Functionalism has become one of the predominant theories in the philosophy of mind, with its many merits supposedly including its capacity for precise formulation. The most common method to express this precise formulation is by means of the modified Ramsey sentence. In this article, I will apply work from the field of the philosophy of science to functionalism for the first time, examining how Newman’s objection undermines the Ramsey sentence as a means of formalising functionalism. I will also present a formal variation on Newman’s objection through mathematical induction. Together, these proofs suggest that functionalism formalised by the Ramsey sentence trivially reduces to a kind of behaviourism plus a cardinality constraint on the number of relations holding between mental-relevant behaviours. As most functionalists see functionalism as a distinct theory of mind from behaviourism, this suggests that the modified Ramsey sentence cannot form a satisfactory formalism for functionalism.

功能主义已成为心灵哲学中的主要理论之一，据推测它的许多优点包括精确表述的能力。表达这种精确表述的最常用方法是通过修改后的拉姆齐句子。在本文中，我将首次将科学哲学领域的工作应用于功能主义，研究纽曼的反对意见如何破坏拉姆齐语句作为一种形式化功能主义的手段。我还将通过数学归纳法对纽曼的反对意见提出正式的变体。总之，这些证据表明，由拉姆齐句子形式化的功能主义微不足道地简化为一种行为主义，加上对心理相关行为之间关系数量的基数约束。