Abstract

Investigations into the relationship between attention and awareness appear to agree on one thing; the former is neither necessary nor sufficient for the latter. I argue that this might be a mistake. I look at a series of blindsight experiments, which conclude that attention occurs in the absence of awareness. By combining these cases with a widely accepted neurophysiological model of attention, I claim that the experiments are not nearly as compelling as they initially appear. I conclude by showing that this position potentially generalizes to cover other purported, non- pathological cases of dissociation between attention and awareness. This leaves rational space for the possibility that attention is both necessary and sufficient for consciousness, and thus of a ‘free explanatory trade-up' from a theory of the first to a theory of the second. This would constitute a significant step in solving the ‘easy' problem of consciousness.