Episode Details
Back to Episodes
Ep. 221: Functionalist Theories of Mind (Putnam, Armstrong) (Part One)
Published 7 years, 2 months ago
Description
On Hilary Putnam's "The Nature of Mental States" (1973).
What is the mind? Functionalist theories identify the mental with not with the brain exactly, but with something the brain does. So some other creature without a brain (maybe a computer) might be able to do that same thing if it could duplicate the structure of what our brains do. Is this a satisfying account of the mind?