The Subjectivity Of Experience Can Be Accounted For Adequately With A Functionalist Theory

Theories have been composed and exposed by various philosophers to clarify their reasoning about the mind. Dualism, Behaviorism, and Identity Theory, are well-known theories supported by well-written explanations. A modern theory, Functionalism provides ample insight to the main problem philosophers deal with, the mind/body problem.

Semantics are often dismissed as unimportant. However, when it comes to effectively communicating meaning, semantics are vital. When the sender of information uses the wrong words to convey their message, the

She argues the reader can conceive of feeling the pain from the pinch while being disembodied and, because conceivability equals possibility, it is possible to feel pain without a physical state. For disembodied pain to be possible, sensations like pain cannot be identical to physical states. Therefore, physicalism must be false. (113) Gertler posits that thought experiments like hers are useful only when the concepts they involve are made clear and unambiguous. Both the concepts of the physical and of pain, she asserts, are not subject to lack of clarity or comprehension. (114) Since we have a “sufficiently comprehensive” understanding of these two central concepts in the thought experiment, the conceivability test provides justification for what is possible. If what we can conceive can be possible, then conceiving of disembodied pain, having satisfactory understanding of what pain means, results in the possibility of disembodied pain.

Words are all around us. Words define the way we describe the way we articulate, one such example being this very paper, the way we interact with others, and most importantly, the way we feel or think. Adjectives: the words that give our world emotional meaning beyond the literal definition; that is connotation. Connotation is most evident in words to which we associate our most extreme emotions. Whether it is witnessing the greatest of fireworks, an elaborate collection of lights and sounds, or seeing truckfuls of babies being dumped into a blistering hot fire, the word we would use to describe these two events, fire, will forever be emotionally seen differently by whomever witnesses it. A word can develop in meaning, once meaning one thing to then mean something completely different. In fact, In Elie Wiesel’s “Night”, Elie’s definition of the word ‘fire’ changes from that of a danger to one’s self to that of destruction and revenge.

Words can carry different meanings depending on the context that it is presented

“Redefining Definition” by Erin Mckean, appeared in the On Language section of the New York Times in December 2009. This article is mainly about the shortcomings of the traditional dictionary definition and the advantages of online dictionary examples. Mckean begins by pointing out that individuals tend to treat the traditional dictionary as the absolute authority to define words. However, she reveals the problem that an overly abstract definition always distorts the actual meaning in the context and results in misunderstanding among the readers. She explains that the traditional dictionary is deficient in interpreting all possible meanings and telling readers how to use the words in the variety of contexts.

Definitions are important as they influence how we think and how our lives are shaped, just as our identities make us who we are, with different relationships pushing us in different directions. Aspects of our lives

"Words [or labels], like little buckets, are assumed to pick up their loads of meaning in one person's mind, carry them across the intervening space, and dump them

Universals seek to answer the question of “One Over Many,” that is, how we identify and name two different objects or concepts. While real universals are useful to explain how we use words to describe complex sensual experiences, the argument has been made against the validity of universals. In this essay we will explore these arguments and the possibility of language functioning without them.

Functionalism, one of the most influential and widespread theories of mind of our day, proposes a model of human behaviour based on the way certain inputs are processed when the mind is in a given state, to yield certain outputs. This theory concerns itself only what mental states do, rather than the substance with which they are made, or whether they exist at all; this is called ‘multiple realizability’. In other words, the theory is ontologically modest, or flexible, and this enables functionalism to stay compatible with Cartesian dualism or monisms like materialism, an advantage when other theories lose followers due to their ontological preconceptions. The other notable strength functionalism claims is that it avoids some of the pitfalls of its counterpart theory, behaviourism. However each of these apparent strengths has flaws, both in and of themselves and in comparison to other theories of mind. These strengths and their flaws will be assessed in this essay, but allow me first to outline what the functionalist theory of mind proposes.

This means that the mental state pain is the product of a variety of different phenomena. For instance, pain can be the product of one’s body being physically harmed or the product of heartbreak, among others. On the functionalist view, all that is necessary for a being to be in the mental state pain is that one of these conditions (one’s body being physically harmed, etc.) must be met. The chemical composition of that beings brain does not matter. Thus, a functionalist might explain that the super spartans who are born fully acculturated feel pain because all beings that can experience bodily harm or heartbreak, among others conditions, are capable of the mental state

The meaning of a term is determined by the psychological state of the person using it

This, being the most severe of the critiques of functionalism leads us to see how the next critique has also come about. “just as the same item may have multiple functions, so may the same function be diversely fulfilled by alternative items” (Merton 1948/1968, 87–88). Merton also critiques functionalism stating that it is an ahistorical practice that has completely ignored the ideas of colonialism, a topic that we will delve deeper into when assessing the ethnographies that were initially used to create the theory of functionalism. He also states that behaviour is not voluntary it is constrained by social structures of class and social institutions creating a further limiting factor. Merton believes that some societies that are non-literate also have high levels of integration showing how

On the other hand, words can work between the researcher and the participant in a shared way. Just as words are a bodily experience for the participant, they are for the researcher as well. When words work for the participant, they also work for the researcher not only in deepening the researcher’s understanding, but in becoming aware of the ‘lived sense’ of his or her situation (Todres, 2007). In embodied inquiry, the researcher’s task is to be open to the process in him or herself in which the words do not just make logical sense, but which ‘open up the possibility of seeing something together’ (Todres, 2007, p. 39), a sense the researcher understands in an embodied way. Embodied understanding does not mean that the researcher has the same experience, but it means that the words show the researcher ‘something more that involves a bodily sense of being present to the whole situation’ (Todres, 2007, p. 39).

Bhartrihari and wettgenstain say that there is a public component in the meaning of a word; they speak differently about the presence and the