Human Attention as a Philosophical Problem: The Question, and the Nature of Questions

Human attention has become a touchstone of widespread concern across the humanities, sciences, and broader culture in much of the world. The emergence of a new, heavily capitalized, and technologically sophisticated industry “commodifying” human attention (what has been called “human fracking”) has given rise to a transdisciplinary conversation about attentional problems. Philosophical analyses of attention take on special importance in the context of these new developments. Drawing on historical epistemology and the critical perspective of the history and philosophy of science, this paper examines the major positions in contemporary philosophy that have staked accounts of human attention. Ultimately, this metaphilosophical analysis juxtaposes analytic and Continental approaches, and contends that much current philosophical work on human attention fails to take adequate account of the sublated genealogy of instrumentalizing/cybernetic scientific practices that have constituted attention as an object of inquiry across the twentieth century. The implications for forward-looking investigations are considered.