A mental property is a property of the mind. For example, if someone pricks you with a pin, you will most likely feel pain. That instance of feeling pain is an instantiation of the property being in (or a) pain.
It is important to distinguish between the predicate 'is a pain' which is a linguistic entity, and the property denoted by the predicate. This becomes important in the philosophy of mind when the two are confused, especially concerning intertheoretic reductionism and ontological reductionism.
Mentalproperties are alleged to have, not just one, but up to four features that make their causal relevance philosophically puzzling, no less problematic than mind-body interaction is for the substance dualist.
For the property dualist, mentalproperties — and here the mentalproperties taking center stage are the phenomenal properties of conscious experience — are sui generis, not reducible to the dispositional or structural properties recognized by the physical sciences (see dualism).
The intentional properties of her belief are relevant to the effect qua (broad) behavior; the physical properties are relevant to the effect qua (narrow) movement.
Mental phenomena are just as good and real and useful as any other higher level property, which are as good and real and useful as any other lower level property.
Hence, mentalproperties qua mental are causally suspect (anomalous).
Hence, we arrive at a conception of mental causation in which mentalproperties are just as real as any other, but also in which we have the conceptual apparatus that allows us to decide when we should invoke those properties as explanatory, given our historical biases and investigative goals.
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