Philosophy as attentive gaze

Abstract

There is something unusual, even paradoxical, about the way that we look at the world around us: the utter ease of looking contrasts with the difficulty of performing the same act well. If there is light, we just open our eyes and the things around us appear. In contrast, we must pay attention to become aware of certain aspects of reality and, in particular, to perceive things in a different way. Simply seeing, mere visual perception, involves virtually no effort (hence, for example, the success of television and screens in general), but looking with care is harder: directing our gaze and concentrating on something involves an effort and can therefore be tiring. The attentive gaze is more uncommon than we might expect. What is it that attention adds to the gaze to transform it in such a significant way? Why does the effort of directing our attention imply much more than a simple zoom effect? Philosophical gaze and attentive gaze is the same thing.