Abstract

I would like to give an account of the mental, the mind and the body. To begin, let us consider some of the differences between objects and activities. An object has spatial extension and can exist at an instant of time. Objects are considered to have properties whose spatio-temporal conjunction is commonly thought to define what the object is. No temporal extension seems to be necessary for the object to be what it is. The object can exist at an instant. Similarly, the object can remain through time what it is, without changing any of the properties commonly thought to be internal to it. In contrast, an activity does not have spatial extension at an instant, though the object performing the activity does. Yet the activity necessarily has temporal extension. There is no activity at an instant. As a consequent, the continuance of the activity through time requires continuance in the change that is the activity