things, objects
properties, relations
events, states, processes, facts
If we divide properties (and relations) into psychological and physical (keeping open the possibility that these categories overlap), we can say that a physical event is the instantiation of a physical property, and a psychological event is the instantiation of a psychological property.
Basic idea: no difference in psychological properties without a difference in physical properties.
Mind-Body Supervenience I: things that are alike in all physical properties cannot differ with respect to mental properties.
Mind-Body Supervenience II ("strong supervenience"): if anything x has a mental property M, then there is a physical property P such that x has P, and necessarily any object that has P has M.
Mind-Body Supervenience III ("global supervenience"): possible worlds that are alike in all physical respects are alike in all mental respects.
Clearly II entails both I and III. Whether I and/or III also entails II is trickier (and we won't worry about it).
Ontological Physicalism: the world contains nothing other than "bits of matter and aggregate structures composed exclusively of bits of matter" (Kim, 13).
possible problems: (a) maybe physics countenances things that aren't "bits of matter": what about gravitational fields? Black holes? Are they "bits of matter"? (b) on the other hand, maybe it's compatible with physics that "bits of matter" aren't actually things at all! It has been suggested that there is only one "thing," spacetime, and everything else is just properties of spacetime.
In view of these issues, a more neutral definition of physicalism might be better, something like this: The world contains nothing but the things physics talks about. Or better yet, the things a perfected physics would talk about.
Property Dualism (= nonreductive physicalism, = token physicalism): the psychological properties of a system are distinct from, and irreducible to, its physical properties.
(What exactly does "reducible to" mean? We'll talk about this in some detail later on.)
Property Monism (= reductive physicalism, = type physicalism): psychological properties are reducible to, and reductively identifiable with, physical properties.
Varieties of Mental Phenomena
Main varieties:
1. sensations, sensory qualities, properties with a phenomenal character, raw feels, qualia
2. propositional attitudes, intentional mental states, content-bearing states, states attributed by embedded that-clauses
"propositional attitude": a proposition is what is expressed by a declarative sentence, for example that grass is green or that my cat loves me. The kind of "attitude" in question includes believing, hoping, fearing, etc. Either the proposition or the attitude can vary independently of the other: I can believe that grass is green, I can believe that my cat loves me, etc.; and I can believe that my cat loves me, hope that my cat loves me, etc.
Other, perhaps derivative varieties of mental phenomena:
feelings and emotions
volitions
character traits, habits, abilities, etc.
Candidates for the "Mark of the Mental"
1. direct or immediate knowledge (I know about my own mental states without needing to infer this from evidence)
2. privacy, or first-person knowledge (I have access to my mental states in a way no one else does)
3. infallibility and self-intimacy
Kim's presentation here slightly confusing: at first he seems to use "transparency" and "self-intimacy" interchangeably, but then defines transparency as including both self-intimacy and infallibility. Let's stick with the latter usage.
knowledge of m is infallible iff [if and only if], if I believe that I have m, then I do have m
m is self-intimating iff, if I have m, then I believe that I have m
m is transparent iff m is self-intimating and knowledge of m is infallible
4. nonspatiality
5. intentionality
Philosophers use the term "intentionality" in a somewhat odd way: it is synonymous with "representationality." That is, a state is an intentional state if and only if it represents or stands for something else.