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ATTITUDE 41

object. As the experience unfolds temporally, appearances that manifest a

qualitative similarity with the presently affecting appearance are retainedin consciousness on the basis of theiraffinity with the present appearance

such that they continue to exercise an affective force on the subject and to

inform the subjects present sense of the experienced object. On a more

distant plane, experiences of the same or similar objects are awakened and

re-collected into the present such that their affective force is restored, and

these too contribute to the subjects present understanding of the object.

The retained and re-collected experiences ground determinate anticipations

about how the experience will continue to unfold.

These associative connections arise passively, that is, without anyexplicit relating of similar appearances on the part of the subject. More-

over, the recollection(Wiedererrinerung) involved in association must be

distinguished from memory (Erinnerung). The latter is directed to the

object as temporally past, whereas association re-calls prior experiences to

shape an experience that is d irected to the object as temporally present.

The same is true analogously for the difference between associative

anticipation of how the present object will unfold in a continued experi-

ence and the expectation of an object that is directed to the future. See also

PRIMAL IMPRESSION; PROTENTION; RETENTION.

ATTENTION. Attention is the act of directing ones conscious regard to an

abstract content, that is, a moment of an object. It is distinguished from

the presentation that grasps the object as a whole, say, the perception of

a material thing in space. Attention grasps not the pe rceived thing a s

such, but, for example, its color. Attention, which apprehends the moment

in its particularity, must be distinguished from abstraction , which is a

higher-order act that grasps the abstract content as a universal object.More generally, attention is the direction of ones consciousness to

somethinga part or an objectthat stands out in and against a wider

context. T he par t stands out in and against the context of the concre te

object of which it is a part, while the object stands out in and against the

context of other objects, and so forth.

ATTITUDE. An attitude for Husserl is a fixed style that a willing life adopts

toward the world , a style that m anifests the interests that this l ife

habitually seeks to satisfy and the ends it seeks to achieve. An attitudegoverns our stance toward the world, and it thereby determines certain

features of ourencounter with the world and the achievements, including

the cultural achievements, of a life lived in that attitude.

Several attitudes play important roles in Husserls philosophy. The

most fundamental is the natural primordial attitude in which the particular,