Intention, Gestalt, Attention

Merleau-Ponty agrees with not only Sartre, but with the other main post-Husserlians, Heidegger and Jaspers as well, that Consciousness has a fundamental 'Gestalt' character. That is, the object of Consciousness is always a figure on a ground, i. e. it is given as not an isolated thing, but as a thing within a world. But, if so, then the Intentional formula, that Consciousness is always Consciousness of an object, is inadequate, because, on the face of it, it abstracts from the environing context in which an object appears. In contrast, the object of Attention is always a focal center with a vaguer periphery. Now, Husserl argues that since Consciousness can be inattentive, Attention is only a special case of Intention. However, on the Gestalt model, inattention is correlative with attention, as are, analogously, ground and figure. In other words, inattentive Consciousness is an implicated dimension of Attention, not a negation of it, and, so, there is no distinct species of inattentive Consciousness. Hence, Husserl has no grounds for rejecting an Attentional theory of Consciousness, while the Intentional model is inadequate to the Gestalt structure of Consciousness, even if those post-Husserlians persist in affirming their loyalty to Intentionality.