Disjunctivism and the phenomenology of attention

Abstract

J. Campbell`s disjunctivist theory of perception is based on an outdated model of attention, which maintains that the focus of attention is analogous to the beam of a spotlight. Meanwhile, some studies challenge this view and suggests that attentional selection can be object-based. The narrow target of this article consists in clarifying what is at stake between attention-first and consciousness-first strategies. The latter assumes that one could explain what attention is by specifying how some proper subset of the conscious field comes to be foregrounded. Campbell who adopts it faces a serious challenge in explicating the phenomenon of unconscious attention.