Spacetime Emergence in Quantum Gravity: Functionalism and the Hard Problem

Spacetime functionalism is the view that spacetime is a functional structure implemented by a more fundamental ontology. Lam and Wüthrich have recently argued that spacetime functionalism helps to solve the epistemological problem of empirical coherence in quantum gravity and suggested that it also (dis)solves the hard problem of spacetime, namely the problem of offering a picture consistent with the emergence of spacetime from a non-spatio-temporal structure. First, I will deny that spacetime functionalism solves the hard problem by showing that it comes in various species, each entailing a different attitude towards, or answer to, the hard problem. Second, I will argue that the existence of an explanatory gap, which grounds the hard problem, has not been correctly taken into account in the literature

Synaesthesia, Functionalism and Phenomenology

No abstract available

On Spacetime Functionalism

Eleanor Knox has argued that our concept of spacetime applies to whichever structure plays a certain functional role in the laws (the role of determining local inertial structure). I raise two complications for this approach. First, our spacetime concept seems to have the structure of a cluster concept, which means that Knox's inertial criteria for spacetime cannot succeed with complete generality. Second, the notion of metaphysical fundamentality may feature in the spacetime concept, in which case spacetime functionalism may be uninformative in the absence of answers to fundamental metaphysical questions like the substantivalist/relationist debate

The Neofunctionalists Were (almost) Right: Politicization and European Integration

This paper examines the politicization of European integration. We begin by asking how neofunctionalism and its precursor, functionalism, conceive the politics of regional integration. Then we turn to the evidence of the past two decades and ask how politicization has, in fact, shaped the level, scope, and character of European integration.political science; integration theory; neo-functionalism; identity; multilevel governance

European Integration and the State

European Commission; implementation; integration theory; multilevel governance; national interest; Nation-state; neo-functionalism; polity building; Single Market; Treaty on European Union

What does functionalism tell us about personal identity?

Sydney Shoemaker argues that the functionalist theory of mind entails a psychological-continuity view of personal identity, as well as providing a defense of that view against a crucial objection. I show that his view has surprising consequences, e.g. that no organism could have mental properties and that a thing's mental properties fail to supervene even weakly on its microstructure and surroundings. I then argue that the view founders on "fission" cases and rules out our being material things. Functionalism tells us little if anything about personal identity

Does Phenomenology Ground Mental Content?

I develop several new arguments against claims about "cognitive phenomenology" and its alleged role in grounding thought content. My arguments concern "absent cognitive qualia cases", "altered cognitive qualia cases", and "disembodied cognitive qualia cases". However, at the end, I sketch a positive theory of the role of phenomenology in grounding content, drawing on David Lewis's work on intentionality. I suggest that within Lewis's theory the subject's total evidence plays the central role in fixing mental content and ruling out deviant interpretations. However I point out a huge unnoticed problem, the problem of evidence: Lewis really has no theory of sensory content and hence no theory of what fixes evidence. I suggest a way of plugging this hole in Lewis's theory. On the resulting theory, which I call " phenomenal functionalism", there is a sense in which sensory phenomenology is the source of all determinate intentionality. Phenomenal functionalism has similarities to the theories of Chalmers and Schwitzgebe

The Functional Method of Comparative Law

The functional method has become both the mantra and the bete noire of contemporary comparative law. The debate over the functional method is the focal point of almost all discussions about the field of comparative law as a whole, about centers and peripheries of scholarly projects and interests, about mainstream and avant-garde, about ethnocentrism and orientalism, about convergence and pluralism, about technocratic instrumentalism and cultural awareness, etc. Not surprisingly, this functional method is a chimera, both as theory and as practice of comparative law. In fact, the functional method is a trifold misnomer: There is not one ( the ) functional method but many, not all methods so called are functional at all, and some projects claiming adherence to it do not even follow any recognizable method. This paper first places the functional method in a historical and interdisciplinary context, in order to see its connections with, and peculiarities opposed to, the debates about functionalism in other disciplines. Second, it tries to use the functionalist method on the method itself, in order to determine how functional it is. This makes it necessary to place functionalism within a larger framework -- not within the development of comparative law, but instead within the rise and fall of functionalism in other disciplines, especially the social sciences. Thirdly, the comparison with functionalism in other disciplines enables us to see what is special about functionalism in comparative law, and why what would in other disciplines rightly be regarded as methodological shortcomings may in fact be fruitful for comparative law. This analysis leads to surprising results. Generally, one assumes that the strength of the functional method lies in its emphasis on similarities, its aspirations towards evaluation and unification of law. Actually, the functional method emphasizes difference, it does not give us criteria for evaluation, and it provides powerful arguments against unification. Further, one generally assumes that the functional method does not account sufficiently for culture and is reductionist. However, the functional method not only requires us to look at culture, but also enables us, better than other methods, to formulate general laws without having to abstract from the specificities. The problem is that the functional method, as generally described, combines a number of different concepts of function: an evolutionary concept, a structural concept, a concept focusing on equivalence. The relation between these different concepts within the method is unclear, its aspirations therefore unrealistic. If we reconstruct the method plainly on the basis of functional equivalence as the most robust of the three concepts of function and emphasize an interpretative as opposed to a scientific approach, we realize that the functional method can make less claims, but at the same time is less open to some of the critique voiced against it. In short, the functional method is strong as a tool for understanding, comparing, and critiquing different laws, but a weak tool for evaluating and unifying laws. It helps us in tolerating and critiqueing foreign law, it helps us less in critiquing our own

Hilary Putnam (1926-2016): A Lifetime Quest to Understand the Relationship between Mind, Language, and Reality

This is an extended intellectual obituary for Hilary Putna

Sellars on Functionalism and Normativity

The term ‘functionalism’ is usually heard in connection with the philosophy of mind or cognition. The functionalism of Wilfrid Sellars, however, is in the first instance as response to the worries about the metaphysics not of mental states, but of meaning. Only late in his career did Sellars explore the possibility of extending his functionalism into an account of cognition. It has been suggested, though, that Sellars’ extension of his functionalist theory into subpersonal territory is not successful. In particular, there is a worry abroad that in order to be a functionalist about cognitive states, Sellars must succumb to a special form of the Myth of the Given. In this essay I will review and elucidate what I take to be the structure of Sellars’ functionalism, defending it from this worry. I will suggest a resolution of some apparent textual contradictions based in part on the chronology of Sellars’ writing, with the assumption that later writings express Sellars’ more nuanced views. Draft of 2009