Abstract
AbstractThis chapter explores the theory that the distinctive awareness that subjects have of their own mental actions is a form of action-awareness. Subjects' awareness of their own mental actions is a species of the same genus that also includes the distinctive awareness of bodily actions. The chapter begins by articulating some distinctive features of bodily action-awareness and then characterizing the range of mental actions. It argues that all of these distinctive features of action-awareness in the bodily case are present also for mental actions. It considers some of the attractions and consequences of the Principal Hypothesis; to draw upon it in an account of our understanding of our own and others' mental actions, in a way that accords with the role of reference and identity in understanding discussed in earlier chapters of this book; to apply it in the characterization of some pathological states; and finally to consider some aspects of its significance for the nature of first-person thought and rationality.
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