books — The Brains Blog

Structures of the Mind

Yesterday, I suggested that we need a theory of attention that gives attention a central place in the mind and serves as a unified framework that integrates different approaches to attention, both in philosophy and in the empirical sciences. Today, I will sketch the priority structure framework and give some …

Now Featured

John Schwenkler January 15, 2018 January 29, 2018 books

We are grateful to Sebastian Watzl for blogging this week on Structuring Mind: The Nature of Attention and How it Shapes Consciousness (Oxford, 2017). To view all his posts on a single page, please click here.

Who needs a theory of attention?

Sebastian Watzl January 15, 2018 January 15, 2018 Action / Attention / Consciousness / metaphysics of mind / Philosophy of Mind / Psychology / Sebastian Watzl: Structuring Mind

Let me tell you about my friend Jayden: these days, Jayden gives a lot of her attention to community work. Jayden has always paid attention to what matters morally over anything else. Her attention somehow just tends to be drawn to the suffering of others. Her own achievements, by contrast, …

The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher

Mark Couch December 14, 2017 December 14, 2017 books / Philosophy of Science

I am writing to inform readers of Brains about a recent volume titled The Philosophy of Philip Kitcher. Kitcher’s work has been influential in many areas of philosophy. This volume surveys a range of Kitcher’s work, by a well-known group of contributors. Subjects covered include philosophy of science, philosophy of …

Is Well-being a Number?

Anna Alexandrova December 11, 2017 December 11, 2017 Anna Alexandrova: A Philosophy for the Science of Well-Being / Ethics / Philosophy of Science

Suppose you agreed with me that the science of well-being should strive to be value-apt, that mid-level theories is the way to provide value-aptness, and that all of this is compatible with scientific objectivity. Even so, you could still remain a skeptic about the very possibility of such a science. …

Can the science of well-being be value free?

Anna Alexandrova December 7, 2017 December 7, 2017 Anna Alexandrova: A Philosophy for the Science of Well-Being / Ethics / Philosophy of Science

Here’s an attitude I sometimes encounter among scientists: “It is not my job as a scientist to figure out what true well-being is and to choose my constructs accordingly. My job is to study empirical relations between people’s subjective experiences and various factors, such as personality traits, behavior, socioeconomic …

What to expect when you are theorising well-being?

Anna Alexandrova December 5, 2017 December 5, 2017 Anna Alexandrova: A Philosophy for the Science of Well-Being / Ethics / Philosophy of Science

Different people expect different things from theories of well-being. Some expect that they systematise in a maximally general way intuitions about goods that constitute well-being, others that they states most important causes of well-being, still others that they help them to lead a good life. I for one ask that …