This is my book. You can read it here. You can buy a copy of it here. Everyone knows that a print book is more romantic than reading something online.
The book is about natural kinds in perceptual psychology. Psychologists and philosophers tend to categorise bits of the mind into different faculties. This bit is vision. That bit is memory. That other bit is consciousness. And so on.
But how do we make these groupings? Are the groupings we use these days correct, or could they be improved? How does consciousness fit into the picture? The book deals with all these questions.
Along the way, it argues that vision is not a natural kind – the states we categorise as visual are actually a hodge-podge of different states, with little in common.
It argues that working memory is a natural kind. Appreciation of this fact sheds light on the relationship between working memory and consciousness.
It also argues that natural kinds can help us work out when consciousness emerges in early life.
Henry Taylor 