The Relationship Between Genius and Attention

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This chapter explores the concept of genius and its relationship with attention. It questions whether a person's genius makes them attentive or if their attention makes them geniuses. The chapter also delves into the idea of sustained attention and how acquired knowledge and conceptual machinery can facilitate it.

David and Tamler are back for the new year and one of our resolutions was to do more episodes on William James. Today we talk about his account of ‘Attention’ from his 1890 volume The Principles of Psychology – another remarkably prescient chapter that still feels more than relevant today. What is attention and how does it function in the mind? What accounts for the different ways that we attend to things? Does attention help to shape or construct our reality? What is attention’s connection to the will? Does James anticipate predictive coding theory?

Plus we discuss the removal of the head of a renowned university for reasons that have nothing to do with the mission of higher learning.

Episode Links

Chancellor of University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Fired [nbc.com]

William James chapter on Attention from Principles of Psychology (1890) [yorku.ca]