Abstract
What is the unique relation of special ownership, R, that exists between mental-occurrence instances and the one who is their subject, P? R is not a simple matter of P's mental-occurrence instances occurring in P's body and P's directly taking them to be P's own. The question about R is an ontological question, not a phenomenological question, but David Woodruff Smith's phenomenology is useful in providing a lead regarding what R is. The “species content” of a mental-occurrence instance, which includes sensuous or qualitative content, acquaints P with the large mental-physiological process of which the mental-occurrence instance is a product and part. P is constituted, ultimately, of such recurrent mental-physiological processes, which produce and include as a small part the mental-occurrence instances that Smith's phenomenology addresses. Under some conditions, these large processes produce and include “alienated” mental-occurrence instances. Although P stands to them, too, in the R relation, P has inner awareness of them as though P were someone else—not as though P were internally apprehending someone else's mental-occurrence instances. Also, knowing of their occurrence, P may separately judge them not to be P's experiences.
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