philosophy bites: Patricia Churchland on Self Control

Patricia Churchland, Neurophilosopher

Podcast of interview with neurophilosopher Patricia Churchland on the topic of self control: philosophy bites: Patricia Churchland on Self Control:

Willpower is Not a Finite Resource | IdeaFeed | Big Think

Willpower is Not a Finite Resource | IdeaFeed | Big Think

Backsliding: Understanding Weakness of Will // Reviews // Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // University of Notre Dame

Backsliding: Understanding Weakness of Will // Reviews // Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews // University of Notre Dame

How's your willpower? Take our survey and find out - 03 February 2012 - New Scientist

How's your willpower? Take our survey and find out - 03 February 2012 - New Scientist

William James on willpower

William James

From William James's The Principles of Psychology (1890):

As a final practical maxim, relative to these habits of the will, we may, then, offer something like this: Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. Asceticism of this sort is like the insurance which a man pays on his house and goods. The tax does him no good at the time, and possibly may never bring him a return. But if the fire does come, his having paid it will be his salvation from ruin. So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.