Book Club Potluck - Attention and Mental Control

Karl will host our discussion of Attention and Mental Control
by Carolyn Dicey Jennings, part of the Elements in Philosophy of Mind (18 books) by Cambridge. Karl suggested this book.

Mental control refers to the ability to control our own minds. Its primary expression, attention has become a popular topic for philosophers in the past few decades, generating the need for a primer on the concept. It is related to self-control, which typically refers to the maintenance of preferred behavior in the face of temptation. While a distinct concept, criticisms of self-control can also be applied to mental control, such as that it implies the existence of an unscientific homunculus-like agent or is not a natural kind. Yet, as this Element suggests, a scientifically-grounded account of mental control remains possible. The Element is organized into five main sections, which cover the concept of mental control, the relationship between mental control and attention, the phenomena of meditation and mind-wandering, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and emergence-based accounts of mental control, including an original account by the author.

If you would like to host one of our events and you have a book in mind, please let me, Karl Kiefer, or Mark Hopkins know, and we will create a Meetup event for your book, assuming your suggested title qualifies as a book on philosophy in our view. Our criteria are somewhat vague, but let's just say that we are not interested in books on the supernatural. We are interested in books that you might find in a syllabus for a college philosophy course. You can always email me at camkruger@gmail.com if you have questions and/or suggestions.

As always, it's essential that everyone who comes to the meeting reads the book in its entirety and brings something for the potluck.

Happy reading!