, 2021 John Heil
This chapter distinguishes two forms of functionalism: realizer functionalism, defended by Armstrong and Lewis, and role functionalism, dominant in the US. Realizer functionalism identifies mental states with the causally efficacious states that play functional roles, avoiding issues about mental causation that arise for role functionalism, where mental states are higher-order states of having a state that plays a role. The author modifies realizer functionalism by incorporating an account of dispositions from C. B. Martin, where dispositions are identified with their categorical bases. This modification treats mental states as first-order dispositions with profiles matching functional specifications, potentially supporting a straightforward identification of experiential states with neurological states without previous pitfalls.