Critique of materialism & physicalism—the difference between mental and physical states and descriptions

Critique of materialism & physicalism—the difference between mental and physical states

1.  There is a raw qualitative feed or a ‘what is it like to have a mental state such as pain..

2. At least many mental states have intentionality—ofness or about-ness—directed toward an object.

3. Mental states are inner, private, and immediate to the subject having them.

4. They require a subjective ontology; namely, mental states are necessarily owned by the first-person sentient subjects who have them.

5. Mental states fail to have crucial features (e.g., spatial extension, location) that characterize physical states and, in general, cannot be described using physical language.

JP Moreland, Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult, p. 108

“Mental states are characterized by their intrinsic, subjective, inner, private, qualitative feel, made present to a subject by first-person introspection.”

JP Moreland, Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult, p. 108

This provides the beginning of a 6 part series which provides the distinctions between mental and physical states (link)