Sense and Action

Sense and Action develops a systematic account of the way sensory systems like thirst, hunger, sleep drive, itch, pain, and thermoreception drive and influence human action, a topic hitherto lacking in sustained philosophical examination. These are all sensory systems, with complex, dedicated receptor networks that keep track of bodily and environmental features. They are also strongly motivating: they play an essential role in initiating, sustaining, influencing, and terminating our actions, which is (up to a point) subject to top-down cognitive control. Such systems play an outsized role in our daily actions, but their motivating functions remain poorly understood.

Matthew Fulkerson argues that we should stop trying to understand these systems individually on a case-by-case basis, and instead we should adopt a more multisensory perspective wherein these systems function as an interacting group rather than as individual routes of influence. On this view, we should understand them as working together in forming the motivational layer, a psychological stage in which sensory systems engage in competitive exchange for control over a limited set of core motivational tools. The book combines ideas about multisensory interaction, sensory affect, and psychological integration in service of providing a novel, sustained account of the way our fundamental sensory systems drive and guide action.