JOÃO FELIPE SANTANA RASI

The project aims to study the current Philosophy of Mind known as “functionalism”. In addition to a historical study, we intend to analyze some philosophical objections to this position, known as the “absent qualia” objection and the “inverted qualia” objection. The functionalist theory of the mind is a philosophical theory that attempts to answer the following question: “What is the nature of the mind?”. Functionalist theory, roughly speaking, says that mental states are ultimately functional states. The way the theory characterizes what these states are gives rise to different functionalist versions. However, this “functional” characterization of the mind leaves room for some criticism in the literature, including that of absent and inverted qualia. These two objections consist of pointing out a supposed weakness that the theory has in accommodating qualia (the phenomenological aspect of mentality). However, if we want to delve deeper into what qualia are, we will come across some different definitions in the bibliography. Therefore, is there not some functionalist version and some definition of qualia that overcomes these objections or weakens them?