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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that It is appropriate to attribute mental states in the explanation of behavior when doing so supports successful predictions of behavior

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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Predictive success can be achieved by attributing mental states to thermostats and chess computers that clearly lack genuine mentality (Searle's Chinese Room argument).
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    • 2.A criterion that licenses mental state attribution to systems without intentionality conflates the intentional stance with genuine mental state possession.
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    • 3.Appropriate attribution of mental states requires tracking real psychological properties, not merely instrumentally useful fictions (Fodor's realist response to Dennett).
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Successful behavioral prediction is achievable through purely physical or functional descriptions without invoking mental state vocabulary (Skinnerian behaviorism).
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    • 2.If predictive success alone justifies mental state attribution, then the same behavior predicted by competing frameworks generates contradictory but equally legitimate mental state ascriptions.
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    • 3.Legitimate mental state attribution requires a fact of the matter about what states a system is in, independent of our predictive interests (Nagel's objective standpoint requirement).
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.The question of when it is appropriate to ascribe mental states cannot be separated from the question of when it is appropriate to ascribe agency
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    • 2.Both the ascription of mental states and agency are to be answered in terms of predictive success
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