Structuring Mind

The Nature of Attention and how it Shapes Consciousness

Sebastian Watzl

An original account of attention and how it structures the mind
Draws together philosophical work on action, perception, and consciousness with the findings of psychology and neuroscience

Structuring Mind

The Nature of Attention and how it Shapes Consciousness

Sebastian Watzl

Description

What is attention? How does attention shape consciousness? In an approach that engages with foundational topics in the philosophy of mind, the theory of action, psychology, and the neurosciences this book provides a unified and comprehensive answer to both questions. Sebastian Watzl shows that attention is a central structural feature of the mind. The first half of the book provides an account of the nature of attention. Attention is prioritizing, it consists in regulating priority structures. Attention is not another element of the mind, but constituted by structures that organize, integrate, and coordinate the parts of our mind. Attention thus integrates the perceptual and intellectual, the cognitive and motivational, and the epistemic and practical. The second half of the book concerns the relationship between attention and consciousness. Watzl argues that attentional structure shapes consciousness into what is central and what is peripheral. The center-periphery structure of consciousness cannot be reduced to the structure of how the world appears to the subject. What it is like for us thus goes beyond the way the world appears to us. On this basis, a new view of consciousness is offered. In each conscious experience we actively take a stance on the world we appear to encounter. It is in this sense that our conscious experience is our subjective perspective.

Structuring Mind

The Nature of Attention and how it Shapes Consciousness

Sebastian Watzl

Introduction
Part I. What is attention?
1. Beyond Brain Mechanisms
2. Attending
3. Activities
4. Priority Structures
5. The What and Why of Priority Structures
6. Psychological Salience
7. Executive Control
Part II. Attention and Consciousness
8. Beyond Appearances
9. Phenomenal Structure
10. Phenomenal Salience
11. Awareness of Attending
12. Necessity and Sufficiency
13. The Perspectivity Picture

Structuring Mind

The Nature of Attention and how it Shapes Consciousness

Sebastian Watzl

Author Information

Sebastian Watzl, Associate Professor, University of Oslo

Sebastian Watzl holds an MA in biology from Humboldt University (Berlin), and a PhD in philosophy from Columbia University (New York). After postdoctorates at Harvard's Mind-Brain-Behavior Interfaculty Inititative (MBB) and the University of Oslo's Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature (CSMN), he is now Associate Professor in philosophy at the University of Oslo. Sebastian has published on many aspects of attention, perception, and consciousness, and is currently leading 'Thought and Sense', a research project on the relationship between perception and cognition.

Structuring Mind

The Nature of Attention and how it Shapes Consciousness

Sebastian Watzl

Reviews and Awards

"What is attention? What is its role in consciousness? Watzl's book answers these questions with a simple idea: Attention structures the mind. The idea is fleshed out in this ambitious two-part work, the first providing a metaphysics of attention as an activity of ordering the mind in terms of priority, the second providing a conception of attention as organizing consciousness by centering the conscious field. Watzl has thought deeply about these issues, and the results are carefully explicated in this compelling and complex book. It provides the most comprehensive philosophical discussion of the functional and phenomenal aspects of attention currently available in monograph form." -- Wayne Wu, Mind

"On my reading, Watzl's book stands out from recent books in the field thanks to his engagement with broader work in philosophy. While interdisciplinary, his book is also deeply "inter-sub-disciplinary" (to use a hefty term from Ralph Wedgwood). Watzl makes informed and insightful use of work from not just cognitive science and the philosophy of mind, but also metaphysics, ontology, the philosophy of action, and the philosophy of language. Further, he engages with work outside the analytic tradition in Western philosophy, including Sartre, Husserl, and the Husserlian Gurwitsch... Watzl's unifying and systematic approach stands out for its ambition." -- Nicholas Silins, Notre Dame Philosophical Review

"This book is a welcome contribution to a better understanding of the matter; not only because of the specific data and insights it gathers, but even more for the common assumptions it questions from the available literature. ... Watzl provides a rigorous philosophical analysis that professionals from various disciplines may find useful as well. ... the topic itself, the information available and the approach to the problem will be appreciated by researchers, clinicians and people from a general philosophical background."--Aline Maya Paredes, Metapsychology Online Reviews

Structuring Mind

The Nature of Attention and how it Shapes Consciousness

Sebastian Watzl

From Our Blog

Attention, or how to organize the mind

Sometimes our mind is a mess. Thoughts and experiences pile up, and our mind flips from one thing to another: I need to buy milk, I have an important meeting tomorrow, and, no, the bills have still not been paid; it's my friends birthday, the face of that person reminds me of someone I met in college, and the advertisement blaring from the loudspeakers tells me that a new shampoo will change my life.

Posted on July 22, 2017

Read the blog post