The Marks of the Mental
The Marks of the Mental
Someone denying the ultimacy of mind maintains that four features of the mental must not be found on the rock-bottom level of the universe. The first mark of the mental is purpose. If there is purpose in the world, it betokens the existence of a mind that has that purpose. So for anyone who denies the ultimacy of the mind, an explanation in terms of purposes requires a further nonpurposive explanation to account for the purpose explanation. The second mark of the mental is intentionality or aboutness. Genuinely nonmental states are not about anything at all. The third mark of the mental is normativity. If there is normativity, there has to be a mind for which something is normative. A normative explanation must be explained further in terms of the nonnormative. Finally, the fourth mark of the mental is subjectivity. If there is a perspective from which something is viewed, that means, once again, that a mind is present. A genuinely nonmental account of a state of affairs will leave out of account anything that indicates what it is like to be in that state.
If the mind is not ultimate, then any explanation that is given in terms of any of these four marks must be given a further explanation in which these marks are washed out of the equation.