Abstract

This chapter has two goals. The first is to address what is, perhaps, the primary difficulty for the sensory-based account of reflection developed in this book. This is the challenge of explaining _why_ reflection should be sensory based. Given that there are amodal attitudes (as most people believe), why is the mind nevertheless organized in such a way that those attitudes cannot enter into reflection directly? Why can they only operate behind the scenes, directing and manipulating the sensory-based contents of working memory? This chapter's answer to this challenge is an evolutionary one. Evolution is always constrained by pre-existing structures. The chapter suggests that sensory-based attentional and working-memory systems are an ancient adaptation, placing constraints on later evolutionary developments. This will require a review of some of the evidence of working-memory abilities in nonhuman animals.