Abstract
The article focuses attention to the affinity between philosophical functionalism about mental states and the psychological theory theory. Functionalism considers mental states as functional states of an organism.
Theory theory attempts to explain the development of the acquisition of mental terms among children with help of radical changes in their theory of mental concepts. Experimentally (however, it fails when an equal attempt is made to explain self-acquisition of mental concepts, i.e. in the first-person mode.
Basic thesis of theory theory about the role of observation cannot be held in the case of introspection, as there is not enough external information available to fix the referent of a mental concept. We examine how this failure is connected to an exchange between functionalists and advocates of phenomenal qualities that are not individuated by functional properties.
Article defends anti-functional thesis through an appeal to its psychological untenability in the case of the first-person.)