Structuring Mind

The Nature of Attention and how it Shapes Consciousness

Bibliographic Data

ID23398343
AuthorsSebastian Watzl (0000-0002-1459-2276, corresponding author)
Year2017
Pages352
Publication date2017-03-23
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueStructuring Mind (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199658428.001.0001
OpenAlexW2606744185
Open LibraryOL28627697M
ISBN9780199658428
LanguageEN
Citations received108

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. It is not another element of the mind, but constituted by structures that organize, integrate, and coordinate the parts of our mind. It 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.

Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Consciousness · Epistemology · Political science · Structuring · Neuroscience, Education and Cognitive Function · Philosophy · Psychology · Attention

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