Jacopo Pallagrosi (IUSS, Pavia)

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to investigate the epistemic role that attention plays in a peculiar form of introspection, namely introspective acquaintance-knowledge, i.e., a sui generis kind of knowledge of our phenomenally conscious mental states that is constituted by our immediate awareness of them. I will argue that attention plays a constitutive epistemic role in this process of knowledge acquisition. Moreover, I will try to show that analyzing the role played by attention sheds light on the very nature of introspective acquaintance-knowledge. I will thus explore a gradualist framework according to which there is a strong positive correlation between the attentional priority of a conscious state and the epistemic access that the subject has to it.