Volume 16, Issue 1, Enero 2001
David Pineda
Pages 43-63
Functionalism and Nonreductive Physicalism
Most philosophers of mind nowadays espouse two metaphysical views: Nonreductive Physicalism and the causal efficacy of the mental. Nevertheless, this position is threatened by a number of serious difficulties. In this paper, I propose a metaphysical account of functional properties and show how this proposal is able to overcome some of these difficulties, in particular, some recent arguments against the causal efficacy of multiply realized properties. However, in the second part of the paper an objection against this proposal is raised and, after a detailed discussion of it, the conclusion reached is that the prospects for a functionalist nonreductive metaphysics of the mind which affords causal powers to the mental seem certainly dim.