Obstacles to Functionalism: Chalmers' Paradox of Phenomenal Judgment

Functionalism is roughly the view which characterizes mental states in terms of the functional role they play in a cognitive system. Functionalism seems to be the emerging paradigm of cognitive science, but there are epistemic difficulties in accepting functionalism. One of these difficulties is instantiated in David Chalmers' notion of the paradox of phenomenal judgment. If Chalmers is correct, or at least possibly correct, it seems that functionalism, at least as Hilary Putnam describes it, is in a lot of trouble. The aim of this paper is to first arrive at some understanding of Putnam's construal of functionalism, since (in the history of the philosophy of mind and cognitive science) Putnam is viewed as one of the father figures of functionalism (indeed he was one of the first to use the term). Chalmers' arguments will next be matched against Putnam's, and it will be shown that there are good reasons to suppose that Chalmers' arguments unveil some potentially disastrous tensions within the functionalist paradigm.

In order to see how Chalmers' argument works, it is necessary first to establish an understanding of functionalism. Functionalism understands brain states according to the functional role they play in a cognitive system. Hilary Putnam, in "The Nature of Mental States,"(1973) describes mental states in terms of the functional role they play in a computational system. A computational system is binary in that the input and the output of the system are both necessary and sufficient for the system's functional identity. The system is defined by what it is attuned for (that is, the input) and by what it yields, or produces (that is, the output). Putnam spells out his version of functionalism, bearing all of this in mind:

"All organisms capable of feeling pain are Probabilistic Automata.

Every organism capable of feeling pain possesses at least one Description of a certain kind (i.e., being capable of feeling pain is possessing an appropriate kind of Functional Organization.)