 As we have seen, the type view is motivated in large part by the perceived need to explain how propositions represent things as being a certain way on the grounds that a view which accepts primitively representational propositions is objectionably mysterious.  Some question, however, whether the representational properties of propositions can (or need to) be explained at all (McGlone 2012, Caplan, et al. 2013, Merricks 2015). Merricks, for example, argues that we should accept that there are fundamentally representational entities, but that we have no reason to favor mental states (such as beliefs) over propositions as being the fundamental bearers of representational properties.  For if, e.g., beliefs are fundamentally representational, then it is either a primitive fact about them that they represent what they do, or it is a feature capable of explanation.  If it is a primitive fact about them, then the view appears just as mysterious as one which accepts that propositions are primitively representational.  If it is a fact capable of explanation, as the type theorists contend, then it is presumably explained in terms of an agent’s ability to predicate properties of objects.  But unless there is some explanation of how an agent can engage in predication, predication must itself be a primitive representational ability, and the theory has not made any genuine progress on what was to be explained.