Abstract
This paper argues against reductionism about intentional mental properties. Reductionism is identified with the thesis that mental properties are nothing but physical properties. Three interpretations of this thesis are given: reduction as i) local supervenience, or as ii) deducibility, or as iii) identity. It is then argued that reductionism regarding intentional mental properties is not true in any of these senses. The argument is based on the rule-following considerations, and the fact that mental content, and thus intentional properties, depend on a distinction between correctness and incorrectness which, it is argued, does not allow physical reduction in any of the mentioned senses. The resulting non-reductionist position is compatible with a more modest physicalism, understood as global supervenience of mental properties on physical properties.
© Walter de Gruyter 2011
