A Reductive Account of Mindfulness as Metacognitive Control
Review of Philosophy and Psychology February 3, 2025 DOI: 10.1007/s13164-025-00767-y (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Meditation Philosophy of mind |
| Keywords | Metacognition Philosophy of science Neurochemistry Control management Epistemology Cognitive science Cognitive psychology Psychotherapist Metaphysics Artificial intelligence Neurology |
| Key points | Proposes that mindfulness involves a distinct form of metacognitive control based on metacognitive goals, which is necessary but not sufficient for mindfulness and can be reduced to other psychological capacities. |
Abstract
Abstract Mindfulness is a large research field, involving disciplines such as philosophy, cognitive psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, and Buddhist studies. Despite this widespread interest, one question remains unanswered: Is there a psychological capacity that is essential to mindfulness and which demarcates mindfulness from most other mental activities? The most promising idea is that mindfulness is a special form of metacognitive control. Yet, I argue that current proposals on how to conceptualize such metacognitive control fail. Instead, I propose a novel account of the metacognitive control of mindfulness, drawing on the idea of so-called metacognitive goals. This account allows us to make sense of the explicit self-awareness and self-regulation involved in mindfulness and to separate mindfulness from exercises of more ordinary cognitive control. According to this account, metacognitive control is only a necessary and not a sufficient condition for mindfulness. Finally, I argue that the account motivates two theses on the nature of mindfulness, namely that we can reduce the metacognitive control of mindfulness to other psychological capacities and that this control is a form of mental action.