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Why Nothing Mental is Just in the Head

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Check out this Knowledge Base article from StressTherapy Solutions: Why Nothing Mental is Just in the Head.

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Study at a glance

Area
Other research
Study type
Review & meta-analysis
Authors
Fisher JC
Journal
Noûs
Year
2007
Protocol
philosophical argument (thought experiment)

Key findings

  • Internalism is commonly accepted for rationality, emotion types, attitude types, moral character and phenomenology
  • The counterexample pairs two creatures identical in their heads but mentally different
  • The author defends the counterexample as genuinely possible
  • Concludes in favor of a history-oriented teleo-functionalist externalism

DOI 10.1111/j.1468-0068.2007.00649.x →

A philosophy paper challenging mental internalism, the view that a person's mental features at a given moment depend only on what is inside their head. The author builds a thought experiment involving a human and an alien from a 'Pulse World' who are momentarily identical inside their heads yet intuitively differ mentally because of their environments, dispositions and histories. He argues the case is possible and concludes that internalism should give way to a history-based form of teleo-functionalism.