Core Readings

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General Resource for Philosophy

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is an excellent resource that provides authoritative encyclopedia-style entries for a wide range of topics in philosophy.

 

https://plato.stanford.edu/index.html
 

The Philosophy of Attention

For a very good overview of philosophical treatments of attention, see Chris Mole’s entry on Attention in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
 

Mole, C. (2021). “Attention.” In E. N. Zalta & U. Nodelmen (eds.,) , The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (winter 2021 edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2021/entries/attention/.  

 

For a book-length overview of attention, see:

 

Wu, W. (2014). Attention. Routledge.

 

For a book-length academic discussion of attention and defense of his own philosophical theory of attention (and source of much inspiration for the material on this website), see:

 

Watzl, S. (2017). Structuring mind: The nature of attention and how it shapes consciousness. Oxford University Press.  

 

A shorter version of the theory presented in the book can be found in this article:

 

Watzl, S. (2023). What attention is. The priority structure account. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 14(1), e1632. https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wcs.1632.

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The Ethics of Attention

For an accessible academic article that discusses the ethics of attention, see:

 

Watzl, S. . (2022). The ethics of attention: An argument and a framework. In S. Archer, (ed.), Salience: A philosophical inquiry, (pp.89-112). Routledge.
 

Moral Philosophy

For a short and accessible introduction to moral philosophy, including deontology, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics, see:

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Rachels, J. (2014). The Elements of Moral Philosophy. McGraw-Hill.

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The Stanford Encyclopedia also has more in-depth and academic entries on central moral theories.

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Popular Books

Philosopher and former Google employee James Williams’s Stand out of our light takes up issues about human freedom in the face of digital distraction.
 

Williams, J. (2018). Stand out of our light: Freedom and resistance in the attention economy. Cambridge University Press.
 

Legal scholar Tim Wu’s The Attention Merchants traces the history of the commodification of attention, from the penny press to online platforms.

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Wu, T. (2017). The attention merchants: The epic scramble to get inside our heads. Vintage.

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Academic (Philosophy) Articles of Interest

For a discussion of the ethical issues surrounding the commodification of attention, see:

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Castro, C., & Pham, A. K. (2020). Is the attention economy noxious?. Philosophers' Imprint, 20(17), 1-13.

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For a philosophical discussion of echo chambers and filter bubbles, see:
 

Nguyen, C. T. (2020). Echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. Episteme, 17(2), 141-161.

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For an account of the way that inequalities in attention can lead to epistemic injustice, see: 
 

Smith, L., & Archer, A. (2020). Epistemic injustice and the attention economy. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 23(5), 777-795.

 

For a discussion of the effects of celebrity on the power to influence public attention (and ethical issues associated with this power), see: 
 

Archer, A., Cawston, A., Matheson, B., & Geuskens, M. (2020). Celebrity, democracy, and epistemic power. Perspectives on Politics, 18(1), 27-42.

 

And finally, for a discussion of the role of journalism in setting the agenda in democratic societies, see:
 

Siegel, S. (2022). Salience Principles for Democracy. In S. Archer, (ed.), Salience: A philosophical inquiry, (pp.235-266). Routledge.

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