ABSTRACT
Approaches to the mind we have considered thus far are “realist” incharacter. All assume that minds and their contents are real featuresof the world standing alongside tables, stones, and electrons. It is possible, however, to regard minds as constructs. To ascribe thoughts to agents, on such a conception, would be like ascribing a latitude and longitude to a place on the surface of the Earth. We should err in imagining that latitudes and longitudes are kinds of entity, however, components of the world resembling rivers, canyons, and mountain ranges. A child looking at a globe who mistakes the equator for a feature on the Earth’s surface would be confusing a characteristic of our descriptive apparatus for a characteristic of the planet.
