Mental properties dualism

Accept that mental properties are causal idlers, but sweeten the pill by arguing that causal idlers that supervene on causally potent properties are not a problem or anyway not a problem to the extent that nonsupervening causal idlers are. On this option, the bogey of epiphenomenal-ism is the conjunction of causal impotence with lack of supervenience it is the conjunction that sinks dualism. 

I think this leads to, or anyway invites, a misunderstanding of the structure of physicalist identity theories of color and of mind. It su ests that they embody a dualism of property and concept the color properties are, on the theory, reflectance properties (if that is the answer color science delivers at the end of the day), whereas the concept of color is quite different from the concept of reflectance likewise, mental properties are brain properties, but the concept of a mental state is not that of a brain property (whether or not Armstrong is right that it is the concept of a state apt for the production of certain behaviors). 

Let s now see how similar points apply to mental properties. First, we need to outline the case for dualism about mental properties. We have seen that one class of mental properties - those we ascribe with the words pain, belief that snow is white, and so on those we believe a subject to instantiate when we use those words of them - cannot be neurological properties. They are some kind of functional property. But equally, as we also saw, it is a discovery of neuroscience that the causal roles played by mental properties are played by neurological properties. Moreover, the roles are those we take mental properties to play - what kind of state makes us wince pain This would seem to imply that mental properties are neurological properties, contrary to the conclusion reached earlier. What on earth is going on ... 

So, Kim departs from the Canberra Plan precisely for mental properties whose substantive nature and need for metaphysical grounding are most obvious, favoring dualism. I think his view here is clearly superior to the views of Lewis, which treat all mental properties as equally lacking in ground. 

One reaction the phenomenal internalist might have to my argument is to say so much the worse for physicalism. As will become clear later, this reaction requires the phenomenal internalist to be a dualist not only about phenomenal character but also about the representational properties of mental states. Dualism of any sort is problematic dualism this broad, doubly so. In the present context, however, my aim is not to refute the dualist. I am content to show here that a choice needs to be made either give up phenomenal internalism or give up physicalism. 

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