PP111 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Multiple Realizability, Reductionism, Realizability
Reductionism and Multiple Realizability
What caused trouble for the mind-brain theory was its reductionism. The theories that
challenged it were, non-reductionism, non-reductive and versions of materialism.
Reductive theory: the things of the first kind are reduced to things of the second kind.
● A particular kind of mental state is identified with a particular physical state.
Reductive Materialism such as the mind-brain theory offers generalization that identify mental
states and brain states. If the reductive form of materialism is true then all those who have the
same kind of mental states will also have the same kind of brain state, if you do not have the
same brain state as someone else then you do not have the same mental state.
Chauvinistic: any creature with a radically different physical structure then humans cannot
have the same mental states as humans: nothing can have minds like ours without brains like
ours.
The multiple realizability of mental states, means that different brains can physically “realize”
or actualize the same mental states in different ways.
Functionalist Theories of Mind
As different as they are physically, can still have the same belief.
Reductive materialism doesn't take into fact that aliens may be real or (one day)
supercomputers.
Ex. the bait in the component for a mouse trap can be a multiple of things, but can all be
called bait; working as bait
Functional role: the causal role that something occupies in a wider system; the contribution it
makes taking us from inputs, or causes, to outputs.
● Somethings can be identified or described in terms of their function rather than in terms
of their physical make up
● Things with the same function description can have different physical constitutions they
can be physically very different from each other despite having the same function
Functionalism uses the term “function” for the causal role that an object occupies.
Non-Reductive Materialism: any materialist theory of mind that denies that we can have true
generalization that identify mental states are always physical states; mental states of the same
kind are not always physical states of the same time. Best known theory of non-reductive
materialism is functionalism.
