ABSTRACT
Functionalism is more or less the contemporary orthodoxy about the mind-body problem in analytic philosophy. This chapter discusses various varieties of Functionalism. Some of the main varieties of Functionalism are Machine Functionalism, Homuneular Functionalism, and Teleological Functionalism. Jerry Fodor, who is or was perhaps the leading Functionalist, published back in 1968 an attack on Place's model for mental/physical identity: "lightning is an electric discharge". Fodor thinks that in the mind/brain case there is only token-token identity. Indeed, token-token identity is too cautious a reaction to the type-type identities envisaged by Identity theorists. It is natural to think that in, say, the same species, or some subtype of the same species, it is the same sort of brain process or state that plays the same functional role. Fodor's point, of real importance, nevertheless led to confusion about Physicalism. Fodor's argument is perfectly compatible with the proposition that each mental token is a purely physical affair.
