Publication
Title
Is there such a thing as joint attention to the past?
Author
Abstract
Joint attention is recognised by many philosophers and psychologists as a fundamental cornerstone of our engagement with one another and the world around us. The most familiar paradigm of joint attention is joint perceptual-specifically visual-attention to an object in the present environment. However, some recent discussions have focused on a potentially different form of joint attention: namely, 'joint reminiscing' conversations in which two or more people discuss something in the past which they both remember. These exchanges are in some ways comparable to joint perceptual attention to something present, and have been characterised by some as a form of joint attention to the past. In this paper, I will assess the prospects for characterising joint reminiscing as a genuine form of joint attention to the past, as understood on the model of joint perceptual attention to something present. My conclusions will be tentative, and my primary aim will be to explore how different commitments regarding the nature of both joint attention and episodic memory give rise to different possibilities for characterising joint reminiscing as a distinctive form of collective engagement with the past. I will suggest that joint reminiscing is unlike ordinary joint attention at least insofar as joint reminiscing trades on the participants' mutual recognition of one another as having been present at an earlier experience. This is connected with joint reminiscing's social function, and its role in facilitating the special kind of relationship conveyed by the idea of knowing a person.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Topoi : an international review of philosophy. - Dordrecht
Publication
Dordrecht : Springer , 2024
ISSN
0167-7411 [print]
1572-8749 [online]
DOI
10.1007/S11245-024-10023-0
Volume/pages
43 :2 (2024) , p. 323-335
ISI
001199104700003
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Project info
Seeing things you don't see: Unifying the philosophy, psychology and neuroscience of multimodal mental imagery (STYDS).
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 02.05.2024
Last edited 26.06.2024
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