John Searle's Chinese Room Argument A Decisive Objection To Functionalism?

Functionalism is a theory which allows an individual to understand their place in society, and understands the relationship between physical input and behavioural output. It also believes that society is a system of components that are internally connected and that all the components work together to maintain stability in the society.

In Harman’s paper, “The Intrinsic Quality of Experience,” he defends the concept of functionalism, which is the theory that mental states are identified by what they do as opposed to what they are made of. Harman defends functionalism by stating the three familiar arguments against functionalism and then refutes those arguments. Out of the three oppositions to functionalism, the inverted spectrum argument is the best.

Functionalists believe that all elements within a society interconnect and work together. They compare society to a human body where everything is useful and needed. Even things like crime have a purpose, which through Functionalists rose tinted glasses is that it creates jobs for policemen etc. It is

Functionalism - is the perspective where society contains different parts and each of them serves a purpose to make society work better together. For example society works better when education family and healthcare communicate and work better together.

Functionalism was founded by Emile Durkheim, who continuously question norms and how society works. Functionalism is based on how society conformed to the daily functions of everyday activity. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, there are boundaries that are strict between morals and social. Functionalism focus on the natural way society works, it doesn’t try to see how society will work if changed. Functionalism in a society is just one big circle, everyone contributes to one another to keep it going.

Functionalism takes an interesting turn from its counterparts of monism and dualism to ask, “are minds limited to brains?” (Friedenburg & Silverman, 2012: 35), and “is it more important to our understanding of reality what something does than what something is?” (Turner, Lecture_4ppx) To make sense of this question Friedenburg & Silverman discusses two ways of classification: Physical kinds - groupings based on physical or material makeup (Friedenburg & Silverman, 2012: 474) and functional kinds - groupings based on similar actions and tendencies (Friedenburg & Silverman, 2012: 467). Functionalism looks at the mind with functionality as paramount since the mental states can be performed in different ways in different entities, but produce the same result, or function (Friedenburg & Silverman, 2012: 35)

Functionalism is a theory of the mind in contemporary philosophy, developed largely as an alternative to both the identity theory of mind and behaviorism. Its main idea is that mental states are constituted solely by their functional role. The conflict perspective views the social world as difficult unfair and unreasonable. This perspective is typically more pessimistic. Symbolic interactionism is a theory that develops from practical considerations and that alludes to people's particular utilization of dialect to make images, normal implications, for deduction and correspondence with others.

In this essay, I am going to write a response to the objection raised by the functionalists towards identity theory. Identity theory is a form of physicalism; it states that a particular mental state is identical to a particular physical state of body and brain, for instance mental sensation such as pain is simply just the firing of C-fibres (Smart, 1959). This is a reductionist view as it reduces our psychological state to a materialistic and physical form. A prominent objection against identity theory is Functionalism, in which the main advocate Hilary Putnam stated that identity theory is too narrow as it ignores multiple realisability. In the next paragraph, I will write a little more about functionalism, and in the end, I will ultimately conclude that functionalism is a better theory than identity theory.

Functionalism developed out of the positivist observation that 'all positive speculations owe their first origin to the occupations of practical life' (Comte, 1865, pg 11) and the boundaries of scientific knowledge can not go further than empirically observable truths and views societies as holistic systems where 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts' (Taylor et el, 1997, pg 662). Functionalist analysis draws on three assumptions essentially seeking to transform society into a theoretical system of reality. The first assumption is that there are zero independent parts operating within

One of the hottest topics that modern science has been focusing on for a long time is the field of artificial intelligence, the study of intelligence in machines or, according to Minsky, “the science of making machines do things that would require intelligence if done by men”.(qtd in Copeland 1). Artificial Intelligence has a lot of applications and is used in many areas. “We often don’t notice it but AI is all around us. It is present in computer games, in the cruise control in our cars and the servers that route our email.” (BBC 1). Different goals have been set for the science of Artificial Intelligence, but according to Whitby the most mentioned idea about the goal of AI is provided by the Turing Test. This test is also called the

In the philosophy of mind, there are many theories that try to resolve the mind-body problem. That is, how does the mental or consciousness interact with our physical body? Do they interact at all? Are they two separate entities or one in the same? Many theories try to answer these types of questions, but the one I will be focusing on is role functionalism. When mentioning functionalism throughout, I will be referring to role functionalism. Functionalism is a theory that says mental states can be defined by their function. So, we can identify mental states with their functional states. We can come to know the function of a mental state through examining its inputs, outputs, and relation to other mental states. I will show how this theory is correct by comparing it to the identity theory. I will begin by clarifying a few important terms in relation to functionalism, lay out the theory, and then present an objection. Lastly, I will present a possible functionalist reply to the objection and conclude.

Functionalism is a consensus perspective, whereby society is based on shared values and norms into which members are socialised. For functionalists, society is seen as a system of social institutions such as the economy, religion and the family all of which perform socialisation functions.

Functionalism is a macro system theory which sees society as a mega structure of linked social institutions such as school, family and the legal system. Each different institution is functional to ensure the whole of society is maintained. For example primary socialisation takes place within the home where children are taught basic life

Functionalism is a perspective that describes society as a "machine" that operates relying on individual components to do their job effectively. This also means that if one component fails to fulfill it's role, this could lead to chaos or "dysfunction" in society. This perspective can be recognized as a macro-level theory since at a distance it looks at how society moves in harmony with the help

Functionalism is one of the major theoretical perspectives in sociology which explains how social order is possible or how society remains relatively stable.