Michael Quinn

Recent philosophical work on attention has probed what attention is in general, what collective attention is, and the ethics specifically of the latter, e.g., when it is virtuous, and how one might accordingly apportion praise or blame. An unexplored topic in this realm, though, is the importance of empowering non-academics to be able to draw on ideas developed in the academic debate in their reflection on the ethics of collective attention. This gap is evidenced by calls to explore how harmful collective attentional patterns of wider societal groups can be addressed. As such, there are identified problems with the way that society, or groups therein, collectively attends. I argue that having non-academics being able to access the ethics of collective attention puts them in a better position to address these problems (i.e., to identify and evaluate harmful patterns of collective attention) as part of a collective. However, having non-academics engage in the ethics of attention, even individual attention, is difficult. The topic of _collective_ attention is highly conceptual and philosophically contested. Moreover, as the academic philosophical literature on collective attention has developed, it only offers limited, if any, access for non-academics to engage with such ideas. I refer to this as the accessibility problem. I demonstrate that the accessibility problem can be overcome by engaging with film, specifically _The Zone of Interest_, allowing non-academics to reflect on the ethics of, and thus address the problems related to, collective attention.

Given the increased use of technology in and out of schools, and that such technologies deliberately attract and arrest the attention of their users, students learning about how attention is considered philosophically becomes significant. As such, attention, as a topic of philosophical interest at secondary school level, is a worthy philosophical inquiry for contemporary students. However, given that defining attention is contested, with significantly varying perspectives, teaching these articulations simultaneously can prove difficult. I argue that using film, by capitalising on student interaction and interpretations, can address this challenge. Through this pedagogical approach, students are encouraged to reflect on what they believe is important about defining attention by exploring the common features of different articulations of attention, focusing on its moral and economic components. I identify two pedagogical aims: i) engaging with film to learn about different articulations of attention, and ii) to have students explore their own definition(s) of attention. Two films, 'Ex Machina' (Garland 2014) and 'Her' (Jonze 2013), are shown to be helpful for illuminating attention and are used to demonstrate alternative perspectives on how attending is variously conceived. Highlighting the contrasts between the two films therefore becomes significant in encouraging exploratory thought and problem-solving possible contradictions in defining attention.

This paper presents a case for engaging with fictional narratives to teach philosophical concepts, specifically exploring Christopher Nolan’s Memento to teach concepts related to Andy Clark and David Chalmers’ ‘The Extended Mind Thesis’ (EMT). I contrast a ‘theoretical’ approach to teaching EMT—i.e. teaching these concepts by engaging directly with Clark and Chalmers’ text—with an alternative that has students engage with the film. I argue this alternative is preferable in overcoming three barriers to learning that plague the theoretical approach: language, theoretical background, and passivity. I describe how EMT concepts could be taught without engaging with the film, but suggest that if one were to adopt this approach that the concepts would be limited in terms of how they relate to students, their accessibility, and what they ask of them. I argue that interacting with EMT concepts through Memento offers some distinct benefits when compared with the theoretical approach as it is better able to address the three barriers, offers a wider capacity for independent exploration, and catalyses emotional and intellectual interest by capitalizing on students’ knowledge and their appreciation of narratives. I gather my conclusions based on the two different approaches to learning EMT concepts before suggesting what further avenues could be explored in learning about related philosophical concepts through fiction. I argue that engaging with fictional narratives offers wider and longer lasting benefits, encouraging students to be more self-reliant and exploratory as they continue to learn philosophical concepts both during and upon completion of their studies.

Recently there has been a call to deploy AI technologies in secondary education. An accompanying worry is that if students became overly reliant on LLMs, they would become cognitively deskilled - and this would be an impediment to the growth of their cognitive character. One pedagogical approach aiming to offset this worry consists of teaching students how to critically evaluate the outputs of LLMs while they are using them – the Use-First Critical Thinking approach (UFCT). We argue that UFCT alone cannot assuage this worry insofar as it misses an important, prior step in equipping students with the skills to be aware of, and reflect upon, by what lights decisions whether to delegate tasks to LLMs are appropriate. We propose an alternative pedagogical approach involving film, specifically Memento, which allows students to identify delegative choice points and what (in)appropriate delegation looks like.