This chapter argues that the human organism is not a mental agent capable of understanding, feeling, and knowing through the uses under the governance of the autonomic nervous system. The human organism is such an agent through the uses under the governance only of the central nervous system. The distinction is not to be made in terms of degrees of complexity, but rather in terms of the difference in the material of use, namely, sensory input, feedback, and imagery. Propositional attitudes of belief, desire, hope, fear, frustration, etc., are collections of dispositional state arrays whose typifying manifestations take the form of multifarious modes of use of various forms of sensation and imagery. Progress in the philosophy of mind has been impeded by poverty-stricken accounts of percepts and percept-like imagery, often enough due to the dead hands of Wittgenstein and Ryle.
Keywords: human organism, central nervous system, sensate materials, dispositions, dispositionality