metonymy4u

The supposition that certain types of behavior necessarily precede and therefore cause other types of behavior is a commonly encountered hypothesis of the “post hoc” variety. I find this metaphor to be neither accurate nor useful. I frequently notice that I have emitted a behavior long before I become aware of any process called “thought” or “thinking.” The notion that our behaviors are caused by our thoughts, or by “intentionality,” and that therefore we need to learn to control them in order to be “good,” “virtuous,” “useful,” or “skilful” (a common metaphor of the neo-Platonic-Abrahamic tradition) is nothing more than the age old search for the authority of thought over behavior, a veritable hegemony of “mind.”