Review of Attention is Cognitive Unison: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology, by Christopher Mole: New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 224, US $49.95 (hardback).

As Mole’s book reminds us, attention was a central topic of interest for both
philosophers and psychologists at a time when the boundaries between the two
disciplines were not as clearly demarcated as they now are. Alexander Bain, William
James, F. H. Bradley and G. F. Stout, amongst others, all had things to say about
the nature of attention. But philosophy and psychology have had very different
attitudes to attention since they parted ways: while psychologists have made
attention one of their central targets, philosophers of mind have typically neglected
the topic.