Attentionality, Intentionality, Corporeality

Attention entails a Gestalt structuring, because it distinguishes, within a phenomenal manifold, one zone of data from the rest. In contrast, to produce a figure-ground differentiation from Intentional premises, Sartre needs recourse to two negations--a 'radical' one that reveals the In-itself in general, and a 'present' one, which selects a 'this' from the general revelation. So, while both an Attentional and an Intentional scheme can explain Gestalt structures, the former would seem to do so more elegantly. Nevertheless, Sartre is committed to the latter, surely at least in part because his project of reducing all modes of Consciousness to negation demands it. But, subscription to Attentionality would, furthermore, disrupt the project in another respect--Attention incorporates an irreducible corporeal dimension. As is most clearly evident in visual experience, Attention seems impossible without keeping one's eyes open and directed towards its object, not moving one's head, etc. So, in an Attentional model of Consciousness, a For-itself is no more than a configuration of an In-itself, e. g. a 'fold', and not the radically negating upsurge from the latter that is central to Sartre's project. More generally, Attention is problematic for any theory of Consciousness that has previous commitments, wittingly or otherwise, to Cartesian dualism.