Mental
Relations
A mental relation is a relation whose
exemplification entails the exemplification of one or more phenomenal properties. Examples include: aware of,
believes, entertains, desires, and so on.
Awareness
Awareness is an especially important relation
because it allows us to “see” reality. I suspect (pace Bergmann and other
epistemic externalists) that no knowledge can be
had without awareness. Awareness brings mental substances in epistemic contact
with the world.
The objects of awareness can be substances (like our own selves), properties, and arrangements
(including propositions). I suspect that we can be aware of probabilistic
relationships between propositions without thereby forming beliefs about those
relationships. Perhaps, it was by awareness of probabilistic relationships that
we came to form warranted beliefs in other minds, the past, the external world,
and most everything else we believe without having to infer such things on the basis of other beliefs. We just see that they are likely given other things we are
aware of.