Recent debates frequently refer to artificially intelligent systems as agents, sometimes referencing their capacity for attention. Yet, the self-determination associated with agency requires a form of attention that is not yet present in artificial systems. It is thus worth asking how these artificial systems achieve the results they do. In this paper we explore the role of attention in artificial intelligence and argue that we should understand these systems as collective agents comprising the software developers, creators of training data, and users. Given this new understanding of artificial intelligence, we suggest a novel method for regulating these technologies: a corporate law approach. By treating artificially intelligent systems as corporate subcontractors, we can better protect both users and the broader public.

In popular imagination creativity requires us to surrender control. Yet, attention is at the heart of control, and many studies show attention to play a key role in the creative process. This is partly due to the selective nature of attention—creative cognition consists of two phases, idea generation and idea evaluation, and selective processes are essential for both phases. Here, we investigate attentional (i.e., selective) mechanisms underlying each phase, using the framework of two major attention taxonomies: top-down/bottom-up and internal/external attention. We argue that creative cognition is supported by a dynamic interplay between the typically opposing sides of each taxonomy. Further, we argue that this dynamic relationship is reflected in interactions across three large-scale brain networks: the default mode (DMN), frontoparietal control (FPN), and salience (SN) networks. Our review of the evidence suggests that creative cognition is best achieved through the flexible use of multiple forms of attention, rather than through reduced attention. We thus propose a two-dimensional space, including one dimension for top-down/bottom-up attention and another for internal/external attention, which can sufficiently capture the flexibility and diversity of attentional mechanisms underlying different stages and components of creative cognition.

Pessoa envisions an approach to neuroscience that treats the brain as an “interactionally complex system”: a system that cannot be understood through analysis and manipulation of its parts. I provide reason to support Pessoa's overall approach while putting pressure on some of the specific claims.

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.

This chapter provides an overview of the structure and content of this textbook to help situate the reader. It discusses the unique collaborative project, including a general introduction to the fields of philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience, as well as some basic neuroanatomy. perhaps the oldest academic discipline, philosophy is devoted to the study of a wide range of phenomena using a wide range of methods, including formal logic, ethics, and phenomenology. A broad multidisciplinary field that seeks to study cognition from a variety of perspectives, using a multiplicity of research methods and experimental paradigms. Narrowly understood, neuroscience studies the workings of the neural system. As an interdisciplinary field, it utilizes research from biology, medicine, chemistry, computational science, math, physics, and psychology. A philosophical approach that seeks to explain all aspects of reality, especially phenomena studied by the sciences, purely in terms of naturally occurring objects, properties, and relations.

In recent years, the “science of science” has combined computational methods with novel data sources to understand the dynamics of research communities. Many of the questions investigated by science of science are also relevant to academic philosophy. To what extent can the discipline be divided into subfields with different methods and topics? How are prestige and credit distributed across the discipline? And how do these factors interact with other factors, such as gender, to shape job market outcomes? Using job market data for anglophone academic philosophy, this paper finds, first, evidence that is consistent with the analytic- continental divide but is also consistent with other, more complex ways of organizing academic philosophy into distinct intellectual traditions; second, a clear prestige hierarchy, dividing Ph.D. programs into two distinct prestige categories; and, third, evidence that gender, prestige, and country have notable effects on academic job market outcomes for recent philosophy Ph.Ds.

Doctoral graduates in philosophy are an excellent source of information about the discipline: they are at the cutting edge of research trends, have an inside view of research-focused departments, and their employment prospects provide early insights on the future health of the discipline. This report details the results of a survey sent in 2021 to recent Ph.D. graduates and current students, as well as data-gathering efforts by Academic Placement Data and Analysis that have taken place over the past ten years. The report especially focuses on demographic representation, program ratings, academic job placement, and nonacademic careers.

In Explaining Attitudes, Baker argues that we should treat our everyday practices as relevant to metaphysical debates, resulting in a stance of realism with respect to intentional explanations. In this chapter I will argue that if one is going to be a practical realist about anything, it should be about the self, or the subject of attention. I will use research on attention combined with the stance of practical realism to argue in favor of a substantive self. That is, I will present an account of the self that directs and controls attention, in line with our everyday view of the self. I will contrast this account with what I call the “illusion view,” which presents the self and its apparent causal power in the case of attention as an illusion. My account of the self will make use of several of Baker's ideas, including non-reductive materialism and broad supervenience.

A Correction to this paper has been published:

Peak human performance—whether of Olympic athletes, Nobel prize winners, or you cooking the best dish you’ve ever made—depends on skill. Skill is at the heart of what it means to excel. Yet, the fixity of skilled behavior can sometimes make it seem a lower-level activity, more akin to the movements of an invertebrate or a machine. Peak performance in elite athletes is often described, for example, as “automatic” by those athletes: “The most frequent response from participants (eight athletes and one coach) when describing the execution of a peak performance was the automatic execution of performance” (Anderson et al. 2014). While the automaticity of skilled behavior is widely acknowledged, some worry that too much automaticity in skill would challenge its ability to exhibit human excellence. And so two camps have developed: those who focus on the automaticity of skilled behavior, the “habitualists,” and those who focus on the higher-level cognition behind peak performance, the “intellectualists.” We take a different tack. We argue that skilled behavior weaves together automaticity and higher-level cognition, which we call “pluralism.” That is, we argue that automaticity and higher-level cognition are both normal features of skilled behavior that benefit skilled behavior. This view is hinted at in other quotes about automaticity in skill—while expert gamers describe themselves as “playing with” automaticity (Taylor and Elam 2018), expert musicians are said to balance automaticity with creativity through performance cues: “Performance cues allow the musician to attend to some aspects of the performance while allowing others to be executed automatically” (Chaffin and Logan 2006). We describe in this paper three ways that higher-level cognition and automaticity are woven together. The first two, level pluralism and synchronic pluralism, are described in other papers, albeit under different cover. We take our contribution to be both distinguishing the three forms and contributing the third, diachronic pluralism. In fact, we find that diachronic pluralism presents the strongest case against habitualism and intellectualism, especially when considered through the example of strategic automaticity. In each case of pluralism, we use research on the presence or absence of attention (e.g., in mind wandering) to explore the presence or absence of higher-level cognition in skilled behavior.

Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchVolume 101, Issue 2 p. 475-480 Symposium Too much attention, too little self Carolyn Dicey Jennings, Corresponding Author Carolyn Dicey Jennings cjennings3@ucmerced.edu University of California, Merced Correspondence Carolyn Dicey Jennings, University of California, Merced. Email: cjennings3@ucmerced.eduSearch for more papers by this author Carolyn Dicey Jennings, Corresponding Author Carolyn Dicey Jennings cjennings3@ucmerced.edu University of California, Merced Correspondence Carolyn Dicey Jennings, University of California, Merced. Email: cjennings3@ucmerced.eduSearch for more papers by this author First published: 16 October 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.12721Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume101, Issue2September 2020Pages 475-480 RelatedInformation

Discovering the natural basis of consciousness is a central concern of philosophy and cognitive science, and thus whether attention is necessary for consciousness is the hottest topic in research on attention. While in the previous chapter I argued that attention is necessary for conscious perception, I argue in this chapter that it is not necessary for other forms of consciousness, such as "conscious entrainment," which occurs during habitual behavior. I make this case by looking at the phenomenology of conscious entrainment and the science of habitual behavior. Before making this argument I set aside previous reasoning in favor of consciousness without attention, such as arguments for imagistic content, perceptual gist, and phenomenal consciousness. Often these positions are set against the "global workspace theory"—the theory that attention is necessary to bring otherwise unconscious stimuli into the global workspace that is consciousness. Conscious entrainment calls on us to reject this way of thinking about consciousness, and I provide a different "interface" conception: consciousness is one aspect of the relationship between a subject and its world.