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.