functionalist theory research paper

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Why Do People Believe What They Do? A Functionalist Perspective

Matthew tyler boden.

Center for Health Care Evaluation, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System

Howard Berenbaum

Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

James J. Gross

Department of Psychology, Stanford University

Why do people believe what they do? Scholars and laypeople alike tend to answer this question by focusing on the representational functions of beliefs (i.e., representing the world accurately). However, a growing body of theory and research indicates that beliefs also can serve important hedonic functions (i.e., decreasing/increasing negative or positive emotional states). In this manuscript, we describe: (1) the features of belief, (2) the functions served by beliefs, with a focus on the hedonic function, (3) an integrative framework highlighting the hedonic function and contrasting it with the representational function, (4) the implications of our framework, and related future research directions for individual differences in belief, belief change, and the ways in which beliefs contribute to adaptive versus maladaptive psychological functioning.

Believing is arguably one of the most important things we do. Our beliefs are a core aspect of our identity ( Heine, Proulx & Vohs, 2006 ; James, 1902/2002 ), they define and shape our relationships with other people ( Jost, 2006 ; also see Wyer & Albarracin, 2005 ), and enhance our ability to survive by making the world more predictable ( Barlow, 2001 ). Beliefs affect nearly everything we do, from basic perceptual processes ( Yuille & Kerstein, 2006 ) to cognition (e.g., Dube, Rotello, & Heit, 2010 ; Risen & Gilovich, 2008 ; Wyer & Hartwick, 1984 ) and behavior ( Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975 ; Dweck & Leggett, 1988 ). Beliefs also influence when we feel emotions , as well as the particular type and intensity of emotions we experience ( Boden & Berenbaum, 2010 ; Clore & Gasper, 2000 ; Frijda & Mesquita, 2000 ). It is thus not surprising that we consider beliefs to be an important part of who we are ( Abelson, 1986 ; Heine et al., 2006 ; Wyer & Albarracin, 2005 ).

Personality psychologists study several types of beliefs, including expectancies (i.e., anticipatory beliefs about a particular state of affairs; Bandura, 1977 ) and implicit theories (i.e., general tacit beliefs of the self and world: see Briñol, Petty & Barden, 2007 ; Dweck, 1999 ; Haidt 2001 ). Social psychologists study beliefs with specific content, such as religious ( Kay, Gaucher, McGregor & Nash, 2010 ) and political beliefs ( Jost & Hunyady, 2002 ). Clinical psychologists study beliefs characteristic of psychopathology, including delusions ( Maher, 1988 ) and negatively biased, inaccurate, and rigid beliefs (i.e., “core” beliefs, schemas) associated with depressive and anxiety disorders ( Riso, du Toit, Stein, & Young, 2007 ). Developmental psychologists study developmental processes that enable people to mentally represent information (to engage in believing; Ganea, Shutts, Spelke, & DeLoache, 2007 ; Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005 ), and beliefs about other peoples' mental states, or theory of mind ( Wellman, Cross & Watson, 2001 ).

Across these subfields, one perennial question is why people believe what they do. To answer this question, scholars and laypeople alike have tended to focus on the representational functions of beliefs (i.e., representing the world accurately). Yet, a growing body of theory and research indicates that beliefs also can serve important hedonic functions (i.e., regulating emotions in valued directions), and do so in ways that compliment or compete with fulfillment of other functions, such as the representational function. Although the hedonic function of beliefs has intermittently come into view, this function and its implications has yet to be fully analyzed as have other functions (e.g., beliefs serving as valued possessions; Abelson, 1986 ).

This is unfortunate, as examining beliefs through the lens of the hedonic function may help to explain why many people strongly hold beliefs that are relatively normative but supported by little empirical or scientific evidence or are contradicted by evidence (e.g., ∼75% of Americans believe in the paranormal, such as communication with the dead; Moore, 2005 ), beliefs they recognize might be false (e.g., “I consistently act in the interest of others rather than myself”; see Triandis, 2009 ), and beliefs that directly contradict other beliefs they hold (e.g., a rational materialist who believes in an afterlife). We argue that people hold these and many other types of beliefs (e.g., delusions and other maladaptive beliefs characteristic of mental disorders) because there are trade-offs among the functions served by beliefs.

Features and Functions of Beliefs

From the earliest days of psychology, beliefs have been a topic of psychological investigation ( James, 1909/2002 ). Here we describe the features and functions of beliefs.

Features of Beliefs

Consistent with an extensive philosophical literature on beliefs (see Schwitzgebel, 2011 for an overview), three primary features of beliefs have been distinguished by psychological scientists (e.g., Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975 ; Wyer & Albarracin, 2005 ).

First, beliefs are mental representations of semantic content that are equivalent to expressions of natural language ( Pitt, 2013 ). Belief content is infinitely variable. Each person has a large number of beliefs and the potential to form an unlimited number of new beliefs based on experience. Some refer to concrete, self-evident phenomena (e.g., “If I lean against a wall, I will not fall”), and are similar to “basic” beliefs in the philosophy literature concerning epistemology ( Klein, 1998; 2005 ). Other beliefs refer to abstract phenomena (e.g., “The world is a dangerous place”) that cannot be conclusively tested for accuracy, and are similar to “inferred” beliefs in the philosophical literature on epistemology ( Klein, 1998; 2005 ).

Second, beliefs are held with varying degrees of conviction (i.e., subjective probability; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975 ). Although conviction varies across beliefs (e.g., Abelson, 1988 ; Appelbaum, Robbins, & Vasselinov, 2004 ; Inzlicht, McGregor, Hirsh, & Nash, 2009 ), without some conviction one does not have a belief, but instead has another type of mental representation (e.g., thought, idea, hypothesis; also see Boden & Berenbaum, 2010 ; Gilbert, 1991 ).

Third, beliefs are dynamic rather than static. Once formed, both the content and level of conviction of beliefs can change. Beliefs need not be conscious. They can be activated from a state in which they are not consciously attended to one in which they are ( Boden & Gross, 2013 ).

Functions of Beliefs

From a functionalist perspective ( Cummins, 1975 ; Wright, 1973 ), the beliefs one holds are those that are intended to and potentially serve particular functions and achieve particular goals. Theorists and researchers have described in some detail a variety of functions of beliefs and related mental representations. For example, some beliefs might be intended to define a person relative to other members of a social group ( Shavitt & Nelson, 1999 ) or to provide a sense of consensus and belonging ( Sears & Levy, 2003 ). Beliefs can be utilized to gain closure ( Kruglanski, 1980 ) and avoid uncertainty or ambiguity ( Roney & Sorrentino, 1995 ). Maintaining a positive self-image and protecting the ego may be the primary purpose of some beliefs ( Baumeister, 1997 ), whereas others may serve as valued possessions ( Abelson, 1986 ).

Among the most important functions is the representational function ( Kruglanski, 1980 ). Beliefs provide knowledge about something in the world to the extent possible given constraints, such as available time, effort, and information ( Kruglanski, 1980 ). Philosophical accounts refer to beliefs as propositional attitudes we have regarding a particular state of affairs that we regard as true (see Baker, 1987 ). Building from a common sense understanding, psychological accounts encourage the idea that beliefs are a more or less true representations of a given state of affairs ( Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975 ; Wyer & Albarracin, 2005 ). Attitudes, which are mental representations that are held with some conviction ( Abelson, 1988 ; Kruglanski & Stroebe (2005) , like beliefs, also fulfill representation/knowledge functions. For example, Kruglanski and Stroebe (2005) state, “If, as, we presently assume, an attitude may fruitfully represent an evaluative judgment, then any attitude, independent of the evidence of which it was based and of the epistemic motivations (or envisioned functions) affecting its formation, may be said to fulfill a knowledge function” (pg. 339). Representational goals are likely to be salient in many contexts. For example, the Elaboration Likelihood Model ( Petty & Cacciopp, 1986 ) and Heuristic and Systematic Information Processing Model ( Chaiken, Wood & Eagly, 1996 ) of persuasion propose that in persuasion contexts, people's main motivation is the desire to formulate valid and accurate mental representations (also see Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999 ).

Prior theorists have convincingly argued that people do not always attempt to achieve representational goals (i.e., to be accurate) when forming or changing beliefs or engaging in other types of cognitive activity ( Epstein, 1990 ; Kunda, 1990 ; Kruglanski, 1980 ; Pyszczynski & Greenberg, 1987 ). For example, Epstein (1990) proposed that people perceive and form beliefs about reality through two different cognitive systems, one of which is an intuitive-experiential system that is guided by intuition, emotion and past-experience, and operates expediently and without extensive cognitive processing. According to Epstein (1990) , people rely on the intuitive-experiential system for the majority of their every-day reasoning, and through this develop beliefs that may not accurately represent experience (i.e., achieve representational goals) or even be intended to do so given that this system operates outside of conscious awareness. In contrast, people devote substantial cognitive resources when engaging the analytical-rational system, and through this may be more likely to use logic to arrive at accurate conclusions.

Seminal to the framework we later describe, Kunda's (1990) theory of motivated reasoning states that people are motivated not only derive accurate conclusions, but also to derive particular conclusions, which she labels directional conclusions. Directional goals bias reasoning by influencing which information is attended to and utilized, which is achieved by influencing memory processes, the selection and application of existing beliefs, and the selection of inferential rules. Thus, people access and apply memories, beliefs and rules differently depending upon the directional goal (e.g., to feel less anxiety) to reach a desired conclusion, which may be or may become a belief. As stated by Kunda (1990) , “…both kinds of goals affect reasoning by influencing the choice of beliefs and strategies applied to a given problem. But accuracy goals lead to the use of those beliefs and strategies that are considered most appropriate, whereas directional goals lead to the use of those that are considered most likely to yield the desired conclusion” (pg. 481). Kunda (1990) reviewed a large body of evidence demonstrating that directional goals influence reasoning and its outcomes (e.g., beliefs) as readily as do accuracy (i.e., representational) goals.

We posit that a particularly important directional goal is hedonic, and thus beliefs serve hedonic functions. In other words, beliefs help us to regulate affective states in valued directions and achieve our overarching hedonic goals, which include the up-regulation, down-regulation, and maintenance of pleasant and unpleasant emotions that vary by person and situation ( Tamir, 2015 ). For example, the belief that we can communicate with the dead may protect us from the sadness and fear that typically accompanies the deaths of those we love. Previous theorists and researchers have argued along similar lines. For example, Wyer and Albarracin (2005) state as a function, “…to construct a representation of oneself and the world that permits one to cope effectively with life situations and, therefore, to lead a happy and successful life” (pg. 306). By helping people to gain closure or avoid uncertainty or ambiguity ( Kruglanski, 1980 ) or maintain a positive self-image (Kelly, 1967) beliefs can function to increase and maintain pleasant and decrease and avoid unpleasant emotions.

At least four empirically-supported social psychological theories explicitly suggest that beliefs serve hedonic functions. Just-World Theory ( Lerner, 1980 ), System Justification Theory ( Jost & Hunyady, 2002 ), Compensatory Control Theory ( Kay et al., 2010 ; Kay, Whitson, Gaucher & Galinsky, 2009 ) and Terror Management Theory ( Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 1999 ) all provide evidence that people form and change beliefs to reduce or cope with unpleasant emotions. Theory and research on just-world beliefs suggest that people are motivated to alleviate depression and anxiety resulting from a chaotic and inexplicable world in which anyone has the potential to be victimized and suffer. They do this by forming and strengthening beliefs that the world is inherently just (e.g., Bonanno et al., 2002 ; Dalbert, 2002). System Justification Theory proposes that people form and strengthen beliefs that support and justify the status quo and its supporting systems (e.g., conservative political ideologies) to reduce unpleasant affect and maintain and establish order, certainty, and perceptions of a safe environment in the face of threat ( Bonanno & Jost, 2006 ; Landau, et al., 2004; Wakslak, Jost, Tyler & Chen, 2007 ). Building upon Just World Theory and System Justification Theory, Compensatory Control Theory suggests that people form and change particular types of belief (e.g., religious beliefs or political ideologies) to reduce and prevent feelings of anxiety that accompany threats to personal control and resulting perceptions of randomness and chaos ( Kay et al., 2009 ; 2010 ; Inzlicht, Tullett & Good, 2011 ). Terror Management Theory states that people protect themselves from anxiety-inducing thoughts of mortality or death by affirming their symbolic or literal immortality through the formation and expansion of beliefs that provide a sense of meaning to their lives (e.g., existence of God; Inzlicht et al., 2009 ; Norenzayan & Hansen, 2006; Vail, Arndt & Abdollahi, 2012 ). Additional theory and research from personality and social psychology demonstrate associations between one particular type of belief, supernatural beliefs (e.g., religious, paranormal/peculiar, fate-related) and affect suggestive of a hedonic function of supernatural beliefs ( Boden, 2015 ; Inzlicht et al., 2009 ; Tang, Shepherd & Kay, 2015; Whitson, Galinsky & Kay, 2015 ). Together, this growing body of theory and research suggests that even some of the most important beliefs we hold may be related to our overarching hedonic goals, potentially more so than our attempts to accurately represent experiences more generally.

An Integrative Framework

Although – as noted above -- there are many functions of beliefs, we focus our discussion on the interplay of hedonic and representational functions, while noting that other functions might work in a similar manner. In most cases, multiple goals act together in influencing belief formation and change ( Kunda, 1990 ; Kruglanski, 1980 ). These goals need not be conscious, and may often be pursued through non-conscious, or automatic, processes (e.g., Mauss, Cook, & Gross, 2007 ). A given belief may form and/or change in service of representational and hedonic functions in either a complementary or competing manner, often leading to trade-offs among functions, as explained below. The extent to which hedonic goals will shape belief formation and change will be constrained by various factors and will vary by context (also see Kunda, 1990 ).

Complementary and Competing Beliefs

Multiple beliefs and predecessors of beliefs (e.g., hypotheses, ideas) that may eventually be held with a level of conviction indicative of a belief compete to fulfill the representational or hedonic goals that are active. The belief that will be dominant and held with higher conviction is the one that best fulfills the active representational and hedonic goals in that context.

In Figure 1 , we depict the manner in which beliefs serve representational and/or hedonic functions in a continuous Cartesian coordinate space, with the Y axis representing the extent to which a belief serves a representational function, and the X axis representing the extent to which a belief serves a hedonic function. Each axis ranges from “working for” to “working against,” as any belief can, to some extent, work to fulfill or work against fulfilling a given function. In terms of the representational function, “working for” is associated with belief accuracy, whereas “working against” is associated with belief inaccuracy. In terms of the hedonic function, “working for” is associated with successful regulation of emotions consistent with one's specific hedonic goals, whereas “working against” is associated with unsuccessful regulation of emotions resulting in a decrease in desired emotions (e.g., calmness while completing a driver's road test), or maintenance or increase in unwanted emotions (e.g., fear when conversing with a date).

A depiction of a functionalist approach to belief which shows that any belief can fulfill (a) only representational (coordinate space A, near the Y axis) or hedonic functions (coordinate space A, near the X axis), (b) both representational or hedonic functions in complementary (coordinate space A, equidistant from the X and Y axes) or competing ways (coordinate spaces B & D, equidistant from the X and Y axes), or (c) neither representation or hedonic functions (coordinate spaces C and E). Examples labeled with numbers are discussed in the text.

In some cases, a belief will primarily serve a representational function (in coordinate space A, near the Y axis in Figure 1 ) or a hedonic function (in coordinate space A, near the X axis). An example of a belief that primarily serves a representational function would include “Pluto is a dwarf, not a standard planet,” labeled “1” in the figure. An example of a belief that primarily serves a hedonic function would include a belief related to communication with the dead formed following the death of a loved relative (e.g., “I can remain in contact with my loved one”), labeled “2” in the figure. Typically, however, both representational and hedonic goals are salient. In such cases, beliefs can serve representational and hedonic functions in a complementary fashion (in coordinate space A, equidistant from the X and Y axes in Figure 1 ) or in a competitive fashion (in coordinate space B or D, equidistant from the X and Y axes).

When both representational and hedonic goals are salient, beliefs can serve representational and hedonic functions in a complementary or competing manner. When beliefs fulfill representational and hedonic functions in a complementary manner, the belief will be accurate and successfully regulate emotions to some extent. For example (labeled “3” in the figure), a tennis player who loses a match may believe, “I lost because I did not train as rigorously as I should have,” which may be an accurate representation of the situation and may protect the individual from believing she lost due to other factors (e.g., lack of talent) that are less easily changed and therefore more hedonically unpleasant.

Explaining Trade-Offs Among Beliefs

When beliefs serve representational functions in a competitive fashion, beliefs may be (a) more accurate than successful at regulating emotions, or (b) more successful at regulating emotions than accurate. In these instances, beliefs represent a trade-off between representational and hedonic functions. There are many examples of beliefs that serve representational functions at the expense of hedonic functions. For example (labeled “4” in the figure), many people proceed through emotionally painful developmental periods when they change their beliefs to reflect inherent limitations in what they can achieve (e.g., “I do not have the health necessary to become an astronaut”), or to reflect fallibility in themselves and valued others (e.g., believing that one's parents manifest negative qualities). There are also many examples of beliefs that serve hedonic functions at the expense of representational functions. For example (labeled “5” in the figure), research has found that people are overly optimistic in a variety of domains, ranging from their abilities to achieve important goals (e.g., lasting marriage, exam scores) to the likelihood they will develop health problems (e.g., smokers believing they will not develop smoking-related diseases) to the profitability of the companies they work for or invest in ( Armor & Taylor, 2002 ).

When multiple hedonic goals are salient and in competition, a belief that serves one hedonic goal at the expense of another may be dominant (e.g., the belief “Hell exists” provides a current sense of control through the following of a rule-based moral system while increasing fear of what's to come). A related trade-off occurs when a belief fulfills a short-term hedonic goal, but leads to greater unpleasant or unregulated emotions in the long-term. For example, childhood adversity and traumatic events can result in negative beliefs about oneself (e.g., “I am a bad person) and the self as the cause of victimization (e.g., “I deserved what happened to me”; Garber, Keiley, & Martin, 2002 ). These beliefs may be rigidly held because they successfully serve a hedonic function in the short-term by providing a sense of prediction and/or control in a chaotic and inexplicable world. However, continually and broadly applied across one's life, these beliefs may give rise to consistent and stable patterns of thought, emotion, and action that make these people more vulnerable to depression ( Garber et al., 2002 ).

Trade-offs may also occur regarding the representational functions. Because people continually use satisficing strategies to develop explanations for their experiences ( Simon, 1956 ), they may develop inaccurate beliefs that are functional in the short-term, but dysfunctional in the long-term. For example, the belief, “I am attracted to people who are emotionally unstable” might be accepted as a belief to explain recurring strife in one's relationships and might lead to less negative affect after a failed relationship. However, because this belief does not explain the true cause of the strife (e.g., the individual holding the belief is causing the strife in the relationships), it may in the long run prevent the holder of the belief from correcting maladaptive behaviors that contribute to future interpersonal dysfunction.

Beliefs that serve neither representational nor hedonic functions (represented in the figure in coordinate spaces E and C) may have been formed in the service of representational and/or hedonic functions that they no longer successfully fulfill. In a sense, these are vestigial beliefs, which have not been discarded in favor of new beliefs that might better achieve representational or hedonic goals. Every person likely holds beliefs of this kind, which were often formed in childhood to make sense of experience or regulate emotions with limited means. A special case of vestigial beliefs are those that work against both representational and hedonic functions (in coordinate space C, equidistant from the X and Y axes, and labeled “6” in Figure 1 ). For example, negative self-efficacy beliefs (e.g., “I can't accomplish anything no matter how hard I try”) formed in childhood to serve representational (e.g., to explain continued failure) and/or hedonic functions (e.g., to protect against future failure by curtailing goal-directed behavior), may sometimes be vestigial in the sense that they no longer serve the functions they were originally intended to serve. As explained in the section that follows, such beliefs may be reinforced by being consistent with other beliefs, and thus mitigate dissonance.

Context and Constraint

Common among theories and research suggesting hedonic functions of beliefs is the link between beliefs and threats to one's life, personal control, or sense of order and predictability, along with chaos, uncertainty, and randomness. For example, just-world beliefs result form in response to a chaotic and inexplicable world ( Bonanno et al., 2002 ), beliefs regarding the status quo maintain and establish order and certainty in the face of threat ( Wakslak et al., 2007 ), and beliefs that provide a sense of meaning reduce anxiety associated with thoughts of death ( Vail et al., 2012 ). Together, the reviewed theories suggest that beliefs are likely to form and change in service of hedonic functions in contexts that are ambiguous, uncertain or difficult to understand (henceforth labeled together as “ambiguous”). For example, Tang and colleagues (2014) found that beliefs in fate increased when participants were presented with a difficult decision: deciding between Barak Obama and Mitt Romney in the 2012 US presidential election.

The reviewed theories further suggest that beliefs are likely to form and change in service of hedonic functions in contexts that have immediate or long-term implications in terms of one's needs, goals, and concerns via their elicitation of emotions. Wilson & Gilbert's (2008) AREA model of affective adaptation joins ambiguity and emotion to suggest that people are motivated to explain self-relevant unexplained events, in part because they have emotional reactions to them. Suggesting a hedonic function, people adapt to self-relevant unexplained events and have weakened emotional responses when they re-occur by explaining them (e.g., identifying causes and consequences). A lack of knowledge about the source of a given emotion episode is inherently unpleasant (e.g., Zimbardo, LaBerge, & Butler, 1993 ), and intensifies emotional reactions (both pleasant and unpleasant; Bar-Anon, Wilson & Gilbert, 2009). The explanations used to regulate emotions can be immediately held with a level of conviction indicative of belief ( Gilbert, 1991 ), or become belief through ongoing successful regulation of emotions and related increases in conviction (see below). Furthermore, cognitive consistency theories suggest that change of belief can serve a hedonic function in any context in which discrepancies between conflicting cognitions and/or between cognitions and behaviors (i.e., dissonance) result in unpleasant affect (e.g., Festinger, 1957 ). People are motivated to reduce such discrepancies by changing their future behavior and/or their cognitions, such as belief. By doing so, unpleasant affect is reduced ( Cooper, Zanna, & Taves, 1978 ; Jonas, Graupmann, & Frey, 2006 ).

Ambiguous contexts will be especially important in terms of contributing to emotions ( Zimbardo et al., 1993 ) and motivating the formation and change of beliefs to regulate emotions ( Wilson & Gilbert, 2008 ). Thus, Whitson and colleagues (2015) found that experimentally induced emotions reflecting uncertainty (e.g., worry, surprise) increased beliefs in the paranormal (along with conspiratorial and system justification-related beliefs). Achievement of hedonic goals (e.g., reduction in anxiety) through formation or change of belief will be an especially potent form of evidence for the validity of the belief, and lead to increased or reinforced conviction. This hypothesis is consistent with persuasion models, which describe the influence of affect on belief change ( Chaiken et al., 1996 ; Kruglanski, 1980 ; Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999 ; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986 ). This hypothesis is also consistent with affect-as-information theory ( Clore, 1992 ) and affective forecasting theories ( Wilson & Gilbert, 2005 ). These theories and findings (e.g., Gasper & Clore, 1998 ) demonstrate how emotions serve as immediate, tangible, unmediated measure of the validity of beliefs (also see Westen, Blagov, Harenski, Kilts & Hamman, 2006 ).

As pointed out by Kunda (1990) and others ( Kruglanski, 1980 ), people are not entirely free to form and change belief according to their desires, simply because a new belief might help them to feel a certain way. Multiple factors will constrain reasoning and limit the formation and change of belief in the service of hedonic goals, including cognitive and motivational resources, accessibility, self-relevance, and difficulty of comprehending information, coherence with prior beliefs and representational goals ( Chaiken et al., 1996 ; Kruglanski, 1980 ; Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999 ; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986 , Simon, 1956 ). However, a large body of empirical evidence suggests that people may intend to fulfill hedonic goals as readily as representational goals ( Kruglanski, Pierro, Mannetti, Erb & Chun, 2007 ; Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999 ), and hedonic goals can exert influence in contexts characterized by either high or low levels of information processing ( Chaiken et al., 1996 ; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986 ). People may even attempt to maximize fulfillment of the hedonic function for any belief they hold, regardless of the extent to which the belief is also intended to represent experience or serve other goals ( Barrett, Ochsner & Gross, 2007 ; Boden & Berenbaum, 2010 ; Clore, 1992 ; Clore & Gasper, 2000 ; Westen & Blagov, 2007 ). This will be especially true in contexts that are ambiguous, and thus allow for a wide range of belief content that does not work against a representational function. For example, an individual may form a belief about the existence of the afterlife that reduces anxiety associated with thoughts of mortality. This individual may be able to do so, despite thinking of him/herself as a rationalist empiricist, because of ambiguity regarding whether consciousness continues to exist after the death of one's body.

Not only in ambiguous contexts, but in almost any context, people can hold beliefs that are not intended to be accurate and still maintain a sense of themselves as rational and logical ( Kruglanski & Webster, 1996 ; Kunda, 1990 ; Pyszczynski & Greenberg, 1987 ). In regard to accuracy (i.e., representational) and directional (e.g., hedonic) goals, Kunda (1990) notes: “both kinds of goals affect reasoning by influencing the choice of beliefs and strategies applied to a given problem. But accuracy goals lead to the use of those beliefs and strategies that are considered most appropriate, whereas directional goals lead to the use of those that are considered most likely to yield the desired conclusion” (pg. 481). Thus, people attempt to be logical and rational when achieving directional goals, such as forming and changing beliefs intended to fulfill hedonic functions. Only when they have adequate and convincing evidence do people form and maintain such beliefs. Kunda (1990) reviews research that suggests that such evidence is gained through various processes, such as creatively combining knowledge to support desired beliefs, accessing only a subset of knowledge, and utilizing search and memory strategies to find confirmatory but not disconfirmatory evidence. Emotions are an additional and potent form of evidence for the validity of beliefs intended to fulfill hedonic functions ( Clore, 1992 ; Gasper & Clore, 1998 ; Wilson & Gilbert, 2005 ). People thus rely on their emotions to support directional goals that are hedonic in nature. Because accuracy and directional goals are generally achieved through the same set of processes, and the beliefs formed in regard to either of these goals are convincing and defensible, people can believe they are maintaining objectivity when in fact their reasoning is biased. Thus, it is no surprise that people can hold at the same time beliefs that serve hedonic and representational functions.

It bears emphasizing, however, that people often do not strive to be accurate, despite the salience and pervasiveness of representational goals. Research has demonstrated that people are motivated to be accurate under some conditions, but not others, and these accuracy goals can vary by person and situation (e.g., Harkness, DeBono, & Borgida, 1985 ). Inaccurate and falsified beliefs persist even when people have the resources required for accuracy (see Lewandowsky, Ecker, Selfert, Schwarz & Cook, 2012 ). People readily implement strategies (e.g., suppression, distraction) to deliberately persuade themselves to adopt new attitudes with little regard for the accuracy of these new attitudes ( Maio & Thomas, 2007 ). People do not generally attempt to find an optimal solution when reasoning ( Gigerenzer & Selten, 2002 ; also see Epstein, 1990 ). They instead use mental short-cuts and heuristics ( Tversky & Kahneman, 1974 ) and reason until reaching a particular acceptability threshold, which is labeled “satisficing” ( Chaiken, 1980 ; Simon, 1956 ). Furthermore, research suggests that some people rely on an intuitive-experiential system driven by emotion for their every-day reasoning more so than an analytical-rational system driven by logic ( Epstein, Pacini, Denes-Raj, & Heier, 1996 ). Taken together, theory and research suggests that people often do not intend to be accurate, and when they do, their reasoning may be limited and contribute to inaccurate beliefs that are held without contention. Thus, people may hold beliefs that fulfill hedonic functions not only because they are motivated to do so, but because they do not have the ability to satisfy the representational functions of beliefs.

Implications and Future Directions

We have proposed an overarching framework that affords a central role to the hedonic functions fulfilled by beliefs. Our framework integrates empirically supported models of motivated cognition (e.g., Kunda, 1990 ), persuasion (e.g., Chaiken et al., 1996 ), reasoning (e.g., Epstein, 1990 ), and emotion ( Clore, 1992 ; Wilson & Gilbert, 2008 ) to broadly capture what is known about why people believe what they do. Our framework builds upon each individual model to offer productive empirical next steps. In this section, we describe (1) individual differences in belief, (2) belief change, and (3) the ways in which beliefs contribute to adaptive versus maladaptive psychological functioning.

Individual Differences

From an individual differences viewpoint, our framework provides a perspective on how people come to differ in the beliefs they hold, and the consequences these differences have. Within and between-person variation in belief content is enormous. This isn't surprising, as people are exposed to an extraordinarily wide-ranging set of experiences throughout their lives, all of which may contribute to distinct beliefs. Yet, our framework suggests it is not just exposure to different experiences that contribute to different beliefs. More interestingly, it is experience filtered through different hedonic, representational and other goals that can also give rise to different beliefs. Thus, our framework provides an understanding of belief diversity, and the far-reaching consequences of this diversity. By identifying goals that influence all beliefs, our framework also finds unity in the processes that contribute to all beliefs, including those with vastly different content.

Individual differences in the combinations of goals that give rise to different beliefs help to explain how similar experiences can contribute to different beliefs. If diversity in belief content were solely attributable to variation in the experiences that give rise to beliefs (e.g., reading literature, crashing one's car, attending a math seminar, contemplating, deducing from, extrapolating from, and associating information one has already acquired), then all individuals with similar experience would have similar or identical beliefs. Although people with similar experiences do sometimes share beliefs with similar content, the enormous within and between-person variation in belief content make clear that experience is not the sole contributor to diversity in belief.

Instead, we posit that experience is filtered by hedonic, representational and other goals to give rise to a diversity of beliefs with varying content. For example, following the experience of trauma or interpersonal loss, there are likely to be differences in the combination of hedonic and representational goals that lead to increases in negative beliefs about oneself as the cause of his/her misfortune (e.g., “I deserved what happened to me because I am a bad person”; Garber et al., 2002 ; Grych et al., 2000) versus those that lead to increases in coping-related beliefs (e.g., “I have the ability to positively influence my life and surroundings”; Florian, Mikulincer, & Taubman, 1995 ). Both types of beliefs may serve similar hedonic functions: decreasing unpleasant emotion by providing a sense of control. However, the hedonic goals that contributed to the formation of these beliefs may differ. The former belief may be intended to decrease fear by making the world more comprehensible, whereas the latter belief may be intended to increase hope regarding the future. Both beliefs may serve the representational function of accurately representing experience (in this case, representing the self in relation to the trauma or loss), but they may also vary in terms of the representational goals that contributed to their formation. The former belief may be intended to accurately represent past and current personal experiences of the self's worthiness, in relation to the event whereas the latter belief may be intended to accurately represent how the world works in terms of personal agency. Additionally, the hedonic and representational goals that give rise to these beliefs may be weighted differently. For example, two friends who are robbed while walking home late one night may have the identical hedonic goal of decreasing fear by providing a sense of control, and representational goal of accurately representing experience to prevent similar future occurrences. However, they may develop vastly different beliefs (e.g., “I was robbed because I was distracted by my friend” versus “I should walk home earlier to prevent robberies”) because they weigh their hedonic and representational goals differently.

While the hypothesis that multiple goals act together in influencing belief formation and change is not in and of itself novel (e.g., Kunda 1990 ; Kruglanski, 1980 ), the mapping of goals/functions served by beliefs in a multidimensional continuous Cartesian coordinate space is. Each quadrant in our coordinate space meaningfully represents different combinations of working for and working against a pair of goals and functions. As an empirical heuristic, the use of a Cartesian coordinate space may be used to investigate the structure of multiple salient goals that give rise to beliefs and dimensions that underlie this structure. Similar work has been done, for example, with the structure of core affect as derived from multiple self-report scales ( Yik, Russell & Steiger, 2011 , also see Russell, 2003 ). There is no reason to believe that the coordinate space is limited to two-dimensions, and each salient goal/function might add another dimension that interacts with those represented. Thus, the interaction of numerous goals/functions underlying some of our most cherished beliefs may be simplified and empirically verified in reference to a Cartesian coordinate space, such as that we have proposed. We might further map where beliefs of a specific type (e.g., religious, identity) exist in the coordinate space for a given group of people, or where the most important beliefs for a given person fall. Building upon this framework, we can develop typologies of goals, beliefs and people that may be incrementally useful in understanding why people believe what they do, and in providing insight into personality, coping, and adaptive and maladaptive functioning.

Existing models tend to focus on identifying when representational (i.e., accuracy) goals are salient, when directional goals are salient, and describing the mechanisms by which each set of goals, in isolation, impact reasoning ( Kunda, 1990 ). Alternatively, our framework focuses on how goals interact in various ways. To understand why people believe what they do, for any given belief, we must identify all salient goals, their importance in context, and the extent to which achievement of one goal hinders or helps fulfillment of all other goals. We can then develop specific hypotheses for any pair (or more) of goals (e.g. representational and hedonic) by using existing literature to identify contexts in which particular goals are salient, constraints on fulfillment of those goals, and mechanisms by which they are fulfilled. For example, in terms of coordination among representational and hedonic goals, we hypothesize that beliefs that are intended to be accurate and serve hedonic functions are more likely to be formed or changed in contexts that are unambiguous but that have implications in terms of one's needs, goals and concerns. In the context of being fired from one's job due to consistently browsing the internet, one might develop the beliefs, “Hard work pays” and “I didn't work hard enough.” As ambiguity increases, competition among goals/functions will increase, leading to a trade-off such that beliefs will be more likely to work for a hedonic function and less likely to work for, and perhaps will work against, a representational function (e.g., “My boss is an idiot”).

Our framework also distinguishes itself in terms of its hedonic focus. Hedonic goals appear to be especially salient and pervasive influences on belief formation and change and individual differences in belief. Different combinations of hedonic, representational and other goals will give rise to different beliefs. The salience and pervasiveness of hedonic goals may be reflected in the predominance of specific types of belief held by people with a diverse range of experience (e.g., religious/spiritual beliefs). Our framework suggests that people come to share similar beliefs because of similarities in overarching hedonic goals that complement or compete with representational and other goals. For example, a substantial portion of the United State population believes in phenomena such as ghosts, astrology, and reincarnation ( Moore, 2005 ), possibly because these beliefs consistently and successfully serve a hedonic function across a broad range of contexts ( Boden & Berenbaum, 2004 ). However, belief with similar content can also serve very different functions. For example, belief regarding one's positive attributes (e.g., “I am a kind and compassionate person”) may primarily serve a representational function in some people and a hedonic function in others.

Prior research has demonstrated the importance of emotions for belief formation and change. We extend such work by positing that goals related to emotion regulation in all its forms (e.g., increases, maintenance, or decreases in pleasant or unpleasant emotions of various types) are central to the formation and change of many of our most important beliefs, especially in particular contexts (e.g., ambiguous). Belief conviction itself may be associated with emotion regulation in a dose-response relationship. For example, the greater the conviction that a belief or proto-belief (e.g., hypothesis, attribution) reduces unpleasant emotions in a particular context, the greater the conviction with which it is held. Like prior theorists ( Wyer & Albarracin, 2005 ), we hypothesize that the hedonic function may actually underlie several other functions served by belief, such as providing a sense of consensus ( Sears & Levy, 2003 ), avoiding uncertainty ( Roney & Sorrentino, 1995 ), and protecting the ego ( Baumeister, 1997 ). With its hedonic focus, our framework may help guide research examining additional factors related to emotional experience that influence belief formation and change via hedonic goals/functions, such (a) as the extent to which people generally experience pleasant or unpleasant emotions (i.e., trait positive and negative affect; Boden, Berenbaum & Topper, 2012 ), (b) tend to have high versus low intensity or stable versus variable emotional experiences, (e.g., Dizen & Berenbaum, 2011 ), (c) use emotion regulation strategies centered on cognitive change, such as belief change (see Boden & Gross, 2013 ), and (d) understand and attend to their emotional experience (i.e., emotional awareness; Boden & Berenbaum, 2004 ; Boden, Gala & Berenbaum, 2013 ).

It is important to consider the consequences of individual differences in belief, and how they are influenced by hedonic goals. Consider, for example, individual differences in whether people endorse entity or incremental self-theories (beliefs about the malleability of self-attributes) in domains such as intelligence and morality ( Dweck, 1999 ). Entity theories emphasize the fixed nature of human attributes, whereas incremental theories emphasize the malleable nature of these constructs. Both types of self-theories potentially serve representational functions by providing reasonable (albeit, potentially inaccurate) explanations and guides for why people do or do not change in various domains. In doing so, both types of self-theories provide an overarching understanding of a fundamental aspect of human existence: change versus stability of human characteristics, abilities, and traits. Yet, the representational functions served by self-theories may be tempered by the hedonic function they serve: to help regulate unpleasant emotions that are associated with the experience of difficulty or failure in attempts to learn or change. Furthermore, this hedonic function has important implications for action and further goal pursuit. Entity theories may serve hedonic functions by promoting disengagement from further attempts to change (e.g., “Why attend therapy when I will always be depressed?”) and incremental theories may serve hedonic functions by promoting engagement in further attempts to change (e.g., “I will become happier as I strive to improve myself”). By providing an understanding of why people hold entity versus incremental theories, the hedonic function can be leveraged to explain individual differences in the many outcomes associated with implicit theories, including learning and achievement ( Good, Rattan & Dweck, 2012 ), personal control and willpower ( Job, Dweck, & Walton, 2010 ), willingness to compromise for peace among people engaged in intractable conflict ( Halperin, Russell, Trzesniewki, Gross & Dweck, 2011 ), and motivation to confront prejudice when it is occurs ( Rattan & Dweck, 2010 ).

Belief Change

It is often thought that beliefs will change when more accurate information is obtained. However, the large literature on confirmation bias ( Nickerson, 1998 ) clearly demonstrates that people do not typically change their beliefs to improve accuracy after they have formed, except under circumscribed conditions such as those investigated by cognitive consistency theorists (e.g., Jonas et al., 2006 ). Specifically, people don't generally search for information that would challenge their beliefs and instead, people search for evidence that confirms their beliefs, and discard discomfirmatory evidence or reinterpret such evidence to support their beliefs. For example, a medical student who is comforted by her belief in the existence of an immortal soul that is separable from our mortal bodies may find that belief in conflict with a naturalistic materialism supported by medical school. She may either ignore the contradictory nature of the evidence, or reinterpret the evidence in a way that allows her to maintain her original belief (e.g., “I heal only bodies, for the soul needs no doctor”). Based on our framework, we posit that corrective information would primarily serve to modify beliefs that are intended to serve representational functions (coordinate spaces A and D in Figure 1 ). Because many beliefs are intended to also or primarily serve hedonic functions (coordinate spaces A and B in Figure 1 ), encountering corrective information will often not lead to belief change ( Westen et al., 2006 ).

Consistent with a large literature on matching effects in persuasions ( Petty, Wheeler & Bizer, 2000 ), we posit that a functional analysis of belief can provide insights into when and why people change through active intervention. For example, Walton and Cohen (2011) implemented a subtle intervention with African-American college students designed to enhance their perceptions of belonging by increasing the belief that feelings of non-belonging were widespread among freshman and were temporary. By changing beliefs in this manner, the intervention significantly improved the grade-point average, health, and well-being of students who were members of a traditionally negatively stereotyped group. One of the reasons the intervention may have worked so well is that it may have targeted beliefs that did not optimally serve either representational or hedonic functions in African-American students. Even a modest intervention may lead to substantial changes in beliefs that do not fulfill either representational or hedonic functions as well as the new belief does (coordinate spaces C and E in Figure 1 ). Psychological growth and related positive outcomes would result from changing one's beliefs or developing new beliefs that better serve hedonic and representational functions.

Compared to prior models, our framework provides a basis for a more nuanced and comprehensive functional analysis of beliefs due to: (a) its use of a multidimensional space in which multiple goals/functions motivate belief formation and change; and (b) its focus on coordination, competition, and trade-offs among these goals/functions. Using our framework to functionally analyze beliefs, belief interventions that are tailored to address the functions served by the belief should lead to greater effectiveness. For example, health psychologists have explored the use of targeted interventions to change beliefs that directly influence behaviors that impact physical health, such as alcohol consumption, exercising, and condom use (e.g., Fishbein & Yzer, 2003 ). Example of such targeted beliefs might include, “My health will not be negatively impacted by drinking four to five glasses of beer everyday”, “I do not have time to exercise”, and “Using condoms suggests that I do not trust my partner”. The mixed results of these interventions (for a discussion see Fishbein & Yzer, 2003 ) may in part be due to the fact that many of these beliefs, and the behaviors that they support, serve hedonic functions. Addressing representational goals, such as through argumentation or the presentation of new, relevant facts may have been unsuccessful at changing these health-related beliefs when they are successfully serving hedonic functions (coordinate spaces A and B in Figure 1 ). Instead, it might be more useful to develop interventions that provide new beliefs or behaviors that fulfill the hedonic function served by the original belief, thereby decreasing the need to hold that particular belief (e.g., identifying and enacting stress reduction activities to replace alcohol consumption for this purpose; increasing tolerability of exercising by identifying time-limited and pleasurable exercises). However, when beliefs are intended to serve a representational function, albeit unsuccessfully (i.e., beliefs are inaccurate), interventions that are designed to challenge the validity of the belief, such as those designed to challenge positive expectations regarding the effects of using alcohol and drugs ( Darkes & Goldman, 1993 ), may prove useful in changing beliefs.

Functionally oriented research is needed to investigate all factors that contribute to belief change, along with belief formation and stability, including (a) the functions originally served by a particular belief, (b) the goals that influenced the initial development of the belief, (c) the contexts in which these goals were salient, (d) how well the belief currently serves various functions, and (e) how the belief continues to influence a person's life even though it is not accurate or does not help to regulate emotions in valued direction. Such insight may also be useful in motivating efforts to change maladaptive belief, such as beliefs related to a lack of social belongingness ( Walton & Cohen, 2007 ), limitations in personal control and willpower ( Job et al., 2010 ), the fixed nature of intelligence and personality ( Dweck, 1999 ; Halperin et al., 2011 ), and even relatively normative but nonetheless destructive and unhelpful stereotypes ( Hill & Augoustinos, 2001 ).

Maladaptive and Adaptive Psychological Functioning

Beliefs play a key role in determining maladaptive and adaptive psychological functioning. Based on our framework we derive the unique hypothesis that beliefs will increase well-being and mental health if they successfully serve their intended functions, while being (flexibly) coordinated in function and content; in contrast, beliefs will decrease mental health and well-being if they do/are not. Part of mental health is coordinating one's beliefs to increase the chances that intended functions are served and important beliefs are not in conflict with each other or with context-dependent goals. Belief(s) are more highly coordinated in this manner when: (a) they successfully fulfill one or more functions without impeding fulfillment of other functions through other beliefs: and (b) the function(s) they serve facilitate achievement of salient goals in specified contexts. For example, the belief, “Worrying about future negative events keeps them from occurring” may be more highly coordinated in this manner when one lives in a dangerous neighborhood, in which a salient goal is to avoid being victimized. This belief may be less coordinated in the context of a vacation in a tropical resort, in which a salient goal is to relax. As context changes, so do the functions that belief fulfill and the goals that are salient. Therefore belief and belief activation must be flexible, but not so flexible as to fluctuate widely with little regard to fulfillment of any function, thus potentially contributing to further distress (e.g., Dizen & Berenbaum, 2011 ).

Because beliefs can serve hedonic functions, people with exceptional well-being and mental health sometimes hold inaccurate beliefs (e.g., “I have a positive influence on the world around me”; Mezulis, Abramson, Hyde, & Hankin, 2004 ), contradictory beliefs (e.g., “I am a good person”; “I am sometimes too busy to be a good friend”), and paranormal/peculiar beliefs (e.g., belief in the existence of aliens; Boden, 2015 ). To the extent that such beliefs are intended to and successfully serve hedonic functions and are flexibly coordinated, they may be adaptive regardless of their accuracy. Inaccuracy is maladaptive primarily for beliefs intended to serve a representational function, although there will be occasions when belief intended to serve hedonic functions will be maladaptive due to inaccuracy (e.g., the belief, “My boss is a jerk”, formed to decrease unpleasant affect following by a fired employee, is inaccurate and may contribute to the employee's lack of success in future jobs).

Accurate beliefs may be maladaptive if they do not successfully serve their intended function and/or are not flexibly coordinated in function and content. For example, the belief, “I am below average in my talents and skills” may be accurate but conflict with salient goals in specific contexts (e.g., to most favorably present oneself on a job interview) or more broadly (e.g., to perceive oneself as a valuable member of society). Because this belief is not coordinated with respect to one's goals, it may contribute to distress and further maladaptive outcomes (e.g., a rejected job application). Alternatively, this belief may be flexibly coordinated with the values and goals of members of a socio-cultural milieu that espouses hard work as a path to success more so than talent and skill, and hence, promote adaptation among such members. Entity theories related to personality (e.g., “My personality is fixed”) are examples of meta-belief that may in some cases and in some contexts be accurate, but at the same time may be maladaptive (e.g., Erdley, Loomis, Cain & Dumas-Hines, 1997 ) because they are not flexibly coordinated with respect to the goal of growing and changing to better adapt to life's circumstances.

Understanding the functions served by beliefs provides insights into functioning. For example, research has shown that in western cultures beliefs expressing optimism (e.g., positive events are more likely to occur in the future than negative events) tend to be associated with positive outcomes (e.g., Scheier & Carver, 1993 ), whereas beliefs expressing pessimism tend to be associated with negative outcomes (e.g., Cantor & Norem, 1989 ). However, we hypothesize that both optimistic and pessimistic beliefs can successfully serve hedonic functions. Optimistic beliefs may serve hedonic functions by helping people to cope with stressful life events ( Scheier & Carver, 1985 ). Pessimistic beliefs may serve hedonic functions by protecting people from disappointment and threats to self-esteem ( Norem & Cantor, 1986 ). Understanding when and for whom optimistic versus pessimistic beliefs serve hedonic functions can provide further insight into the numerous cognitive, emotional, and behavioral outcomes found to be associated with these beliefs (e.g., Cantor & Norem, 1989 ; Scheier & Carver, 1993 ). Such insights might be useful for psychological scientists attempting to understand links between functioning and broad personality traits (see Dweck, 2008 ). This might be done by showing how personality traits may be characterized in part by specific beliefs (e.g., optimistic beliefs are positively associated with extraversion; Marshall, Wortman, Kusulas, Hervig, & Vickers, 1992 ).

Moving to dysfunction of greater severity, almost every type of mental disorder includes as a sign or symptom, specific types of belief. For example, delusions are a symptom of schizophrenia ( American Psychiatric Association, 2000 ), inaccurate and rigidly held beliefs, often called “core” beliefs or schemas, contribute to mood and anxiety disorders ( Riso et al., 2007 ), and beliefs about the expected consequences of using a alcohol or drugs (i.e., “expectancies”) are associated with substance use disorders ( Jones, Corbin, & Fromme, 2001 ). Based on our functionalist framework, beliefs are characteristic of mental disorder not necessarily because they are inaccurate, but because they are inflexibly coordinated in content and/or function. To illustrate, individuals with excessive social anxiety hold beliefs regarding themselves (as socially incompetent) and others (as critical judges) that transform innocuous social cues (e.g., a person looking away during a conversation) into social threats (e.g., Rapee & Heimberg, 1997 ). These beliefs are typically held with high conviction, which may result from their successful service of a hedonic function (e.g., protecting oneself from unpleasant emotions associated with social rejection). Yet these beliefs may also be maladaptive. This is because these beliefs serve: (a) one hedonic function at the expense of another hedonic function (e.g., having pleasurable social interactions); and (b) a hedonic function at the expense of a representational function (i.e., when there exists limited supporting evidence) when representational accuracy is needed to successfully build and navigate interpersonal relationships. Such beliefs contribute to behavior that hinders interpersonal relationships (e.g., reduced interpersonal interactions results in few friends), and creates more pervasive and intense long-term hedonic problems (e.g., social anxiety disorder).

Understanding when and why beliefs change from a functionalist perspective may prove to be especially important for treating dysfunctional beliefs through targeted interventions. For example, cognitive therapy, which is used to treat mental disorders ranging from major depression to schizophrenia ( Butler, Chapman, Forman & Beck, 2006 ), focuses on changing maladaptive cognition (e.g., thoughts, beliefs) to decrease symptoms of mental disorders. Studies have shown that reductions in maladaptive beliefs are causally associated with reductions in symptoms of mood and anxiety disorders (e.g., Boden et al., 2012 ). Further increases in the success of cognitive therapies and other treatments targeting beliefs may result from an increased focus on identifying and directly addressing the extent to which these beliefs were intended to serve hedonic and/or representational functions and how well they do so. Especially important among potential strategies, and unique additions to established cognitive therapies, are those intended to increase an understanding of the hedonic functions of a targeted belief.

Efforts tailored to address the hedonic function may be especially influential in contexts in which the hedonic function is most likely to be salient: those that are ambiguous and emotionally arousing. In addition to increasing awareness of the hedonic functions served by a particular belief, the treatment provider can help a belief holder to identify any tension between functions served or hindered by the belief, such as when representational functions are hindered by achievement of hedonic functions. The treatment provider can also help to make explicit and prioritize short-term or long-term hedonic goals served by the belief, and if necessary, to find means (through belief or otherwise) to achieve prioritized hedonic goals (short-term or long-term) or to create a balance between short-term/long-term hedonic goals. Two psychosocial interventions, motivational interviewing (Miller & Rollnick, 2013) and behavioral activation ( Jacobson, Martell & Dimidjian, 2001 ; also see Lewinsohn, 1975 ) include similar procedures.

Because beliefs are characteristic of many mental disorders, an additional target for future work is examining how our framework can be applied to improve the mental health and functioning of individuals receiving treatment for a range of different types of psychopathology. One might design, test, and modify interventions to increase awareness of the functions served by a given belief. Through this beliefs intended to fulfill representational functions can be challenged to improve accuracy. Other means can be found to fulfill hedonic functions for belief that are primarily intended to serve hedonic functions. Further gains might accrue by focusing on treatment-related beliefs, which moderate and/or mediate treatment success. For example, hedonic and representational goals may compete in regard to treatment-seeking beliefs, beliefs regarding one's own ability to change, self-efficacy related beliefs regarding whether a patient can successfully complete treatment given side-effects and involvement. Especially interesting will be functional examination of expectations regarding the effects of treatment. Phenomena such as the placebo and nocebo effect may be a direct reflection of the success at which treatment-related expectations fulfill a hedonic function ( Petrovic, Dietrich, Fransson, Andersson & Carlsson, 2005 ).

Concluding Comment

Beliefs make the world more predictable, and increase our ability to survive and reproduce ( Barlow, 2001 ). They also form a core aspect of our identity ( Heine et al., 2006 ; James, 1902/2002 ), and define and shape our relationships with other people ( Jost, 2006 ). Furthermore, beliefs influence many of the key processes studied by psychological scientists, including cognitive ( Dube et al., 2010 ; Risen & Gilovich, 2008 ; Wyer & Hartwick, 1984 ), emotional ( Boden & Berenbaum, 2010 ), and behavioral processes ( Dweck & Leggett, 1988 ; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975 ). It is thus not surprising that beliefs are important to those who hold them ( Abelson, 1986 ; Heine et al., 2006 ; Wyer & Albarracin, 2005 ). What may be surprising, however, is that we still have so much to learn about why people believe what they do.

We have proposed an overarching framework that highlights the hedonic as well as the representational functions of our beliefs. A joint consideration of these two sets of functions is helpful in understanding why people believe what they do, especially when beliefs appear to be inconsistent with available evidence. A practical implication with broad applicability (e.g., for interventions to change maladaptive beliefs) is that a functional analysis will be useful to understand and change beliefs. Without this, efforts such as presenting corrective information may be unsuccessful and even counterproductive. We believe that functionally-oriented interventions hold great potential for improving the quality of life of those who hold maladaptive beliefs, in addition to increasing our understanding of why we believe what we do.

Acknowledgments

Preparation of this paper was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH19938, MH087212). We thank Carol Dweck and members of the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory for helpful critiques of earlier drafts of this manuscript.

Contributor Information

Matthew Tyler Boden, Center for Health Care Evaluation, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.

Howard Berenbaum, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

James J. Gross, Department of Psychology, Stanford University.

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Functionalism

Functionalism in the philosophy of mind is the doctrine that what makes something a mental state of a particular type does not depend on its internal constitution, but rather on the way it functions, or the role it plays, in the system of which it is a part. This doctrine is rooted in Aristotle’s conception of the soul, and has antecedents in Hobbes’s conception of the mind as a “calculating machine”, but it has become fully articulated (and popularly endorsed) only in the last third of the 20th century. Though the term ‘functionalism’ is used to designate a variety of positions in a variety of other disciplines, including psychology, sociology, economics, and architecture, this entry focuses exclusively on functionalism as a philosophical thesis about the nature of mental states.

The following sections will trace the intellectual antecedents of contemporary functionalism, sketch the different types of functionalist theories, and discuss the most serious objections to them.

1. What is Functionalism?

2.1 early antecedents, 2.2 thinking machines and the “turing test”, 2.3 behaviorism, 3.1 machine state functionalism, 3.2 functional definitions and ramsey-sentences, 3.3 analytic functionalism, 3.4 psychofunctionalism, 3.5 role-functionalism and realizer-functionalism, 4.1 characterizing experiential states, 4.2 characterizing intentional states, 4.3 characterizing the inputs and outputs of a system, 5.1 functionalism and holism, 5.2 functionalism and mental causation, 5.3 functionalism and introspective belief, 5.4 functionalism and the norms of reason, 5.5.1 inverted and absent qualia, 5.5.2 functionalism, zombies, and the “explanatory gap”, 5.5.3 functionalism and the knowledge argument, 6. the future of functionalism, other internet resources, related entries.

Functionalism is the doctrine that what makes something a thought, desire, pain (or any other type of mental state) depends not on its internal constitution, but solely on its function, or the role it plays, in the cognitive system of which it is a part. More precisely, functionalist theories take the identity of a mental state to be determined by its causal relations to sensory stimulations, other mental states, and behavior.

For (an avowedly simplistic) example, a functionalist theory might characterize pain as the state that tends to be caused by bodily injury, to produce the belief that something is wrong with the body and the desire to be out of that state, to produce anxiety, and, in the absence of any stronger, conflicting desires, to cause wincing or moaning. According to this theory, all and only creatures with internal states that can meet this condition, or play this role, are capable of being in pain, and an individual is in pain at time t if and only if they are in a state that is playing this role at t .

Suppose that, in humans, there is some distinctive kind of neural activity (C-fiber stimulation, for example) that plays this role. If so, then according to this functionalist theory, humans can be in pain simply by undergoing C-fiber stimulation. But the theory permits creatures with very different physical constitutions to have mental states as well: if there are silicon-based states of hypothetical Martians or inorganic states of hypothetical androids that also meet these conditions, then these creatures, too, can be in pain. As functionalists often put it, pain can be realized by different types of physical states in different kinds of creatures, or multiply realized . (See entry on multiple realizability .) Indeed, since descriptions that make explicit reference only to a state’s causal relations with stimulations, behavior, and one another are what have come to be known as “topic-neutral” (Smart 1959) – that is, as imposing no logical restrictions on the nature of the items that satisfy the descriptions – then it’s also logically possible for non -physical states to play the relevant roles, and thus realize mental states, in some systems as well. So functionalism is compatible with the sort of dualism that takes mental states to cause, and be caused by, physical states.

Still, though functionalism is officially neutral between materialism and dualism, it has been particularly attractive to materialists, since many materialists believe (or argue; see Lewis, 1966) that it is overwhelmingly likely that any states capable of playing the roles in question will be physical states. If so, then functionalism can stand as a materialistic alternative to the Psycho-Physical Identity Thesis (introduced in Place 1956, Feigl 1958, and Smart 1959, and defended more recently in Hill 1991, and Polger 2011), which holds that each type of mental state is identical with a particular type of neural state. This thesis seems to entail that no creatures with brains unlike ours can share our sensations, beliefs, and desires, no matter how similar their behavior and internal organization may be to our own, and thus functionalism, with its claim that mental states can be multiply realized, has been regarded as providing a more inclusive, less “(species-) chauvinistic” (Block 1980b) – theory of the mind that is compatible with materialism. (More recently, however, some philosophers have contended that the identity thesis may be more inclusive than functionalists assume; see Section 6 for further discussion.)

Within this broad characterization of functionalism, however, a number of distinctions can be made. One of particular importance is the distinction between theories in which the functional characterizations of mental states purport to provide analyses of the meanings of our mental state terms (or otherwise restrict themselves to a priori information), and theories that permit functional characterizations of mental states to appeal to information deriving from scientific experimentation (or speculation). (See Shoemaker 1984c, and Rey 1997, for further discussion and more fine-grained distinctions.) There are other important differences among functionalist theories as well. These (sometimes orthogonal) differences, and the motivations for them, can best be appreciated by examining the origins of functionalism and tracing its evolution in response both to explicit criticisms of the thesis and changing views about the nature of psychological explanation.

2. Antecedents of Functionalism

Although functionalism attained its greatest prominence as a theory of mental states in the last third of the 20th century, it has antecedents in both modern and ancient philosophy, as well as in early theories of computation and artificial intelligence.

The earliest view in the Western canon that can be considered an ancestor of functionalism is Aristotle’s theory of the soul (350 BCE). In contrast to Plato’s claim that the soul can exist apart from the body, Aristotle argued ( De Anima Bk. II, Ch. 1) that the (human) soul is the form of a natural, organized human body – the set of powers or capacities that enable it to express its “essential whatness”, which for Aristotle is a matter of fulfilling the function or purpose that defines it as the kind of thing it is. Just as the form of an axe is whatever enables it to cut, and the form of an eye is whatever enables it to see, the (human) soul is to be identified with whichever powers and capacities enable a natural, organized human body to fulfill its defining function, which, according to Aristotle, is to survive and flourish as a living, acting, perceiving, and reasoning being. So, Aristotle argues, the soul is inseparable from the body, and comprises whichever capacities are required for a body to live, perceive, reason, and act. (See Shields, 1990, and Nelson, 1990, for further debate about whether Aristotle’s view can be considered to be a version of functionalism.)

A second, relatively early, ancestor of contemporary functionalism is Hobbes’s (1651) account of reasoning as a kind of computation that proceeds by mechanistic principles comparable to the rules of arithmetic. Reasoning, he argues, is “nothing but reckoning , that is adding and subtracting, of the consequences of general names agreed upon for the marking and signifying of our thoughts.” ( Leviathan , Ch. 5) In addition, Hobbes suggests that reasoning – along with imagining, sensing, and deliberating about action, all of which proceed according to mechanistic principles – can be performed by systems of various physical types. As he puts it in his Introduction to Leviathan , where he likens a commonwealth to an individual human, “why may we not say that all automata (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels…) have an artificial life? For what is the heart but a spring; and the nerves but so many strings, and the joints but so many wheels…”. It was not until the middle of the 20th century, however, that it became common to speculate that thinking may be nothing more than rule-governed computation that can be carried out by creatures of various physical types.

In a seminal paper (Turing 1950), A.M. Turing proposed that the question, “Can machines think?” can be replaced by the question, “Is it theoretically possible for a finite state digital computer, provided with a large but finite table of instructions, or program, to provide responses to questions that would fool an unknowing interrogator into thinking it is a human being?” Now, in deference to its author, this question is most often expressed as “Is it theoretically possible for a Turing machine (appropriately programmed) to pass the Turing Test?” (See the entry on the Turing Test .)

In arguing that this question is a legitimate replacement for the original (and speculating that its answer is “yes”), Turing identifies thoughts with states of a system defined solely by their roles in producing further internal states and verbal outputs, given certain verbal inputs – a view on which, like Hobbes’s and subsequent functionalist theories – many physically different systems could have internal states that play these roles. Indeed, Turing’s work was explicitly invoked by many theorists during the beginning stages of 20th century functionalism, and was the avowed inspiration for a class of theories, the “machine state” theories most firmly associated with Hilary Putnam (1960, 1967) that had an important role in the early development of the doctrine.

Other important recent antecedents of functionalism are the behaviorist theories that emerged in the early-to-mid twentieth century. These include both the “logical” or “analytical” behaviorism of philosophers such as Malcolm (1968) and Ryle (1949) (and, arguably, Wittgenstein 1953) and the empirical psychological theories associated primarily with Watson and Skinner.

Logical behaviorism is a thesis about the meanings of our mental state terms or concepts – in particular, that all statements about mental states and processes are equivalent in meaning to statements about behavioral dispositions. So, for (again, an overly simplified) example, “Henry has a toothache” would be equivalent in meaning to a statement such as “Henry is disposed (all things being equal) to cry out or moan and to rub his jaw”. And “Amelia is thirsty” would be equivalent to a statement such as “If Amelia is offered some water, she will be disposed (all things being equal) to drink it.” These candidate translations, like all behavioristic statements, eschew reference to any internal states of the organism, and thus do not threaten to denote, or otherwise induce commitment to, properties or processes (directly) observable only by introspection. In addition, logical behaviorists argued that if statements about mental states were equivalent in meaning to statements about behavioral dispositions, there could be an unproblematic account of how mental state terms could be applied both to oneself and others, and how they could be taught and learned.

In contrast, scientific behaviorism is an empirical theory that attempts to explain the behavior of humans (and other animals) by appealing solely to behavioral dispositions, that is, to the lawlike tendencies of organisms to behave in certain ways, given certain environmental stimulations. Stimulations and behavior, unlike thoughts, feelings, and other internal states that can be directly observed only by introspection, are objectively observable, and are indisputably part of the natural world. Thus behavioral dispositions seemed to be fit entities to figure centrally in the emerging science of psychology, allowing for a science of human behavior as objective and explanatory as other “higher-level” sciences such as chemistry and biology. Also, behaviorist theories promised to avoid a potential regress that appeared to threaten psychological explanations invoking internal representations, namely, that to specify how such representations produce the behaviors in question, one must appeal to an internal intelligent agent (a “homunculus”) who interprets the representations, and whose skills would themselves have to be explained.

Both varieties of behaviorism, however, faced a common problem.

As many philosophers have pointed out (e.g. Chisholm 1957; Geach 1957), logical behaviorism provides an implausible account of the meanings of our mental state terms, since, intuitively, a subject can have the mental states in question without the relevant behavioral dispositions – and vice versa. For example, Gene may believe that it’s going to rain even if he’s not disposed to wear a raincoat and take an umbrella when leaving the house (or to perform any other cluster of rain-avoiding behaviors), if Gene doesn’t mind, or actively enjoys, singing in the rain. And subjects with the requisite motivation can suppress their tendencies to pain behavior even in the presence of excruciating pain, while skilled actors can perfect the lawlike disposition to produce pain behavior under certain conditions, even if they don’t actually feel pain. (See e.g. Putnam 1965) The problem, these philosophers argued, is that no mental state, by itself, can plausibly be assumed to give rise to any particular behavior unless one also assumes that the subject possesses additional mental states of various types. And so, it seemed, it is not in fact possible to give meaning-preserving translations of statements invoking pains, beliefs, and desires in purely behavioristic terms; one needs to include reference to the subject’s other mental states as well. Nonetheless, the idea that our common sense concepts of mental states reveal an essential tie between mental states and their typical behavioral expressions is retained, and elaborated, in contemporary “analytic” functionalist theories.

Scientific behaviorism faced similar challenges. The theories of Watson, Skinner, et al had some early successes, especially in the domain of animal learning, and its principles are still used, at least for heuristic purposes, in various areas of psychology. But as many psychologists (and others, e.g. Chomsky 1959) have argued, the successes of behaviorism seem to depend upon the experimenters’ implicit control of certain variables which, when made explicit, involve ineliminable reference to organisms’ other mental states. For example, rats are typically placed into an experimental situation at a certain fraction of their normal body weight – and thus can be assumed to feel hunger and to want the food rewards contingent upon behaving in certain ways. Similarly, it is assumed that humans, in analogous experimental situations, want to cooperate with the experimenters, and understand and know how to follow the instructions. It seemed to the critics of behaviorism, therefore, that theories that explicitly appeal to an organism’s beliefs, desires, and other mental states, as well as to stimulations and behavior, would provide a fuller and more accurate account of why organisms behave as they do. They could do so, moreover, without compromising the objectivity of psychology as long as the mental states to which these theories appeal are introduced as states that together play a role in the production of behavior, rather than states identifiable solely by introspection. Thus work was begun on a range of “cognitive” psychological theories which reflected these presumptions, and an important strain of contemporary functionalism, “psychofunctionalism” (Fodor 1968, Block and Fodor 1972) can be seen a philosophical endorsement of these new cognitive theories of mind.

3. Varieties of Functionalism

Given this history, it is helpful to think of functionalist theories as belonging to one of three major strains – “machine state functionalism”, “analytic functionalism”, and “psychofunctionalism” – and to see them as emerging, respectively, from early AI theories, empirical behaviorism, and logical behaviorism. It’s important to recognize, however, that there is at least some overlap in the bloodlines of these different strains of functionalism, and also that there are functionalist theories, both earlier and more recent, that fall somewhere in between. For example, Wilfrid Sellars’s (1956) account of mental states as “theoretical entities” is widely regarded as an important early version of functionalism, but it takes the proper characterization of thoughts and experiences to depend partially on their role in providing a scientific explanation of behavior, and partly on what he calls the “logic”, or the a priori interrelations, of the relevant concepts. Still, it is instructive to give separate treatment to the three major strains of the doctrine, as long as these caveats are kept in mind.

The early functionalist theories of Putnam (1960, 1967; see also Block and Fodor 1972) can be seen as a response to the difficulties facing behaviorism as a scientific psychological theory, and as an endorsement of the (new) computational theories of mind which were becoming increasingly significant rivals to it. (But see Putnam 1988, for subsequent doubts about machine functionalism, Chalmers 1996b, for a response, and Shagrir 2005, for a comprehensive account of the evolution of Putnam’s views on the subject)

According to machine state functionalism , any creature with a mind can be regarded as a Turing machine (an idealized finite state digital computer), whose operation can be fully specified by a set of instructions (a “machine table” or program) having the form:

If the machine is in state S i , and receives input I j , it will go into state S k and produce output O l (for a finite number of states, inputs and outputs).

A machine table of this sort describes the operation of a deterministic automaton, but most machine state functionalists (e.g. Putnam 1967) take the proper model for the mind to be that of a probabilistic automaton: one in which the program specifies, for each state and set of inputs, the probability with which the machine will enter some subsequent state and produce some particular output.

On either model, however, the mental states of a creature are to be identified with such “machine table states” ( S 1 ,…, S n ). These states are not mere behavioral dispositions, since they are specified in terms of their relations not only to inputs and outputs, but also to the state of the machine at the time. For example, if believing it will rain is regarded as a machine state, it will not be regarded as a disposition to take one’s umbrella after looking at the weather report, but rather as a disposition to take one’s umbrella if one looks at the weather report and is in the state of wanting to stay dry. So machine state functionalism can avoid what many have thought to be a fatal difficulty for behaviorism. In addition, machines of this sort provide at least a simple model of how internal states whose effects on output occur by means of mechanical processes can be viewed as representations (though the question of what , exactly, they represent has been an ongoing topic of discussion (see sections 4.4–5). Finally, machine table states are not tied to any particular physical (or other) realization; the same program, after all, can be run on different sorts of computer hardware.

It’s easy to see, therefore, why Turing machines provided a fruitful model for early functionalist theories. And the idea that mental states are best regarded as computational states appears in many theories of the mind (see, for example, Rey 1997; but see Piccinini 2004 for dissent and the entry on the computational theory of mind for a comprehensive discussion of this question). Nonetheless, because machine table states are total states of a system, most contemporary functionalists – both analytic functionalists and psychofunctionalists – have adopted another way of characterizing mental states, namely, as states implicitly defined by the co-called Ramsey-sentence of a psychological theory – either one that derives from our commonly held beliefs about the causal roles of mental states in the production of behavior, or from the results of empirical psychological investigation. This will be the focus of the next section.

The key feature of this now-canonical method, presented initially by David Lewis (1972), building on a technique introduced by Frank Ramsey, is to treat mental state terms as being implicitly defined by the so-called Ramsey sentence of one or another psychological theory – common sense, scientific, or something in between. (Analogous steps, of course, can be taken to produce the Ramsey-sentence of any theory, psychological or otherwise). For (a still simplistic) example, consider the sort of generalizations about pain introduced before: pain tends to be caused by bodily injury; pain tends to produce the belief that something is wrong with the body and the desire to be out of that state; pain tends to produce anxiety; pain tends to produce wincing or moaning.

To construct the Ramsey-sentence of this “theory”, the first step is to conjoin these generalizations, then to replace all names of different types of mental states with different variables, and then to existentially quantify those variables, as follows:

∃ x ∃ y ∃ z ∃ w ( x tends to be caused by bodily injury & x tends to produce states y , z , and w & x tends to produce wincing or moaning).

Such a statement is free of any mental state terms. It includes only quantifiers that range over mental states, terms that denote stimulations and behavior, and terms that specify various causal relations among them. It can thus be regarded as providing implicit definitions of the mental state terms of the theory. An individual will have those mental states just in case it possesses a family of first-order states that interact in the ways specified by the theory. (Though functionalists of course acknowledge that the first-order states that satisfy the functional definitions may vary from species to species – or even from individual to individual – they specify that, for each individual, the functional definitions be uniquely satisfied.)

A helpful way to think of the Ramsey sentence of a psychological theory is to regard it as defining a system’s mental states “all at once” as states that interact with stimulations in various ways to produce behavior (See Lewis 1972; also see Field 1980 for a more technical elaboration of Lewis’s method, and an account of some crucial differences between this kind of characterization and the one Lewis initially proposed.) It is also helpful to view the differences between analytic and psychofunctionalism as differences in the Ramsey-sentences of our “commonsense theory of the mind” versus our empirical psychological theories of the roles of mental states in the production of other mental states and behavior.

Like the logical behaviorism from which it emerged, the goal of analytic functionalism is to provide dispositional, or other “topic-neutral”, translations or analyses of our ordinary mental state terms or concepts. Analytic functionalism, of course, has richer resources than logical behaviorism for such translations, since it permits reference to certain causal and transitional relations that a mental state has to stimulations, behavior, and other mental states . So, for example, the statement “Blanca wants some coffee” need not be rendered, as logical behaviorism requires, in terms such as “Blanca is disposed to order coffee when it is offered”, but rather as “Blanca is disposed to order coffee when it is offered, if she has no stronger desire to avoid coffee”. But any theory – and its Ramsey-sentence – that is acceptable to analytic functionalists must include only generalizations about mental states, their environmental causes, and their joint effects on behavior that are so widely known and “platitudinous” to count as analyzing our ordinary concepts of the mental states in question. (See Smart 1959, Armstrong 1968, Shoemaker 1984a,b,c, Lewis 1972, and Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson 1996/2007.)

A major question, of course, is whether a theory that limits itself to such “platitudes” about the causal relations between stimulations, mental states, and behavior can make the right distinctions among mental states, or even worse, is so “liberal” that it can be realized by systems without any sort of mentality at all, such as the economy of Bolivia (Block, 1980b). However, commonsense psychology has more resources than it may initially seem. First, (at least arguably) it need not be restricted to the “platitudes” that can be accessed immediately; it may take a certain amount of Socratic questioning to prompt us to recognize certain similarities and differences among the causal-relational properties of our mental states. The information accessed by such questioning, however, was always available to us, at least in principle, and so can count as the deliverances of common sense, rather than empirical investigation. Moreover – and contrary to the claims of some theorists (e.g. Churchland, 1981) – commonsense psychology is not stagnant. It can, over time, absorb information acquired by exposure to empirical theories, while nonetheless retaining its platitudinous status. (Not that this is always a good thing: think, for example, of how Freudian theory and various now discredited theories about the causes of autism, depression, and impulsive behavior once seemed to be the deliverances of common sense.)

Nonetheless, many functionalists argue that commonsense theories do not have sufficient resources to capture the causal roles of the internal states that differentiate us from other cognitive (and non-cognitive) systems. They look instead to a more empirically informed, and presumably more restrictive, theory of mental states and their effects on behavior – psychofunctionalism – that derives primarily from reflection upon the goals and methodology of the “cognitive” psychological theories that are the descendants of scientific behaviorism.

In contrast to the scientific behaviorists’ insistence that the laws of psychology appeal only to behavioral dispositions, cognitive psychologists argue that the best empirical theories of behavior take it to be the result of a complex of mental states and processes, introduced and individuated in terms of the roles they play in producing the behavior to be explained. For example (Fodor’s, in his 1968, Ch. 3), a psychologist may begin to construct a theory of memory by postulating the existence of “memory trace” decay, a process whose occurrence or absence is responsible for effects such as memory loss and retention, and which is affected by stress or emotion in certain distinctive ways.

On a theory of this sort, what makes some neural process an instance of memory trace decay is a matter of how it functions, or the role it plays, in a cognitive system; its neural or chemical properties are relevant only insofar as they enable that process to do what trace decay is hypothesized to do. And similarly for all mental states and processes invoked by cognitive psychological theories. Cognitive psychology, that is, is intended by its proponents to be a “higher-level” science like biology, and thus to have autonomy from lower-level sciences such as neurophysiology: just as, in biology, physically disparate entities can all be hearts as long as they function to circulate blood in a living organism, and physically disparate entities can all be eyes as long as they enable an organism to see, disparate physical structures or processes can be instances of memory trace decay – or more familiar phenomena such as thoughts, sensations, and desires – as long as they play the roles described by the relevant cognitive theory.

Psychofunctionalism, therefore, can be seen as straightforwardly adopting the methodology of cognitive psychology in its characterization of mental states and processes as entities defined by their role in a cognitive psychological theory. What distinguishes it from analytic functionalism is that the information used in the functional characterization of mental states and processes needn’t be restricted to what is considered common knowledge or common sense, but can include information available only by careful empirical observation and experimentation. For example, a psychofunctional theory might be able to distinguish phenomena such as depression from sadness or listlessness even though the distinctive causes and effects of these syndromes are difficult to untangle solely by consulting intuitions or appealing to common sense. And psychofunctional theories will not include characterizations of mental states for which there is no scientific evidence, such as buyer’s regret or hysteria, even if the existence and efficacy of such states is something that common sense affirms.

This may seem to be an unmitigated advantage, since psychofunctional theories can avail themselves of all the tools of inquiry available to scientific psychology, and will presumably make all, and only, the distinctions that are scientifically sound. This methodology, however, leaves psychofunctionalism open to the charge that it, like the Psycho-Physical Identity Thesis, may be overly “chauvinistic” (Block 1980b), since creatures whose internal states share the rough, but not fine-grained, causal patterns of ours wouldn’t count as sharing our mental states. Many psychofunctionalists, however, may not regard this as an unhappy consequence, and argue that it’s appropriate to treat only those who are psychologically similar as having the same mental states.

But there is another serious worry about the thesis, namely, that if the laws of the best empirical psychological theories diverge from even the broad contours of our “folk psychology” – that is, our common sense beliefs about the causal roles of our thoughts, sensations, and perceptions – it will be hard to take psychofunctional theories as providing an account of our mental states, rather than merely changing the subject (Loar 1981, Stich 1983, Greenwood 1991, Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson 1996/2007). Many theorists, however (Horgan and Woodward 1985), argue that it’s likely that future psychological theories will be recognizably close to “folk psychology”, though this question has been the subject of debate (Churchland 1981).

Yet another reason that some prefer analytic functionalism derives from a debate that occurred in the early days of the Psycho-Physical Identity Theory, the thesis that each type of mental state can be identified with some type of brain state or neural activity. For example, early identity theorists (e.g. Smart 1959) argued that it makes perfect sense (and may well be true) to identify pain with C-fiber stimulation . The terms ‘pain’ and ‘C-fiber stimulation’, they acknowledged, do not have the same meaning , but nonetheless they can denote the same state; the fact that an identity statement is not a priori, they argued, does not mean that it is not true. And just because I need not consult some sort of brain scanner when reporting that I’m in pain doesn’t mean that the pain I report is not a neural state that a brain scanner could (in principle) detect.

An important – and enduring – objection to this argument, however, was raised early on by Max Black (reported in Smart 1959). Black argued, following Frege (1892), that the only way that terms with different meanings can denote the same state is to express (or connote) different properties, or “modes of presentation”, of that state. But this implies, he argued, that if terms like ‘pain’, ‘thought’ and ‘desire’ are not equivalent in meaning to any physicalistic descriptions, they can denote physical states only by expressing irreducibly mental properties of them. This argument has come to be known as the “Distinct Property Argument”, and was taken by its proponents to undermine a thorough-going materialistic theory of the mind.

In response, Smart (1959) and later, Armstrong (1968) countered that there could be relational, “topic-neutral” terms that are equivalent in meaning to terms such as ‘pain’, ‘thought’, and ‘desire’, and if so, then there are properties distinct from physical properties by virtue of which mental state terms can denote brain states, yet are not irreducibly mental. However, Smart’s and Armstrong’s suggestions were widely regarded as inadequate. The appeal of meaning-preserving functional characterizations, therefore, derives from their promise to provide more plausible topic-neutral equivalents of our mental state terms and concepts and thereby blunt the anti-materialistic force of the Distinct Property Argument. (See Lewis 1966).

Still, though many regard functional characterizations as an improvement on the earlier attempts by Smart and Armstrong, there is a dispute about whether any relational characterizations of our mental states, especially sensations, could fully preserve the meanings of our mental state terms. On the other hand, there is a dispute about how seriously to take the Distinct Property objection. (See White 1986 and 2007, for more recent versions of this objection, and Block 2007, and Levin, 2020, for a response; these questions will be addressed more fully in Section 5.5.)

There is yet another distinction between kinds of functional theory – one that crosscuts the distinctions described so far – that is important to note. This is the distinction between what has come to be known as “role” functionalism and “realizer” (or “filler”) functionalism (McLaughlin 2006).

To see the difference between role-functionalism and realizer-functionalism, consider – once again – the (avowedly simplistic) example of a functional theory of pain introduced in the first section.

Pain is the state that tends to be caused by bodily injury, to produce the belief that something is wrong with the body and the desire to be out of that state, to produce anxiety, and, in the absence of any stronger, conflicting desires, to cause wincing or moaning.

As noted earlier, if in humans this functional role is played by C-fiber stimulation, then, according to this functionalist theory, humans can be in pain simply by undergoing C-fiber stimulation. But there is a further question to be answered, namely, what is the property of pain itself? Is it the higher-level relational property of being in some state or other that plays the “pain role”in the theory, or the C-fiber stimulation that actually plays this role?

Role functionalists identify pain with that higher-level relational property. Realizer functionalists, however, take a functional theory merely to provide definite descriptions of whichever lower-level properties satisfy the functional characterizations. On these views (also called “functional specification” theories), if the property that occupies the causal role of pain in human beings is C-fiber stimulation, then pain (or at least pain-in-humans) would be C-fiber stimulation, rather than the higher-level property of having some lower-level state that plays the relevant role. (This is not to suggest that there is a difference in kind between higher-level “role” properties and the lower-level “realizations” of those roles, since it may be that, relative to even lower-level descriptions, those realizations can be characterized as functional states themselves (Lycan 1987).

Some of the earliest versions of analytic functionalism (Lewis 1966, Armstrong 1968 – but see Lewis 1980, for a modification) were presented as functional specification theories, as topic-neutral “translations” of mental state terms that could pave the way for a psycho-physical identity theory by defusing the Distinct Property Argument (see section 3.3). However, if there are differences in the physical states that satisfy the functional definitions in different (actual or hypothetical) creatures, such theories – like most versions of the identity theory – would violate a key motivation for functionalism, namely, that creatures with states that play the same role in the production of other mental states and behavior possess, literally, the same mental states.

It may be that there are some important, more general, physical similarities between the neural states of seemingly disparate creatures that satisfy a given functional characterization. (This issue will be discussed further in Section 6.) However, even if this is so, it is unlikely that these similarities hold of all the creatures, including Martians and other hypothetical beings, who could share our functional organization, and thus our theory of mental states would remain, in Block’s (1980) terms, overly “chauvinistic”. One could counter the charge of chauvinism, of course, by suggesting that all creatures with lower-level states that satisfy a given functional characterization possess a common (lower-level) disjunctive state or property. Or one could suggest that, even if all creatures possessing states that occupy (for example) the pain role are not literally in the same mental state, they nonetheless share a closely related higher-level property (call it, following Lewis 1966 (note 6), “the attribute of having pain”). But neither alternative, for many functionalists, goes far enough to preserve the basic functionalist intuition that functional commonality outweighs physical diversity in determining whether creatures can possess the same mental states. Thus many functionalists – both analytic and empirical – advocate role functionalism, which, in addition to avoiding chauvinism, permits mental state terms to be rigid designators (Kripke 1972), denoting the same items – those higher-level “role” properties – in all possible worlds.

On the other hand, some functionalists – here, too, both analytic and empirical – consider realizer functionalism to be in a better position than role functionalism to explain the causal efficacy of the mental. If I stub my toe and wince, we believe that my toe stubbing causes my pain, which in turn causes my wincing. But, some have argued (Malcolm 1968; Kim 1989, 1998) that if pain is realized in me by some neural event-type, then insofar as there are purely physical law-like generalizations linking events of that type with wincings, one can give a complete causal explanation of my wincing by citing the occurrence of that neural event (and the properties by virtue of which it figures in those laws). And thus it seems that the higher-level role properties of that event are causally irrelevant. This is known as the “causal exclusion problem”, which is claimed to arise not just for functional role properties, but for dispositional properties in general (Prior, Pargetter, and Jackson 1982) – and indeed for any sort of mental states or properties not type-identical to those invoked in physical laws. This problem will be discussed further in Section 5.2.

4. Constructing Plausible Functional Theories

So far, the discussion of how to provide functional characterizations of individual mental states has been vague, and the examples avowedly simplistic. Is it possible to do better, and, if so, which version of functionalism is likely to have the greatest success? These questions will be the focus of this section, and separate treatment will be given to experiential (often called ‘qualitative’ or ‘phenomenal’) states, such as perceptual experiences and bodily sensations, which have a distinctive qualitative character or “feel”, and intentional states, such as thoughts, beliefs, and desires, which purport to represent the world in various ways To be sure, there is increasing consensus that experiential states have representational contents and intentional states have qualitative character and thus that these two groups may not be mutually exclusive (see Horgan and Tienson, 2002). Nonetheless I will discuss them separately to focus on what all agree to be the distinctive features of each.

The common strategy in the most successful treatments of perceptual experiences and bodily sensations (Shoemaker 1984a, Clark 1993; adumbrated in Sellars 1956) is to individuate experiences of various general types (color experiences, experiences of sounds, feelings of temperature) in part by appeal to their positions in the “quality spaces” associated with the relevant sense modalities – that is, the (perhaps multidimensional) matrices determined by judgments about the relative similarities and differences among the experiences in question. So, for example, the experience of a very reddish-orange could be (partially) characterized as the state produced by the viewing of a color swatch within some particular range, which tends to produce the judgment or belief that the state just experienced is more similar to the experience of red than of orange. (Analogous characterizations, of course, will have to be given of these other color experiences.) The judgments or beliefs in question will themselves be (partially) characterized in terms of their tendencies to produce sorting or categorization behavior of certain specified kinds.

This strategy may seem fatal to analytic functionalism, which restricts itself to the use of a priori (or platitudinous) information to distinguish among mental states, since it’s not clear that the information needed to distinguish among experiences such as color perceptions is available to commonsense. However, this problem may not be as dire as it seems. For example, if sensations and perceptual experiences are characterized in terms of their places in a “quality space” determined by a person’s pre-theoretical judgments of similarity and dissimilarity (and perhaps also in terms of their tendencies to produce various emotional effects), then these characterizations may qualify as platitudinous, even though they would have to be elicited by a kind of “Socratic questioning”.

There are limits to this strategy, however (see Section 5.5.1 on the “inverted spectrum” problem), which seem to leave two options for analytic functionalists: fight – that is, deny that it’s coherent to suppose that there exist the distinctions that the critics suggest, or switch – that is, embrace another version of functionalism in which the characterizations of mental states, though not platitudinous, can provide information rich enough to individuate the states in question. To switch, however, would be to give up the benefits (if any) of a theory that offers meaning-preserving translations of our mental state terms.

There has been significant skepticism, however, about whether any functionalist theory – analytic or empirical – can capture what seems to be the distinctive qualitative character of experiential states such as color perceptions, pains, and other bodily sensations; these questions will be addressed in section 5.5 below.

On the other hand, intentional states such as beliefs, thoughts, and desires (sometimes called “propositional attitudes”) have often been thought to be easier to characterize functionally than experiential states such as pains and color experiences (but not always: see Searle 1992, G. Strawson 1994, Horgan and Tienson 2002, Kriegel 2003, Pitt 2008, and Mendelovici, 2018) who suggest that intentional states have qualitative character as well). We can begin by characterizing beliefs as (among other things) states produced in certain ways by sense-perception or inference from other beliefs, and desires as states with certain causal or counterfactual relations to the system’s goals and needs, and specify further how (according to the relevant commonsense or empirical theory) beliefs and desires tend to interact with one another, and other mental states, to produce behavior.

Once again, this characterization is crude, and needs more detail. Moreover, there are some further questions about characterizing intentional states – particularly belief – that have emerged in recent discussions. Once is whether a subject should be regarded as believing that p if there is a mismatch between her avowals that p and the characteristic behaviors associated with believing that p in standard circumstances: do avowals outweigh behaviors, or vice versa – or are there pragmatic factors that determine what the answer should be in different contexts? (See Gendler, 2008, and Schwitzgebel, 2010). Another question is whether the states that interact with desires (and other mental states) to produce behavior are best regarded as “full on” or “outright” beliefs, or rather as representations of the world for which individuals have varying degrees of confidence. (See Staffel, 2013, 2019, and the many contributions to Huber and Schmidt-Petri, 2009, and Ebert and Smith, 2012, for further discussion. Functionalism, at least arguably, can accommodate a number of different answers to these questions, but the project of characterizing beliefs may not be straightforward.

Independently of these questions, functionalists need to say more (outright or not) about what makes a state a particular belief (outright or not) or desire, for example, the belief – or desire – that it will snow tomorrow. Most functional theories describe such states as different relations (or “attitudes”) toward the same state of affairs or proposition (and to describe the belief that it will snow tomorrow and the belief that it will rain tomorrow as the same attitude toward different propositions). This permits differences and similarities in the contents of intentional states to be construed as differences and similarities in the propositions to which these states are related. But what makes a mental state a relation to, or attitude toward, some proposition P? And can these relations be captured solely by appeal to the functional roles of the states in question?

The development of conceptual role semantics may seem to provide an answer to these questions: what it is for Julian to believe that P is for Julian to be in a state that has causal and counterfactual relations to other beliefs and desires that mirror certain inferential, evidential, and practical (action-directed) relations among propositions with those formal structures (Field 1980; Loar 1981; Block 1986). This proposal raises a number of important questions. One is whether states capable of entering into such interrelations can (must?) be construed as being, or including elements of, a “language of thought” (Fodor 1975; Harman 1973; Field 1980; Loar 1981). Another is whether idiosyncrasies in the inferential or practical proclivities of different individuals make for differences in (or incommensurabilities between) their intentional states. (This question springs from a more general worry about the holism of functional specification, which will be discussed more generally in Section 5.1.)

Yet another challenge for functionalism are the widespread intuitions that support “externalism”, the thesis that what mental states represent, or are about, cannot be characterized without appeal to certain features of the environments in which those individuals are embedded. Thus, if one individual’s environment differs from another’s, they may count as having different intentional states, even though they reason in the same ways, and have exactly the same “take” on those environments from their own points of view.

The “Twin Earth” scenarios introduced by Putnam (1975) are often invoked to support an externalist individuation of beliefs about natural kinds such as water, gold, or tigers. Twin Earth, as Putnam presents it, is a (hypothetical) planet on which things look, taste, smell, and feel exactly the way they do on Earth, but which have different underlying microscopic structures; for example, the stuff that fills the streams and comes out of the faucets, though it looks and tastes like water, has molecular structure XYZ rather than H 2 O. Many theorists find it intuitive to think that we thereby mean something different by our term ‘water’ than our Twin Earth counterparts mean by theirs, and thus that the beliefs we describe as beliefs about water are different from those that our Twin Earth counterparts would describe in the same way. Similar conclusions, they contend, can be drawn for all cases of belief (and other intentional states) regarding natural kinds.

The same problem, moreover, appears to arise for other sorts of belief as well. Tyler Burge (1979) presents cases in which it seems intuitive that a person, Oscar, and his functionally equivalent counterpart have different beliefs about various syndromes (such as arthritis) and artifacts (such as sofas) because the usage of these terms by their linguistic communities differ. For example, in Oscar’s community, the term ‘arthritis’ is used as we use it, whereas in his counterpart’s community ‘arthritis’ denotes inflammation of the joints and also various maladies of the thigh. Burge’s contention is that even if Oscar and his counterpart both complain about the ‘arthritis’ in their thighs and make exactly the same inferences involving ‘arthritis’, they mean different things by their terms and must be regarded as having different beliefs. If these cases are convincing, then there are differences among types of intentional states that can only be captured by characterizations of these states that make reference to the practices of an individual’s linguistic community. These, along with the Twin Earth cases, suggest that if functionalist theories cannot make reference to an individual’s environment, then capturing the representational content of (at least some) intentional states is beyond the scope of functionalism. (See Searle, 1980, for related arguments against “computational” theories of intentional states.)

On the other hand, the externalist individuation of intentional states may fail to capture some important psychological commonalities between ourselves and our counterparts that are relevant to the explanation of behavior. If my Twin Earth counterpart and I have both come in from a long hike, declare that we’re thirsty, say “I want some water” and head to the kitchen, it seems that our behavior can be explained by citing a common desire and belief. Some theorists, therefore, have suggested that functional theories should attempt merely to capture what has been called the “narrow content” of beliefs and desires – that is, whichever representational features individuals share with their various Twin Earth counterparts. There is no consensus, however, about just how functionalist theories should treat these “narrow” representational features (Block 1986; Loar 1987, Yli-Vakkuti and Hawthorne, 2018), and some philosophers have expressed skepticism about whether such features should be construed as representations at all (Fodor 1994; also see the entry on narrow mental content ). Even if a generally acceptable account of narrow representational content can be developed, however, if the intuitions inspired by “Twin Earth” scenarios remain stable, then one must conclude that the full representational content of intentional states cannot be captured by “narrow” functional characterizations alone (and this will be true as well for certain sorts of qualitative states, e.g. color experiences, if they too have representational content).

Considerations about whether certain sorts of beliefs are to be externally individuated raise the related question about how best to characterize the stimulations and behaviors that serve as inputs and outputs to a system. Should they be construed as events involving objects in a system’s environment (such as fire trucks, water and lemons), or rather as events in that system’s sensory and motor systems? Theories of the first type are often called “long-arm” functional theories (Block 1990), since they characterize inputs and outputs – and consequently the states they are produced by and produce – by reaching out into the world. Adopting a “long-arm” theory would prevent our Twin Earth counterparts from sharing our beliefs and desires, and may thus honor intuitions that support an externalist individuation of intentional states (though further questions may remain about what Quine has called the “inscrutability of reference”; see Putnam 1988).

If functional characterizations of intentional states are intended to capture their “narrow contents”, however, then the inputs and outputs of the system will have to be specified in a way that permits individuals in different environments to be in the same intentional state. On this view inputs and outputs may be better characterized as activity in specific sensory receptors and motor neurons. But this (“short-arm”) option also restricts the range of individuals that can share our beliefs and desires, since creatures with different neural structures will be prevented from sharing our mental states, even if they share all our behavioral and inferential dispositions. (In addition, this option would not be open to analytic functionalist theories, since generalizations that link mental states to neurally specified inputs and outputs would not, presumably, have the status of platitudes.)

Perhaps there is a way to specify sensory stimulations that abstracts from the specifics of human neural structure enough to include any possible creature that intuitively seems to share our mental states, but is sufficiently concrete to rule out entities that are clearly not cognitive systems (such as the economy of Bolivia; see Block 1980b). If there is no such formulation, however, then functionalists will either have to dispel intuitions to the effect that certain systems can’t have beliefs and desires, or concede that their theories may be more “chauvinistic” than initially hoped.

Clearly, the issues here mirror the issues regarding the individuation of intentional states discussed in the previous section. More work is needed to develop the “long-arm” and “short-arm” alternatives, and to assess the merits and deficiencies of both.

5. Objections to Functionalism

The previous sections were by and large devoted to the presentation of the different varieties of functionalism and the evaluation of their relative strengths and weaknesses. There have been many objections to functionalism, however, that apply to all versions of the theory. Some of these have already been introduced in earlier discussions, but they, and many others, will be addressed in more detail here.

One difficulty for every version of the theory is that functional characterization is holistic . Functionalists hold that mental states are to be characterized in terms of their roles in a psychological theory – be it common sense, scientific, or something in between – but all such theories incorporate information about a large number and variety of mental states. Thus if pain is interdefined with certain highly articulated beliefs and desires, then animals who don’t have internal states that play the roles of our articulated beliefs and desires can’t share our pains, and humans without the capacity to feel pain can’t share certain (or perhaps any) of our beliefs and desires. In addition, differences in the ways people reason, the ways their beliefs are fixed, or the ways their desires affect their beliefs – due either to cultural or individual idiosyncrasies – might make it impossible for them to share the same mental states. These are regarded as serious worries for all versions of functionalism (see Stich 1983, Putnam 1988).

Some functionalists, however (e.g. Lewis, 1972; Shoemaker 1984c), have suggested that if a creature has states that approximately realize our functional theories, or realize some more specific defining subset of the theory particularly relevant to the specification of those states, then they can qualify as being mental states of the same types as our own. The problem, of course, is to specify more precisely what it is to be an approximate realization of a theory, or what exactly a “defining” subset of a theory is intended to include, and these are not easy questions. (They have particular bite, moreover, for analytic functionalist theories, since specifying what belongs inside and outside the “defining” subset of a functional characterization raises the question of what are the conceptually essential, and what the merely collateral, features of a mental state, and thus raise serious questions about the feasibility of (something like) an analytic-synthetic distinction. (Quine 1953, Rey 1997)).

Another worry for functionalism is the “causal exclusion problem”, introduced in Section 3.4: the worry about whether role functionalism can account for what we take to be the causal efficacy of our mental states (Malcolm 1968, Kim 1989, 1998). For example, if pain is realized in me by some neural state-type, then insofar as there are purely physical law-like generalizations linking states of that type with pain behavior, one can give a complete causal explanation of my behavior by citing the occurrence of that neural state (and the properties by virtue of which it figures in those laws). And thus, some have argued, the higher-level role properties of that state – its being a pain – are causally irrelevant.

There have been a number of different responses to this problem. Some (e.g. Loewer 2002, 2007, Antony and Levine 1997, Burge 1997, Baker 1997) suggest that it arises from an overly restrictive account of causation, in which a cause must “generate” or “produce” its effect, a view which would count the macroscopic properties of other special sciences as causally irrelevant as well. Instead, some argue, causation should be regarded as a special sort of counterfactual dependence between states of certain types (Loewer 2002, 2007, Fodor 1990, Block 1997), or as a special sort of regularity that holds between them (Melnyk 2003). If this is correct, then functional role properties (along with the other macroscopic properties of the special sciences) could count as causally efficacious (but see Ney 2012 for dissent). However, the plausibility of these accounts of causation depends on their prospects for distinguishing bona-fide causal relations from those that are clearly epiphenomenal, and some have expressed skepticism about whether they can do the job, among them Crane 1995, Kim 2007, Jackson 1995, Ludwig 1998, and McLaughlin 2006, 2015. (On the other hand, see Lyons (2006) for an argument that if functional properties are causally inefficacious, this can be viewed as a benefit of the theory.)

Yet other philosophers argue that causation is best regarded as a relation between types of events that must be invoked to provide sufficiently general explanations of behavior (Antony and Levine 1997, Burge 1997, Baker 1997). Though many who are moved by the exclusion problem (e.g. Kim, Jackson) maintain that there is a difference between generalizations that are truly causal and those that contribute in some other (merely epistemic) way to our understanding of the world, theorists who advocate this response to the problem charge that this objection, once again, depends on a restrictive view of causation that would rule out too much.

Another problem with views like the ones sketched above, some argue (Kim 1989, 1998), is that mental and physical causes would thereby overdetermine their effects, since each would be causally sufficient for their production. And, though some theorists argue that overdetermination is widespread and unproblematic (see Loewer 2002, and also Shaffer, 2003, and Sider 2003, for a more general discussion of overdetermination), others contend that there is a special relation between role and realizer that provides an intuitive explanation of how both can be causally efficacious without counting as overdetermining causes. For example, Yablo (1992), suggests that mental and physical properties stand in the relation of determinable and determinate (just as red stands to scarlet), and argues that our conviction that a cause should be commensurate with its effects permits us to take the determinable, rather than the determinate, property to count as causally efficacious in psychological explanation. Bennett (2003) suggests, alternatively, that the realizer properties metaphysically necessitate the role properties in a way that prevents them from satisfying the conditions for overdetermination. Yet another suggestion (Wilson, 1999, 2011, and Shoemaker, 2001) is that the causal powers of mental properties are included among (or are proper subsets of) the causal powers of the physical properties that realize them. (See also Macdonald and Macdonald 1995, Witmer, 2003, Yates, 2012, and Strevens, 2012, for related views.)

There has been substantial recent work on the causal exclusion problem, which, as noted earlier, arises for any non-reductive theory of mental states. (See the entry on mental causation , as well as Bennett 2007, and Funkhouser 2007, for further discussion and extensive bibliographies.) But it is worth discussing a related worry about causation that arises exclusively for role-functionalism (and other dispositional theories), namely, the problem of “metaphysically necessitated effects” (Rupert 2006, Bennett 2007). If pain is functionally defined (either by an analytic or an empirical theory) as the state of being in some lower-level state or other that, in certain circumstances causes wincing, then it seems that the generalization that pain causes wincing (in those circumstances) is at best uninformative, since the state in question would not be pain if it didn’t. And, on the Humean view of causation as a contingent relation, the causal claim would be false. Davidson (1980b) once responded to a similar argument by noting that even if a mental state M is defined in terms of its production of an action A , it can often be redescribed in other terms P such that ‘ P caused A ’ is not a logical truth. But it’s unclear whether any such redescriptions are available to role (vs. realizer) functionalists.

Some theorists (e.g. Antony and Levine 1997) have responded by suggesting that, though mental states may be defined in terms of some of their effects, they have other effects that do not follow from those definitions which can figure into causal generalizations that are contingent, informative, and true. For example, even if it follows from a functional definition that pain causes wincing (and thus that the relation between pain and wincing cannot be truly causal), psychologists may discover, say, that pain produces resilience (or submissive behavior) in human beings. One might worry, nonetheless, that functional definitions threaten to leave too many commonly cited generalizations outside the realm of contingency, and thus causal explanation: surely, we may think, we want to affirm claims such as “pain causes wincing”. Such claims could be affirmed, however, if (as seems likely) the most plausible functional theories define sensations such as pain in terms of a small subset of their distinctive psychological , rather than behavioral, effects (see section 4.2).

A different line of response to this worry (Shoemaker 1984d, 2001) is to deny the Humean account of causation altogether, and contend that causal relations are themselves metaphysically necessary, but this remains a minority view. (See also Bird, 2002, and Latham, 2011, for further discussion.)

Another important question concerns the beliefs that we have about our own “occurrent” (as opposed to dispositional) mental states such as thoughts, sensations, and perceptions. We seem to have immediately available, non-inferential beliefs about these states, and the question is how this is to be explained if mental states are identical with functional properties.

The answer depends on what one takes these introspective beliefs to involve. Broadly speaking, there are two dominant views of the matter (but see Peacocke 1999, Ch. 5 for further alternatives). One popular account of introspection – the “inner sense” model on which introspection is taken to be a kind of “internal scanning” of the contents of one’s mind (Armstrong 1968) – has been taken to be unfriendly to functionalism, on the grounds that it’s hard to see how the objects of such scanning could be second-order relational properties of one’s neural states (Goldman 1993). Some theorists, however, have maintained that functionalism can accommodate the special features of introspective belief on the “inner sense” model, since it would be only one of many domains in which it’s plausible to think that we have immediate, non-inferential knowledge of causal or dispositional properties (Armstrong 1993; Kobes 1993; Sterelney 1993). A full discussion of these questions goes beyond the scope of this entry, but the articles cited above are just three among many helpful pieces in the Open Peer Commentary following Goldman (1993), which provides a good introduction to the debate about this issue.

Another account of introspection, identified most closely with Shoemaker (1996a,b,c,d), is that the immediacy of introspective belief follows from the fact that occurrent mental states and our introspective beliefs about them are functionally interdefined. For example, one satisfies the definition of being in pain only if one is in a state that tends to cause (in creatures with the requisite concepts who are considering the question) the belief that one is in pain, and one believes that one is in pain only if one is in a state that plays the belief role, and is caused directly by the pain itself. On this account of introspection, the immediacy and non-inferential nature of introspective belief is not merely compatible with functionalism, but required by it.

But there is an objection, most recently expressed by George Bealer (1997; see also Hill 1993), that, on this model an introspective belief can only be defined in one of two unsatisfactory ways: either as a belief produced by a (second-order) functional state specified (in part) by its tendency to produce that very type of belief – which would be circular – or as a belief about the first-order realization of the functional state, rather than that state itself. Functionalists have suggested, however (Shoemaker 2001, McCullagh 2000, Tooley 2001), that there is a way of understanding the conditions under which beliefs can be caused by, and thus be about, one’s second-order functional states that permits mental states and introspective beliefs about them to be non-circularly defined (but see Bealer 2001, for a skeptical response). A full treatment of this objection involves the more general question of whether second-order properties can have causal efficacy, and is thus beyond the scope of this discussion (see section 5.2 and the mental causation entry). But even if this objection can ultimately be deflected, it suggests that special attention must be paid to the functional characterizations of “self-directed” mental states.

Yet another objection to functionalist theories of any sort is that they do not capture the interrelations that we take to be definitive of beliefs, desires, and other intentional states. Whereas even analytic functionalists hold that mental states – and also their contents – are implicitly defined in terms of their (causal or probabilistic) roles in producing behavior, these critics understand intentional states to be implicitly defined in terms of their roles in rationalizing , or making sense of , behavior. This is a different enterprise, they claim, since rationalization, unlike causal explanation, requires showing how an individual’s beliefs, desires, and behavior conform, or at least approximate, to certain a priori norms or ideals of theoretical and practical reasoning – prescriptions about which beliefs and desires we should have, how we should reason, or what, given our beliefs and desires, we ought to do. (See Davidson 1980c, Dennett 1978, and McDowell 1985 for classic expressions of this view.) Thus the defining (“constitutive”) normative or rational relations among intentional states expressed by these principles cannot be expected to correspond to causal and probabilistic relations among our internal states, sensory stimulations and behavior, since they constitute a kind of explanation that has sources of evidence and standards for correctness that are different from those of empirical theories (Davidson 1980c). One can’t, that is, extract facts from values.

Thus, although attributions of mental states can in some sense explain behavior by permitting an observer to “interpret” it as making sense, they should not be expected to denote entities that figure in empirical generalizations, either common sense or scientific. (This is not to say, these theorists stress, that there are no causes, or empirical laws of, behavior. These, however, will be expressible only in the vocabularies of the neurosciences, or other lower-level sciences, and not as relations among beliefs, desires and behavior.)

Functionalists have replied to these worries in different ways. Many just deny the intuition behind the objection, and maintain that even the strictest conceptual analyses of our intentional terms and concepts purport to define them in terms of their bona-fide causal roles, and that any norms they reflect are explanatory rather than prescriptive. They argue, that is, that if these generalizations are idealizations, they are the sort of idealizations that occur in any scientific theory: just as Boyle’s Law depicts the relations between the temperature, pressure, and volume of a gas under certain ideal experimental conditions, our a priori theory of the mind consists of descriptions of what normal humans would do under (physically specifiable) ideal conditions, not prescriptions as to what they should , or are rationally required , to do.

Other functionalists agree that we may advert to various norms of inference and action in attributing beliefs and desires to others, but deny that there is any in principle incompatibility between normative and empirical explanations. They argue that if there are causal relations among beliefs, desires, and behavior that even approximately mirror the norms of rationality, then the attributions of intentional states can be empirically confirmed (Fodor 1990; Rey 1997). In addition, many who hold this view suggest that the principles of rationality that intentional states must meet are quite minimal, and comprise at most a weak set of constraints on the contours of our theory of mind, such as that people can’t, in general, hold (obviously) contradictory beliefs, or act against their (sincerely avowed) strongest desires (Loar 1981). Still others suggest that the intuition that we attribute beliefs and desires to others according to rational norms is based on a fundamental mistake; these states are attributed not on the basis of whether they rationalize the behavior in question, but whether those subjects can be seen as using principles of inference and action sufficiently like our own – be they rational, like Modus Ponens, or irrational, like the Gambler’s Fallacy or the now familiar instances of “predictable irrationality” documented in Kahneman, 2011. (See Stich 1981, and Levin 1988, for discussion of this question, and for a more general debate about the compatibility of normative and psychological principles, see Rey, 2007, and Wedgwood, 2007. See also Glüer and Wikforss, 2009, 2013, and for further discussion, the entry on the normativity of meaning and content .)

Nonetheless, although many functionalists argue that the considerations discussed above show that there is no in principle bar to a functionalist theory that has empirical force, these worries about the normativity of intentional ascription continue to fuel skepticism about functionalism (and, for that matter, any scientific theory of the mind that uses intentional notions).

In addition to these general worries about functionalism, there are particular questions that arise for functional characterizations of experiential or phenomenal states. These questions will be discussed in the following section.

5.5 Functionalism and the Problem of Qualia

Functionalist theories of all varieties – whether analytic or empirical, role or realizer – attempt to characterize mental states exclusively in relational, specifically causal, terms. A common and persistent objection, however, is that no such characterizations can capture the phenomenal character, or “qualia”, of experiential states such as perceptions, emotions, and bodily sensations, since they would leave out certain essential properties of those experiential states, namely, “what it’s like” (Nagel 1974) to have them. The next three sections will present the most serious worries about the ability of functionalist theories to give an adequate characterization of these states. (These worries, of course, will extend to intentional states, if, as some philosophers argue, “what it’s like” to have them is among their essential properties as well. (See Searle 1992, G. Strawson, 1986, Horgan and Tienson, 2002, Kriegel 2003, Pitt 2008, Mendelovici, 2018, for presentations of this view, and see Bayne and Montague, 2011, and Smithies, 2013a and 2013b for more general discussions of whether intentional states possess phenomenal character – often called “cognitive phenomenology” – and if so, what, more precisely, it is.)

The first to be considered are the “absent” and “inverted” qualia objections most closely associated with Ned Block (1980b; see also Block and Fodor 1972). The “inverted qualia” objection to functionalism maintains that there could be an individual who (for example) is in a state that satisfies the functional definition of our experience of red, but is experiencing green instead – and similarly for all the colors in the spectrum. It is a descendant of the claim, discussed by philosophers from Locke to Wittgenstein, that there could be an individual with an “inverted spectrum” who is behaviorally indistinguishable from someone with normal color vision; both objections trade on the contention that the purely relational characterizations in question cannot make distinctions among distinct experiences with isomorphic causal patterns. (Nida-Rümelin, 1996, argues that the science of color vision leaves open the possibility that there could be functionally equivalent red-green “inverts”, but even if inverted qualia are not really an empirical possibility for human beings, given certain asymmetries in our “quality space” for color, and differences in the relations of color experiences to other mental states such as emotions (Hardin 1988), it seems possible that there are creatures with perfectly symmetrical color quality spaces for whom a purely functional characterization of color experience would fail.)

A related objection, the “absent qualia” objection, maintains that there could be creatures functionally equivalent to normal humans whose mental states have no qualitative character at all. In his well-known “Chinese nation” thought-experiment, Block (1980b) invites us to imagine that the population of China (chosen because its size approximates the number of neurons in a typical human brain) is recruited to duplicate his functional organization for a period of time, receiving the equivalent of sensory input from an artificial body and passing messages back and forth via satellite. Block argues that such a “homunculi-headed” system would not have mental states with any qualitative character (other than the qualia possessed by the individuals themselves), and thus that there could be states functionally equivalent to sensations or perceptions that lack their characteristic “feels”. Conversely, some argue that functional role is not necessary for qualitative character: for example, it seems that one could have mild, but distinctive, twinges that have no typical causes or characteristic effects.

All these objections purport to have characterized a creature with the functional organization of normal human beings, but without any, or the right sort, of qualia (or vice versa), and thus to have produced a counterexample to functional theories of experiential states. One line of response, initially advanced by Sydney Shoemaker (1994b), is that although functional duplicates of ourselves with inverted qualia may be possible, duplicates with absent qualia are not, since their possibility leads to untenable skepticism about the qualitative character of one’s own mental states. This argument has been challenged, however (Block 1980b; but see Shoemaker’s response in 1994d, and Balog, 1999, for a related view), and the more common response to these objections – particularly to the absent qualia objection – is to question whether scenarios involving creatures such as Block’s Chinese nation provide genuine counterexamples to functionalist theories of experiential states.

For example, some theorists (Dennett 1978; Levin 1985; Van Gulick 1989) argue that these scenarios provide clear-cut counterexamples only to crude functional theories, and that attention to the subtleties of more sophisticated characterizations will undermine the intuition that functional duplicates of ourselves with absent qualia are possible (or, conversely, that there are qualitative states without distinctive functional roles). The plausibility of this line of defense is often questioned, however, since there is tension between the goal of increasing the sophistication (and thus the individuative powers) of the functional definitions, and the goal (for analytic functionalists) of keeping these definitions within the bounds of the platitudinous (though see Section 4.2), or (for psychofunctionalists) broad enough to be instantiable by creatures other than human beings. A related suggestion is that absent qualia seem possible only because of our imaginative shortcomings, in particular, that it is hard for us to attend, at any one time, to all the relevant features of even the simplest functional characterization of experiential states; another is that the intuition that these creatures lack qualia is based on prejudice – against creatures with unfamiliar shapes and extended reaction times (Dennett 1978), or creatures with parts widely distributed in space (Lycan, 1981, Schwitzgebel 2015 and commentary).

There are other responses to analogous absent qualia arguments that are prominent in the literature, but the target of those arguments is broader. Block’s argument was initially presented as a challenge exclusively to functionalist theories, both analytic and empirical, and not generally to physicalistic theories of experiential states; the main concern was that the purely relational resources of functional description were incapable of capturing the intrinsic qualitative character of states such as feeling pain, or seeing red. (Indeed, in Block’s 1980b, p. 291, he suggests that qualitative states may best be construed as “composite state[s] whose components are a quale and a [functional state],” and adds, in an endnote (note 22) that the quale “might be identified with a physico-chemical state”.) But there are similar objections that have been raised against all physicalistic theories of experiential states that are important to consider in evaluating the prospects for functionalism. These will be discussed in the next two sections.

One important objection, advanced by (among others) Kripke (1972) and Chalmers (1996a), derives from Descartes’s well-known argument in the Sixth Meditation (1641) that since he can clearly and distinctly conceive of himself existing apart from his body (and vice versa), and since the ability to clearly and distinctly conceive of things as existing apart guarantees that they are in fact distinct, he is in fact distinct from his body.

Chalmers’s version of the argument (1996a, 2002), known as the “Zombie Argument”, has been particularly influential. The first premise of this argument is that it is conceivable , in a special, robust, “positive” sense, that there are molecule-for-molecule duplicates of oneself with no qualia (call them “zombies”, following Chalmers 1996a). The second premise is that scenarios that are “positively” conceivable in this way represent real, metaphysical, possibilities. Thus, he concludes, zombies are possible, and functionalism – or, more broadly, physicalism – is false. The force of the Zombie Argument is due in large part to the way Chalmers defends its two premises; he provides a detailed account of just what is required for zombies to be conceivable, and also an argument as to why the conceivability of zombies entails their possibility (see also Chalmers 2002, 2006, 2010, Ch. 6, and Chalmers and Jackson 2002). This account, based on a more comprehensive theory of how we can evaluate claims about possibility and necessity known as “two-dimensional semantics”, reflects an increasingly popular way of thinking about these matters, but remains controversial. (For alternative ways of explaining conceivability, see Kripke (1986), Hart (1988); for criticism of the argument from two-dimensional semantics, see Yablo 2000, 2002, Bealer 2002, Stalnaker 2002, Soames 2004, Byrne and Prior 2006; but see also Chalmers 2006.)

In a related challenge, Joseph Levine (1983, 1993, 2001) argues that, even if the conceivability of zombies doesn’t entail that functionalism (or more broadly, physicalism) is false, it opens an “explanatory gap” not encountered in other cases of inter-theoretical reduction, since the qualitative character of an experience cannot be deduced from any physical or functional description of it. Such attempts thus pose, at very least, a unique epistemological problem for functionalist (or physicalist) reductions of qualitative states.

In response to these objections, analytic functionalists contend, as they did with the inverted and absent qualia objections, that sufficient attention to what is required for a creature to duplicate our functional organization would reveal that zombies are not really conceivable, and thus there is no threat to functionalism and no explanatory gap. A related suggestion is that, while zombies may now seem conceivable, we will eventually find them inconceivable, given the growth of empirical knowledge, just as we now find it inconceivable that there could be H 2 O without water (Yablo 1999). Alternatively, some suggest that the inconceivability of zombies awaits the development of new concepts that can provide a link between our current phenomenal and physical concepts (Nagel 1975, 2000), while others (McGinn 1989) agree, but deny that humans are capable of forming such concepts.

None of these responses, however, would be an effective defense of Psychofunctionalism, which does not attempt to provide analyses of experiential concepts (or suggest that there would, or could, be any to come). But there is an increasingly popular strategy for defending physicalism against these objections that could be used to defend Psychofunctionalism, namely, to concede that there can be no conceptual analyses of qualitative concepts (such as what it’s like to see red or what it’s like to feel pain) in purely functional terms, and focus instead on developing arguments to show that the conceivability of zombies neither implies that such creatures are possible nor opens up an explanatory gap.

One line of argument (Block and Stalnaker 1999; Yablo 2000) contends that the conceivability of (alleged) counterexamples to psycho-physical or psycho-functional identity statements, such as zombies, has analogues in other cases of successful inter-theoretical reduction, in which the lack of conceptual analyses of the terms to be reduced makes it conceivable, though not possible, that the identities are false. However, the argument continues, if these cases routinely occur in what are generally regarded as successful reductions in the sciences, then it’s reasonable to conclude that the conceivability of a situation does not entail its possibility.

A different line of argument (Horgan 1984; Loar 1990; Lycan 1990; Hill 1997, Hill and McLaughlin 1999, Balog 1999, Levin 2018) maintains that, while generally the conceivability of a scenario entails its possibility, scenarios involving zombies stand as important exceptions. The difference is that the phenomenal, or “what it’s like”, concepts used to describe the properties of experience that we conceive zombies to lack are significantly different from the third-personal, discursive concepts of our common sense and scientific theories such as mass, force or charge ; they comprise a special class of non-discursive, first-personal, perspectival representations of those properties. Whereas conceptually independent third-personal concepts x and y may reasonably be taken to express metaphysically independent properties, or modes of presentation, no such metaphysical conclusions can be drawn when one of the concepts in question is third-personal and the other is phenomenal , since these concepts may merely be picking out the same properties in different ways. Thus, the conceivability of zombies, dependent as it is on our use of phenomenal concepts, provides no evidence of their metaphysical possibility.

Key to this line of defense is the claim that these special phenomenal concepts can denote functional (or physical) properties without expressing some irreducibly qualitative modes of presentation of them, for otherwise it couldn’t be held that these concepts do in fact apply to our functional (or physical) duplicates, even though it’s conceivable that they don’t. This, not surprisingly, has been disputed, and there is currently much discussion in the literature about the plausibility of this claim. If this line of defense is successful, however, it can also provide a response to the “Distinct Property Argument”, discussed in section 3.3. (See Chalmers 1999, Holman 2013 for criticism of this view, but see the responses of Loar 1999, Hill & McLaughlin 1999, Balog 2012, Levin 2008, 2018, Diaz-Leon, 2010, 2014; see also see Levin 2002, 2008, and Schroer 2010, for the presentation, if not endorsement, of a hybrid view.)

In another important, related, challenge to functionalism (and, more generally, physicalism), Thomas Nagel (1974) and Frank Jackson (1982) argue that a person could know all the physical and functional facts about a certain type of experience and still not “know what it’s like” to have it. This is known as the “Knowledge Argument”, and its conclusion is that there are certain properties of experiences – the “what it’s like” to see red, feel pain, or sense the world through echolocation – which cannot be identified with functional (or physical) properties. Though neither Nagel (2000) nor Jackson (1998) now endorse this argument, many philosophers contend that it raises special problems for any physicalistic view (see Alter 2007, and, in response, Jackson 2007).

An early line of defense against these arguments, endorsed primarily but not exclusively by a priori functionalists, is known as the “Ability Hypothesis”. (Nemirow 1990, 2007, Lewis 1990, Levin 1986). “Ability” theorists suggest that knowing what it’s like to see red or feel pain is merely a sort of practical knowledge, a “knowing how” (to imagine, remember, or re-identify, a certain type of experience) rather than a knowledge of propositions or facts. (See Tye 2000, for a summary of the pros and cons of this position; for further discussion, see the essays in Ludlow, Nagasawa, and Stoljar 2004.) An alternative view among contemporary functionalists is that coming to know what it’s like to see red or feel pain is indeed to acquire propositional knowledge uniquely afforded by experience, expressed in terms of first-personal concepts of those experiences. But, the argument continues, this provides no problem for functionalism (or physicalism), since these special first-personal concepts need not denote, or introduce as “modes of presentation”, any irreducibly qualitative properties. This view, of course, shares the strengths and weaknesses of the analogous response to the conceivability arguments discussed above. If it is plausible, however, it can also challenge the argument of some philosophers (e.g., Chalmers, 2002, Stoljar, 2001, and Alter, 2016) that maintains that no physicalistic theory, not even fundamental physics, can provide anything but a relational characterization of the items in their domains – their structure and dynamics – and concludes that no physicalistic theory can capture what seems, from the inside, to be the intrinsic, non-relational properties of our experiential states. (See the essays in Alter and Nagasawa, 2015, Part III, for further discussion.)

There is one final strategy for defending a functionalist account of qualitative states against all of these objections, namely, eliminativism (Dennett 1988; Rey 1997, Pereboom 2011, Frankish 2016). One can, that is, deny that there are any such things as irreducible qualia , and maintain that the conviction that such things do, or perhaps even could , exist is due to illusion – or confusion.

In the last part of the 20th century, functionalism stood as the dominant theory of mental states. Like behaviorism, functionalism takes mental states out of the realm of the “private” or subjective, and gives them status as entities open to scientific investigation. But, in contrast to behaviorism, functionalism’s characterization of mental states in terms of their roles in the production of behavior grants them the causal efficacy that common sense takes them to have. Moreover, functionalism, in contrast to the psychophysical identity thesis, seems to offer an account of mental states that is friendly to materialism without limiting the class of those with minds to creatures with brains like ours.

More recently, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in the psycho-physical (type-) identity thesis. This is fueled in part by the observation that in the actual practice of neuroscience, neural states are type-individuated more coarsely than early identity theorists such as Place, Feigl, and Smart assumed, and the contention that, contrary to the claims of early defenders of functionalism (e.g. Putnam), there are relatively few extant creatures that are physically unlike humans but share our functional organization. If this is so, then it may well be that many of our genuine functional equivalents that differ from us in their fine-grained neurophysiological make-up can nonetheless share our neural, as well as mental, states, and thus that the psycho-physical identity thesis can claim some of the scope once thought to be exclusive to functionalism. (See Bechtel 2012, Bickle 2012, McCauley 2012, Shapiro & Polger 2012, and Polger & Shapiro 2016.)

The plausibility of this thesis, of course, depends on whether or not these underlying similarities would in fact be (coarse grained) neural similarities, and not (fine-grained) psycho-functional similarities. In addition, functionalists can argue that there are possible creatures, both biological and (especially) non-biological, that are functionally equivalent to us but do not possess even our coarse-grained neural properties. If so, and if these creatures can plausibly be regarded as sharing our mental states – to be sure, a controversial thesis – then even if neural states can be individuated more coarsely, some variety of functionalism will retain its claim to greater universality than the identity thesis.

Another source of skepticism about the relative universality of functionalist (versus type-identity) theories derives from the suggestion that – at least in humans – the properties that could play the relevant roles in our functional architecture are not exclusively electrical impulses of our neurons, but a combination of these impulses plus other features of the brain and body, including the endocrine system. (See Cao 2022 and Damasio 1999.) If this is so, then there may be fewer extant examples of creatures that are functional, but not physical, duplicates of humans, and it may be less likely that such creatures are even nomologically possible. They may, of course, be metaphysically possible, existing in fairly distant possible worlds, but there is debate about whether this is plausible, and if so, whether it would seriously undermine the psycho-physical identity theory.

On the other hand, some critics of the psycho-physical identity theory contend that only a theory that characterizes mental states as higher-order properties, with causal powers not possessed by the states or properties that realize them, can preserve the explanatory hierarchy modeled on the relations between biology and chemistry, and chemistry and physics. The identification of mental states with functional roles would do the trick, whether or not our mental states are in fact multiply realized. (See Gillett 2002, Aizawa and Gillett 2007, 2009, and the essays in DeJoong and Shouten 2007 for further discussion; see also the entry on multiple realizability .) These questions remain the subject of active debate.

Yet another question is whether Role Functionalism, by itself, is as friendly to materialism as its initial advocates had suggested – even if the functional roles to be identified with mental states are realized exclusively by physical states. It is generally agreed that the mere supervenience of the mental on the physical – that is, the impossibility of there being a mental difference without some physical difference – leaves open the possibility that mental properties are emergent properties with additional causal powers, whereas the realization of mental states by physical states eliminates this possibility. However, some say, while others deny, that materialism requires something more, namely, an explanation of how (or why) those physical properties can occupy the relevant functional roles. This too is a contentious question. (See, for further discussion, Endicott 2016 and Shaffer 2021).

There remain other substantive questions about functionalism. One is whether it can provide an adequate account of all mental states. Most discussions of the prospects for functionalism focus on its adequacy as an account of familiar experiential states such as sensational and perceptual experiences, and familiar intentional states such as beliefs and desires. But what about emotions – and moods? Although there is some discussion of these states in the functionalism literature, (e.g. Rey 1990, Nussbaum 2003, deHooge, et al. 2011) there is increasing interest in these questions, and more work needs to be done. In addition, there is increasing interest in determining whether there can be plausible functional characterizations of non-standard perceptual experiences, such as synesthesia, and various sorts of altered states of consciousness that can arise from the ingestion of drugs, natural hallucinogenic substances, or focused meditation. (See Gray et al. 2002, 2004, and Deroy 2017, for discussions of synesthesia. For general discussions of altered states of consciousness, see Velmans and Schneider (eds.) 2007, and Thompson 2015.)

Another question is whether functional theories can accommodate non-standard views about the location of mental states, such as the hypothesis of extended cognition, which maintains that certain mental states such as memories – and not just their representational contents – can reside outside the head. This question has implications not only for the viability of a functionalist characterization of memory, but also of beliefs, emotions, hallucinations, and moods. (See Clark and Chalmers 2002, Clark, 2008, Adams and Aizawa 2008, Rupert 2009, Sprevack 2009, Byrne and Manzotti 2022, and the essays in Menary 2010, for further discussion.)

Yet another question of increasing interest to philosophers is whether groups of individuals, or entire communities, can possess mental states (e.g. beliefs, desires, intentions, moods, and emotions) that cannot be reduced to the mental states of the individuals in those communities. (See Gilbert 2013.) Is it merely metaphorical to say that a community (and not just the individuals in it) is optimistic, or conservative, or believes that human activities cause climate change, or remembers the 60s? Or can claims like this be literally true – and if so, how; does it matter how many members of the community in question individually possess the belief, intention, or emotion in question? It is easy to see, moreover, that answers to these questions would have implications not only for theories of the nature of mental states, but also for theories of self-knowledge and knowledge of other minds. They would also have implications for theories of moral evaluation: Desires and intentions lead to actions, and if a community intends to help resettle new immigrants or block access to a public beach, then whom (or what) can we legitimately praise and blame for these actions, and to whom (or what) do we have moral obligations?

In general, the sophistication of functionalist theories has increased since their introduction, but so has the sophistication of the objections to functionalism, especially to functionalist accounts of mental causation ( section 5.2 ), introspective knowledge ( Section 5.3 ), and the qualitative character of experiential states ( Section 5.5 ). For those unconvinced of the plausibility of dualism, however, and unwilling to restrict mental states to creatures physically like ourselves, the initial attractions of functionalism remain. The primary challenge for future functionalists, therefore, will be to meet these objections to the doctrine, either by articulating a functionalist theory in increasingly convincing detail, or by showing how the intuitions that fuel these objections can be explained away.

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New functionalism and the social and behavioral sciences

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• Volume 11 , article number  103 , ( 2021 )

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Functionalism about kinds is still the dominant style of thought in the special sciences, like economics, psychology, and biology. Generally construed, functionalism is the view that states or processes can be individuated based on what role they play rather than what they are constituted of or realized by. Recently, Weiskopf (2011a, 2011b) has posited a reformulation of functionalism on the model-based approach to explanation. We refer to this reformulation as ‘new functionalism’. In this paper, we seek to defend new functionalism and to recast it in light of the concrete explanatory aims of the special sciences. In particular, we argue that the assessment of the explanatory legitimacy of a functional kind needs to take into account the explanatory purpose of the model in which the functional kind is employed. We aim at demonstrating this by appealing to model-based explanations from the social and behavioral sciences. Specifically, we focus on preferences and signals as functional kinds. Our argument is intended to have the double impact of deflecting criticisms against new functionalism from the perspective of mechanistic decomposition while also expanding the scope of new functionalism to encompass the social and behavioral sciences.

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1 Introduction

Whether functionalism offers a legitimate basis for providing explanations in the special sciences is an on-going debate in philosophy of science. The standard view of functionalism holds that some states and processes can be individuated based on what role they play rather than on what they are strictly constituted of . Footnote 1 Functionalists maintain that such functionally individuated states and processes can legitimately figure into explanations in the special sciences.

While functionalism is still dominant in many domains of the biological, behavioral, and psychological sciences, evolving debates in philosophy of science indicate problems with traditional arguments in support of functionalism. On the one hand, early defenders of functionalism, like Fodor ( 1974 ), argued that the existence of well-supported laws involving functional kinds vindicates functionalism as an explanatory strategy. The main problem with this defense is that it has become doubtful whether there are any such laws in the special sciences (Cartwright, 1999 ; cf. Kincaid, 1996 , 2004 ). On the other hand, recent growing support for mechanistic explanation in the special sciences suggests that functionalism’s emphasis on roles can be problematic if it prevents scientists from decomposing systems under investigation into mechanisms (Craver & Bechtel, 2006 ; Bechtel & Richardson, 2010 ). According to mechanists, it is through mechanistic decomposition that the special sciences ultimately achieve their explanatory aims. This leaves functionalism in a precarious position regarding whether and how functionally individuated states and processes can legitimately figure into explanations.

To address these concerns, Weiskopf ( 2011a , 2011b , 2017 ) has posited a reformulation of functionalism on the model-based approach to explanation—we refer to this reformulation as new functionalism. Footnote 2 Roughly, new functionalism holds that functionally individuated states and processes constitute kinds if they figure into a range of successful models instead of well-supported laws. Moreover, according to Weiskopf, functional kinds can be individuated via one of three different strategies: fictionalization , reification , or abstraction . Each of these strategies indicates why a particular functional kind is not amenable to mechanistic decomposition. Taken together, both of these elements are intended to show that functional kinds can serve as central explanatory units in the special sciences even if they are not amenable to mechanistic decomposition.

However, new functionalism has also received some critical reactions. In a recent iteration of the debate between functionalists and mechanists, Buckner ( 2015 ) introduces a dilemma for Weiskopf’s account. Buckner argues that functional kinds are either still amenable to mechanistic decomposition (this holds for abstractions) or that the models involving functional kinds incur a loss of counterfactual power (this holds for fictions and reifications). He takes this dilemma to pose a serious challenge to new functionalism.

In this paper, we aim at defending new functionalism by recasting it in light of the concrete explanatory aims of the special sciences, more broadly construed. We argue that the assessment of the explanatory legitimacy of functional kinds also needs to consider the purpose of the model in which a functional kind is employed. In this respect, we hold that Weiskopf’s account neglects the diversity of explanatory purposes found in the special sciences. However, and more importantly, we show that once these explanatory purposes are taken into account, the horns of Buckner’s dilemma will often turn out to be dull. We demonstrate this by appealing to model-based explanations from the social and behavioral sciences. Specifically, we make the case that preferences and signals —understood as functional kinds—are typically not affected by the dilemma given the explanatory purposes of the choice theoretic models in which they are employed. We take our argument to have the double impact of deflecting Buckner’s dilemma while also expanding the scope of new functionalism to encompass the social and behavioral sciences.

In what follows, section 2 situates Weiskopf’s new functionalism in contrast to traditional defenses of functionalism, and section 3 spells out Buckner’s mechanistic critique in response. Section 4 closely analyzes preferences and signals to highlight the shortcomings of both Weiskopf’s account and Buckner’s rejoinder. Section 5 repackages new functionalism in light of our analysis and addresses the charge that our defense leads to parochialism or anything-goes pluralism. Section 6 concludes.

2 Functionalism in the special sciences

Fodor’s ( 1974 , 1997 ) seminal argument for functional kinds relies on postulating the existence of law-like generalizations in the special sciences. The main target of his argument is physicalist reductionism, specifically the view that all special science laws are reducible to physical laws. Footnote 3 He argues that a special science law S 1 x → S 2 x is reducible to a physical science law P 1 x → P 2 x iff there exist bridge laws connecting special science predicates (that figure into a special science law) to physical predicates (that figure into a physical science law). Bridge Laws, e.g., S 1 x ↔ P 1 x, express contingent event identities stating that every event consisting of some x satisfying S is identical with some event consisting of x satisfying P . They are contingent in the sense that they cannot be established a priori. According to Fodor, what the reductionist needs to establish is that there are, in fact, bridge laws that connect each and every special science natural kind predicate with a physical science natural predicate. Here, natural kind predicates are those predicates that figure into the laws of (completed or ideal) science. Yet, Fodor argues that the natural kind predicates in a special science will most likely correspond to a heterogeneous disjunction of physical predicates that do not constitute natural kinds, i.e. S 1 x ↔ P 1 x ∨ P 2 x ∨ P 3 x ∨ … . P n x, where P 1 x ∨ P 2 x ∨ P 3 x ∨ … . P n x is not a natural kind predicate. Hence, reductionism is unlikely to succeed.

Yet, if the natural kind predicates of the special sciences correspond to a diverse set of physical predicates, how should we individuate them? Functionalists like Fodor argue that we can individuate special science predicates via the role they play. For example, in order for something to be money, it is important that it functions as a medium of exchange independent of what it is constituted of (gold, silver, copper, etc.). If this argument is correct, the special sciences are unlikely to reduce to physics. Therefore, they maintain autonomy with respect to their taxonomy.

To be clear, what’s important for Fodor’s argument is not just that some predicates may not correspond to physical natural kind predicates, but more specifically, that the natural kind predicates of the special sciences do not correspond to physical natural kind predicates. If natural kind predicates are those predicates that figure into the laws of (completed or ideal) science, we need laws of special science in order to have special science natural kind predicates. However, according to some, there is an emerging consensus in the philosophy of science that the special sciences are not primarily in the business of discovering laws (Cartwright, 1999 ; cf. Kincaid, 1996 , 2004 ). Rather, they are in the business of devising and testing models which serve various explanatory functions with regard to their target phenomena. If this is the case, then it seems philosophers of science cannot secure the autonomy of the special sciences, and the legitimacy of using functionally individuated kinds in explanations by appealing (solely) to the existence of laws involving such kinds, for the simple reason that it is contested whether there are any such laws in the special sciences. Footnote 4

There are, however, a growing number of alternatives to law-based defenses of functionalism in the special sciences. One alternative can be found in the work of Ross & Spurrett ( 2004 , see also, Ladyman et al., 2007 , Ladyman, 2008 ), which aims at exposing the limitations of reductionist approaches to causal explanation (i.e., Kim, 1992 ). In particular, they argue that non-reductionistic approaches to explanation are better suited to identify and track properties and dispositions of macro-level entities given that these are primarily epistemic properties and not necessarily causal ones. Moreover, Ross ( 2005 , 2006 ) has expanded on this idea, offering a comprehensive account of functionalism in the context of economics. This account builds on Dennett’s notions of intentional systems and ‘real patterns’ ontology (Dennett, 1989 , 1991 ). While we are sympathetic to the anti-reductionist stance of Ross and Spurrett, and find Ross’s intentional-stance functionalism to be a promising take for microeconomic research, we here would like to focus on a more general formulation of functionalism, one that offers a direct replacement to the law-based arguments of Fodor.

This brings us to the second alternative: the model-based approach to functionalism . Weiskopf ( 2011a , 2011b ) argues that legitimate functional kinds of the special sciences are those states or properties that feature in many coherently integrated and empirically successful models. In particular, he argues that a class of models needs to satisfy three conditions—these are:

The models need to be well confirmed . This implies that if there is a set of models that is, ceteris paribus, better supported by the available evidence, then this set is to be preferred and we should only consider the functional properties of these models to constitute natural kinds. ( 2011a , 336; 2011b , 252)

Models should be representationally accurate . That is, if there is a set of models that includes, ceteris paribus, more elements that are real parts of its targets or describes these elements in more (explanatory relevant) detail, we should only consider the functional properties of the more representationally accurate set of models to be natural kinds. (2011a , 336; cf. Gierre, 1988 )

Models should be genuinely explanatory. This suggests that the set of models that can, ceteris paribus, answer more “what-if-things-had-been-different” questions is to be preferred and we should only consider the functional properties of these models to constitute natural kinds. ( 2011a , 320; 2011b , 250, 252)

Weiskopf also suggests that the models should be a good fit with our “general background knowledge” ( 2011a , 336). If we find a set of models that meets these criteria, he argues, we can take their functional categories (denoting the relevant states, processes, and properties) as providing legitimate explanations for the biological, behavioral, or psychological capacities under investigation.

But, for this argument to go through, we must accept two things: first, that when models explain, they explain in virtue of the functional categories, i.e., kinds, they posit; second, that what determines how functional kinds explain depends on how exactly they are supported by models, as opposed to laws. To this end, Weiskopf claims the following:

Much of the work of building theories, models, and simulations in the biological, behavioral, and psychological sciences involves finding the appropriate concepts to use in analyzing a system. On the view I propose, functional categories are kinds when they are appropriate and useful for constructing explanations of how a system comes to exercise particular psychological and behavioral capacities. ( 2011b , 247)

The key shift in emphasis here is from requiring categories to play a role in lawlike empirical generalizations to requiring that they play a role in well-supported models. This shift in what constitutes a kind meshes particularly well with the recent emphasis on mechanistic and model-based explanation, as opposed to nomic or law-based explanation in the sciences ( 2011b , 251–52).

It seems clear, then, that the goal of new functionalism is to preserve the taxonomic autonomy of the special sciences by stipulating the conditions under which functionally individuated states and processes can legitimately figure into explanations. Though, it is somewhat ironic that Weiskopf emphasizes the alliance between mechanistic and model-based approaches in their break from nomic and law-based explanations for, as we show in the next section, it is the mechanist who poses a real challenge to the explanatory legitimacy of functional kinds. Below we say a bit more about how Weiskopf envisions the individuation of functional kinds and present Buckner’s ( 2015 ) dilemma in response.

3 The mechanistic challenge to new functionalism

In contrast to the reductionists, whom Fodor argued against, recent challenges against functionalism have been raised by non-reductive mechanists. Proponents of causal-mechanistic approaches to explanation tend to agree that explanations need not be reductive to be legitimate (Machamer et al., 2000 ); moreover, they also tend to agree that the special sciences are not in the business of finding laws, and they accept that the main business of the special sciences is to construct models that aim at explaining their target phenomena. Yet, they argue that the way in which models in the special sciences achieve their explanatory aim is, ultimately, by offering mechanistic decompositions (Bechtel & Richardson, 2010 ). Mechanistic decomposition enables special scientists to see how some target phenomenon can be decomposed into different parts and thus to see how these parts interact — i.e., how operations can be localized to working parts — in order to produce the capacities of the target that we are interested in.

But what is a mechanism? Glennan, for example, defines a mechanism as follows: “A mechanism for a behavior is a complex system that produces that behavior by the interaction of a number of parts, where the interactions between parts can be characterized by direct, invariant, change-relating generalizations” ( 2002 , S344). Similarly, Bechtel and Abrahamsen define mechanisms as structures producing their effects “in virtue of [their] component parts, component operations, and their organization. The orchestrated functioning of the mechanism is responsible for one or more phenomena” ( 2005 , 423). Footnote 5

Building on such definitions, Craver ( 2006 , 2007 ; Piccinini & Craver, 2011 ) suggests that explanations employing functional kinds are explanatory only insofar as they provide mechanism sketches . Mechanism sketches provide incomplete albeit informative descriptions of how components and operations of a potential mechanism are responsible for bringing about a certain phenomenon. To put this into perspective, proponents of the mechanistic approach to explanation might say that it is permissible to employ the functional kind neurotransmitter to describe what a particular molecule in the human brain does provided that neuroscientists have not yet been able to further specify the (relevant) parts of the mechanisms that involve the molecule. By further specifying what happens with(in) the molecule, i.e., localizing its operations to component parts, they can then begin to fill in the explanatory gaps and get a better understanding of why the system behaves in the way it does. Hence, according to what we here are calling arguments from mechanistic decomposition (AMD), functionally individuated states and processes can only explain by virtue of offering mechanism sketches, otherwise they don’t explain at all.

In contrast to AMD, Weiskopf’s account ( 2011a , 2011b ) elevates the status of certain functional properties above their role as mere mechanism sketches—it maintains that such functional kinds do not need to be decomposable or localizable to parts of an underlying mechanism or collection of mechanisms in order to be explanatory (e.g., such as when we localize what happens within a molecule that fits the functional description of being a neurotransmitter). More specifically, Weiskopf argues that many functionally individuated states and processes that figure into coherently integrated and empirically successful models do not lend themselves to mechanistic decomposition. This is meant to block AMD for those functional states and processes that qualify as legitimate under new functionalism.

3.1 Individuating functional kinds—three strategies

In contributing to the debate between new functionalism and the mechanistic approach to explanation, Buckner ( 2015 ) considers Weiskopf’s three strategies for individuating functional kinds. Footnote 6 We briefly revisit each below:

Fictionalization is the process of “putting components into a model that are known not to correspond to any element of the modeled system, but which serve an essential role in getting the model to operate correctly” (Weiskopf, 2011a , 331).

To demonstrate that functional kinds can be individuated via fictionalization, Weiskopf discusses the case of “fast enabling links” (FELs) in the brain. FELs are thought to play an essential role in neuroscientific models of vision by depicting the synchronization of distant neural regions in the brain. Weiskopf argues that although FELs possess “physically impossible characteristics” (331), they provide a description of the process by which the binding of intermediary visual representations takes place, a process critically involved in the categorization of spatial objects. Important to this understanding of FELs as fictions is that they describe a process that is not carried out by any specific biological mechanisms currently known to neuroscience. Yet, their explanatory force rests in the fact that they are not merely convenient labels for an unknown process but are a necessary part of models explaining certain aspects of visual processing.

Reification is the “act of positing something with the characteristics of a more or less stable and enduring object, where in fact no such thing exists” (Weiskopf, 2011a , 328).

Reification, like fictionalization, also involves positing descriptions of phenomena whose actual components or structures may be quite different from modeled systems (construed mechanistically). To illustrate this, Weiskopf turns to one of the core concepts of cognitive science, representation . Understood as the vehicles of content for classical computational systems, representations exemplify the strategy of reification in that they are commonly posited as static and stable entities when, in fact, the process of representation depends upon multiple operations that are inextricably linked at the level of neural realization, such as the dynamics of spike trains, excitatory and inhibitory potentials, and other electro-chemical events. So, like fictionalization, reifications do not directly correspond to any known mechanistic components of the system. Footnote 7

Abstraction occurs “when we decompose a modeled system into subsystems and other components on the basis of what they do, rather than their correspondence with organizations and groupings in the target system” (Weiskopf, 2011a , 329).

Abstractions are perhaps the most common method of functional individuation — they decompose modeled systems on the basis of what they do , not on how they are actually structured. Simply put, the strategy of abstraction applies to any system that instantiates functions, and hence functional kinds, that are not highly localized, but whose roles capture the essential operations of a system. Invariably, this involves discarding or ignoring details of the modeled system in favor of “coarse-grained” or “black-box” descriptions ( 2011b , 329). Weiskopf characterizes the power of functional abstraction by again appealing to the neural basis of object recognition in vision, suggesting that the act of parsing neural processing into “layer-like” stages helps vision scientists gain epistemic traction on processes whose actual organizing structures possess greater internal organization which may not be directly relevant to the primary function of interest. However, unlike fictionalization and reification, a description is deemed functionally abstract when it describes subcapacities that the depicted systems really possess (meaning that nothing new is being posited—they are literal subcapacities of the system). Moreover, these subcapacities are (in principle) implemented, or implementable, by different parts of the system depicted, but cannot possibly, or can only with difficulty, be localized to particular parts of an underlying mechanism.

In response, Bucker argues that none of these three strategies can ensure the explanatory legitimacy of functional kinds. In rebutting the method of fictionalization, Buckner argues that because cases of fictionalization run the risk of losing counterfactual power, this method of individuation is not a viable justification for functional kinds. In particular, his claim is that although fictionalization might help us to account for certain aspects of a phenomenon, it does so “at the cost of a diminished ability to predict and explain another—namely, the aspect that is fictionalized” ( 2015 , 3927). In other words, the counterfactuals implied by the fictionalized components are likely to be false. Bucker takes this to be a good reason to think that the kinds picked out by fictionalization do not meet the normative constraints of good explanation.

In rebutting the method of reification, Buckner distinguishes two forms of reification, which he terms “fissional” and “fusional” reification ( 2015 , 3929–3232). As the names suggest, fissional and fusional reification refer, respectively, to cases in which functional kinds are individuated via partitioning component operations (fission) or via aggregating component operations (fusion). In fissional reification, two or more distinct components are introduced whose causal capacities are actually possessed by the same underlying part of the system (or the system as a whole), whereas in fusional reification, one introduces a component whose causal capacities are actually distributed amongst distinct parts of the system. Buckner surmises that attributing kindhood to neural representations is an act of fissional reification since neural representations do not refer to discrete components of a discrete mechanism but instead depict a process by which encoded information enables perceptual inference. Against fissional reification, he invokes what he calls the “A without B” challenge. In brief, the challenge is as follows: “for any two subcapacities A and B, if the system cannot perform A without engaging the very same mechanism that performs B, then an explanation that construes A and B as distinct subcapacities will have less counterfactual power than an otherwise identical model that depicts them as two aspects of the same capacity” ( 2015 , 3929). Hence, fissional reifications, like fictions, are not explanatory because they lead to losses in counterfactual power. He likewise suggests that similar concerns about counterfactual power can be put forward against fusional reifications (though, he also suggests that fusional reification, if it doesn’t suffer from counterfactual power, ought to be seen as just another form of abstraction).

Finally, in addressing abstractions, Buckner considers separate reasons why one might appeal to the explanatoriness of abstractions. The first consideration is a metaphysical concern that functional kinds are, or seem to be, unlocalizable in principle . This consideration is often paired with arguments suggesting that functional abstractions are serviceable for the purposes of dealing with emergent properties and events which are ontologically irreducible to base components. Buckner’s reaction to this consideration is surprisingly simple: there’s little reason to think that functional kinds in cognitive science are, in principle, ‘metaphysically’ complex and thereby resistant to mechanistic decomposition. This is because, once we rid ourselves of models that involve fictions and reifications, as he argues we ought to do, there’s no reason to think that anything complex remains.

The second consideration is that, even if functional kinds, construed as abstractions, are localizable in principle, they nevertheless have unique epistemic utility . This consideration is often paired with arguments suggesting that the complexity of certain systems may render attempts at decomposition too costly. In this regard, Buckner argues that whereas fictionalization and reification both involve unfortunate tradeoffs in counterfactual power, abstraction could count as a legitimate reason to posit functional kinds. However, to be legitimate, the abstraction must be interpreted as a sketch that could be elaborated into a more complete mechanistic model. In other words, abstraction, unlike fictionalization and reification, only counts as legitimate when it is known to pick out underlying mechanisms. Hence, Bucker affirms the view that functional models are ultimately just mechanism sketches. We can thus distill Buckner’s worries about new functionalism to the following:

Buckner’s dilemma . Special science models that employ functional kinds either suffer from a loss of counterfactual power (as compared to mechanistic explanations), or they must be interpreted as mechanism sketches that should ideally be elaborated into full mechanistic explanations. Footnote 8

3.2 Deflecting Buckner’s dilemma

Buckner’s analysis raises a number of important issues for Weiskopf’s account, many of which we find compelling, e.g., we agree that functional kinds—understood as fictions and/or reifications—can, in some contexts, lead to considerable losses in counterfactual power; moreover, we agree that functional kinds—understood as abstractions—can aid in mechanism discovery (for further clarification on the heuristic value of mechanism sketches, see, e.g., Craver, 2006 ; Piccinini & Craver, 2011 ). Yet, we find two short-comings with Buckner’s argument:

First, Buckner’s criticisms of functional kinds are limited to models in biology and cognitive science. They are, therefore, far from grounding the general skepticism about functional kinds that he takes them to establish. This motivates our turn to functional kinds that are employed in models in the social and behavioral sciences. Footnote 9 Second, Buckner’s dilemma presumes that model-based functionalism needs to block or avoid AMD otherwise functional kinds fail to be explanatory. However, this charge overlooks the fact that functional kinds can be employed for explanatory purposes for which offering mechanism sketches seems inappropriate. That is to say, even if individuation by fictionalization or reification leads to losses in counterfactual power and individuation by abstraction suggests that mechanistic decomposition is possible, this doesn’t entail that models which employ functional kinds don’t satisfy “norms of good explanation” (Buckner, 2015 , 3922). As we will now argue, this is because functional kinds may be invoked for many different explanatory purposes—these different purposes are, so far, not taken seriously by either Buckner or Weiskopf.

In the next section, we present and defend two examples from the social and behavioral sciences which reveal that models involving functional kinds aim at a diverse set of explanatory purposes. Not only do we take this to present a challenge to Buckner’s dilemma, but we also note that, for each purpose, the associated kind’s explanatory role is determined independently of how it can be individuated according to any of Weiskopf’s three individuation strategies. For reasons discussed in section 5, we think this points to an improvement for model-based functionalism.

4 Unlocalizable functional entities in the social and behavioral sciences

To motivate the importance of a model’s purpose for assessing the explanatory legitimacy of particular functional kinds, this section examines the use of preferences and signals in the social and behavioral sciences. We suggest that each are candidate functional kinds. Moreover, we illustrate the explanatory purposes of the models in which these functional kinds are frequently employed (this is a descriptive claim). We then show that different instances of signals and preferences are amenable to different parsings according to Weiskopf’s taxonomy. Finally, we show how being employed in the context of the explanatory purposes of their models allows these functional kinds to evade both horns of Buckner’s dilemma. That is, they evade the dilemma independently of whether we understand them as abstractions, reifications, or fictions.

4.1 The case of preferences

One class of explanatory projects that seems to be predestined for involving functional kinds are those which aim at comparing various heterogeneous systems or studying the interplay of those systems. We take the application of choice theory to the behavior of various entities, e.g., firms, households, humans, and animals, to be a prime example of this. Preferences are a fundamental concept in choice theoretic disciplines like microeconomics and game theory. In this regard, preferences are frequently employed for the purpose of explaining via uncovering the same patterns across mechanistically heterogeneous systems. In this subsection we will argue that this can allow them to evade Buckner’s dilemma.

4.1.1 How do preferences explain?

Let us illustrate preferences in more detail. While economics is very explicit about the structural assumptions that preferences are supposed to satisfy, there is virtually no explicit definition of the concept in economic textbooks. Nevertheless, substantial views about what preferences in economics are meant to refer to usually identify them as functional kinds. This holds true for most prominent accounts of preferences, of which there are basically three. Mentalists (Dietrich & List, 2016 ; Okasha, 2016 ) hold that we should view preferences as referring to mental states. As such, proponents of mentalism typically defend functionalism about mental states, often in opposition to reductive, neurocentric interpretations of mental states. In contrast, the most common non-mentalistic position is behaviorism (Gul & Pesendorfer, 2008 ). Behaviorism is sometimes characterized as holding that preferences in economics are merely short-hand descriptions for summarizing patterns in choice behavior (Clarke, 2016 ). In other words, preferences are just the choices that agents make. Yet, even in this case, what counts as a choice is arguably individuated on functional grounds (Clarke, 2020 ). There are also more subtle positions that sometimes get classified as behavioristic. For instance, Ross has argued for interpreting preferences as “real patterns” (Ross, 2005 , 2006 ). Following Dennett, he makes the case that those patterns have a special ontological status in virtue of how we attribute beliefs and intentions to the agents who exhibit them. Like mentalism, this view also resists reductive interpretations of preferences; but unlike mentalism, it takes preferences to be contingent upon the actual behavioral profile of agents, which is bound by various sociological and institutional constraints. Finally, dispositionalism (Guala, 2019 ) maintains that preferences are more adequately viewed as multiply realizable and information-dependent choice-dispositions. What is important for dispositionalism is that the causal base of a preference can be realized in multiple and diverse ways, i.e., different sets of causal properties can give rise to the same set of choice-dispositions (cf. Prior et al., 1982 ). Hence, entities with quite different causal properties can all exhibit the same preferences. So, under dispositionalism, preferences are also functionally individuated entities. Footnote 10

One might then ask, why are preferences in choice theory typically viewed as functionally individuated entities? First, choice theoretic models involving preferences are used to describe the behaviors of very different entities (Herfeld, 2018 ; Guala, 2019 ). For instance, there are choice theoretic models of firms and households (Mas-Colell et al., 1995 ), mice (Holm et al., 2007 ), and even hermit crabs (Elwood & Appel, 2009 ). To give a simple example, two firms can share the same demand curve for copper even though the mechanisms in virtue of which they make their decisions differ substantially. Similarly, if food options require work to be obtained, preferences can also enable us to compare the demand curves of two different species of animals for those food options (cf. Elwood & Appel, 2009 ; Holm et al., 2007 ).

What is more, not only do choice theoretic models allow us to spot commonalities between different entities, but they also enable us to explain what would result from the interaction of those entities. Just consider that various types of households regularly interact with various types of firms in basic economic models (Mas-Colell et al., 1995 ). One could, of course, try to explain the interaction of these different systems by decomposing the mechanism by which they make their decisions and interact. However, this would likely involve the study of quite heterogeneous mechanisms, invoking multiple scientific disciplines. It would, thereby, miss that the interaction of quite dissimilar entities is often driven by the same or similar principles, such as information asymmetries or loss aversion (Herfeld, 2018 ; Guala, 2019 ).

To give a concrete but simple example of how economists explain with preferences, consider the prisoner’s dilemma. In this game, when both players decide to cooperate (c), they both receive the reward R for cooperating. If they both decide to defect (d), they both receive punishment P. If one of them cooperates, while the other one defects, the cooperator receives the sucker payoff S and the defector the temptation payoff T. Each of the two players prefers T > R > P > S (see Table  1 for an illustration of the prisoner’s dilemma).

With the help of this information, we can already offer an explanation for why both agents will play ‘defect’. Each of the agent’s prefers T > R. Consequently, if they believed that the other player would play ‘cooperate’, they would play defect. Similarly, both players prefer P > S. Hence, if they believed that the other player would play ‘defect’, they would play ‘defect’. So, independently of what they believe the other player will do, they will always choose to defect. In a prisoner’s dilemma, we can simply refer to an agent’s preference structure to explain why both agents will choose to defect.

What is important to note about this explanation is that it does not matter how exactly the agent’s preferences are constituted, e.g., what their causal base is. That’s not to say that the actual implementation of the agent’s preference structure doesn’t depend on facts about the causal composition of their base or realizer; rather, we don’t need to know what comprises them in order to explain why the players choose to defect (when they do). The ‘why’ question being answered here concerns a behavioral-level phenomenon, on which one can provide explanations for the behavior of humans as well as non-human agents. Moreover, many of the entities to which economists apply choice theoretic models will likely turn out to make their choices in virtue of quite different mechanisms. Consequently, modeling them with the help of the toolbox of preferences (and beliefs) allows one to spot and explain patterns that would have otherwise been likely missed. For this reason, we take the use of preferences in choice theory to indicate a class of explanatory purposes that can be facilitated by involving functional kinds in one’s models but are unlikely to be accomplished by purely mechanistic models: Functional kinds enable comparisons between mechanistically heterogeneous systems and help to account for the interaction of such systems. Footnote 11

4.1.2 Individuating preferences

From the perspective of the debate between Weiskopf and Buckner, it would seem natural to ask how, exactly, preferences are to be individuated in order to assess whether we should really grant them the explanatory power that choice theorists take them to have. For Weiskopf, this matters because defending the legitimacy of functional kinds against the mechanist depends on their being countenanced by one of his three individuation strategies. Whereas, for Buckner, this matters because the efficacy of his dilemma depends on showing that each individuation strategy fails to justify functional kinds figuring in special science explanations. The issue we want to raise here is that it often has no bearing on the explanatory power of preferences which of the three strategies one happens to accept.

Preferences-as-abstractions

Preferences could be thought of as abstractions if it turns out that one and the same mechanism is always responsible for a certain choice, e.g., a over b. If it would be the case that every time the agent is presented with a choice between two options, a and b , the same causal pathway would lead the agent to choose a , then the preference ‘ a over b ’ would be an abstraction insofar as it provides a “coarse-grained” or “black-boxed” description of the relevant mechanisms. Following Bucker’s line of argument, preferences construed as abstractions could only be seen as legitimately explanatory in cases where they provide mechanism sketches that could (and ideally should) be elaborated into more complete mechanistic models.

However, we take it that this judgment cannot be easily maintained once we take into account the concrete explanatory purposes in which preferences are usually involved. In following Guala ( 2019 ), we have to distinguish between explaining preferences and explaining with preferences . In the former case, one tries to explain the details why a particular agent has the preferences she exhibits. This explanatory project could, for instance, be pursued by decomposing a preference that counts as an abstraction into the individual parts that comprise the underlying mechanisms (this is one of the goals of neuroeconomics—Camerer et al., 2005 ). Yet, when it comes to explaining with preferences, economists are usually not interested in explaining why a particular agent has the particular preferences she has; instead, they are interested in, among other things, modeling the interaction of different types of agents in a common framework and/or explaining why the same behavioral patterns are found across a range of different types of agent. For instance, Herfeld ( 2018 ) outlines how Aklerlof’s ( 1970 ) market-for-lemons model allows us to see that information asymmetries can account for the same behavioral patterns occurring across a wide range of settings involving agents that differ significantly when it comes to the mechanisms by which they make their choices (e.g., agents in the used-car market in Zurich and those that buy second-hand goods in the Ecuadorian rainforest).

Given that explaining preferences and explaining with preferences are different explanatory projects, the claim that preferences, as abstractions, are just mechanism sketches misses the mark. There are two reasons for this. First, providing additional details on the causal compositions of an agent’s preferences does not necessarily improve the explanation we are pursuing when explaining with preferences. For instance, if we already know how an agent will behave in a prisoner’s dilemma-type situation given their preferences, information about the neural basis of those preferences will not have added value for the relevant explanation. Second, mechanistic decomposition may even threaten to complicate achieving the aim we are after when explaining with preferences. This is because we risk losing the abilities to facilitate comparisons between mechanistically heterogeneous systems and to account for the interaction of such systems. For example, explaining the interaction of the agents in the prisoner’s dilemma purely in mechanistic terms may require gathering a lot of details about the potentially different causal compositions of the agents’ preferences. Footnote 12 If doing all this work does not improve the explanation we already get from knowing their preference orderings, mechanistic decomposition becomes a futile task. Hence, claiming that preferences are mechanism sketches that should be expanded upon seems highly misleading. Consequently, the horn of Buckner’s dilemma that applies to abstractions turns out to be quite dull if we consider preferences in the context of the explanatory purposes of the models in which they are employed.

Preferences-as-reifications and preferences-as-fictions

On the one hand, it is plausible to view some preferences as reifications. This can, for instance, be the case when it turns out that it is not always the same mechanism, or mechanisms, responsible for a choice between two options. For example, imagine that an agent in the morning could choose ‘ coffee over tea ’ because she needs the caffeine kick to start her work. However, the same choice between tea and coffee in the afternoon may be influenced by the fact that the agent desires the taste of coffee more than that of tea while having a break. For many explanatory projects in choice theory and microeconomics, all that matters is that the agent has a stable preference for coffee over tea; it matters little that different mechanisms are at work in realizing the same preference in dissimilar contexts.

On the other hand, certain preferences must be construed as fictions. For instance, consider the assumption of continuous preferences that is frequently employed in economic models. The assumption states that whenever an agent prefers A to B to C , there is a probability p such that the agent is indifferent between p* A +(1-p)* C and B . Roughly, this assumption can be understood as agents having infinitely fine-grained preferences. For example, not only do agents like 2 apples more than 1, if they have continuous preferences over apples, they also prefer having 33.33333333% of an apple over 33.33333332% of the same apple. As a result of this, some preferences that certain models ascribe to the agents might be too fine grained to be psychologically plausible. Yet, continuity often facilitates the derivation of the results of a certain model (cf. Reiss, 2012 ). Hence, economists frequently put components into their models that are known not to correspond to any element of the modeled system but are nevertheless important for the model to function.

This brings us to the horn of Buckner’s dilemma dealing with reifications and fictions. Could he still claim that if preferences are construed as reifications or fictions, they fail to explain? Let us first consider reifications. As with representations in cognitive science, it is plausible to expect that some preferences and beliefs in choice theory will turn out to be fissional reifications. Buckner’s main worry here is that fissional reifications involve a loss of counterfactual power as the causal capacities attributed to beliefs and preferences, respectively, are actually possessed by the same underlying component of the system in question (recall the “A without B” challenge). Hence, construing preferences as distinct entities can lead to false counterfactual statements—that is, it can lead us to make false statements about what will happen when we change an agent’s beliefs because we mistakenly assume that this can be done while holding her preferences constant.

However, what becomes relevant once we take the explanatory purposes for which preferences are usually employed into account, is whether this particular loss of counterfactual power matters in the context of those purposes. For instance, it is not that clear that by assigning a particular set of preferences to an agent (e.g., T > R > P > S) we also make claims about the plasticity of those preferences. That is, while choice theoretic models can explain by showing how particular patterns in behavior result from different types of agents having certain preferences in often highly different circumstances, it is far from obvious that they, thereby, are also meant to serve the purpose of informing us about what would happen if an agent’s beliefs or preferences were changed (cf. Clarke, 2020 ). Hence, the loss of counterfactual power that comes with reification may not affect many of the models in which preferences are frequently employed given their explanatory purpose.

Finally let us consider fictions. Above we said that at least some preferences, viz. those that seem to be too fine-grained to be psychologically plausible and applicable to ordinary choice behavior, are fictions. Could Buckner at least maintain that preferences, construed in this way, are problematic even if we account for the explanatory purposes for which they are employed? The short answer is no. While some preferences are clearly fictions, e.g., those that we assign on the basis of continuity assumptions, we rarely find choice theoretic models in which all preferences are fictions. Moreover, even if preferences are introduced as fictions, this is typically for the purposes of mathematical convenience. This is not to say that idealizations, such as assuming continuity, always yield explanatory power in choice theoretic models. It is just to say that the fictions that we introduce as a result of those idealizations do not introduce additional worries beyond those about idealizations that one may already have (cf. Reiss, 2012 ; Hausman, 2013 ). Whether we accept the resulting loss of counterfactual power as a price for the mathematical convenience that is gained by introducing preferences as fictions into our models, and how this tradeoff bears on the explanatoriness of the relevant model, is a question that needs to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Importantly, for the debate at hand, this means that we cannot simply undermine the legitimacy of particular choice theoretic models by pointing out that some of the preferences they assume agents to have are ultimately fictions.

All in all, it seems that regardless of whether preferences are construed as abstractions, reifications, or fictions, neither of the horns of Buckner’s Dilemma seem to affect them in the context of the explanatory purpose of many choice theoretic models in which they are employed. We take the upshot of all of this to be that many special science models that aim at showing commonalities between mechanistically heterogeneous entities—and which try to explain the interaction of those entities based on such commonalities—stand to incur great benefits and no harmful side-effects from employing functional kinds in their models.

4.2 The case of signals

Often functional kinds are also involved in models whose explanatory purposes are intricately linked to the presence of functional kinds—this is because the properties that make these models explanatory in the light of the model’s purpose would disappear at the mechanistic level. This can be true even for cases where decomposition is quite easy and also for those cases where we are not interested in detecting patterns across different systems or studying their interaction. To illustrate this kind of explanatory project, we consider the case of signals in the Lewis-Skyrms approach to the study of meaning. This approach investigates how meaning emerges and how different signals acquire their meaning. It thereby relies heavily on game-theoretic models (see, e.g., Lewis, 1969 , Skyrms, 2010 ). Central to this approach is the notion of signaling games. A signaling game is a coordination game in which one agent (the sender) sends a signal to another agent (the receiver), who then performs an action depending on the signal. A signal can be anything that serves the function of inciting a certain response in the receiver. In a signaling game, agents try to realize mutual benefit. In order to realize this benefit, the receiver has to perform the correct action, whereby the correctness of an action depends on the state of the world which only the sender can observe. The main idea behind the Lewis-Skyrms approach is that the meaning of a signal is constituted by the function the signal plays in a signaling system (see, e.g., Lewis, 1969 ; Godfrey-Smith, 2017 ; Harms, 2004 ). Hence, we take this approach to be a promising case study in the context of model-based functionalism.

4.2.1 How do signals explain?

Before we will illustrate how the Lewis-Skyrms approach explains meaning, we will briefly expand on some of the details of the approach. A signaling system consists of a set of contingency plans, i.e., the contingency plans of the sender(s) and receiver(s). The contingency plan of the sender(s) is a mapping from states of the world to signals. The contingency plan of the receiver is a mapping from signals to actions. In this regard, we can think of contingency plans as behavioral dispositions of the sender and the receiver.

Following Lewis ( 1969 ), we only speak of a signaling system if the contingency plans of the speaker and the receiver combine in such a way that they constitute a coordination equilibrium in a coordination game. More precisely, if contingency plans are plans of actions over all possible situations—i.e., what game theorists refer to as strategies —they constitute a Nash equilibrium iff no agent could do strictly better by changing her contingency plans unilaterally . A coordination equilibrium is a Nash equilibrium in which every player prefers that everyone else conforms to a set of contingency plans if at least all but one conforms.

For these reasons, according to the Lewis-Skyrms approach, the meaning which the signal is carrying, i.e., what kind of signal it is, is determined by its functional properties. More precisely, it is determined by the role it plays in the signaling system. Accordingly, explaining meaning requires us to look at signals at the functional level (see Table  2 for an illustration of two signaling systems).

To illustrate how this approach intends to explain meaning, consider one of Lewis’ ( 1969 ) favorite examples. Lewis envisioned a signaling game in which two agents have to exchange messages about the onslaught of the British on the continental army. The Sexton of the old new church (the sender) has knowledge about the British, and Paul Revere (the receiver) is in a position to warn the continental army. Both aim at giving the correct warning to the continental army, i.e., they give no warning if the British stay at home, they give warning that the British are coming by sea if the British are coming by sea, and so on. Yet, the Sexton is only able to signal the state of the world to Paul Revere by hanging lanterns into the window of the church. Hence, they aim at matching their respective contingency plans in such a way that they always reach the best possible outcome. For example, the Sexton can choose to hang no lantern in the window if the British are staying at home, one lantern if they are coming by land, and so on. Paul Revere can choose to give no warning if there is no lantern, warn that they are coming by sea if there is one lantern, and so on. Now imagine that Paul and the Sexton have to repeatedly engage in the described situation. Once the actual contingency plans of both agents match in such a way that they form a signaling system (i.e., that they will always give the correct warning), the resulting conventional solution to the coordination problem constitutes the meaning of the signal. In other words, the meaning of the signals (the lanterns in the window) are constituted by their role in such signaling systems. A real-world case that is similar to Lewis’ example can be found in the system of warning cries of Campbell’s monkeys, who give an alarm cry when they spot a predator (Zollman, 2011 ). According to the Lewis-Skyrms model, the meaning of these warning cries is determined by the function they play in the monkey’s warning system (see Table  3 for an illustration of Lewis’ lantern game).

Many of Lewis’ successors argued for different equilibrium concepts that can underlie a signaling system and investigated the conditions under which such systems exhibit certain stability properties (see, e.g., Sugden, 2004 ). Moreover, others (most notably Skyrms, 2010 ) have shown how various selection processes—like biological evolution, reinforcement learning, imitation of success, and rational choice—can shape agents’ contingency plans in such a way that they can constitute a signaling system. Despite all of this, the main message of the Lewis-Skyrms approach to the study of meaning is that meaning is explained by a signal’s function in a signaling system. We take this to indicate a second class of explanatory purposes for models involving functional kinds: Functional kinds enable the tracking of phenomena that aren’t visible at the level of the components of the relevant mechanisms. Footnote 13

4.2.2 Individuating signals

Let’s again consider what Weiskopf’s individuation strategies can tell us about signals. We take it that one can view signals as either abstractions or reifications. Footnote 14

S ignals-as-abstractions

To return to Lewis’ example, we could interpret signals as abstractions of the lantern mechanism. For instance, the signal that the British are coming by sea, could be broken down into the Sexton’s act of putting two lanterns into the window and Paul receiving a certain visual input, which, in turn, leads him to send a certain warning (e.g., the British are coming by sea). We can interpret this whole process as a signal. This would offer a very coarse-grained description of the relevant mechanisms. Moreover, the whole process is only individuated as a signal because of its function. Understood like this, signals seem to fit the notion of abstraction that Buckner and Weiskopf rely upon.

How would Bruckner’s dilemma affect this interpretation? It seems obvious that arguing that signals, as abstractions, would still be amenable to mechanistic decomposition would not undermine their explanatory legitimacy in the context of the Lewis-Skyrms approach. The reason is simply that decomposing the relevant signals would lead us away from the functional level at which meaning is ultimately to be explained. Once we have specified the role of a signal in a signaling system, further details about the underlying mechanisms can do little to explain the signal’s meaning. Hence, we hold that signals as abstractions do not succumb to the charge of being mere mechanism sketches.

S ignals-as-reifications

Consider that it may not only be necessary that Paul receives a certain visual input in order for him to send a certain warning, but it may also be required that Paul classifies this input the right way. If Paul would suffer from occasional hallucinations that lead him to see additional spots of light in the church window, the signals in Lewis’s example could not function in the relevant signaling system as they are intended to do. Hence, in order for the relevant signals to occupy their specific role in the signaling system, it seems to be important that Paul’s brain mechanisms responsible for classifying visual inputs work in a certain (perceptually correct) way. Therefore, it could also be argued that the signals in Lewis’s example are reifications that fuse the lantern mechanisms with Paul’s brain mechanisms.

How then would the horn of the dilemma that is supposed to apply to reifications affect signals under the Lewis-Skyrms approach? As illustrated above, according to the Lewis-Skyrms approach, meaning is located at the functional level of signaling systems. Any attempt to decompose the signal into its constituent parts would, therefore, be unable to explain why a particular signal has its particular meaning. In other words, under the Lewis-Skyrms approach, functional kinds located at the level of signaling systems are indispensable when it comes to the explanations of meaning. Hence, no matter what general explanatory drawback we identify for reifications—such as losses in counterfactual power—these drawbacks in and of themselves cannot undermine the legitimacy of using signals as functional kinds for explaining meaning because, within the Lewis-Skyrms framework, the meanings that signals encode can only be explained at the functional level.

Given all of this, we hold that arguing about whether the signal is an abstraction, or a reification, would not be very illuminating with respect to the explanatory role that signals play within the Lewis-Skyrms approach because the phenomenon those models intend to account for is simply not visible at the level of the components of the relevant mechanisms. In cases like this, Buckner’s dilemma cannot undermine the explanatory legitimacy of the relevant functional kinds.

Against this, however, one might argue that relying on the Lewis-Skyrms approach in the context of new functionalism is misguided as it does not attempt to give a causal explanation, but rather tries to explain in what meaning is grounded , i.e., the role of a signal in a signaling system. More generally, one could hold that new functionalism should be restricted to causal explanations. If this were correct, it would undermine our signal example and we would instead have to identify an attempt at giving a causal explanation where mechanistic decomposition would make the phenomena to be explained vanish.

First, we hold that new functionalism should not be restricted in this way. Second, there are also causal explanations that help us to make our case. To see this, just consider that the Sexton in Lewis’ example could use different types of ‘lanterns’ to communicate, e.g., he could use flaming torches or kerosine lamps. Now consider that Paul sees the lights that were produced by the kerosine lamps. Should we say that his warnings were caused by the specific light-emitting technology, or say that it was caused by seeing a specific number of lights in the church window? It seems that only the latter statement would be explanatory in this particular context, while the first statement would threaten to obscure the behavioral pattern exhibited by Paul (see also, List & Menzies, 2009 ). Consequently, we take the Lewis-Skyrms approach to be a straightforward example of a model-based research program involving functional kinds that are unaffected by Buckner’s dilemma. Moreover, the worry that the phenomena to be explained will not be visible at the level of the components of mechanisms seems to generalize to models whose purpose it is to offer causal explanations.

5 New functionalism, restated

Given the considerations of the previous section, we can now see that the explanatory purposes in which functional kinds are involved cross-cuts the ways in which they are, or could be, individuated. In some cases, knowing how a functional kind fits into Weiskopf’s taxonomy may not even be necessary to defend its legitimacy against Buckner’s dilemma once we take its explanatory purposes into account.

This indicates to us that an assessment of the model-based approach to functional explanation requires more than an account of how functional kinds are individuated—it needs to also recognize that models utilizing functional kinds often serve quite different explanatory purposes. In particular, we focused on functional kinds that (a) enable comparisons between mechanistically heterogeneous systems and help to account for the interaction of such systems, and those that (b) enable the tracking of phenomena that aren’t visible at the level of the components of the relevant mechanisms. In such cases, one cannot simply ask how a particular model involving functional kinds would compare with some mechanistic explanations; one has to ask how it serves the particular explanatory purpose of the model in which it is employed. To put it differently, the legitimacy of a particular functional kind does not only depend on how it is individuated, but also on the explanatory purposes in which the models that employ those functional kinds are involved.

The aim of this final section is to outline how our arguments offer a defense of new functionalism. First, we characterize our arguments in terms of a reformulation of Weiskopf’s original conditions for model-based functional explanations. More specifically, we suggest that his third condition, the genuine explanatoriness condition, needs to be broadened if we want to evade Buckner’s dilemma. Second, we argue that broadening this condition does not lead to parochialism or anything-goes pluralism.

5.1 Genuine explanatoriness does not depend only on counterfactual power

We have illustrated different classes of explanatory purposes for which functional kinds may be legitimately employed. How does this relate back to Weiskopf’s original vision regarding model-based functionalism? Recall that according to his formulation, explanations employing functional kinds have to be (i) well-confirmed , (ii) representationally accurate , and (iii) genuinely explanatory . Nothing in our discussion above shows (i) and (ii) to be problematic.

However, if we take a closer look at how Weiskopf spells out genuine explanatoriness, some may worry that our cases above do not exemplify this condition. Recall that Weiskopf states that condition (iii) entails that a set of models that can, ceteris paribus, answer more ‘what-if-things-had-been-different’ questions is to be preferred, and further, that we should only consider the functional properties of these models to constitute kinds. For example, one might now be tempted to think that models containing preferences are unable to answer ‘what-if-things-had-been-different’ questions about the source and structure of those preferences. This, we agree, may happen if one takes preferences to be reifications or fictions. Footnote 15 Similarly, one may think that signaling models do not lend themselves to making counterfactual statements about how changing the realizers may affect the meaning of the signals and hence the behavior of the senders/receivers. However, as we have also suggested, this should not be a major worry as demanding that the relevant models answer those kinds of questions would amount to neglecting their specific explanatory purposes.

This brings us back to the second horn of Buckner’s dilemma—namely, that models that do not answer as many counterfactual questions as possible fail to be explanatory. The argumentative thrust of this horn comes from the presumption that, ideally, the relevant model should provide as many counterfactual statements about its target as possible—this means that, given two competing models, the one which can provide more answers to counterfactual questions about the target phenomena is the better model. In this regard, Buckner states that:

We also must be told why the functionalist interpretation of [their] models is to be preferred over mechanistic alternatives. The common currency in arbitrating between functionalist and mechanistic interpretations, I have supposed, is counterfactual power, with the interpretation that supports more genuine counterfactuals being preferable, ceteris paribus . ( 2015 , 3928)

However, our discussion suggests that it should not primarily matter how many counterfactual statements the models in which functional kinds are employed can support, but whether they support the kind of counterfactual statements that are relevant for the explanatory purpose of the model. Everything else would amount to comparing apples with oranges. Consequently, while we do not think that Buckner’s dilemma is the devastating objection to new functionalism that he takes it to be, it is nonetheless a very useful device for pointing out weaknesses in Weiskopf’s specific construal of new functionalism.

We, therefore, hold that genuine explanatoriness does not imply giving as many counterfactual statements as possible; it means answering as many questions as possible that are relevant to the purpose of the model—this may of course include answering some ‘what-if things-has-been-different’ questions. Hence, we suggest that condition (iii) should be construed as a purpose-adequacy condition , meaning that a model’s explanatory power should be examined and judged in terms of the model’s contribution to answering questions relevant to its explanatory purpose.

5.2 Explanatory monism, pluralism, and holism

We suggested that Weiskopf’s condition (iii) for model-based functionalism should be amended so as to allow for different explanatory purposes. As will become clear below, we hold that this adjustment is necessary to account for the trade-off in explanatory purposes one can pursue with any given model. However, our amendment may raise the concern that we are defending a form of ‘anything-goes’ pluralism about scientific explanation. Buckner ( 2015 ) argues that appealing to various explanatory purposes, as we have, can lead to a form of model parochialism . The worry is that appealing to various different purposes allows one to evade answering questions about counterfactual power by restricting the aims of the model in an ad hoc manner. Yet, we will now make the case that this worry is exaggerated.

Let us, therefore, briefly expand on the two most common normative positions one can take with respect to the explanatory aims of science. One can be monist and hold that there is one central, context-independent aim in science and only models that satisfy this aim are legitimately explanatory. We take it that many mechanists are, at least implicitly, monists. However, as our discussion so far has indicated, we reject this position. By contrast, one can be pluralist and hold that there are various purposes a model can pursue to be legitimately explanatory. Most often for the pluralist, pragmatic considerations determine which models are explanatory in a given context (see e.g., Potochnik, 2017 ). This view is usually rejected by mechanists, like Buckner, as they worry that it makes it too easy for scientists to insulate their models from critique by redefining their explanatory purposes in an ad-hoc manner.

We take the functional kinds and models discussed in section 4 to already suggest that appealing to different explanatory purposes is, by far, not always an ad hoc move. In fact, by looking at the wider modeling literature it is easy to see that model building is context-sensitive in the sense that modelers construct their models with specific purposes in mind. That is, models are never meant to be the kind of universal purpose tools that monists might take them to be. In this regard, Mäki ( 2009 ) argues that models are usually accompanied by a commentary that identifies the specific purposes of the model. This stands in stark contrast to Buckner’s view that appealing to the aims of a model to defend the inclusion of functional kinds is usually an ad hoc defense. Mäki demonstrates this by appealing to the commentary that accompanies the famous Schelling model (Schelling, 1971 ), saying it “explicitly states that the rationale of his models is not the ambitious one of serving as first approximations that can be elaborated to simulate with higher fidelity the real situations we want to examine” ( 2009 , 38). In other words, the model does not aim at offering a mechanism sketch. In a similar vein, Potochnik ( 2017 , 67) notes with respect to game theoretic models that study the emergence of cooperation in evolutionary biology (e.g., Axelrod & Hamilton, 1981 ), that it is clear that “their aim is to depict patterns in how natural selection can, in general, causally contribute to the emergence of cooperation. Because these models of cooperation ignore so many other causal influences in order to focus on the role of natural selection, they have a limited range of application and limited accuracy of most any evolved trait.” In both of these examples, the commentary accompanying the models clarifies the purpose and scope of the model. In neither case can this additional information be construed as an ad hoc defense of the model’s explanatory limits—it is, rather, a specification about how to understand the aims of the model. Consequently, the wider modelling literature suggests that pluralism should be preferred to monism and that pluralism does not need to give way to the ad hoc defenses that Buckner is worried about.

Nevertheless, this may not address the issue of parochialism fully as one can still disagree with the guiding motivations which set a particular modeling agenda. In other words, one may simply be unconvinced that a given explanatory purpose that can be used to legitimize functional kinds is itself legitimate. This raises the worry that, if we are correct in our argument so far, the debate about new functionalism is potentially deadlocked due to contrasting commitments about the legitimate aims of science. Consequently, one may worry that our attempt to deflect Buckner’s dilemma has not gotten us very far because one could simply respond by insisting on the illegitimacy of explanatory purposes that would allow us to legitimize functional kinds. Even though we cannot fully address this here, we briefly respond to this worry in two ways.

Our first response is that we take the burden of proof to lie with mechanists. This is because they need to argue that explanatory purposes that are commonly pursued in the special sciences are, in fact, illegitimate. However, we anticipate that this will not be enough to persuade the mechanists. Our second response is, therefore, to point at a potential way out of this deadlock. This is the view from explanatory holism , which is advantageous to different scientific aims but also blocks anything-goes pluralism or parochialism.

According to Hochstein ( 2017 ), explanatory pluralism does not offer a viable alternative to monism because both positions treat the assessment of explanatory legitimacy of models in the abstract—that is, independently of other models with which they may be informed and interconnected. He takes this to be a crucial flaw for both monism and pluralism. On the one hand, he agrees with the wider modeling literature that individual scientific models cannot simultaneously satisfy all the scientific goals typically associated with explanation—that is, “a given model’s ability to satisfy some goals must always come at the expense of satisfying others” ( 2017 , 1105). On the other hand, any model that sacrifices some explanatory goals to attain others will always “necessarily undermine its own explanatory power in the process” from the perspective of the monist. Hochstein’s response is that, in assessing the legitimacy of a model’s purposes, we must appeal to collections of models and assess how much attaining the explanatory purposes of one model can help us to satisfy other explanatory purposes.

Taking inspiration from Hochstein, we now propose that one way to break the deadlock and to block the charge of parochialism is to ask in how far the explanatory purposes we pursue with any given class of models are able to support other explanatory purposes pursued by other classes of models. In asking this question, we are committed to the view that the special sciences are ultimately a cooperative endeavor. Consequently, we take the perspective that a model’s explanatory purpose should be evaluated also on the basis of how well it contributes to the broader network of explanatory aims. That is, of course, not to say that any individual model actually has to pursue all of these aims. We agree with Hochstein, and the wider modelling literature, that it cannot. Instead, the relevant issue is whether achieving one explanatory goal can also help us to achieve others. Asking this question introduces a criterion for demarcating explanatory purposes—in particular, it allows us to distinguish purposes which support merely parochial projects from purposes which also contribute to other explanatory aims. For instance, one way to defend the explanatory purposes of, say, Akerlof’s market-for-lemons model, against the charge of parochialism would be to show that having knowledge of the general patterns that arise in markets due to information asymmetries makes it easier to search for the particular mechanism that give rise to this pattern in a particular instance (cf. Herfeld, 2018 ). Consequently, we view explanatory holism as offering a promising way out of this deadlock.

Of course, one may retort that we fall short of showing that the explanatory purposes we have pointed out here always or necessarily contribute to some broader network of explanatory aims. Moreover, it remains an open question whether all legitime explanatory purposes contribute to such a network. These two issues relate to a broader concern regarding our appeal to holism, which is that it allows for the possibility that models involving functional kinds will remain explanatorily incomplete unless properly integrated into a larger model-network, which presumably also includes mechanistic models.

On the one hand, this would grant the mechanist room to argue that mechanistic explanations are still required at some level. In this regard, we agree that it is an important question how networks of models can and should come together to provide holistic explanations. We suspect that there is not one type of holistic explanation, but various types, whose compositions may depend on different, local sociological factors. But how to identify these types is a question for another paper. Whether each and every holistic explanation requires mechanistic models is, therefore, an open question. In any case, our argument here suggests that some explanatory purposes can only be achieved by invoking functional kinds (which are not amenable to mechanistic decomposition).

On the other hand, one could argue that if genuine explanations are only offered by networks of models, this would undermine the explanatory purposes mentioned above. In other words, one could hold that only holistic explanations should count as genuine (i.e., capital ‘E’) explanations. However, while one may hold this view, it would not change any of the substantial points we made in this paper. That is, our strategy for deflecting Buckner’s dilemma would not be affected by it. Footnote 16 In any case, for now, our aim was just to point out that holism provides one promising strategy for getting out of the deadlock and blocking the charge of parochialism.

6 Conclusion

Our aim in this paper has been (a) to demonstrate that there are diverse explanatory aims in the social and behavioral sciences, and (b) that we can appeal to these aims in a non-ad hoc manner which indicates the limitations of Buckner’s dilemma for criticizing new functionalism. To this end, we have defended an approach to model-based explanation by proposing a reformulation of Weiskopf’s conditions under which functional kinds legitimately explain. We have pointed out that simply disagreeing with the legitimacy of the purposes we introduced would be a potential way to reassert the validity of Buckner’s critique; and, that the resulting disagreement about normative commitments concerning the explanatory aims of science could lead to a deadlock. To demonstrate that there is a way out of this deadlock, we sketched how holism can provide us with the basis for demarcating explanatory aims.

The term ‘individuation’ refers to the description by which states and processes are distinguished—it is what countenances their role in explaining a phenomenon.

We owe this term to Buckner ( 2015 ).

Fodor clarifies that this version of reductionism is “a stronger one than many philosophers of science hold” (114, f.n. 2). Though, in his follow-up ( 1997 ) article, he attributes this view to Kim ( 1992 ).

We do not take a stance on whether there are any special science laws as the answer to this question clearly depends on the particular notion of a law that one accepts. Though, we accept that, on some of the less demanding notions of laws, having a model that fulfills Weiskopf’s criteria outlined below may already suffice for having a law (cf. Kincaid, 2004 ).

For a more comprehensive analysis of different accounts of mechanistic explanation in cognitive science and the social and behavioral sciences, see Illari and Williamson ( 2012 ).

Buckner refers to these individuation strategies as “etiologies” ( 2015 , 3917).

But unlike fictionalization, reification makes use of our knowledge of the organization of the underlying components (those that can be known). It is these components that determine the characteristics of the functional capacity being reified. This is what distinguishes FELs from neural representations. In light of this, it might be interesting to ask whether this distinction can be understood in purely epistemic terms.

To be clear, Buckner’s dilemma is meant to apply at the level of individual functional states or processes and not at the level of the model itself. For instance, a model could posit multiple functionally individuated states and processes (e.g., abstractions and fictions) and so could in principle be plagued by both horns of the dilemma simultaneously. In such cases, the strategy for deflecting the dilemma — which we propose in section 4— will need to be investigated for each of those states and processes. While it is, of course, an interesting question how we should proceed if deflecting the dilemma only works for some (but not all) posited functional kinds, we ultimately think this needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis.

To be fair to Buckner, we recognize that Weiskopf’s original defense of model-based functionalism was primarily aimed at promoting functional explanations in the cognitive sciences, not necessarily the social and behavioral sciences. It is thus an open question whether Buckner’s dilemma applies differently across disciplinary boundaries. For now, we simply wish to point out that, in light of certain explanatory purposes in the social and behavioral sciences—which we discuss in section 4 and 5—Buckner’s dilemma can be deflected. While we remain optimistic that this can also be done for different explanatory purposes in the cognitive sciences, further investigation is required.

Even though there are important on-going debates about the proper interpretation of preferences—see, e.g., Dowding ( 2002 ), Camerer ( 2008 ), Hausman ( 2008 , 2012 ), Guala ( 2012 ), Thoma ( 2020 ), Vredenburgh ( 2020 ), and Clarke ( 2020 )—we bracket these debates for the sake of space. What is important for us is that preferences in choice theory are broadly and uncontroversially construed as functionally individuated entities.

To be clear, what we say here about rational choice models involving preferences is not new. For example, Ross ( 2005 , 2014 ; see also Ross & Spurrett, 2004 ) argues that non-reductive preference-based models in economics and social science can and do provide rich causal explanations using modeling tools like utility functions, budget constraints, and relative prices. These causal explanations are not amenable to mechanistic decomposition (in Buckner’s sense of the term) precisely because they emerge from real behavioral patterns. While we are sympathetic to Ross’ argument, our aim here is slightly more general. In particular, we think that one can endorse the view that functional kinds enable comparisons between mechanistically heterogeneous systems without assenting to the view that preferences are real patterns. Moreover, our aim in defending model-based functionalism is meant to go beyond the example of preferences discussed here.

As we mentioned already, arguing that preferences are merely mechanism sketches overlooks the fact that preferences can be multiply realized. For this reason, we are very sympathetic to Ross ( 2014 , 218-28) who criticizes the neuroeconomics program defended by Camerer et al. ( 2005 ), known as “behavioral economics in the scanner”, which attempts to reduce agents’ preferences to neural processes and mechanisms. This program epitomizes the kinds of reductive approaches to explaining preferences that we here are trying to avoid by emphasizing that some explanatory purposes call for explaining with preferences.

Unlike preferences, the case of signals demonstrates that functional kinds do more than facilitate cross-system comparisons and explain interactions; it indicates how functional kinds can provide knowledge and understanding of patterns which cannot be tracked, and therefore not explained, via mechanistic decomposition—this holds even for individual systems. However, we think this doesn’t rule out that mechanistic intervention through decomposition can help to explain other aspects of the system, for example, when the systems in question break down or fail to function. But this would complement, not replace, either of the here mentioned explanatory purposes.

It seems unlikely that signals could be construed as fictions, so we don’t consider this strategy.

To be clear, this worry really only applies to non-behavioristic interpretations of preferences (e.g., Dietrich & List, 2016 ; Guala, 2019 ). But for behavioristic interpretations, there should be no worry about the counterfactual power because nothing is being reified or fictionalized--a preference just is a choice. So, we can ask and answer ‘what-if-things-had-been-different’ questions about preferences understood as choice-behavior (e.g., asking how a change in price will affect a change in choice).

We are thankful to an anonymous referee for bringing up these points.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Anna Alexandrova, O. Calgar Dede, Melissa Vergara Fernández, Marta Halina and Marcel Jahn, for very valuable feedback on earlier drafts of this paper.

Lukas Beck is currently doing a PhD that is supported by a doctoral scholarship of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes).

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Functionalist Theory – A Guide to This Sociological Perspective

Functionalist theory is a key sociological perspective that seeks to explain how society works as a whole. It emphasizes the interconnectedness of social structures, institutions, and norms, and how they work together to maintain social order. The theory has its roots in early sociological thought and has been developed by some of the most influential sociologists throughout history.

Table of Contents

Origins of Functionalist Theory

Functionalist theory emerged as a sociological perspective in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, during a time when sociologists were seeking to understand the complex changes brought about by industrialization and urbanization. The theory was heavily influenced by early sociological thinkers, including Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, and Emile Durkheim .

The Contribution of Émile Durkheim

Émile Durkheim is widely considered one of the key founders of functionalist theory . He compared society to an organism with different parts working together to maintain stability and order. This idea formed the basis of his functionalist approach to the sociological perspective.

Durkheim argued that social structures such as institutions, norms, and values were necessary for maintaining social cohesion. He believed that these structures served a purpose in society by fulfilling important functions that contributed to the overall well-being of the community. For example, he saw religion as a way of promoting social solidarity and providing individuals with a sense of meaning and purpose.

Durkheim also emphasized the importance of collective consciousness in maintaining social order . Collective consciousness refers to the shared beliefs, values, and attitudes that exist within a society. According to Durkheim, individuals are bound together by their shared understanding of what is right and wrong, which serves as a powerful force for maintaining social cohesion.

Durkheim’s contribution to functionalist theory helped shape our understanding of how different parts of society work together to maintain stability and order. His ideas continue to influence contemporary sociologists who study topics such as crime, education, and religion from a sociological perspective.

Talcott Parsons and Functionalism

Talcott Parsons built upon Durkheim’s ideas and developed a more elaborate framework for understanding how different parts of society worked together to maintain equilibrium.

Parsons argued that every society had certain functional prerequisites, or basic needs that must be met in order for the society to survive. These included things like food, shelter, and reproduction. He believed that institutions such as the family, education system, and government were responsible for meeting these needs.

In addition to his work on functional prerequisites, Parsons also developed the concept of pattern variables. Pattern variables refer to the different ways in which individuals can orient themselves towards societal norms and values. For example, individuals may prioritize achievement over affiliation or self-expression over restraint.

Overall, Parsons’ contribution to functionalist theory helped develop a more complex understanding of how different parts of society work together to maintain equilibrium. His ideas have been influential in shaping our understanding of topics such as socialization, the role of institutions in society, and cultural values and norms.

Key Concepts of Functionalist Theory

Functionalist theory is a sociological perspective that views society as a complex system made up of interdependent parts that work together to maintain stability and order.

In this framework, there are several central concepts that are essential to understanding how functionalists view society.

Social Structures, Institutions, and Norms

Social structures refer to the patterns of relationships and social arrangements that exist within society. These structures can include things like families, schools, governments, and religious organizations. They provide the framework for social interactions and help to regulate behavior.

Institutions are formal organizations or systems that are responsible for carrying out specific functions within society. Examples include education systems, healthcare systems, and legal systems. Institutions are essential for maintaining social order by providing structure for a society.

Norms are the unwritten rules or expectations that govern behavior within society. They can be informal (such as norms around dress or language) or formal (such as laws), but they all serve to guide behavior and ensure that individuals act in ways that are consistent with societal expectations.

Interconnection within the Functional Framework

These concepts interconnect within the functionalist framework in several ways. Social structures provide the context for institutions to operate within, while institutions help to reinforce norms and values through their policies and practices.

Norms also play an important role in maintaining social cohesion by providing a shared set of expectations for behavior across different social structures and institutions. This helps individuals understand social expectations in various contexts and allows them to navigate complex social situations more easily.

Overall, these concepts work together to create a stable social system where each part plays a vital role in maintaining equilibrium. The functionalist perspective emphasizes the importance of these concepts in understanding how society functions as a whole.

Critiques of Functionalist Theory

While functionalism has several strengths in providing a comprehensive understanding of society as a whole, it also faces criticisms for overlooking inequality and conflict.

One strength of functionalism is its emphasis on the interconnectedness of different parts of society. By viewing society as a system made up of interdependent parts, functionalists can provide a comprehensive understanding of how different institutions and structures work together to maintain social order.

Another strength is its focus on the functions that various social structures serve in maintaining equilibrium within society. This allows for an analysis of how different institutions meet basic needs such as food, shelter, and education while also reinforcing norms and values.

Functionalism also explains why certain behaviors or practices are valued over others within society. By identifying the functions that these behaviors serve in maintaining social order, functionalists can help explain why some practices are more important than others.

One criticism leveled against functionalism is its tendency to overlook inequality and conflict within society. Functionalists tend to view social structures as serving a positive function in maintaining social order, which can lead them to ignore negative consequences such as oppression or exploitation.

Another weakness is its static view of society. Functionalism tends to emphasize stability and equilibrium within society, which can make it difficult to account for changes or disruptions within the system.

Functionalism also runs the risk of becoming overly deterministic by assuming that certain structures or institutions have always been and will always remain in place without accounting for agency or individual choice.

Final Thoughts about Functionalist Theory as a key Sociological Perspective

Durkheim and Talcott’s contributions to functionalist theory have had lasting impacts on sociology as a whole. By providing a framework for understanding how different parts of society work together, this sociological perspective offers valuable insights into the complex workings of society. While it may not provide all the answers to contemporary societal issues, it remains an important tool for analyzing social structures and institutions in today’s world.

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Functionalist Perspective & Theory in Sociology

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Functional theories in sociology see society as a system of interconnected parts that work together to maintain stability and order. Each part (like family, education, or religion) serves a function to benefit society as a whole.

Key Takeaways

• The functionalism perspective is a paradigm influenced by American sociology from roughly the 1930s to the 1960s, although its origins lay in the work of the French sociologist Emile Durkheim, writing at the end of the 19th century.
• Functionalism is a structural theory and posits that the social institutions and organization of society influence the running of society and individuals’ behaviors.
• Talcott Parsons expanded upon Durkheim”s idea of the society as a moral regulator to create a “grand” theory of sociology intended to explain all of human behavior in relation to institutions.
• According to both Parsons and Durkheim, societies undergo an evolution, and large, formalized structures (such as the family or education) evolve to serve the purpose that small communities once had. People become more interdependent.
• Functionalism has been heavily criticized by a number of schools of thought, but has been revised beginning in the 1970s by American Sociologists. Functionalist theories largely argue that social problems and phenomena are, rather than a symptom of a societal flaw, in some way beneficial to society.

What is a Functionalist Theory in Sociology?

Functionalism examines how the social institutions that make up society, such as the economy, education, family, religion, and media, all perform a useful purpose, and also influence members of society.

Functionalism is a theory that views society as a complex but orderly and stable system with interconnected structures and social patterns that operate to meet the needs of individuals’ needs.

The main ideas of the Functionalist perspective are that:

• There is a social structure that exists independently of individuals. This social structure consists of norms and values passed on through institutions that shape the individual.
• Sociologists should study society scientifically in a way that looks for the general laws explaining human action on a macro level.
• Socialization is important because individuals need to be regulated for everyone’s benefit. Thus, the integration and regulation of individuals are good.
• Sociologists should analyze society as a system by looking at each social phenomenon and the contribution it makes to the whole of society. Talcott Parsons believed that society acts in a similar way to the human body, as social institutions interact in the same way as human organs. Both are interconnected and interdependent parts that function for the good of the whole.
• Social institutions usually perform positive functions — such as creating value consensus, social integration, social regulation, preventing anomie, etc. Functionalism is a consensus theory that assumes that the institutions of society are working together to maintain social cohesion and stability.

Functionalism originated in British anthropology. In particular, the Polish-British anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1943) proposed functional analysis as a solution for sociologists to interpret social situations through intuition rather than observation.

According to Malinowski, this functional analysis brings scientific attention to the study of cultures different from those of the ones observing it. Thus, before analyzing a social phenomenon typical of a given culture — say, an institution, material object, or idea — people first must think about what function that social phenomenon has within this culture.

The essential assumption of Malinowski”s functionalism is that in every single civilization, every custom, material object, idea, and opinion fulfills some vital function, helping to both express and maintain it.

This expression and maintenance of culture through phenomena that take place within it is called integration.

Examples of Functionalism

An example of functionalism would be the family . According to functionalism, the family is a societal structure that provides for the reproduction and protection of children.

Families serve as a primary agent of socialization, fostering an understanding of expected behaviors, norms, and values.

By meeting the emotional needs of its members, stable families underpin social order and economic stability. Social Problems Mid-twentieth-century sociologists were often concerned with policy and, correspondingly, social problems (Tumin, 1965).

Crime and Deviance

Crime serves a function in society to reinforce what is acceptable behavior, as the public nature of the punishments shows people what will happen for breaking the rules. Very serious crimes can also lead to society coming together to condemn the perpetrators.

Deviance refers to actions that go against the norms and values of a society. These may not be against the law but are frowned upon by most in society.

The Education System

An example of functionalism would be the education system. Durkheim and Parsons argued that schools are a ‘society in miniature’ that teach universalistic values.

For functionalists, education is central in passing on the mainstream norms and values that keep society together, through the process of secondary socialization. This is achieved hidden curriculum and PSHE lessons

The education system also allows young people to specialize and train for specific jobs based on their abilities. This allows students to move from the ascribed status and particularistic values of the home to an achieved status within society.

Disengagement Theory of Aging

Functionalism underlines perhaps the oldest theory of aging — disengagement theory.

Disengagement theory suggests that withdrawal from society and social relationships is a natural part of becoming old. The theory, developed by Elaine Cumming and Warren Earl Henry in their 1961 book, “Growing Old,” has largely been disproven.

Nonetheless, disengagement theory has several key postulates, each of which suggests that the process of losing social ties as one ages is normal and even beneficial to society.

These are (Cumming & Henry, 1961):

• Everyone expects death, and one”s abilities deteriorate over time. Thus, people will lose ties to those they cannot benefit from.
• Individuals will become more freed from the norms imposed by interaction with others in society.
• Because of men and women”s different roles in society, they will disengage differently.
• Aging causes knowledge and skill to deteriorate. However, success in industrialized society demands knowledge and skill. Aging is functional in that it ensures that the young possess sufficient knowledge and skill to assume authority while the old retire before they lose skills.
• Complete disengagement results when both the individual and society are ready for disengagement.
• The loss of one”s functional role in society will cause crisis and demoralization until they assume the role of disengagement.
• individuals become ready to disengage when they become aware of their mortality. Each level of society grants aging individuals permission to disengage based on their dwindling contribution to societal institutions.
• Disengagement leads to relationships in one”s remaining roles changing.
• Disengagement theory is independent of culture.

Durkheim and Functionalism

Emile Durkheim is widely considered to be the father of sociology. Durkheim believed that individuals are inherently selfish and social structure and social order are important in that they constrain their selfishness.

However, Durkheim also believed that, as societies evolved in a way that made people more individualistic, maintaining social order became an increasingly difficult problem for society (Pope, 1975).

Durkheim’s Key Ideas

Durkheim believed that there is a social structure made up of norms and values.

He believed that this structure existed above individuals because individuals are born into a society with norms and values.

People”s behaviors, according to Durkheim, were shaped by a social structure, consisting of social facts, such as norms and values, and institutions, which exist external to the individual and constrain the individuals’ behavior.

Secondly, Durkheim emphasized that sociologists should use scientific methods to uncover the basic laws that govern human behavior.

Durkheim’s work was largely aimed at demonstrating the importance of organic solidarity as well as trying to find out what societies must do in order to achieve this organic solidarity (Pope, 1975).

Thirdly, Durkheim believed that individuals have an inborn tendency to be selfish and that it was the goal of society to regulate these selfish desires. This means that Durkheim considered too much freedom to be bad for both the individual and society.

He thought that greater levels of human happiness and “progress” could be achieved if people cooperated together, rather than competing in a war of all against all for scarce resources.

Durkheim and Social Solidarity

Social solidarity and cohesion is achieved and maintained through socialization process and learning of norms and values of society.

To restrain naturally selfish tendencies, Durkheim believed that societies need to create a sense of social solidarity — making individuals feel as if they are part of something bigger and teaching them the standards of acceptable behavior.

This is what Durkheim called moral regulation. Both social solidarity and moral regulation rely on effectively socializing individuals into wider society (Pope, 1975).

While Durkheim believed that solidarity and moral regulation were achieved in different ways in primitive and advanced industrial societies, these goals were far harder to achieve in industrialized ones.

For example, in “primitive” societies such as Feudal Europe, social regulation worked on a small scale and was locally based, and people lived in the same area their entire lives. There was very little role differentiation and no complex division of labor.

That is to say, people generally had the shared experiences of living in the same village, carrying out the same activities, and living with the same people their entire lives.

Durkheim believed that, because the people in societies such as Feudal Britain shared the same reality, the same goals, and even the same religion, they are closely reliant on one another, meaning that moral regulation and social solidarity are easily achieved. Durkheim called this situation mechanical solidarity : solidarity based on similarity (Pope, 1975).

Meanwhile, during the Industrial Revolution, the number of specialized tasks increased. The division of labor , as a result, also became more complex.

Individuals, despite shifting more toward individualism, became more interdependent — trading self-sufficiency for dependence on a large number of people that they did not know.

As a result, the ability of large social institutions — like religion — to provide universal morals declined. As people within a society ceased to live the same lives, a need to find solidarity grounded in something other than similarity arose.

Durkheim called this organic solidarity , a social cohesion that results from the interdependence of people in a society.

Durkheim and Anomie

Without a sense of social solidarity society can fall into anomie , a normlessness where a person doesn’t know what it means to be normal within society.

Durkheim (1897) believed that the vast differences between individuals in industrialized societies created a crisis of moral regulation. Durkheim calls this condition anomie.

He argued that the question of how modern societies could achieve moral regulation and keep individuals compliant was the primary problem of contemporary civilization.

He called this moral regulation organic solidarity: social solidarity based on difference (Pope, 1975).

Durkheim believed that labor organizations and education would provide society with necessary moral regulation because education could simultaneously teach people the diverse skills required for an advanced specialization of labor and provide them with shared norms and values through teaching subjects such as history.

Talcott Parsons’ Functionalism

While functionalism before Parsons attempted to produce explanations of everything that exists and happens in a particular time, Parsons aimed to use functionalism to create a general theory of how all social systems work.

Parsons melded together the theories and key issues of several other sociologists — Durkheim, Marshall and Pereto, and Weber — to create his grand theory.

The Organic Analogy

Talcott Parsons believed that society acts in a similar way to the human body, as social institutions interact in the same way as human organs.

Both are interconnected and interdependent parts that function for the good of the whole. This is called the organic analogy.

Organisms like the human body have needs that need to be met and so does society. Social institutions have evolved to meet society’s needs, such as value consensus and social order.

Parsons believed that one of the most important functions of social institutions is the creation of value consensus: an agreement around shared values. This commitment to common values was, for Parsons, the basis for order in society.

Value Consensus

Value consensus means that a majority of society agree with the goals that society sets to show success. These included values such as a belief in work ethic and meritocracy.

Parsons argued that work ethic ensures that people value working rather than leisure. This helps create more goods that can help society function, and a belief in meritocracy , that people believe that hard work should be rewarded, thus incentivizing people to work harder.

Value consensus and social order are maintained through institutions of formal social control, such as the police, and informal social groups, such as families and schools, who socialize children into social values and norms shared by the majority of society.

Parsons believed that the family is responsible for passing on society’s basic norms and values by providing early socialization, the stabilization of adult personalities, and a place for people to escape from the pressures of modern life.

Education integrates individuals into wider society, promoting a sense of belonging and identity. Parsons believed that education does this through teaching students a shared history and language.

Finally, other institutions can regulate individual behavior through social sanctions. This can prevent crime and deviance from becoming unmanageable.

Functional Prerequisites

Parsons also believed that societies have certain functional prerequisites — things that societies need in order to survive. For example, a society must produce and distribute food and shelter, organize and resolve conflicts, and socialize young people.

Parsons believed that social systems have four needs that must be met for continued survival: adaptation, goal attainment, integration, and latency.

The Four Basic needs of society

• Goal Attainment (Political Function): Parsons believed that a society is only possible when there are common standards: the society must have a collective goal, and acceptable means for achieving it.
• Adaption (Economic Function) – Every society has to provide for the needs of its members in order for the society to survive.
• Integration (Social Harmony) – Specialist institutions develop to reduce conflict in society. For example, education and media create a sense of belonging.
• Latency : The unstated consequences of actions – there are 2 types of latency: Pattern Maintenance: Maintaining value consensus through socialization and Tension Management. Opportunities to release tension in a safe way.

Parsons also viewed social change as a process of social evolution.

That is to say; he thought that human societies underwent a progression from hunter-gatherers to complex industrial ones and that more complex societies were inherently better because they are more adaptive — able to respond to changes in the environment, more innovative, and more capable of utilizing the talents of a wider range of people.

As a result, in a conclusion echoing Darwinism, these advanced societies are better able to survive.

Parsons believed that several factors bolster societal progress. While economic and technological changes lead to societies evolving, he argued that values increasingly become the driver of social progress in advanced societies.

To Parsons, the values of advanced industrialized societies are superior to those of traditional societies because modern values allow society to be more adaptive.

Parsons believed that the collapse of major social institutions — family, education, and so forth, could cause regression into a more primitive form of social organization.

The Social System

Parsons was influenced by many European scholars, such as Malinowski and Weber. Some have argued that Parson’s sociology addresses American society in particular, and that it is, rather than an ideological justification of the state of America contemporary to him, an attempt to identify the minimum requirements of integration in a society composed of different ethnic groups with different traditions and cultures.

This means that an action is only a social action when social purposes and standards are identified in the context of interactions that consider their finalities and rules an integral part of the social situation.

Parsons (1951) introduced the idea of a system to address the problem of integration. Parsons said that since people perform actions according to defined principles, rather than in a random way, they have a “personality system.”

Here, a system is the set of symbols that make the interaction possible and the network of relationships between people that do not act in an uncoordinated way but according to the positions assigned to them in this network of relations.

Parsons believed that the cultural, personality, and society systems all had to be the same as each other. The culture helps people to create their personality through internalizing the rules and values of a society (Parsons, 1951).

Meanwhile, the internalization of these cultural models gives order and stability to society because all of the people in a society tend to behave in a way that conforms to society”s expectations.

There are three parts of every action, according to Parsons:

• the finality — the goal to reach and negative consequences to avoid (the “cathetic” element);
• the knowledge of a situation necessary to complete an action — the knowledge element; and, finally, the ability to pick out among many possible choices —
• the “evaluation” element.

Parson believed that personality can only arise in the context of social relations, which can create a system of common signs and symbols for navigating symbols.

These social relations take place in mutual relations among people who act according to their status and roles. While status defines the position that a person occupies in a system of relations considered to be a structure regardless of personality, roles relate to what someone does in relation to others, and what is typical of a certain status.

Criticisms of Functionalism

Although Parson”s first attempts at creating a grand theory of sociology were well-regarded in the 1950s, Neo-Marxists, conflict theorists, and symbolic interactionists criticized him heavily.

Eventually, American sociologists attempted to revive the grand theory.

There are a number of criticisms of the functionalist perspective (Holmwood, 2005). Among the most notable include:

• Criticism of whether there is really a societal “structure” that exists outside of individuals.

Because institutions cannot be isolated in controlled experiments, this task is extremely difficult, if not impossible.

If everyone, for example, believed in the value of achievement in meritocracy, then disorder might result because not everyone can reach the highest levels of achievement.

Thus, Mann believed (1970), social stability is more likely if those at the bottom of society do not follow the society”s principle values, which they are less likely to achieve.

• Criticism of functionalism being a deterministic theory: some have criticized functionalism for portraying human behavior as if it is programmable in a precise way by social institutions.
• Functionalism ignores class conflict and coercion: Marxists argue that mainstream social values are actually the values of elite groups, and that conflict arises from a small group of elite actors imposing social order on the majority.
• Criticism that functionalism is ideological: In arguing that certain institutions are necessary, some have argued that functionalism justifies the existence of the social order. Micheal Mann (1970), for instance, argued that social stability might occur because of a lack of consensus rather than because of it. Not all social institutions are functionally indispensable, and there are functional alternatives. For example, the family is not the only institution that can perform primary socialization.
• Not all the institutions of society perform a positive function for society, instead for some people they are dysfunctional. For example, domestic abuse makes the family dysfunctional for its members.

For that reason, gradual social reform should be all that is needed to address a social problem. Functionalism even suggests that social problems are functional in some ways for society because, otherwise, these problems would not continue.

For example, while crime is a major social problem, it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs in law enforcement, courts and corrections, home security, and the informal economy, where people engage or deal with crime.

Similarly, poverty, while a major social problem, coerces poor people to do jobs that people would otherwise not want to do (Gans, 1972). Poverty also provides employment, such as for those who work in social services that help the poor.

Bales, R. F., & Parsons, T. (2014). Family: Socialization and interaction process . Routledge.

Cumming, E., & Henry, W. E. (1961). Growing old, the process of disengagement . Basic books.

De Nardis, P. (2007). Function. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology , 1-2.

Durkheim, E. (1892). The division of labor in society . Free Pr.

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Holmwood, J. (2005). Functionalism and its Critics . Modern social theory: An introduction , 87-109.

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Parsons, T., & Shils, E. A. (2017). The social system (pp. 190-233). Routledge.

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Home — Essay Samples — Psychology — Behaviorism — Behaviorism Vs Functionalism: Two Pillars of Psychological Thought

Behaviorism Vs Functionalism: Two Pillars of Psychological Thought

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Foundational principles, methodological differences, implications for psychology, critiques and synthesis.

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