The life of the mind | Jessie Munton

On the one hand, we have that sense of really close identification with our minds. On the other hand, we're often surprised at the ways in which they operate.

About Jessie Munton "​​I'm an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. I'm also a fellow at St John's College, and Director of Studies for Philosophy there. My core areas of research are philosophy of mind, epistemology, and philosophy of psychology. I also enjoy thinking and writing about philosophy of psychiatry. I am a 2023 Philip Leverhulme Prize Winner. I've become increasingly interested in what I think of as negative epistemology: how do we evaluate ignorance, forgetting, or the failure to undertake inquiry or collect evidence? Some of my other research is in philosophy of perception."

Key Points • The mind feels deeply personal yet can generate beliefs and behaviors that escape rational control. • Perception justifies belief, but belief systems can fragment, allowing inconsistent or implicitly biased attitudes. • Selection of what we attend to, guided by both salience and goals, determines the evidence we gather and thus which beliefs count as justified. • Epistemology must assess attentional priorities as well as belief content, since information ordering shapes reasoning and moral outcomes.