Philosophers working on the ontology of mind have highlighted various distinctions that can be drawn between the ways in which different aspects of our minds fill time. For example, they note that whereas some elements of our mental lives obtain over time, others unfold over time, and some continue to occur throughout intervals of time. Matthew Soteriou explores ways in which such distinctions can be put to work in helping to inform philosophical accounts of both sensory and cognitive aspects of consciousness. Part One of The Minds Construction argues that work in the ontology of mind that focuses on distinctions of temporal character has much to contribute to philosophical accounts of the phenomenology of various elements of sensory consciousness-e.g. the phenomenology of perceptual experience, bodily sensation, and perceptual imagination. Part Two argues that these ontological considerations can inform our understanding of conscious thinking, and the form of self-conscious consciousness that we have as subjects capable of engaging in such activity, by helping to account for and explain the respect in which agency is exercised in conscious thinking.
This in turn, it is argued, can illuminate the more general issue of the place and role of mental action in an account of the metaphysics of mind.
Acknowledgements ; Introduction ; PART I. SENSORY CONSCIOUSNESS ; 1. The Manifest Image of Sensory Consciousness ; 2. Occurrence, State, Content, and Character ; 3. The Phenomenology and Ontology of Bodily Sensation ; 4. Temporal Transparency and Perceptual Acquaintance ; 5. Structural Features of Perceptual Acquaintance ; 6. Conscious Contact with Time and the Continuity of Consciousness ; 7. Perceptual Imagination and Perceptual Recollection ; 8. Introspection and Knowing What its like ; PART II. CONSCIOUS THINKING ; 9. The Place of Mental Action in the Metaphysics of Mind ; 10. The Ontology of Conscious Thinking ; 11. The mind uses its own freedom: Suppositional Reasoning and Self-Critical Reflection ; 12. Mental Action, Autonomy, and the Perspective of Practical Reason ; 13. Intention-in-Action and the Epistemology of Mind ; 14. Reconsidering the Place of Mental action in the Metaphysics of Mind ; 15. Thinking and Belief ; References ; Index