Abstract

Aim of this paper is a comparison between Husserl’s account of intentionality and consciousness and Searle’s one, particularly concerning their essential relationship. While Husserl insists on the autonomy of both terms and their irreducibility to the ontological region of natural world, Searle turns his efforts to reconcile this feature with the possibility of explaining it within a naturalistic worldview. After discussing Searle’s objections against phenomenology and its method, I try to demonstrate that Searle’s naturalism is not consistent even in his moderate version. Instead of this I prefer to rehabilitate a “classical” account of intentionality like Husserl’s one, since it provides a more sophisticated ontological framework and is therefore more able to take into account the normative dimension of subjectivity and personal identity.