Publications [#320139] of Felipe De Brigard

Papers Published

1. de Brigard, F (2010). Consciousness, attention and commonsense. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 17(9-10), 189-201.
   (last updated on 2025/04/11)

   Abstract:
   In a recent paper, Christopher Mole (2008) argued in favour of the view that, according to our commonsense psychology, while consciousness is necessary for attention, attention isn't necessary for consciousness. In this paper I offer an argument against this view. More precisely, I offer an argument against the claim that, according to our commonsense psychology, consciousness is necessary for attention. However, I don't claim it follows from this argument that commonsense has it the other way around, viz. that consciousness isn't necessary for attention. Instead, I want to motivate the claim that there isn't such a thing as the view of commonsense psychology about the relation between attention and consciousness. I argue that people's use of these terms - and, presumably, of their corresponding concepts - seems to be context dependent. I conclude with a discussion of the possible implications of this claim for the empirical study of attention and consciousness. © Imprint Academic 2010.