Notes · PhilosophyUK · A-Levels

What do we mean by 'mind'?

Before theorising about the mind, philosophy of mind clarifies what is distinctive of mental states. This topic examines the two features most often taken to mark the mental — phenomenal properties (qualia, the 'what it is like' of experience) and intentionality (the 'aboutness' of thought) — sets out the mind-body problem they generate, and maps the main theories (dualism, physicalism, functionalism) that answer it.

5 sections~23 min reading time2 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 3 · Advanced 1

T·141414 / 17

Exam profile

AO1 · Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of qualia and intentionality and the statement of the mind-body problemAO2 · Analyse and evaluate whether the mental has a common mark, and what an adequate theory of mind must explain, reaching a justified conclusion

Operators:explainoutlineanalyseassess'...' Discussto what extent

basic level

At AS-Level, explain qualia and intentionality with examples and state the mind-body problem.

higher level

At full A-Level, analyse the features of the mental, set out the mind-body problem precisely, and evaluate what an adequate theory of mind must account for.

Depth

Text

Contents · 5 sections

What do we mean by 'mind'?

The features of the mental#

FoundationAQA 7172 3.4 Metaphysics of mind — What do we mean by 'mind'?DfE GCE Philosophy subject content

Candidate marks of the mental

Fig. 1Qualia mark sensations; intentionality marks propositional attitudes; other features are contested.

The philosophy of mind begins by asking what makes a state a MENTAL state — what, if anything, all and only mental states have in common that distinguishes them from merely physical states. This is not idle: how we answer it shapes every later theory, because a theory of mind must account for whatever turns out to be the mark of the mental. Candidate marks include consciousness, subjectivity, privacy, incorrigibility, and — the two the specification foregrounds — phenomenal properties (qualia) and intentionality. The topic surveys these features and the mind-body problem they generate, before the later topics offer competing theories of what mental states ultimately ARE.

Mental states come in a striking variety, and no single feature obviously covers them all, which is itself philosophically significant. There are SENSATIONS and perceptual experiences (pain, the taste of coffee, seeing red) — these are vividly conscious and have a felt quality. There are PROPOSITIONAL ATTITUDES (beliefs, desires, hopes, fears, intentions) — these are 'about' things and have content ('I believe that it is raining'), but need not be consciously felt. There are EMOTIONS and MOODS, which seem to combine felt quality and content. The diversity matters because the two proposed marks — qualia and intentionality — apply most naturally to different sub-classes: qualia to sensations, intentionality to propositional attitudes.

Several further features are often cited as characteristic of the mental. SUBJECTIVITY: mental states have a first-person, 'what it is like' character accessible from a point of view (Nagel). PRIVACY: my mental states are directly accessible only to me — you can observe my behaviour and brain, but not my experience itself. INCORRIGIBILITY or privileged access: I seem to have a special, arguably infallible, authority about my own current mental states (if I feel pain, I cannot be mistaken that I feel pain). NON-SPATIALITY: mental states do not obviously have location, size or shape in the way physical states do (my belief that Paris is in France has no dimensions). Each of these has been used to argue that the mental is DIFFERENT IN KIND from the physical, and so to motivate dualism — but each is also contested, and physicalists dispute whether they truly distinguish the mental or merely reflect our epistemic access to it.

The question 'what is the mark of the mental?' has three possible answers, each with consequences. It might be QUALIA (all mental states have a felt, phenomenal character) — but propositional attitudes like an unconscious belief seem to lack qualia. It might be INTENTIONALITY (all mental states are ABOUT something) — but a raw sensation of pain seems not to be about anything. It might be that there is NO single mark, only a family resemblance among diverse states. The stakes are high: if qualia are the essential mark, then any theory of mind must explain consciousness (the hard problem), which pressures physicalism; if intentionality is the mark, the challenge is to explain how physical states can be ABOUT things (Brentano thought intentionality was the irreducible mark that no physical state could possess). The next two sections examine the two leading candidate marks in turn.

Worked example

Which mark fits which state

For the sensation of pain and the belief that it is raining, say which candidate mark of the mental each most clearly has.

The pain
Pain has a vivid felt quality — a 'what it is like' — so it clearly has QUALIA; but it is not obviously ABOUT anything.
The belief
The belief that it is raining is ABOUT the weather — it has content and can be true or false — so it has INTENTIONALITY; but it need not have a felt quality.
The lesson
No single mark covers both cleanly: qualia fit sensations, intentionality fits attitudes.
The implication
So either the mental has two marks (or a family resemblance), and a full theory of mind must explain both consciousness AND aboutness.

Result: Pain is marked by qualia, the belief by intentionality; since neither mark covers both, an adequate theory of mind must account for consciousness and intentionality alike.

Typical mistakes

Assuming all mental states share a single obvious feature; sensations (qualia) and propositional attitudes (intentionality) are marked by different features, which complicates any single criterion.
Treating privacy and incorrigibility as uncontested proofs of dualism; physicalists dispute that these features show the mental is non-physical rather than reflecting our access to it.

Active revision

Explain two features often taken to be distinctive of mental states. (5-mark AO1 response)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for philosophy (Department for Education)

Phenomenal properties: qualia#

StandardAQA 7172 3.4 Metaphysics of mind — What do we mean by 'mind'?DfE GCE Philosophy subject content

The hard problem of consciousness

Fig. 2A complete physical account of brain processing still seems to leave open why there is any felt experience.

Qualia (singular: quale) are the introspectively accessible, phenomenal, 'felt' qualities of conscious experience — the redness of a red experience, the painfulness of pain, the smell of coffee, the taste of pineapple. The standard gloss, from Thomas Nagel's 'What Is It Like to Be a Bat?' (1974), is that a state has qualia if there is 'something it is like' to be in it — something it is like, for the subject, to see red or to feel pain. Qualia are what give conscious experience its subjective character; they are the target of the phrase 'phenomenal consciousness'.

Nagel's bat argument makes the point vivid. Bats navigate by echolocation (sonar), a sensory modality utterly unlike any of ours. There is surely SOMETHING it is like to be a bat — to perceive the world by sonar — but we cannot know what it is like, because our imagination is confined to our own experiential resources; we can at best imagine what it would be like for US to behave like a bat, not what it is like for the bat. Nagel's conclusion is that the subjective character of experience — its qualia — is essentially tied to a point of view, and so seems to resist capture by the objective, third-person methods of physical science, which describe the world from no particular point of view. If qualia cannot be captured objectively, then a purely physical, objective account of the mind seems to leave something out.

Qualia are therefore the sharp end of the mind-body problem and the chief obstacle for physicalism. David Chalmers calls explaining WHY and HOW physical processes give rise to subjective experience the 'HARD problem' of consciousness, distinguishing it from the 'easy' problems (explaining the functions of the mind — discrimination, integration, report — which are, in principle, tractable by cognitive science). We can imagine a complete physical and functional account of the brain's processing of light — and STILL ask why all that processing is accompanied by any felt experience at all, why it is not all 'dark inside'. The felt quality seems to be an extra fact, not settled by the physical facts, which is why qualia drive the knowledge argument and the zombie argument against physicalism (developed in the dualism topic).

Physicalists respond in several ways, previewing the later debate. Some (identity theorists) argue qualia just ARE brain states — the felt redness IS a neural state, and the appearance that something is 'left out' is an illusion of our two modes of access (introspective and scientific) to one thing. Some (functionalists) analyse qualia in terms of functional/representational role. Eliminativists and 'illusionists' (Dennett, Frankish) go further and argue that qualia, as traditionally conceived (intrinsic, ineffable, private, immediately apprehended), do not exist — introspection misrepresents our own experience, and there is no 'hard problem' because there is no phenomenal residue over and above the functional facts. Evaluation weighs whether the appeal to qualia identifies a genuine, irreducible feature that any theory of mind must explain (as dualists insist) or whether the sense that qualia are non-physical is a cognitive illusion generated by the peculiarities of introspective access (as physicalists argue) — a question that structures the whole of the metaphysics of mind unit.

Worked example

Nagel's bat argument

Reconstruct Nagel's bat argument and state what it is meant to show.

P1
There is something it is like to be a bat — bats have conscious experience via echolocation.
P2
We cannot know what it is like, because we can only imagine from our own experiential resources, not the bat's sonar point of view.
P3
So the subjective character of experience is tied to a point of view and is not accessible from the objective, third-person standpoint of physical science.
C
So a purely objective, physical account of the mind omits the subjective character of experience — the qualia.

Result: The bat argument concludes that qualia resist objective, physical capture, so physicalism appears to leave something out — the core challenge qualia pose, which the knowledge and zombie arguments sharpen.

Typical mistakes

Treating qualia as merely 'sense-data' or as the physical stimulus; qualia are the SUBJECTIVE FELT QUALITY of the experience, the 'what it is like', not the external object or the neural cause.
Assuming Nagel's argument proves dualism; it argues subjective character resists objective capture, which pressures physicalism but which physicalists dispute (it may reflect modes of access).

Active revision

Explain what qualia are and why they pose a problem for physicalism. (12-mark AO1 response)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for philosophy (Department for Education)

Intentionality#

StandardAQA 7172 3.4 Metaphysics of mind — What do we mean by 'mind'?DfE GCE Philosophy subject content

Naturalising intentionality

Fig. 3Naturalistic theories analyse aboutness as a causal/teleological relation; the disjunction problem challenges them.

Intentionality is the 'aboutness' or directedness of mental states: the feature by which a mental state is OF or ABOUT something, is directed at an object or represents a state of affairs. My belief is ABOUT Paris; my desire is FOR a coffee; my fear is OF the dog. The term comes from the scholastics and was made central by Franz Brentano, who in 1874 called intentionality 'the mark of the mental': every mental phenomenon, he claimed, is characterised by its direction upon an object (its 'intentional inexistence' of an object), and no PHYSICAL phenomenon exhibits this — a rock is not 'about' anything. Brentano's thesis is thus that intentionality is BOTH necessary and sufficient for the mental, and irreducibly non-physical.

A striking feature of intentionality is that the object of a mental state need not EXIST: I can think about, fear, or worship things that do not exist — unicorns, the fountain of youth, a feared burglar who is not there. The intentional object is 'inexistent' in Brentano's sense — it is the object AS the state represents it, whether or not anything real answers to it. This is puzzling for a physical account: how can a physical brain state be directed at a NON-EXISTENT object? A physical relation (like being-to-the-left-of) requires both relata to exist, but the intentional 'relation' to an object does not — which is one reason Brentano thought intentionality could not be a physical relation.

Intentional states also have INTENSIONALITY (with an 's') — a logical feature of the sentences that report them. In an intentional context, one cannot freely substitute co-referring terms while preserving truth: 'Lois believes that Superman can fly' may be true while 'Lois believes that Clark Kent can fly' is false, even though Superman IS Clark Kent — because Lois's belief is directed at the object under one MODE OF PRESENTATION (Superman) and not another (Clark). Physical relations are 'extensional' (substitution of co-referring terms preserves truth), so this intensionality of mental reports is a further mark distinguishing the mental and a challenge to reducing it to the physical.

The philosophical stakes concern whether intentionality can be NATURALISED — explained in physical terms — or whether Brentano was right that it is irreducibly mental. Naturalistic theories (Dretske, Fodor, Millikan) try to analyse intentional content in terms of causal or teleological relations between brain states and the world (a state means 'cow' because it is reliably caused by, or has the biological function of tracking, cows), aiming to show that aboutness is a natural, physical relation after all. Critics argue these theories struggle with the possibility of MISREPRESENTATION (if the state is caused by a horse on a dark night, does it mean 'cow' or 'cow-or-horse-on-a-dark-night'? — the disjunction problem) and with the non-existent and intensional features above. Evaluation weighs whether intentionality is, as Brentano held, an irreducible mark of the mental that resists physical explanation (supporting some form of dualism or at least a challenge to physicalism), or whether naturalistic theories can in principle capture aboutness as a physical relation. Note the division of labour with qualia: intentionality is the mark that fits BELIEFS and DESIRES (which qualia fit poorly), so a theory must explain BOTH the felt quality of sensations AND the aboutness of thought — a double demand that structures the assessment of dualism, physicalism and functionalism.

Worked example

The intensionality of mental reports

Explain, using the Superman/Clark Kent example, how intentional states show substitution failure, and why this challenges physicalism.

The identity
Superman is Clark Kent — they are one and the same object.
The reports
'Lois believes Superman can fly' can be true while 'Lois believes Clark Kent can fly' is false, though the names co-refer.
Substitution fails
So in belief contexts, substituting co-referring terms does not preserve truth — the state is directed at the object under a MODE OF PRESENTATION.
The challenge
Physical relations are extensional (substitution preserves truth), so the intensionality of mental reports marks the mental as, at least prima facie, not a straightforward physical relation.

Result: Intentional states exhibit substitution failure (intensionality), which physical relations do not, giving Brentano's case that intentionality is a distinctive mark of the mental and a challenge for physical reduction.

Typical mistakes

Confusing 'intentionality' (aboutness of ALL mental states) with 'intention' (a plan to act); intentionality is a general feature of beliefs, desires, perceptions, not just intentions.
Treating intentionality as obviously physical or obviously non-physical; the live question is whether it can be NATURALISED, which the naturalistic theories attempt and critics dispute.

Active revision

'Intentionality cannot be explained in physical terms.' Assess this claim. (25-mark essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for philosophy (Department for Education)

The mind-body problem#

StandardAQA 7172 3.4 Metaphysics of mind — What do we mean by 'mind'?DfE GCE Philosophy subject content

The three answers to the mind-body problem

Fig. 4Dualism, physicalism and functionalism are the main families of answer to how mind relates to body.

The mind-body problem is the question of how the mental and the physical are related. On the one hand, mental states (with their qualia and intentionality, their subjectivity, privacy and apparent non-spatiality) seem very different in kind from physical states (public, spatial, objective, quantitative). On the other hand, the mental and the physical are intimately connected: brain damage alters the mind, drugs change experience, decisions move limbs, and injuries cause pain. The problem is to give a coherent account of this relationship — of what mental states ARE, and how they relate to the brain and body — that does justice both to the apparent difference and to the evident connection.

The problem sharpens into several sub-questions. The ONTOLOGICAL question: are there two kinds of thing (mind and matter) or one? The question of MENTAL CAUSATION: how do mental states cause physical events (my desire causing my arm to rise) and physical events cause mental states (light causing my visual experience)? Given the apparent CAUSAL CLOSURE of the physical (every physical event has a sufficient physical cause), it is puzzling how a non-physical mind could make any physical difference without either violating physics or being causally redundant (epiphenomenalism). And the question of CONSCIOUSNESS: how can subjective, felt experience arise from, or be identical to, objective physical processes (the hard problem)?

The problem has a classic historical source in Descartes, whose substance dualism (mind and body are distinct substances) makes the difference between mind and matter maximal and thereby makes their INTERACTION deeply puzzling — how can an immaterial, unextended mind push around an extended physical body? (Princess Elisabeth pressed this objection to Descartes directly.) So the very feature that captures the apparent DIFFERENCE (dualism) makes the CONNECTION mysterious; while theories that capture the connection easily (physicalism: the mind just is the brain) struggle with the apparent difference (qualia, intentionality). Every theory of mind is an attempt to balance these two demands, and each is standardly evaluated by how well it accounts for BOTH the distinctness of the mental and its causal-and-dependence relations with the physical.

The problem is not merely academic: it bears on personal identity, free will, the possibility of an afterlife, moral responsibility, and whether machines could think. If dualism is true, the mind might survive the death of the body and free will might escape physical determinism; if physicalism is true, the prospects for both look different. And it connects across the specification: the mind-body problem is a specific, sharp instance of the metaphysical questions the whole course engages, and the rationalism/empiricism debate of the epistemology unit reappears here (is knowledge of the mind a priori or a posteriori? does Mary learn something new by experience?). The remaining topics — dualism, physicalism, functionalism — are the three families of answer, and this section's task is to state the problem they are answering clearly enough that each can be assessed by how well it solves it.

Worked example

The two demands on a theory of mind

Explain why capturing the difference between mind and body makes their connection hard, and vice versa.

The difference demand
Mind seems unlike matter (qualia, intentionality, privacy); the strongest way to honour this is dualism (two kinds of thing).
The cost
But if mind and body are utterly different substances, their INTERACTION is mysterious (Elisabeth's objection) — how does the immaterial move the material?
The connection demand
Mind and body are intimately linked; the simplest way to honour this is physicalism (mind IS the brain).
The cost
But identifying mind with brain struggles to capture the apparent DIFFERENCE — the felt quality and aboutness that seem left out (the hard problem).

Result: Each theory trades one demand against the other: dualism honours the difference but strains the connection; physicalism honours the connection but strains the difference — so every theory is judged by how well it meets BOTH.

Typical mistakes

Reducing the mind-body problem to 'does the soul exist?'; it is the general question of how mental and physical are related, of which dualism is only one answer.
Ignoring mental causation and causal closure; the difficulty of how mind and body interact is central and is the main objection to dualism.

Active revision

Explain the mind-body problem and why it is difficult. (12-mark AO1 response)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for philosophy (Department for Education)

A map of the theories of mind#

AdvancedAQA 7172 3.4 Metaphysics of mind — What do we mean by 'mind'?DfE GCE Philosophy subject content

The theories of mind

Fig. 5Dualism (substance/property), physicalism (behaviourism/identity/eliminativism) and functionalism.

The theories of mind can be mapped by their answers to the ontological question (how many kinds of thing are there?) and to whether the mental is reducible to the physical. DUALISM holds there are two fundamentally different kinds of thing or property: SUBSTANCE dualism (Descartes) says mind and body are distinct substances (the mind can exist without the body); PROPERTY dualism says there is one kind of substance (physical) but two kinds of PROPERTY, mental (irreducible, non-physical) and physical. PHYSICALISM (materialism) holds that everything, including the mind, is physical, or wholly determined by (supervenes on) the physical. FUNCTIONALISM holds that mental states are defined by their functional/causal ROLES, and is officially neutral on the ontological question (a functional state could be realised by any suitable stuff), though it is usually paired with physicalism.

Physicalism itself divides into several theories, examined in the physicalism topic. Logical/analytical BEHAVIOURISM (Ryle, Hempel) analyses mental states as dispositions to behaviour. Mind-brain type IDENTITY theory (Place, Smart) identifies mental states with brain states (pain = C-fibre firing). ELIMINATIVE materialism (the Churchlands) holds that our common-sense mental categories (belief, desire) are the posits of a false theory ('folk psychology') and should be eliminated in favour of neuroscience. These differ over WHETHER mental states exist and, if so, HOW they relate to the physical (as dispositions, as identical to brain states, or as fictions).

The map is organised by two axes that recur throughout the unit. The first is ONTOLOGICAL: how many kinds of thing/property (dualism = two; physicalism = one)? The second is REDUCTIVE: is the mental reducible to, or eliminable in favour of, the physical (identity theory and eliminativism say yes; property dualism says no)? Functionalism cuts across these by focusing on ROLE rather than stuff, which is why it can be combined with physicalism (roles realised by brains) or, in principle, remain neutral. A candidate who can locate any theory on these axes — and say what it holds about qualia and intentionality — has the framework to compare them.

Each theory is finally assessed by how well it meets the two demands set by the mind-body problem: accounting for the DISTINCTNESS of the mental (qualia, intentionality) and for its CONNECTION with the physical (dependence and causation). Dualism honours distinctness but faces the interaction problem and causal closure; physicalism honours connection but faces the knowledge and zombie arguments about qualia; functionalism honours multiple realisability and causal role but faces the qualia objections (inverted and absent qualia). The dialectic across the next three topics is thus a systematic weighing: the dualist arguments (knowledge, conceivability) press physicalism about qualia; the physicalist replies and the multiple-realisability argument press dualism and identity theory; functionalism emerges as an attempt to keep physicalism's virtues while accommodating multiple realisability, only to face the qualia objections in turn. A first-class overall judgement will track which theory best balances distinctness and connection, and will note that the persistent difficulty of qualia (the hard problem) is the thread that runs through every stage — the single most important datum any theory of mind must explain.

Worked example

Locating a theory on the map

Locate mind-brain identity theory and property dualism on the ontological and reductive axes.

Identity theory: ontology
One kind of substance and property (physical) — mental states ARE brain states, so ontologically monist.
Identity theory: reduction
The mental is REDUCED to the physical (pain = C-fibre firing), so reductive physicalism.
Property dualism: ontology
One kind of substance (physical) but TWO kinds of property — mental properties are non-physical.
Property dualism: reduction
The mental is NOT reducible to the physical (mental properties are irreducible), so non-reductive.

Result: Identity theory is monist and reductive; property dualism is substance-monist but property-dualist and non-reductive — the two axes cleanly distinguish them and set up their opposed treatments of qualia.

Typical mistakes

Treating physicalism as a single theory; distinguish behaviourism, identity theory and eliminativism, which differ sharply on whether and how mental states exist.
Classing functionalism as straightforwardly dualist or physicalist; it is defined by ROLE and is officially neutral on ontology, though usually paired with physicalism.

Active revision

'The main division in the philosophy of mind is between dualism and physicalism.' Discuss. (25-mark essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for philosophy (Department for Education)

References & sources

Sources

Department for Education

GCE AS and A level subject content for philosophy

What do we mean by 'mind'?

5 sections~23 min reading time2 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 3 · Advanced 1

What do we mean by 'mind'?

Key points

Which mark fits which state

Key points

Nagel's bat argument

Key points

The intensionality of mental reports

Key points

The two demands on a theory of mind

Key points

Locating a theory on the map

Sources

What do we mean by 'mind'?

Key points

Which mark fits which state

Key points

Nagel's bat argument

Key points

The intensionality of mental reports

Key points

The two demands on a theory of mind

Key points

Locating a theory on the map

Sources