mind-body dualisms

i've become increasingly convinced that reductionist materialist explanations of consciousness are inadequate. this doesn't completely put me in the cartesian camp, but i wanted to make a brief post exploring some of the options available, from least to most ontologically pluralistic.

1. Predicate Dualism - perhaps there is oen ontological category, presumably materialism, which can be characterized only through the introduction of two predicate categories. this is not to imply that these predicates correspond to different properties. these predicates are just different ways to "look at" or "talk about" one thing with really one set of properties. so "mental states" and "physical states" can still be talked about, with only one substance and one set of properties. this view is usually appealed to in lieu of reductive materialism because the reductive accounts leave explanatory gaps. fodor holds this view.

2. Property Dualism - similar, perhaps, to predicate dualism, except acknowledging that the different predicates actually do refer to different properties that one substance has. so it's still the one (once again, presumably material) thing having two levels of properties. these two types of properties are usually described as differences of process. just as the stomach is used for digestion, the brain is used for cognition. even though he tends to deny it, it seems as though this is the view searle holds. nagel holds it too.

3. Substance Dualism - then of course there's good ol' fashioned cartesianism, where the mind and the body are wholly different things. there are (at least) two different ontological categories, thus explaining succinctly and intuitively the nature of the discrepancies between the properties ascribed to mental and physical events. a contemporary proponent of this view is david chalmers.

4. Mental Agnosticism (mysterianism) - i was at first tempted to lump mysterianism along with the substance dualists, but that would be unfair. mysterians are ultimately agnostics about this kind of thing, holding that the cognitive power of the human will leave this question unanswered. we're just not smart enough to know exactly what's going on in our minds, just as chimps are just too dumb to master calculus. this is the position that mcginn holds.

the easiest out is by far the third option. it is the most intuitive and the most explanatory. however, most people nowadays don't give it much of a chance because of the heavily materialist conception of the world we live in today. personally i don't see what the big deal is to posti necessary ontological categories if we have good reason to think they're necessary. however, i can see where they're coming from as i was a strict reductive materialist until recently. over the summer i'm going to read some canonical texts in each type of dualism so i can choose which one i find most reasonable, and which is closest to experience. but before i read any of the texts, let me say that i think the most reasonable position to take, at least prima facie, is the fourth option, #4. the hard problem, as chalmers put it, really is very hard. and there doesn't seem to be a straightforward answer to it in sight.