Kim rightly points out (160) that we cannot assume that the mental cannot be physical in virtue of the very meaning of 'mental.' We cannot assume that 'mental' means 'nonphysical.' The following argument is not compelling and begs the question against the physicalist:
Beliefs and desires are mentalWhatever is mental is nonphysicalErgoBeliefs and desires are not physical.
The physicalist finds nothing incoherent in the notion that what is mental could also be physical. So he will either reject the second premise, or, if he accepts it, deny the first and maintain that beliefs and desires are not mental in the sense in which his opponents think they are. It seems clear, then, that one cannot mount a merely semantic argument against the physicalist based on a preconceived meaning of 'mental.'
But the term mental is used and has been for quite some time now to mean something separate and distinct from the physical. I don't see how you can proceed without taking into consideration what the common understanding of a key terms is. And, as Professor Vallicella goes on to point out, the physicalist position ultimately reduces to asserting that the term mental refers to nothing actual, that there is no mental.
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