Philosophy 4610 Spring 2008

Philosophy of Mind

  Reading Questionnaire #4

  Due: Tuesday, February 12, 2008

  Please answer each question in 2-4 sentences.

1. Putnam argues that mental states are actually "functional states of the organism."  Why does he think so?  Why does he think that this is an improvement over both logical behaviorism and the identity theory?

2. According to Block, we might try to understand the mind by giving a "functional analysis" or "functional decomposition."  How might we go about doing so?