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Taking the trivial doctrine seriously: Functionalism, eliminativism, and materialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1999

Maurizio Tirassa
Affiliation:
Centro di Scienza Cognitiva, Università di Torino, 10123 Turin, Italytirassa@psych.unito.it

Abstract

Gold & Stoljar's (G&S's) characterization of the trivial doctrine and of its relationships with the radical one misses some differences that may be crucial. The radical doctrine can be read as a derivative of the computational version of functionalism that provides the backbone of current cognitive science and is fundamentally uninterested in biology: Both doctrines are fundamentally wrong. The synthesis between neurobiology and psychology requires instead that minds be viewed as ontologically primitive, that is, as material properties of functioning bodies. G&S's characterization of the trivial doctrine should therefore be correspondingly modified.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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