The Folk Experience of Attention
- Philip Lorenzo
- 5 days ago
- 1 min read
"Everyone knows what attention is. [Attention] is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others (James, 1890, p. 204, my italics)."
Wu calls this... the Jamesian conception understood not as James's own considered view but as his conceptualization of the folk experience of attention. The core idea (in italics) is correct: attention is the subject selecting a target to deal with.