Thought in Action

Expertise and the Conscious Mind

Barbara Gail Montero

An original approach to an everyday puzzle about thinking and doing
Overturns received opinion about the role of the conscious mind in performance
Draws on empirical psychology and interviews with athletes, performers in music and the other arts, chess players, writers, nurses, doctors, financiers, military personnel, and others
Lively and amusing--written to be enjoyed by philosophers and non-philosophers alike

Thought in Action

Expertise and the Conscious Mind

Barbara Gail Montero

Description

How does thinking affect doing? There is a widely held view--both in academia and in the popular press--that thinking about what you are doing, as you are doing it, hinders performance. Once you have acquired the ability to putt a golf ball, play an arpeggio on the piano, or parallel-park, it is believed that reflecting on your actions leads to inaccuracies, blunders, and sometimes even utter paralysis. Experts, accordingly, don't need to try to do it; they just do it. But is this true? After exploring some of the contemporary and historical manifestations of the idea that highly accomplished skills are automatic and effortless, Barbara Gail Montero develops a theory of expertise that emphasizes the role of the conscious mind in expert action. Along the way, she dispels various mythical accounts of experts who proceed without any understanding of what guides their action and analyzes research in both philosophy and psychology that is taken to show that conscious control impedes well practiced skills. She also explores real-life examples of optimal performance--culled from sports, the performing arts, chess, nursing, medicine, the military and elsewhere--and draws from psychology, neuroscience, and literature to create a picture of expertise according to which expert action generally is and ought to be thoughtful, effortful, and reflective.

Thought in Action

Expertise and the Conscious Mind

Barbara Gail Montero

Introduction: What Can a Philosopher Tell you about Expertise?
1. 'Don't think, dear; just do' and Other Manifestations of the Just-do-it Principle
2. Just-Do-It versus Cognition-in-Action
3. What is an Expert?
4. Does Thinking Interfere with Doing?
5. Thinking Fast
6. Continuous Improvement
7. You Can't Try Too Hard
8. Effortlessness with Effort
9. The Pleasure of Movement and the Awareness of the Self
10. The Aesthetic Experience of Expert Movement
11. Intuition, Rationality, and Chess Expertise
12. Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll, and the Meaning of Life
Bibliography

Thought in Action

Expertise and the Conscious Mind

Barbara Gail Montero

Author Information

Barbara Gail Montero (B.A. University of California at Berkeley, Ph.D. University of Chicago) is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York. She has been awarded research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Her work focuses on one or the other of two different notions of body: body as the physical or material basis of everything, and body as the moving, breathing, flesh and blood instrument that we use when we run, walk, or dance. Before entering academia, she was a professional ballet dancer.

Thought in Action

Expertise and the Conscious Mind

Barbara Gail Montero

Reviews and Awards

"Barbara Montero's book, Thought in Action: Expertise and the Conscious Mind, is a welcome investigation into expertise and the role of cognition in its expression." -- Wayne Wu, Australasian Journal of Philosophy

"Thought in Action is convincing in its overall argument that philosophers and psychologists are mistaken when they denigrate the usefulness of conscious thought to optimal expert performance. And it also provides a detailed discussion of kinds of expert performance -- in dance, athletics, music, medicine, and chess -- that will be of interest to those who work in philosophy of mind and psychology, aesthetics, and action theory, whatever their concern with this overall thesis." -- Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Online

"Barbara Gail Montero's Thought in Action: Expertise and the Conscious Mind is a substantial contribution to our philosophical understanding of expertise, skill, and indeed the relationship between mind and body generally. Her views on expertise may well represent the next stage in the evolution of this concept. In what seems like a sea of contrary views of skilled practice and proficiency, Montero swims gracefully against the tide of much stubborn technical and popular punditry according to which expertise is unmindful if not outright mindless. Both students and experts-in Montero's sense or any other-should find this book amply rewarding." -- Metapsychology Online Reviews

"This is an impressive book with ramifications that go far beyond aesthetics...Those who are interested in how arts performers perform expertly must read this book. It is groundbreaking, and it will change your lives since even if you do not agree you will have to deal with it." --Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

Thought in Action

Expertise and the Conscious Mind

Barbara Gail Montero

From Our Blog

How fast can you think?

A call comes through to the triage desk of a large hospital in the New York City metropolitan area: a pregnant woman with multiple abdominal gunshot wounds is due to arrive in three minutes. Activating a trauma alert, the head nurse on duty, Denise, requests intubation, scans, anesthesia, surgery, and, due to the special circumstances, sonography and labor and delivery. How is it possible to think about so much so quickly?

Posted on August 6, 2016

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