Research Catalog

Title

Gödel, Putnam, and functionalism : a new reading of Representation and reality / Jeff Buechner.

Author

Buechner, Jeff.

Publication

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, [2008], ©2008.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

x, 344 pages; 24 cm

Summary

"In the late 1950s, with mind-brain identity theories no longer dominant in philosophy of mind, scientific materialists turned to functionalism, the view that the identity of any mental state depends on its function in the cognitive system of which it is a part. The philosopher Hilary Putnam was one of the primary architects of functionalism and was the first to propose computational functionalism, which views the human mind as a computer or an information processor. But in the early 1970s Putnam began to have doubts about functionalism, and in his masterwork Representation and Reality, he advanced four powerful arguments against his own doctrine of computational functionalism. In Godel, Putnam, and Functionalism, Jeff Buechner systematically examines Putnam's arguments against functionalism and contends that they are unsuccessful."--BOOK JACKET.

Subjects

• Gödel, Kurt
• Realism
• Putnam, Hilary > Representation and reality
• Computers
• Functionalism (Psychology)
• Mind-brain identity theory

Note

• "A Bradford book."

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [305]-336) and index.

Contents

Introduction -- 1. Putnam's Use of Godel's Incompleteness Theorems to Refute Computational Functionalism -- 2. Putnam's Bombshell : The Godelian Argument in "Reflexive Reflections" -- 3. Universal Realization of Computation : Putnam's Triviality Argument -- 4. Putnam's Triviality Theorem and Universal Physical Computation -- 5. Searle on Triviality and the Subjective Nature of Computation -- 6. There Are Infinitely Many Computational Realizations of an Arbitrary Intentional State -- 7. Against Local Computational Reduction : The EQUIVALENCE Argument -- 8. Rational Interpretation, Synonymy Determination, and EQUIVALENCE -- 9. The Question of the Nonformalizability of SD, Coreferentiality Decisions, and the Family of Notions : Rational Interpretation[subscript 1], General Intelligence, and Reasonable Reasoning.

ISBN

• 9780262026239 (hardcover : alk. paper)
• 0262026236 (hardcover : alk. paper)

LCCN

2007000278

OCLC

• OCM77766991
• 77766991
• SCSB-5370242

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries