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Full Idea
The chief difficulty with the behaviour-disposition account is the virtual impossibility of specifying a disposition except as a 'disposition of x to behave as though x were in pain'.
Gist of Idea
Dispositions need mental terms to define them
Source
Hilary Putnam (The Nature of Mental States [1968], p.57)
Book Ref
'The Philosophy of Mind', ed/tr. Beakley,B /Ludlow P [MIT 1992], p.57
A Reaction
This has become the best-known objection to behaviourism - that you can't specify a piece of behaviour clearly unless you mention the mental state which it is expressing. The defence is to go on endlessly mentioning further behaviour.
| 6376 | Neuroscience does not support multiple realisability, and tends to support identity [Polger on Putnam] |
| 2330 | If humans and molluscs both feel pain, it can't be a single biological state [Putnam, by Kim] |
| 2587 | Temperature is mean molecular kinetic energy, but they are two different concepts [Putnam] |
| 2588 | Is pain a functional state of a complete organism? [Putnam] |
| 2589 | Functionalism is compatible with dualism, as pure mind could perform the functions [Putnam] |
| 2590 | Dispositions need mental terms to define them [Putnam] |
| 2591 | Total paralysis would mean that there were mental states but no behaviour at all [Putnam] |
| 2592 | Functional states correlate with AND explain pain behaviour [Putnam] |