Things

Abstract

Two issues from the previous chapter require attention in this one. First, and perhaps most obvious about the previous chapter, was the defense of a Cartesian theory of mind. Second, and nearly as obvious, was the handwaving when it came to ⌜space⌝, ⌜time⌝, and ⌜object⌝. In this chapter, the gap on these three key concepts will be partially filled in, and in a manner consistent with a Cartesian account. Actually, the aim is not so much to provide a Cartesian account of acquiring and possessing these concepts (for reasons to be explained, an account cannot yet be provided), but more weakly, to show that present scientific accounts of these concepts are compatible with Cartesianism. Thus, this chapter is not itself so much a contribution to this empirical research as it is a meditation on it in light of the Internalist/Externalist debate. The handwaving concerning these three key concepts is closely tied to my handwaving concerning an even larger issue. These three key concepts are the concepts we employ in moving from a concept of the proto-not-self to a concept of the not-self as a world populated by many individual things. And I suggested in the last chapter that this move from ⌜proto-not-self⌝ to ⌜not-self⌝ involves aspectualizing phenomenal information that is available to the infant's apperception. However, the only plausible account – in fact the only account – I gave of how this sort of early aspectualization of phenomena might work was from our having no acquired concepts to our conceiving of the two sides of the protoself/proto-not-self distinction.