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Full Idea
The materialist theory Armstrong and I proposed joins claims of type-type psychophysical identity with a behaviourist or functionalist way of characterising mental states such as pain.
Gist of Idea
Type-type psychophysical identity is combined with a functional characterisation of pain
Source
David Lewis (Mad Pain and Martian Pain [1980], §III)
Book Ref
Lewis,David: 'Philosophical Papers Vol.1' [OUP 1983], p.124
A Reaction
Armstrong has backed off from 'type-type' identity, because the realisations of a given mental state might be too diverse to be considered of the same type. Putnam's machine functionalism allows the possibility of dualism.
| 4600 | Armstrong and Lewis see functionalism as an identity of the function and its realiser [Armstrong, by Heil] |
| 5493 | If pains are defined causally, and research shows that the causal role is physical, then pains are physical [Armstrong, by Lycan] |
| 7429 | Causal Functionalism says mental states are apt for producing behaviour [Armstrong] |
| 7441 | Experiences are defined by their causal role, and causal roles belong to physical states [Lewis] |
| 7442 | 'Pain' contingently names the state that occupies the causal role of pain [Lewis] |
| 7444 | Type-type psychophysical identity is combined with a functional characterisation of pain [Lewis] |
| 3011 | Causal powers must be a crucial feature of mental states [Fodor] |