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#identity-theory
Mind: A Brief Introduction (John R. Searle)
Minds are just brains
The sheer implausibility of behaviorism had become an embarrassment by the 1960s and it was gradually replaced among materialist-minded philosophers by a doctrine called “physicalism,” sometimes called the “identity theory.” The physicalists said that Descartes was not wrong…
Identities discovered, not defined
The model for the behaviorists was one of definitional identities. Pains are dispositions to behavior in a way that triangles are three-sided plane figures. In each case it is a matter of definition. The identity theorists said no, the model is not definitions, but rather…
Leibniz's law against the identity theory
There were a number of objections to the identity theory. I find it useful to distinguish between the technical objections and the common-sense objections. The first technical objection was that the theory seemed to violate a principle of logic called “Leibnitz’s Law.”11 The…
The charge of neuronal chauvinism
One slightly more technical objection that really did concern the identity theorists and indeed eventually forced a modification in their views was the accusation of “neuronal chauvinism.”16 If the claim of the identity theorists was that every pain is identical with a certain…
The type-token distinction
In order to explain this distinction I need to say a bit about the type-token distinction. If I write the word “dog” three times: “dog dog dog,” have I written one word or three? Well, I have written three instances, or tokens, of one type of word. So we need a distinction…
Type-type versus token-token identity
The type-type identity theory says “Every type of mental state is identical with some type of physical state.” By their own lights this is a bit sloppy, because the identity in question is between actual concrete tokens and not abstract universal types. What they meant is: for…
What tokens of the same mental type share
But now they are faced with an interesting question. What is it that all of these tokens have in common that makes them tokens of the same mental-state type? If you and I both believe that Denver is the capital of Colorado, then what is it exactly that we share if there is…