ATTENDING TO ATTENTION
Rowan Williams
Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science September 14, 2023 DOI: 10.1111/zygo.12920 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 2 |
| Key points | Argues that attention is not a selective process operating on already-formed objects but a process of mutual negotiation in which the perceiving subject constitutes objects in the world. Proposes that this account connects to Simone Weil's concept of 'attente'—suspending the ego's preoccupations to become aware of an independent reality—and to early Christian teachings on attentive looking in the contemplative life. |
Abstract
Attention has often been seen as a selective process in which the mind chooses which already‐formed objects to focus on. However, as Merleau‐Ponty and others have pointed out, this ignores the complexity and ambiguity of sensory information and imposes on it a set of already‐formed objects in the world. Rather, attention is a process by which objects in the world are constituted by the perceiving subject. Attention thus involves a process of mutual negotiation with the environment. There are connections between this and the process of attente described by Simone Weil, in which the perceiving subject suspends the dominant preoccupations of the ego in order to become more aware of an independent reality. This, in turn, expresses in a more modern idiom what early Christian teachers had to say about the role of attentive looking in the contemplative life.