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VICPhilosophyQuick questions
Unit 3: Minds, bodies and persons
Quick questions on Physicalism, identity theory and functionalism: VCE Philosophy
3short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What is logical behaviourism?Show answer
Gilbert Ryle, in The Concept of Mind, attacks Descartes as committing a category mistake, treating the mind as a ghost in the machine, a thing of the wrong logical type. On Ryle's behaviourism, mental terms refer not to inner private events but to dispositions to behave. To be in pain is to be disposed to wince, groan and avoid the cause. The objection is decisive enough that few hold it today: it cannot account for the felt quality of pain, and it seems to leave out the inner episode entirely (a perfect actor could fake every disposition).
What is multiple realisability (against identity theory)?Show answer
Putnam's central objection to type identity: pain can plausibly occur in humans, octopuses and (conceivably) silicon-based aliens whose brains share no physical type with ours. If pain were identical to C-fibre firing, only creatures with C-fibres could feel pain. Since that is implausible, mental types cannot be identical to physical types. Functionalism survives this objection because it defines states by role, not material.
What is the Chinese Room (against functionalism as a theory of understanding)?Show answer
John Searle imagines a person in a room manipulating Chinese symbols by rule-book, producing fluent replies without understanding a word. The room has the right functional organisation yet lacks genuine understanding (intentionality). Searle concludes that running the right program (the right functional profile) is not sufficient for a mind. The target is strong functionalism and the computational theory of mind.
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