The Sellars’s functionalism: a historical research

Abstract

Philosopher Wilfrid Sellars was one of the contemporary functionalism precursors when he conceived mental states as theoretical entities identified with functional states, conception defended mainly in his most relevant work Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind, broadly discussed on the academic context of analytical tradition. On this book, Sellars introduces his explanation of mental, gathering on the same thesis private events, intententionality , a public language and a system based on rules defined intersubjectivity Therefore, this work intends to show how much this author anticipated the functionalist project, particularly introducing, on the first part, Sellars’s proposal in the 50s and, later, characterize the following decade functionalism. Finally, we evaluate Sellars’s influence on the quoted theoretical functionalists e comment the range and importance of this author for the mind philosophy e current languages. © Cien. Cogn. 2009; Vol. 14 (3): 024-038.