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.

Items in the Library & Off-site

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."--Jacket.

Subject

• Gödel, Kurt
• Putnam, Hilary
• Gödel > Kurt
• Putnam > Hilary > Representation and reality
• Gödel, Kurt
• Gödel, Kurt 1906-1978
• Putnam, Hilary 1926-2016
• Realism
• Functionalism (Psychology)
• Mind-brain identity theory
• Computers
• Electronic digital computers
• computers
• Electronic digital computers
• Computers
• Mind-brain identity theory
• Realism
• Funktionalismus Philosophie
• Wissensrepräsentation
• Philosophy of Mind
• Computer
• Funktionalismus

Note

• "A Bradford book."

Bibliography (note)

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

Contents

Putnam's use of Godel's incompleteness theorems to refute computational functionalism -- Putnam's bombshell -- Universal realization of computation -- Putnam's triviality theorem and universal physical computation -- Searle on triviality and the subjective nature of computation -- There are infinitely many computational realizations of an arbitrary intentional state -- Against local computational reduction -- Rational interpretation, synonymy determination and EQUIVALENCE -- Question of the nonformalizability of SD, coreferentiality decisions, and the family of notions.

ISBN

• 9780262026239
• 0262026236

LCCN

2007000278

OCLC

• ocm77766991
• 77766991
• SCSB-9478961

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library