Mind's Construction: The Ontology of Mind and Mental Action

by Matthew Soteriou

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 Mind's 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.

Genres: Philosophy

398 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Alina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been a big fan of Brian O'Shaughnessy's work (The Will pt 1, The Will pt 2, Consciousness and the World.) It is thrilling to read a work that is inspired by O'Shaughnessy's most unique and important ideas, and builds upon those ideas in a way that is careful and systematic, connecting them to various debates in the philosophy of mind and action. Soteriou shows that there are certain basic assumptions most contemporary philosophers of mind make, which lead to confusion in a range of issues, including understanding the nature of perception v. hallucination, practical knowledge, and knowledge of our own epistemic states. It seems like other philosophers simply aren't turned onto the issues that Soteriou treats, but many of their theories and claims depend upon these issues! I dearly wish I had read him earlier on; Soteriou's work is bound to influence my methodology and perspective in thinking about the mind, and if I had read him earlier, perhaps I could've been more clear-minded about various topics that I've been attending to.

As a whole, Soteriou is quite difficult to read. His writing is extremely detailed, reliant upon formal/theoretical vocabulary, and examples are sparse. I will summarize some of his ideas below, but this is a sketchy summary. I want to reread certain chapters of this book some time, and get a better grasp of his key ideas and arguments. (My favorite chapters are 2, 4, 8, 10, 12, and my summary below draws most on these chapters. But I think the book as a whole, all 15 chapters, are important and worthwhile to read. They visit different topics, but it is surprisingly coherent and systematic; a topic that seems unrelated to another in fact is, where the analysis of one topic leads us to a certain framework of understanding a mental phenomenon, which is wholly applicable to another topic).

Let me spell out these issues, these assumptions that haven't been adequately noticed, let alone examined and settled straight. First, there is the distinction between mental states and mental episodes/events/processes. A mental state obtains over time; it stays in the same form over its duration, namely in the form whose description is used to individuate the state. In contrast, a mental process occurs over time; it progresses, where changes at points along this trajectory are continuous. Take an analogy: a moon face may be described as a state of the moon cycle (e.g., the state of a crescent moon), or it may be described as a manifestation of the process of the waxing and waning of the moon. This distinction is powerful for addressing numerous debates. Let's start with one. William James claimed that conscious thought occurs as a "stream of consciousness." But that is not strictly true. Perceptual or sensory aspects of mind unfold continuously, as mental processes, as a stream. But not propositional or conceptual aspects of mind. Why is that? Consider that while it takes time to utter a proposition, the utterance itself (whether as inner speech or outer speech) is an activity or process (my friend utters "capybaras are cute"), but the proposition itself, which is uttered, fails to obtain given the words holding at any individual moment over the duration the utterance takes. All moments of the duration need to taken as a collective, as a necessary condition for that proposition to obtain.

Let us see how this distinction between mental state v. process can help us make progress in certain debates. There's a debate in philosophy of perception of whether representational properties of perceptual experience supervene on phenomenal properties of experience. The underlying assumption of this debate is that what matters is settling the nature of properties of a state . Soteriou proposes that the relationship isn't merely one of supervenience, but is more intimate; we can see this only once we distinguish between the processes v. states that pertain to perceptual experience, so that we can investigate the relationships between them. Rather than supervenience, there's an explanatory circularity; we can't specify the nature of a representational state without appeal to a phenomenal state, and vice versa. So certain philosophers who argue that we can't sufficiently characterize a perceptual state by citing functional or representational features are onto something; we can only understand those features by citing phenomenal features. Soteriou offers his "interdependence thesis" perception involves mental processes, and when one occurs, we have psychological properties that couldn't be had otherwise; moreover, the nature of the process can be understood only in terms of a psychological state, which in turn, can be specified in terms of a kind of event whose existence depends upon the mental process.

Soteriou's account of mental ontological distinctions helps us progress on another debate, that between disjunctivist v. phenomenalist theories of perception. The former holds that veridical perception and hallucination that's introspectively indistinguishable from perception are of different mental types, whereas the latter holds that these are of the same type. Soteriou offers a disjunctivist theory. When we perceive the world, we're in a phenomenally conscious state, which depends upon a relation of perceptual acquaintance. The nature of this state must be partially specified in terms of this relation. There are states whose obtaining requires that certain events/processes occur, while that state holds. So these states obtain over the period of time over which these processes unfold. The state is thus constitutive dependent upon these processes. Soteriou proposes that perceptual states should be understood as involving a state of being aware of the perceptual processes which constitute that state. This means that hallucinations can never have the same conscious character as a perception. Hallucinations don't involve any perceptual relation to the world.

The best argument against disjunctivist theories of perception is perhaps the causal argument. It starts with the claim that the most immediate cause of perceptual experience is the occurrence of sense data. Sense data is the same between hallucinatory and veridical perceptual experiences. So the two sorts of experiences are of the same overall kind. If one wants to say that perceptual experience is distinct, one would have to posit "spooky" causal contributions from temporally distant causal factors, namely from the objects of the world, to which we stand in a perceptual acquaintance relation.

Soteriou offers an ingenious argument against this, on the basis of challenging its implicit assumptions about the epistemic status of introspection. There's an assumption that it's possible to learn about the experience we've just had by first attending to the experience and then determining its nature. The thought goes that in introspecting an experience, we're experiencing an experience, unlike experiencing the world in our initial experience. Soteriou challenges this. What's the difference between introspectively attending to an experience vs. perceptually attending to an object of experience? Perceptually attending happens over time, but introspective knowledge doesn't happen over time but is a state. Introspection doesn't give us an experience of an experience at all. It's rather a sort of cognitive awareness, which paves the way for judgment, about what we're undergoing.

In contrast to introspection, we can have knowledge of our experiences without judging in any sense, or having concepts about experience. There is a nonconceptual kind of self-knowledge that may be identified with the state of awareness, as an occurrent state that that is constituted by mental processes, like perceiving the world. So it holds only when we are in the moment of experiencing something; it is fleeting.

Soteriou goes further in this investigation into the nature of the "infallible" knowledge we can have of the contents of our own mental activities, which is non-conceptual and fleeting. It stems from mental agency or the nature of mental action. This phenomenon has been overlooked because contemporary philosophers in general believe that if any mental activity is to be considered agential, this is because it explains bodily behavior. This trend is a reaction to the Cartesian tradition, on which pure thought (e.g., the method of doubt, where we cannot challenge the fact that we are thinking, but we can challenge the status of apparent reality of all external or material things) is understood as possibly existing in a vacuum, independently of a body or a material world. Soteriou shows that Descartres was really onto something, with respect to the special place of mental agency, and a sort of "infallible" access we have to mental contents that result from our mental agency.

Soteriou argues that the heart of mental agency in deliberative reasoning and critical reflection upon an experience, according to Soteriou, is our capacity to impose certain constraints upon our thought. A paradigmatic instance of this is suppositional reasoning. In reasoning from a supposition, we take a proposition as true, even though we are aware that we do not know its truth value for certain. We use that as a premise for downstream reasoning. We ensure that our reasoning conforms to the supposed truth of that proposition. So we create our own constraints. The contents of our reasoning that flows from this may thus be regarded as a manifestation of our freedom, of the constraint that we had chosen.

Soteriou argues that in suppositional reasoning, when we draw an inference under the supposition, we do so under the awareness that this reinforces or acknowledges the supposed truth of the premise that we chose to suppose. In other words, we are aware of the constraint as self-imposed. This detail elaborates on the sense of freedom or agency we have.

Soteriou extends this picture to make sense of practical knowledge, or knowledge of what we are doing, when we are undertaking an intentional action. Anscombe started a tradition of philosophy of action, where a big question is how it is possible for us to know what we are doing, without having to reach for observational evidence for deducing this. Soteriou's solution is as follows: Once we've made a decision (just like supposing a certain truth), we act in ways downstream that realize that aim, and in acting, we are aware that what is happening is explained by the aim/goal that we have chosen, like a constraint that we've imposed on ourselves. So deciding isn't the same as planning; planning is more of a form of prediction and foreknowledge, whereas deciding is instigating mental/physical processes which are constrained by that which we've decided upon. A difference between action and suppositional reasoning is that in the latter, we "discharge" the supposition by concluding with a if-then statement, which exits the context of the reasoning had under that supposition. In contrast, when we act, we don't discharge anything. But we have a sense of success or lack of success, regarding the action we've decided to undertake. Because of this difference, we can suppose anything at all, without being irrational, whereas we cannot decide to do anything at all, without being irrational. To decide rationally, the action we aim to undertake must be feasible.

There are two, distinct epistemic perspectives we can take on our actions. On the one hand, we can, from "practical reason," believe that we are undertaking some action, and believe that the future is intrinsically open, so we can have conflicting beliefs about what we want to happen, without being irrational. On the other hand, we can, from "theoretical reason," predict what we will do, or what the future will behold.

Soteriou applies his analysis of practical knowledge to explaining how we know that we're imagining vs. remembering vs. reasoning (or any other sort of representational mental activity), when the contents of the mental activity seem to be just showing up to us. Usually, there is an intention to engage in some mental activity, and this intention serves as a self-imposed constraint, of which we are aware while engaged in the activity. Sometimes mental activities are totally automatic or spontaneous, without our intention, and in that case, we become aware of which activity is at hand given characteristics of particulars that are presented to consciousness.

Soteriou points out that most accounts of agency have an "ingredients approach": there is a bodily behavior, and if certain mental ingredients are also in place (e.g., belief, desire), then that behavior is agential, and counts as action. These mental ingredients, each on their own, may be conceived of as not necessarily agential. Soteriou has a wholly different approach. We should think of the mental will or agency as a basic force of the mind. Thinking, imagining, remembering, etc. that flows out from the mental will (that which is intentional) is intrinsically agential, in a way that perceptions, dream states, hallucinations, or other mental phenomena that are not. So if we make a decision in a dream, this is in fact a product of the imagination, and is not an actual decision, even if it seems so to us while dreaming. So if two agents had identical behaviors and mental states, one could be agential, and the other may fail to be so; it depends on whether their mental states flow from the mental will or not.

Here is a lingering thought. As I mentioned, Soteriou draws upon O'Shaughnessy. Both of them place emphasis on the idea that "dream-versions" of any conscious mental activity are not the same as those mental activities, but are just imaginations of engaging in those activities. Both of them explain this in this overall manner: wakeful consciousness has certain intrinsic powers, and one of them is "subtracted" or etiolated when we are in unusual states (e.g., daydreaming, extreme inebriation, mental pathology, dreaming in sleep): our mental agency. Our mental agency usually partially constitutes the "rationale" behind any mental episode; if we are aware of certain happenings in perception, or a certain inference in reasoning, for example, we can be so aware because as these mental events happen, they are partially determined by us, as agents, who could always step back or challenge what is ongoing, and so always implicitly endorse what does emerge as veridical or truthful.

Soteriou and O’Shaughnessy focus on a "negative" explanation, that mental capacities are disabled temporarily. But maybe there’s also positive details to be added, that when these capacities are all in play, desire and fear can mess with mental constraints - so it’s like daydreaming or lucid dreaming, where you’re still fully conscious, deliberate, determined, awake. This could perhaps better explain how wishful thinking and self-deception, or our getting ourselves into delusional worldviews over time, occur. We aren't disabled, but we desire or fear something to such a heightened degree that this influences our mental agency.

I also have generally been thinking about our experiences of artworks, as when we feel immersed in fictional worlds. I wonder whether this overall idea of Soteriou's/O'Shaughnessy's could be useful for making sense of such experience. Maybe when we "lose ourselves" in daydreaming and dreaming, this sense of losing ourselves, and the explanation for how this comes about, may be extended to those of our experiences of artworks. If that is the case, then this would help me make sense of how emotions may function while we experience artworks; unlike everyday life, where all mental agency functions as usual, we are partially "disabled" here, so it is possible for us to enter special sorts of states that simply aren't found in real life, like having emotions towards things that we believe don't exist. Or, in experiencing artworks, we can have a special relationship to the contents of the fictional world that isn't a matter of belief or disbelief. Things show up, and we lack the normal mental agency to assess them epistemically, perhaps, or to assess ourselves epistemically, to know whether we are perceiving v. imagining, for example.

Here's another thought. I wonder whether the sort of practical knowledge that obtains during action points to that there is non-conceptual apprehension of something nevertheless thoroughly "meaningful" - what the heck does that mean or look like though? Characterizing this seems as tricky as making sense of "affordances" (cf., J.J. Gibson). Maybe there isn't a real problem here, and my sense of there being a problem stems from an underlying assumption that all there is is either non-conceptual sensory content, and then propositional, conceptual content, as exhausting the possible types of "positive" presences found in conscious experience. Even if this isn't a real problem, on the alternative, we still face the issue of finding a way of characterizing this other sort of positive presence that is neither perceptual nor conceptual. (Is it possible that it has no positive presence, but it consists in just constraints that bind us when we have conceptual thoughts later, when we explicitly make sense of our experience, among our behaviors, emotions, and other expressions of our mentality?) I wonder whether progress can be made on this overall issue by contemplating practical knowledge more, rather than or in juxtaposition with "affordances." It's very interesting, moreover, to see the concept of practical knowledge extended to our knowledge/awareness of the type of mental activity that's at play, when we have some representational sort of mental state (e.g., imagination, memory, reasoning).