Process, Action, and ExperienceRowland Stout There has been a philosophical upheaval recently in our understanding of the metaphysics of the mind. The philosophy of mind and action has traditionally treated its subject matter as consisting of states and events, and completely ignored the category of ongoing process. So the mental things that happen - experiences and actions - have been taken to be completed events and not ongoing processes. But events by their very nature as completed wholes are never present to the agent or subject; only ongoing processes can be present to a subject in the way required for conscious experience and practical self-knowledge. This suggests that a proper understanding of processes is required to understand subjective experience and agency. This volume explores the possibility and advantages of taking processes to be the subject matter of the philosophy of mind and action. The central defining feature of the process argument is its use of the progressive (as opposed to perfective) aspect. But beyond this, philosophers working on the metaphysics of processes do not agree. The contributors to this volume take up this argument in the metaphysics of processes. Are processes continuants? Are they particulars at all, or should we rather be thinking of process activity as a kind of stuff? Process, Action, and Experience considers whether practical reasoning and practical self-knowledge require thinking of action in process terms, and it considers arguments for the processive nature of conscious experience. |
Contents
Processes Activities and Actions | |
Processes as Patterns of Occurrence | |
Processes as Continuants and Process as Stuff | |
Experience Process Continuity and Boundary | |
Occurrent States | |
What Is a Process? Modes of Occurrence and Forms | |
The Process of Inference | |
The Progress of the Deed | |
Praxeology Imperatives and Shifts of View | |
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Common terms and phrases
achievement activity agent analogy Anscombe Anscombe’s argument Aristotle Aristotle’s aspectual ballistic action belief category of occurrent causal claim completed events conception concrete consciousness continuants countable crossing the road Davidson describe distinction dynamics elementary imperatives elliptical trainer endorsement entail entities example exist experience experiential explanandum explanans explanation explanatory extended intervals fact Galton and Mizoguchi going gold Goldberg Variations happening homeomerous homogeneous idea implementing intentions inference inferential instant intentional action Jennifer Hornsby kind linguistic mass nouns mental metaphysical Mourelatos naive rationalization notion object omelet one’s ongoing processes open process Oxford particular pattern perception perdurant perfective aspect phase Philosophical Theory philosophy of action philosophy of mind praxeological predications process ontology progressive aspect properties question realization relation relevant running Seibt sense sentence Soteriou spatial specific specious present Steward Stout stuff suggest things Thompson University Press Vendler verb walking wholly present