We commonly over analyze situations due to do not have enough control of our emotions and anxiety. To get in control of it, a great start is be focused on yourself, be confident and put your focus and energe in one thing at the time, live one day at the time, on step at the time.
Self psychology is a relatively new theory within the field of psychoanalysis. The name was chosen because of gradual recognition that the difficulties some people experience have to do with self-esteem regulation and maintenance of a solid sense of self in time and space, often referred to as self cohesion.
Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Philosophy What is the goal of functionalism? Ben Davis July 21, What is the goal of functionalism? What is the concept of functionalism? What are the major assumptions of functionalism? How does functionalism apply to society? But that is only an analogy. The main arguments for functionalism depend on showing that it is superior to its primary competitors: identity theory and behaviorism.
Contrasted with behaviorism, functionalism retains the traditional idea that mental states are internal states of thinking creatures. Contrasted with identity theory, functionalism introduces the idea that mental states are multiply realized. Objectors to functionalism generally charge that it classifies too many things as having mental states, or at least more states than psychologists usually accept.
The effectiveness of the arguments for and against functionalism depends in part on the particular variety in question, and whether it is a stronger or weaker version of the theory. This article explains the core ideas behind functionalism and surveys the primary arguments for and against functionalism. In one version or another, functionalism remains the most widely accepted theory of the nature of mental states among contemporary theorists.
Nevertheless, in view of the difficulties of working out the details of functionalist theories, some philosophers have been inclined to offer supervenience theories of mental states as alternatives to functionalism.
According to functionalists, mental states are identified by what they do rather than by what they are made of. Consider, for example, mouse traps. Mouse traps are devices for catching or killing mice. Mouse traps can be made of most any material, and perhaps indefinitely or infinitely many designs could be employed. The most familiar sort involves a wooden platform and a metal strike bar that is driven by a coiled metal spring and can be released by a trigger.
But there are mouse traps designed with adhesives, boxes, poisons, and so on. Contrast mouse traps with diamonds. Diamonds are valued for their hardness, their optical properties, and their rarity in nature.
But not every hard, transparent, white, rare crystal is a diamond—the most infamous alternative being cubic zirconia.
Diamonds are carbon crystals with specific molecular lattice structures. Being a diamond is a matter of being a certain kind of physical stuff. That cubic zirconia is not quite as clear or hard as diamonds explains something about why it is not equally valued.
But even if it were equally hard and equally clear, a CZ crystal would not thereby be a diamond. These examples can be used to explain the core idea of functionalism. Functionalism is the theory that mental states are more like mouse traps than they are like diamonds. That is, what makes something a mental state is more a matter of what it does, not what it is made of.
It also distinguishes functionalism from contemporary monisms such as J. The identity theory says that mental states are particular kinds of biological states—namely, states of brains—and so presumably have to be made of certain kinds of stuff, namely, brain stuff.
Mental states, according to the identity theory, are more like diamonds than like mouse traps. Functionalism is also distinguished from B. According to behaviorism, which mental states a creature has depends just on how it behaves or is disposed to behave in response to stimuli.
So functionalists think that it is what the internal states do that makes them mental states, not just what is done by the creature of which they are parts.
As it has thus far been explained, functionalism is a theory about the nature of mental states. As such, it is an ontological or metaphysical theory.
And this is how it will be discussed, below. But it is also worthwhile to note that functionalism comes in other varieties as well. Functionalism could be a philosophical theory about psychological explanations that psychological states are explained as functional states or about psychological theories that psychological theories take the form of functional theories.
Finally, functionalism may be viewed as a methodological account of psychology, the theory that psychology should be pursued by studying how psychological systems operate. For detailed discussion of these variations, see Polger, , ch.
Often philosophers and cognitive scientists have subscribed to more than one of these versions of functionalism together. Sometimes it is thought that some require others, or at least that some entail others when combined with certain background assumptions.
If so, intentional functionalism may entail metaphysical functionalism. All this being said, metaphysical functionalism is the central doctrine and probably the most widely endorsed. So in what follows the metaphysical variety will be the focus. Before looking at the arguments for and against functionalism, it is necessary to clarify the idea that, for mental states, being is doing.
Plausibly a physical stuff kind such as diamond has a physical or structural essence, i. It happens that diamonds can cut glass, but so can many other things that are not diamonds. But it is also plausible that not all stuffs are made up in this way. Some things may be essentially constituted by their relations to other things, and by what they can do. The most obvious examples are artifacts like mousetraps and keys. Being a key is not a matter of being a physical thing with a certain composition, but it is a matter of being a thing that can be used to perform a certain action, namely, opening a lock.
Lock is likewise not a physical stuff kind, but a kind that exists only in relation to among other things keys. There may be metal keys, wood keys, plastic keys, digital keys, or key-words. What makes something a key is not its material composition or lack thereof, but rather what it does, or could do, or is supposed to do.
Making sense of the claim that there is something that some kinds of things are supposed to do is one of the important challenges for functionalists. The activities that a key does, could do, or is supposed to do may be called its functions. So one can say that keys are essentially things that have certain functions, i. Or the kind key is a functional kind. The functionalist idea is, in some forms, quite ancient.
One can find in Aristotle the idea that things have their functions or purposes—their telos — essentially. In contemporary theories applied to the mind, the functions in question are usually taken to be those that mediate between stimulus and psychological inputs and behavioral and psychological outputs.
Modern computers demonstrate that quite complex processes can be implemented in finite devices working by basic mechanical principles. If minds are functional devices of this sort, then one can begin to understand how physical human bodies can produce the tremendous variety of actions and reactions that are associated with our full, rich mental lives.
The best theory, Putnam hypothesized, is that mental states are functional states—that the kind mind is a functional kind. The initial inspiration for functionalism comes from the useful analogy of minds with computing machines, as noted above. Putnam was certainly not the first to notice that this comparison could be theoretically fruitful. Many arguments for functionalism depend on the actuality or possibility of systems that have mental states but that are either physically or behaviorally distinct from human beings.
These arguments are mainly negative arguments that aim to show that the alternatives to functionalism are unacceptable. For example, behaviorists famously held that psychological states are not internal states at all, whether physical or psychical. But, the argument goes, it is easy to imagine two creatures that are behaviorally indistinguishable and that differ in their mental states.
The most famous arguments for functionalism are responses not to behaviorism but to the mind-brain identity theory. If mental state kinds are identical to kinds of brain states, then there is a one-to-one relation between mental state kinds and brain state kinds. Everything that has sensation S must have brain state B, and everything that has brain state B must have sensation S. While gender roles, according to the functionalist perspective, are beneficial in that they contribute to stable social relations, many argue that gender roles are discriminatory and should not be upheld.
The feminist movement, which was on the rise at the same time that functionalism began to decline , takes the position that functionalism neglects the suppression of women within the family structure.
A Female Indian Construction While the structural-functionalist perspective argues that gender inequalities exist as a form of the division of labor, the photograph above clearly illustrates that women need not be restricted to certain activities.
Source: Boundless. Retrieved 27 Feb. Skip to main content. Gender Stratification and Inequality. With common sense, manifest functions become easily apparent. Yet this is not necessarily the case for latent functions, which often demand a sociological approach to be revealed. Many sociologists have critiqued functionalism because of its neglect of the often negative implications of social order. Some critics, like Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci , claim that the perspective justifies the status quo and the process of cultural hegemony that maintains it.
Functionalism does not encourage people to take an active role in changing their social environment, even when doing so may benefit them. Instead, functionalism sees agitating for social change as undesirable because the various parts of society will compensate in a seemingly organic way for any problems that may arise. Updated by Nicki Lisa Cole, Ph. Actively scan device characteristics for identification.
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