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    Carmelics

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    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Standard functionalist accounts cannot fully capture the representational content of mental states.

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    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.The indicator function of an internal state depends, at least in part, on the evolutionary history or learning history of that state, not solely on its current causal dispositions.
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    • 2.Standard functionalist accounts are limited to appeal to a state's actual, potential, or typical causal roles.
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    • 3.Facts about evolutionary history or learning history are not reducible to causal role facts.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Narrow functional role alone cannot distinguish Twin Earth water-thoughts from Earth water-thoughts, as Putnam's 1975 argument demonstrates.
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    • 2.Representational content is individuated by distal environmental relations, not internal causal organization, per Burge's anti-individualism.
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    • 3.Any account that misidentifies the content of water-thoughts fails to fully capture representational content, regardless of causal-role completeness.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Dretske's information-theoretic semantics requires that content-conferring causal connections be nomically reliable during a critical learning period, not throughout the state's causal career.
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    • 2.Functional role accounts that abstract away from this temporally indexed, nomic-reliability condition systematically underdetermine which property a state represents.
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    • 3.Underdetermination of represented property entails failure to fully capture representational content.
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