Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-956mj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-21T21:25:30.864Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Taking the trivial doctrine seriously: Functionalism, eliminativism, and materialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1999

Maurizio Tirassa
Affiliation:
Centro di Scienza Cognitiva, Università di Torino, 10123 Turin, Italytirassa@psych.unito.it
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Gold & Stoljar's (G&S's) characterization of the trivial doctrine and of its relationships with the radical one misses some differences that may be crucial. The radical doctrine can be read as a derivative of the computational version of functionalism that provides the backbone of current cognitive science and is fundamentally uninterested in biology: Both doctrines are fundamentally wrong. The synthesis between neurobiology and psychology requires instead that minds be viewed as ontologically primitive, that is, as material properties of functioning bodies. G&S's characterization of the trivial doctrine should therefore be correspondingly modified.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press