Having Ideas

Abstract

Cartesians argued that we know things by way of ideas that are properties of our substantial minds. The only relation explanatory of how these representational ideas represent their objects is resemblance. Today, brain states, the materialist correlate of mental ideas, represent by having isomorphic similarity with the objects that cause them. How does the brain know its brain states? Neurophilosophers say the brain knows its brain states by having them as properties. This is the answer of the mentalists. But how can "having" an idea as a property -- mental or material -- be the same as knowing that idea as its object?