| When theorists are engaged in the study of attention, they should not ask questions about "attention" simpliciter. They should instead always specify whether perceptual attention or what William James called "intellectual attention" is under discussion. James distinguished between the two varieties of attention with reference to their objects. He said that perceptual attention can be directed at "sensorial objects", by which he means "object that an agent is perceiving, or could be perceiving", and that intellectual attention can be directed at "ideal or represented objects" (James 1890 p. 416).;In this dissertation, I develop a sufficient condition for intellectual attention and put my sufficient condition to two philosophical uses. On my view, using information from a personal level cognitive representation of that object to guide the performance of some primary task is sufficient for intellectual attention to that object. My sufficient condition is motivated by the practice of scientists studying intellectual attention and is compatible with a pluralistic approach to the metaphysics of attention. I use this sufficient condition to argue that intellectual attention can alter cognitive consciousness, and to argue that intellectual attention is required to comprehend some singular terms. |
