The Evaluation of Mind and Body Relation in the Point of View of Functionalism

The mind-body problem is one of the fundamental issues of philosophy that addresses the relationship between mental states and brain (physical) states. Substance dualism sees mental states as distinct from physical states and each of the minds and the body is two substances separate and apart from each other, that have specific characteristics of their own. Behaviorism explains mental states as modes of behavior and reduces mental states to behavioral states. Identity theory takes mental states as brain states. Functionalist theory considers mental states as a functional state which given the inputs, outputs, and other mental states, plays a functional role and is not reducible to modes of behavior, mental and physical one. In this article, the problem of explaining the mind-body dualism is dealt with first, and then, substantive perspective, behaviorism, and identity theory are evaluated. We discuss functionalism and all its forms in comparison with other theories.