Cristiano Vidali

Among the research that nowadays deals with the impact of digital technologies on attention, little is concerned with problematizing the theoretical premises about the nature of this cognitive faculty. Hence, even highly credited studies on digital distraction draw their conclusions from underexamined models of attention, despite them not being the only ones available. In our article we intend to focus on this problem, starting by discussing two case studies in the field of cognitive psychology and trying to show their theoretical shortcomings when compared with an alternative model of attention. We will thus explore the account that a contemporary phenomenologist, Paul Sven Arvidson, has provided of attention and distraction. Finally, we will try to question the conclusions of the empirical studies by reframing them within Arvidson’s model, suggesting the importance of sharpening the definition of attention and distraction as preliminary work for investigating how the digital relates to them.

In the vast landscape of Edmund Husserl’s investigations, the theme of attention has long been neglected: the dispersal of his treatment of the topic across works from various years, the use of a diversified lexicon, and an intrinsic difficulty in identifying the attentional phenomenon itself have all contributed to the long-standing underestimation of this theme. Following a line of study that – especially after the publication of volume XXXVIII of the Husserliana (Wahrnehmung und Aufmerksamkeit) – has renewed interest in this topic, this article aims to contribute to the historical as well as theoretical reconstruction of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology of attention. In particular, we will focus on the contribution of a figure who had a crucial impact on Husserl’s development and the framing of the phenomenological method itself, namely Carl Stumpf, concentrating especially on the engagement that the father of phenomenology had with him, starting from the treatment of attention through the concept of interest. This debate will be reconstructed from the examination of (1) part of the Göttingen Lectures of 1904-05, explicitly dedicated to attention; (2) a very early but theoretically significant Husserlian manuscript, “Noten zur Lehre von Aufmerksamkeit und Interesse” (1893); and (3) Stumpf’s own work, particularly Tonpsychologie, where the interpretation of attention as “Lust am Bemerken” is formulated and with which Husserl engages in a rigorous critical dialogue. On the basis of this confrontation, we will highlight from an original perspective Husserl’s significant debt to the psychology of the time, from which he not only borrowed certain themes and a general interest in the simplest levels of experience, but also the basic outlines of notions that would serve as the foundation for the development of some crucial concepts of transcendental phenomenology such as that of intentionality. Moreover, it is through the examination of attention that the profound continuity of Husserl’s reflection becomes apparent, evidenced by the extraordinarily early emergence of crucial and typical notions of his later phase (known as “genetic phenomenology”) during these formative years, even before the phenomenological method was fully developed.

The compatibility between the phenomenological method and the subject of the unconscious has long been called into question, not only by external critics but also by authors whose theoretical background had been shaped precisely by their confrontation with Husserl’s phenomenology. To date, the evolution of Husserlian philology, on the one hand, has notably softened such stance, testifying to how the father of phenomenology himself directly and repeatedly grappled with this problem. On the other hand, however, there seem to be intrinsic aspects to the notion of phenomenology as such that would lead to underestimate its potential, outright excluding concepts or entire realms of experience, such as that gathered under the title of the unconscious. In this article, we intend to revisit certain moments in Husserl's work from which it becomes clear that not only is phenomenology capable of addressing the problem of the unconscious, but above all it proves to be particularly effective in accounting for it, providing important methodological indications for its analytical framing. In the concluding section, we will finally touch upon some possible avenues for a phenomenological investigation of the unconscious, differentiated by the assumption of distinct exemplary phenomena as guiding thread (Leitfaden) of the analysis.

Jean-Paul Sartre is often portrayed as a philosopher whose ethics would inevitably have subjectivist or relativist outcomes. Yet, even in Sartre’s early works there are several stances that blatantly belie this image, relying rather on an objectivist conception of value that he notably draws from Max Scheler. The aim of this paper is thus to investigate the influence of Scheler’s moral reflection on Sartre, arguing how it can represent an original and fruitful starting point to approach Sartrean ethics. To this aim, we will first report on and discuss some passages from Sartre’s early works where this debt is most noticeable. Then, we will provide an overview of the Schelerean legacy, arguing how it represents for Sartre the very opening of the ethical issue addressable in phenomenological terms, avoiding the dead end of Hume’s and Kant’s more classical positions, while at the same time being consistent with other peculiar themes of Sartrean philosophy, namely existence and historicity.

Among the research that nowadays deals with the impact of digital technologies on attention, little is concerned with problematizing the theoretical premises about the nature of this cognitive faculty. Hence, even highly credited studies on digital distraction draw their conclusions from underexamined models of attention, despite them not being the only ones available. In our article we intend to focus on this problem, starting by discussing two case studies in the field of cognitive psychology and trying to show their theoretical shortcomings when compared with an alternative model of attention. We will thus explore the account that a contemporary phenomenologist, Paul Sven Arvidson, has provided of attention and distraction. Finally, we will try to question the conclusions of the empirical studies by reframing them within Arvidson’s model, suggesting the importance of sharpening the definition of attention and distraction as preliminary work for investigating how the digital relates to them.