Husserl: Intentionality, Misc

This essay examines how Husserl stretches the bounds of his philosophy of meaning, according to which all propositions are categorical, to account for existential propositions, which seem to lack predicates. I examine Husserl’s counterintuitive conclusion that an existential proposition does possess a predicate and I explore his endeavor to pinpoint what that predicate is. This goal is accomplished in three stages. First, I examine Husserl’s standard theory of predication and categorial intuition from his 1901 Logical Investigations. Second, I show how (...) Husserl imposes those 1901 insights to uncover the predicate of the existential proposition in unpublished manuscripts and lectures. He determines that the existential proposition predicates of the subject, that it corresponds to an actual object. This analysis reveals that Husserl’s descriptions of existential propositions from the late 1890s employed both static and genetic methodologies. In those texts, he carefully untangles and clarifies the co-enmeshed passive and active moments of consciousness and shows that the passive givenness of certain circumstances is the condition of possibility for our active verifying of propositions. Finally, I execute a critical assessment of Husserl’s thought to reveal that, while his insights about existential propositions are largely correct, they are augmented by re-construing them within the context of his mature philosophy. Only by renouncing his metaphysical neutrality and by accounting for intersubjectivity, can Husserl properly clarify existential propositions. (shrink)

Normative notions are central to Husserl’s account of intentionality: intending an object is a normative achievement, essentially admitting of fulfillment or disappointment. So is teleology: intentional conscious life is inseparable from a horizontal orientation toward “ideas in the Kantian sense.” How are they related? Is teleology essential for intentionality as a normative achievement? Or, in Husserl’s way of putting it, do relative truths “demand” ideal truths? This article explores some reasons for agreeing with Husserl that this is indeed the case. (...) In Sec. 2, I will identify a “normative turn” in Husserl’s account of the basic structure of perceptual intentionality and spell out the teleological character of this normative account. This sense of teleology is a minimal one. A more robust teleology, in the sense of an orientation toward infinite ideality, is then justified in Sec. 3 by virtue of its function in the constitution of genuine objectivity. In Sec. 4, I will turn to the noetic, especially the ego-oriented side of Husserl’s analysis, in order to clarify the normative force of infinite telos. All in all, I will argue that the normative and the teleological sides of the story are inextricably intertwined in Husserl’s account of intentional conscious life. (shrink)

This paper aims to reassess a notion in the works of the later Husserl that is both historically important and philosophically insightful, but remains understudied, namely, that of type. In opposition to a standard reading which treats Husserl’s type presentations as pre-conceptual habits, this paper argues that these representations are a specific kind of concept. More precisely, it shows that Husserl’s account of type presentations is akin to the contemporary prototype theory of concepts. This is historically important, since the predecessor (...) of the prototype theory is usually said to be Wittgenstein. From a philosophical standpoint, the paper shows that Husserl has an innovative account of the connection between type concepts and their extension. Contrary to the standard view of extensions as sets and thus sharp entities, Husserl develops a correlationalist theory of concepts, according to which, for the specific characteristics in the structure of a concept, there are corresponding characteristics in the arrangement of its members, and vice versa. According to this theory, while sharp concepts lead to sharp extensions, vague concepts such as (proto)type concepts lead to vague extensions. The paper presents this understanding of Husserl in detail and explains its philosophical significance. (shrink)

Esta contribución presenta como el concepto filosófico de “donación” es reinterpretado en la reflexión de Patočka. Partiendo de la lección husserliana, gracias a la cual las cosas son dadas en la pura inmanencia de la consciencia, él critica esta orientación “subjetivista” porque no desarrolla adecuadamente el tema del aparecer en el campo fenomenal. La segunda sección analiza tres desplazamientos metódicos que abarcan: el rol del sujeto, su relación con la trascendencia, el darse a sí mismo del mundo en su totalidad. (...) La tercera sección compara la reflexión de Patočka con dos referencias cruzadas a algunos intentos similares en la historia de la fenomenología. El tema de “la donación”, por tanto, nos traslada al mayor problema con el que ha trabajado siempre la filosofía: la manifestación del mundo. Patočka intentó esclarecer este problema mediante dos metáforas, pero también subrayó cómo concierne el modo en el que el hombreinterpreta la propia existencia.This paper presents how the philosophical key concept of givenness is reinter-preted in Patočka's reflection. Starting from the Husserlian idea, according to which things are given in the pure immanence of consciousness, Patočka criticized this "subjectivist" orientation because it doesn’t adequately develop the appearing in the phenomenal field. The second section analyzes three main methodical shifts concerning: the nature and the role of the subject, its relationship with the transcendence, the self-giving of the world as a whole. The third section compares Patočka's reflection and two cross-references to similar undertaking in the history of phenomenology. The theme of givenness brings us back in the end to the biggest problem within which philosophy has always worked: world manifestation. Patočka tried to clarify this issue through two metaphors, but he also highlighted as it concerns the way in which man interprets his existence. (shrink)

This paper accomplishes three goals. First, the essay demonstrates that Edmund Husserl’s theory of meaning consciousness from his 1901 Logical Investigations is internally inconsistent and falls apart upon closer inspection. I show that Husserl, in 1901, describes non-intuitive meaning consciousness as a direct parallel or as a ‘mirror’ of intuitive consciousness. He claims that non-intuitive meaning acts, like intuitions, have substance and represent their objects. I reveal that, by defining meaning acts in this way, Husserl cannot account for our experiences (...) of countersensical, absurd, or impossible meanings. Second, I examine how Husserl came to recognize this 1901 mistake in his 1913/14 Revisions to the Sixth Logical Investigation. I discuss how he accordingly reformulates his understanding of non-intuitive meaning acts from the ground up in those Revisions, where this also allows for him to properly account for the experience of impossible meanings. Instead of describing them as mirrors of intuitions, Husserl takes non-intuitive meaning acts to be modifications of intuitions, where they have no substance and do not represent their objects. Finally, in the conclusion to this essay, I demonstrate how this fundamental change to his understanding of meaning consciousness forced Husserl to revise other central tenets of his philosophy, such that the trajectory of his thought can only be properly understood in light of these revisions to his theory of non-intuitive meaning consciousness. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article demonstrates why Husserl struggled to understand the conditions of possibility of false memory, and how only the genetic dimension of his phenomenology enabled him to conceive of a specifically mnemic form of falsehood. For a false memory to deceive us, we must trust that it is true, but in order to have a phenomenology of its falsehood, the memory must appear as false. Husserl’s theory of false memory responds to both of these demands by showing how distorting (...) syntheses conceal themselves, without making it impossible to discover their distorting effects. Key to meeting these two demands is Husserl’s account of how the unconscious functions as the “untrue” basis of memory, and how all recollections require affective, associative syntheses between present conscious experience and past unconscious experience, syntheses that are subject to many vicissitudes. (shrink)

En el presente artículo analizo la lectura que hace Dorion Cairns, probablemente el más cercano de los seguidores de Husserl, del libro de Ideen y pondré de relieve las críticas que mi maestro le hizo a lo que Husserl había considerado una especie de manual de su filosofía fenomenológica. Lo que sigue es un resumen del seminario de 1964, dedicado a las Ideas. Siguiendo la estructura del libro, Cairns hace las siguientes observaciones: consideraciones sobre la comprensión adecuada del título del (...) libro, reflexiones de Cairns sobre la relación entre la fenomenología trascendental y la psicología empírica y la relación entre lo eidético y lo trascendental. En tercer lugar, abordaré lo que probablemente sea la mayor diferencia entre la fenomenología de Cairns y las Ideas de Husserl, esto es, la importancia de la “preconstitución”, un rico sustrato de los actos o acciones humanas, la cual desemboca en una critiqua de la noción de la intencionalidad presente en Ideas, como objetivadora. Cairns rechaza también la distinción hyle/ morphé y la sustituye por una más fundamental, la de sentir y sensa. También considera los aspectos fundamentales del tiempo. En cuanto a la tercera parte de Ideas, Cairns pone de relieve algunas dificultadaes a la hora de clasificar los actos. Otro aspecto de la lectura de Ideas es la insistencia en analizar los componentes subjetivos o irracionales en la teoría de la práxis, valores y conocimiento.In this paper I shall analyse Dorion Cairns´s, arguably Husserl´s closest follower, reading of the Ideen and I will emphasize criticisms that my teacher had of what Husserl considered a sort of manual for his phenomenological philosophy. What follows is a summary of the seminar from 1964, devoted to the Ideas. Following the structure of the book, Cairns points out the following remarks: concerns about the proper understanding of the very title of the work, Cairn´s consideration of the relation of transcendental phenomenology to empirical psychology and the relation of the eidetic and the transcendental. In the third place, probably the biggest difference between Cairn´s phenomenology and Husserl´s Ideas, that is, the importance of the “preconstitution”, a rich substratum of human act or actions. This emphasis amounts to the critique of intentionality in Ideen as objectivating. Cairns also rejects the hylē/morphē distinction and substitutes it by a more fundamental one of sensing and sensa. He also considers some fundamental aspects of time. As to the third part of the Ideas, Cairns points out some difficulties in classification of acts. Other aspect of Cairn’s reading of Ideen is the insistence on analysing the subjective or irrational components in the theory of praxis, values and knowledge. (shrink)

This article tries to examine Husserl's theory of signification and reference, while presenting a content-oriented view of theory of intentionality and proposing the theory of the ideality of meaning, and thus explores the relation between Being and consciousness under the category of "objectivity" in logical investigation; Because the relationship between Being and consciousness must be sought at the intersection of theory of intentionality and objectivity. This intersection can be proposed in the truth condition of the objectivity of meaning, which acts (...) as the decisive result of Husserl's theory of signification and reference; to this reason, after presenting Husserl's critique of Brentano's causal theory of intentionality, this paper introduces a adverbial reading of theory of intentionality which is Husserl's specific theory of intentionality in logical investigation. According to this theory, the subject always pays attention to the object from his perspective, and this is called the perspectival subjectivity, which is the intrinsic characteristic of the subject. We will then show that the theory of the ideality of meaning is the result of the threefold structure of Husserl's intentionality and the content-oriented view of intentionality. Contrary to the claim of this theory that its true and inherent characteristic is intentionally its phenomenological aspect, the theory of reference and its corresponding meaning cannot satisfy the condition of the objectivity of meaning; Thus, theory of intentionality is based on an inadequate content-oriented attitude. (shrink)

In this paper I draw on Husserl's early analysis of the frustration of an intentional act to argue against orthodox transcendental idealism, the claim that our acts of cognition can be mistaken with regard to a "matter," and are therefore objective, but this matter only has conceptual structure by virtue of human activity. For example, the proposition "My coffee cup is red" can be true or false depending on the sensations I receive (the matter of the act of cognition), which (...) are independent of my will, but it is only by virtue of my own conceptualizing activity (the form or "structure" of the act of cognition) that there exists an object which is my coffee cup and is red, as opposed to this bare sensation of redness. I will argue against this view; Objects have both matter and conceptual structure independent of the actual fact of human cognition. Our acts of cognition can be mistaken with regard to matter insofar as subsequent intentional acts give the same object as having a different, contradictory matter, in which case our earlier act is "frustrated." This contradictory matter, in order to contradict the earlier matter, which was itself a property predicated to the object insofar as it has a certain conceptual structure, must itself belong to the object insofar as it has the same conceptual structure. (shrink)

The paper presents a phenomenological approach to recent debates in the philosophy of language about rule-following and the normativity of meaning, a debate that can be traced to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations but that was given new life with Saul Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. Taking a cue from Hannah Ginsborg’s recent work on “primitive normativity,” I use some of Husserl’s own comments about meaning and the status of rules to sketch a solution to Kripke’s rule-following paradox by (...) appealing to a kind of normativity at the level of perception and intersubjective embodiment. This level of normativity arises, like Ginsborg’s, via a primitive kind of judgment that does not presuppose linguistic or conceptual mastery. Unlike for Ginsborg, however, for Husserl this level should still be understood in terms of meaning—just not in the standard linguistic or conceptual senses prominent in the Anglo-American philosophical tradition in which the rule-following debates have occurred. My interpretation thus also demonstrates how Husserl’s account bypasses certain presuppositions about meaning common in the period of the linguistic turn—presuppositions also questioned, in different ways, by Wittgenstein, by Kripke, and by Ginsborg. (shrink)

Responding to the myth of a purely sensuous “given”, we turn to phenomenology, to the structure of consciousness in an everyday perception of an everyday object. We first consider Brentano’s model of an act of consciousness: featuring the presentation of an object “intentionally” contained “in” the act, joined by the presentation of that object-presentation in “inner consciousness”. We then dig into Husserl’s intricate “semantic” theory of intentionality: featuring “noematic” meaning within a “horizon” of implicated meaning regarding the object of perceptual (...) consciousness. Brentanian inner consciousness morphs into “inner time consciousness” for Husserl, where noematic sense shapes more basic sensory elements of temporal experience. Drawing on these Brentanian and Husserlian analyses, we develop an enhanced account of how an object is “given” in perceptual acquaintance or “intuition”: by virtue of a structure of meaning entertained in the experience. This account we develop further in a “modal” model of the structure of consciousness in everyday perception: distinguishing fundamental factors of phenomenal intentional experience, including inner awareness, phenomenality, and spatiotemporal awareness. Within this model, we specify how the external object of perception is “constituted” in consciousness by virtue of ideal meaning, all within the real world wherein an intentional relation of acquaintance links the perceptual experience with its object. What is “given” in a familiar type of perceptual acquaintance turns out to be quite complex, embracing: the object perceived, the visual experience, its subject, the spatiotemporal context including consciousness and object, and the manifold of meaning shaping the “constitution” of the given object. Where we refer to historical figures, including Husserl, the aim is theoretical rather than exegetical, seeking to develop a contemporary theory of “the given” with roots in classical philosophical views. The resulting theory develops in a series of explorations of increasing complexity in the phenomenology and attendant ontology of “the given”. (shrink)

Husserl desarrolla un enfoque genético que busca dar cuenta del origen de las formas lógico-categoriales a partir de las correspondientes preestructuraciones situadas en el nivel de la receptividad sensible. Para un enfoque de ese tipo, la explicación del origen de las modalidades del juicio, en general, y la negación, en particular, plantea peculiares desafíos. El presente trabajo discute el modo en el que Husserl trata la negación, en tanto forma básica de la modalidad, tanto en el enfoque estático de Ideen (...) I como en el enfoque genético de Erfahrung und Urteil. A fin de poner de relieve el al-cance histórico y sistemático de la concepción husserliana, se proporciona previamente una presentación general de su contexto polémico inmediato. Este viene dado por la oposición entre psicologismo y formalismo, dominante en la filosofía de la lógica alemana de fines del siglo XIX y comienzos del siglo XX.Husserl develops a genetic approach that seeks to account for the origin of the logical-categorical forms starting from the corresponding pre-structures located at the level of sensitive receptivity. For such an approach, the explanation of the origin of the modalities of judgment, in general, and negation, in particular, poses peculiar challenges. This paper discusses how Husserl treats negation as a basic form of modality, both in the static approach of Ideen I and the genetic approach of Erfahrung und Urteil. Previously, in order to highlight the historical and systematic significance of the Husserlian conception, a general presentation of its immediate polemic context is offered, especially with reference to the opposition between psychologism and formalism, dominant in the German philosophy of logic of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. (shrink)

This paper shows that Husserl is not guilty of Sellars’ myth of the sensory given. I firstly show that Husserl’s account of ‘sensations’ or ‘sense data’ seems to possess some of the attributes Sellars’ myth critiques. In response I show that, just as Sellars thinks that our ‘conceptual capacities’ afford us an awareness of a logical perceptual space that has a propositional structure, Husserl thinks that ‘acts of apprehension’ structure sensations to afford us perception that is similarly propositionally structured. Not (...) only this, but there is much affinity and shared motivation between Husserl and Sellars accounts of the sensory stratum. Reflection on phenomenological considerations prevents Sellars from denying phenomenal non-conceptual content, whilst Husserlian ‘sense data’ are technical designations; dependant parts of perceptual experience grasped in abstraction, necessary for providing a reflective/philosophical account of empirical knowledge. I show that both Husserl and Sellars assert that the proper description of phenomenal content affords it the function of presenting properties of spatial objects during perception, and reiterate the well-known fact that Husserl thinks that perception is of ‘conceptually’ apprehended spatiotemporal objects. (shrink)

This paper examines the evolution of Husserl’s philosophy of nonintuitive intentions. The analysis has two stages. First, I expose a mistake in Husserl’s account of non-intuitive acts from his 1901 Logical Investigations. I demonstrate that Husserl employs the term “signitive” too broadly, as he concludes that all non-intuitive acts are signitive. He states that not only meaning acts, but also the contiguity intentions of perception are signitive acts. Second, I show how Husserl, in his 1913/14 Revisions to the Sixth Logical (...) Investigation, amends his 1901 theory of non-intuitive acts, which he now calls “empty” intentions. He there accurately distinguishes empty meaning acts from the empty intentions of perception. In the conclusion, I reveal how Husserl’s alterations to his theory of non-intuitive intentions can inform our understanding of a larger shift in his philosophy. (shrink)

This book carries forward the discourse on the mind’s engagement with the world. It reviews the semantic and metaphysical debates around internalism and externalism, the location of content, and the indeterminacy of meaning in language. The volume analyses the writings of Jackson, Chomsky, Putnam, Quine, Bilgrami and others, to reconcile opposing theories of language and the mind. It ventures into Cartesian ontology and Fregean semantics to understand how mental content becomes world-oriented in our linguistic communication. Further, the author explores the (...) liaison between the mind and the world from the phenomenological perspective, particularly, Husserl’s linguistic turn and Heidegger’s intersubjective entreaty for Dasein. The book conceives thought as a biological and socio-linguistic product which engages with the mind-world question through the conceptual and causal apparatuses of language. A major intervention in the field of philosophy of language, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers interested in philosophy, phenomenology, epistemology, and metaphysics . (shrink)

More than 80 years after his death, Husserl’s voluminous work remains an unexhausted resource for contemporary philosophy. This is true of his later work, but it is also true of his early text, Logical Investigations. Relying and building on work done by numerous scholars and philosophers, especially Dan Zahavi, Walter Hopp, Philipp Berghofer, and Declan Smithies, this dissertation is an attempt to utilize some resources in Logical Investigations in order, first, to help articulate an Husserlian descriptive account of phenomenal consciousness (...) and apply it to the cognitive phenomenology debate in philosophy of mind, and, second, to help show the relevancy of Husserl’s phenomenological epistemology — which is effectively a functional account of phenomenal consciousness — to the debate over the role of phenomenal consciousness in epistemic justification. While these descriptive and functional accounts are not without their problems, they nevertheless provide an important perspective on these contemporary debates. (shrink)

Hubert Dreyfus once noted that it would be difficult to ascertain whether Edmund Husserl had a computational theory of mind. I provide evidence that he had one. Both Steven Pinker and Steven Horst think that the computational theory of mind must have two components: a representational-symbolic component and a causal component. Bearing this in mind, we proceed to a close-reading of the sections of “On the Logic of Signs” wherein Husserl presents, if I’m correct, his computational theory of mind embedded (...) in a language of thought. My argument goes like this: the computational theory of mind is the idea, following Haugeland, that the mind comes prepackaged as, or is endogenously constrained to be, an automatic formal system; this explains, according to Husserl, why automatic trains of thought without logical intent resemble arguments exhibiting deductive structure with logical intent. In general, an automatic formal system yields true results provided that the syntactic symbols with which they compute are univocal and are semantically evaluable, and the mechanized inferences they perform are valid and preserve truth. These two conditions describe a computational cognitive process: the first condition connects representations to syntax, and the second condition uses the syntax, in inauthentic judging, to arrive at true conclusions through blind causality. Now, in point of textual fact, these are the conditions which Husserl attributes to our “natural psychological mechanism of symbolic inference” which typically yields true results. Since a formal system attributed to the “internal structure” of the mind, and guided by blind causality, just is the computational theory of mind, it follows, I think, that Husserl had a computational theory of mind. This computational theory is, moreover, embedded in a language of thought, since Husserl attributes a language-like form to our thoughts so that they may be mechanically processed. I conclude with a discussion of my results. (shrink)

The recent investigations into knowledge and its elements viz facts, skills and objects have become prominent in various subfields of philosophy and other areas like linguistics, cognitive science, neuroscience and artificial intelligence. These investigations have been mainly on understanding the relation between the intentionality and its referential entities to know how they enrich knowledge with their existence. This article starts with an exploration of the fundamental aspects of judgemental sense from the knowledge origins perspective. To explain the consequences of this, (...) I start with reconstructing the notion of categorial intuitions described in Husserl’s sixth Logical Investigations by relating it to ‘knowledge origination’ as an intuitive fulfilment of signifying acts. This offers a relation of perceptual synthesis, operating implicitly among the signifying intentions upon grasping intended objects, in view of language structures such as copulas. This leads to the synthesis of intuitive aspects mainly from the categorial elements for a judgemental sense or thinking and the attitude from the very sphere of perception. The tension between categorial intuitions is understood as foundational acts and founded acts. Husserl’s sixth Logical Investigation describes the notion of passive synthesis, the genesis of categoriality in every realm of sensibility that allows one to formulate the relational role among the ‘act of knowing’ and phenomenological approaches to the judgemental sense. Thus, the investigation focuses on perceptual judgements and categories, which fulfils the judgemental sense of categorial elements and attitude. (shrink)

The body is both the subject and object of intentionality: qua Leib, it experiences worldly things and qua Körper, it is experienced as a thing in the world. This phenomenological differentiation forms the basis for Helmuth Plessner’s anthropological theory of the mediated or eccentric nature of human embodiment, that is, simultaneously we both are a body and have a body. Here, I want to focus on the extent to which this double aspect of embodiment relates to our experience of temporality. (...) Indeed, to question, does this double bodily relation correspond to a twofoldtemporality of embodied intentionality? In the first part of this paper, I differentiate between the intentional temporality of being a body and the temporal experience of having a body. To further my argument, in the second part, I present examples of specific pathologies, as well as liminal cases of bodily experiences, wherein these temporal dimensions, which otherwise go hand-in-hand, become dissociated. Phenomenologically, I want to argue that Husserl’s differentiation between Leib and Körper corresponds to two genetic forms of intentionality – operative and act intentionality – and that these are, in turn, characterized by different temporalities. Anthropologically, I want to argue that having a body – what occurs as an inherent break to human embodiment – is the presupposition for the experience of a stable and object-like time. I will conclude that the double aspect of human embodiment and in particular the thematic experience of having a body enables both the experience of a past, which is remembered, and a future that is planned. (shrink)

The goal of the present text is to analyze some aspects of Husserl’s own phenomenology against the backdrop of the quite famous or infamous critique of the “Myth of the Given” proposed by the American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars in his Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind. Indeed, whereas Sellars’ volume is usually deemed the source of what has been recently referred to as the “Hegelian Renaissance” characterizing analytic philosophy, Husserl and his transcendental phenomenology are on the contrary seen as the (...) very expression of a new “form” of “Cartesianism.” Now, after a quick discussion of Sellars’ “diagnosis” of the Myth of the Given, the present essay elaborates on the general “Hegelian” character of his argumentations ; finally, an analysis of Husserl’s alleged Cartesianism in the late text known as Cartesian Meditations will be provided bearing upon the notions of “evidence” and “synthesis.” As we firmly believe, our remarks will show not only that Husserl does not at all fall prey to the “Myth,” but also that his understanding of the concept of reason can help us avoid some of the implications directly flowing from Sellars’ position. (shrink)

A recent trend in Husserl scholarship takes the Logische Untersuchungen (LU) as advancing an inconsistent and confused view of the non-conceptual content of perceptual experience. Against this, I argue that there is no inconsistency about non-conceptualism in LU. Rather, LU presents a hybrid view of the conceptual nature of perceptual experience, which can easily be misread as inconsistent, since it combines a conceptualist view of perceptual content (or matter) with a non-conceptualist view of perceptual acts. I show how this hybrid (...) view is operative in Husserl’s analyses of essentially occasional expressions and categorial intuition. And I argue that it can also be deployed in relation to Husserl’s analysis of the constitution of perceptual fullness, which allows it to avoid a objection raised by Walter Hopp—that the combination of Husserl’s analysis of perceptual fullness with conceptualism about perceptual content generates a vicious regress. (shrink)

Gurwitsch is the philosopher of consciousness par excellence. This paper presents a systematic exposition of Aron Gurwitsch’s main contribution to phenomenology, namely his theory of the ‘field of consciousness’ with its a priori structure of theme, thematic field, margin. I present Gurwitsch as an orthodox defender of Husserlian descriptive phenomenology, albeit one who rejected Husserl’s reduction to the transcendental ego and Husserl’s overt idealism. He maintained with Husserl the priority of consciousness as the source of all meaning and validity but (...) he rejected Husserl’s transcendental idealism in favour of a ‘levels of existence’ approach. Gurwitsch’s project was to show the continuity between Gestalt psychology and Husserlian eidetics. I explain his concepts of theme, thematic field, margin and horizon as a consistent development of Husserlian thought. I conclude by claiming that neither Gurwitsch nor Husserl fully appreciate how the horizons of an entity can support radical novelty and the application of entirely new contexts. (shrink)

In this essay, I develop Husserl’s view of the relation between sense experience and empirical knowledge by outlining the idea of Husserlian expressivism. I begin the essay by taking a look at the relevant problem on empirical knowledge in the literature. The point is that the content of experience is of the propositional form if experience should have justificatory significance. Husserl emphasizes the epistemological significance of the perceptual presence of objects; nevertheless, he sees perceptual sense as nonpropositional. How can we (...) understand Husserl’s thought? I argue that Husserl’s conception of expression in Ideas I can give us a clue. Interpreting this conception as saying that expression is not representational medium, but the logical form of the content of experience, I argue that we can ascribe the significance to experience as such, which is only made explicit by expression: propositional form is the expressive form of the implicit experiential content. This interpretation also makes a Husserlian conception of reason possible in which perceptual experience as such can have its rationality. Characterizing sense experience as a non-discursive form of reason, I attempt to describe this conception as an explication of holistically conducted inquiry of empirical knowledge. (shrink)

This paper contends that, even though Husserl demonstrated that consciousness intends objects in the world rather than mental representations, he ultimately failed to provide a convincing account of how the ego constitutes itself and other egos. By reconfiguring consciousness as an operation rather than as a container, Husserl opened consciousness to the world and thereby overcame previous solipsistic frameworks. But despite his attention to the “things themselves,” his fidelity to another maxim—that all sense-bestowing activity be traced back to the operations (...) of the ego—prohibited him from fulfilling his goal of describing otherness accurately. This paper examines the tension between Husserl’s desire to describe phenomena and his mandate to constitute phenomena, to show that both cannot be accomplished simultaneously. If phenomenology is to come to terms with the challenge of otherness and describe self and other adequately, the demand that self and other be constituted within the ego must be relinquished. (shrink)

In the final book of Logical Investigations from 1901, Husserl develops a theory of knowledge based on the intentional structure of consciousness. While there is some textual evidence that Husserl considered this to entail a critique of Kantian philosophy, he did not elaborate substantially on this. This paper reconstructs the covert critique of Kant’s theory of knowledge which LI contains. With respect to Kant, I discuss three core aspects of his theory of knowledge which, as Husserl’s reflections on Kant indicate, (...) Husserl was familiar with. These are the cooperation of two faculties for the justification of beliefs; the concept of a priori structures of knowledge Kant operated with; and the delivered transcendental proof of these structures. Regarding Logical Investigations, I first briefly outline the intentional structure of consciousness as presented in the fifth book and then turn to the theory of knowledge in the sixth book. I then clarify, partially on the basis of manuscripts and lecture notes, the covert critique of the three core aspects of Kant’s theory which the sixth book contains. (shrink)

Whether Husserl is a conceptualist has been heatedly debated among contemporary Husserl scholars. The present article intends to join the debate by asking the question of how, in the Husserlian context, intuitive acts fulfill signitive ones. On the one hand, those who take Husserl to be a conceptualist hold the content-identity theory, arguing that intuitive act and signitive act have the same content, so that the former can fulfill the latter. On the other hand, the non-conceptualists defend the object-identity theory (...) and claim that it is the identity of object of intuitive and signitive act that makes fulfillment possible. On the basis of a careful reading of the sixth investigation of Husserl’s Logical Investigations, the article proposes a dynamic content-identity theory, in which the identity of content does not mean that intuitive act and signitive act have the identical content accidentally, but rather, in the dynamic fulfillment process, the intuitive act obtains the content that overflows into it from the signitive act, so that the two acts have the identical content. And this article shows how the dynamic content-identity theory places Husserl in the conceptualist camp while avoiding certain difficulties of either plain content-identity theory or object-identity theory. (shrink)

Dass Bilder zwischen dem Regime der Dinge und dem Regime der Zeichen niemals einen angestammten Platz erhielten und nicht Gegenstand einer eigenen Wissenschaft wurden, ist keinem wiedergutzumachenden Vergessen geschuldet, sondern Ausdruck eines anfänglichen Skandalons, das historisch auch die Geburtsstunde der Philosophie einläutete. Bilder lassen sich nicht einmal als reine Erscheinungen absondern, weil in ihnen als Wasserzeichen stets durchscheint, was sie sichtbar werden ließ. An Husserls Grundlegung einer Phänomenologie des Bildes lässt sich das obstinate Unterfangen verfolgen, die Bilderscheinung von jeder medialen (...) Kontamination freizuhalten. Emmanuel Alloas Archäologie der Medienvergessenheit legt jenes Doppelparadigma frei, das die westliche Tradition seit Anbeginn begleitet – Transparenz und Opazität – und sich vor jenen Begriff schiebt, den es zu übersetzen beanspruchte: In der aristotelischen Wahrnehmungstheorie bezeichnet das Diaphane die Fähigkeit eines Mediums, die Form von etwas anzunehmen, ohne es zu sein. Auf unerwartete Weise wird durch Aristoteles’ Lehre vom Diaphanen erhellt, worin die Macht von Bildern liegt. (shrink)

This paper, through a realist reading of Husserlian phenomenology, aims to explain how the consciousness-sense has access to reality and, in general, to objectivity. There is a ‘strife’ between the essence of a thing and the specific concreteness in which it always becomes manifest, such that the identical object is indicated by changeable predicates, but at the same time always distinguishes itself from them. Language can express the evidence of the thing - which makes the determinable aspects of the thing (...) exist and which is inexpressible through definitions - only “for conjectures”, showing the difference between its own expression and the thing. And it can do this by analogy, the only device that exhibits the antinomic relationship between the object and its determinations, and, in the meantime, makes possible not so much their composition, but rather their transformation. Analogy, in fact, operating through a logic of contradiction, grasps, within each object, the tension between the element of permanence and the element of emergency; shows how the object is a unity-without-a-mixture of absolutely distinct forms; and so it comes to think about the relationship between the in-definable forms of the possible representations of the thing and the impossible expression of its singularity. (shrink)

The present article concentrates on understanding the limits of language from the realm of meaning theory as portrayed by Wittgenstein. In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein’s picture theory provides a glimpse of reality by indicating that a picture could be true or false from the perspective of reality. He talks about an internal limitation of language rather than an external limitation of language. In Wittgenstein’s later works like Philosophical Investigations, the concept of picture theory has faded away, and he deeply becomes more (...) interested in the ‘use theory of meaning’ and ‘language game.’ My other attempt in this paper is to show Husserl’s theory of meaning and try to find out its compatibility with Wittgenstein’s thoughts. Husserl thinks that as a part of phenomenological experience, ‘meaning’ should be an act character that Wittgenstein rejected as an appeal of inner experience. Like Mohanty, I also attempt to show the Husserlian idea of meaning as an essence that is related to the meaning rather than linguistics. Both the giants are talking about description of language from different levels. My effort would be to illustrate how these two giant thinkers proclaim their meaning theories in such a way that leads to a well-known internalism versus externalism debate in the philosophy of mind and language. (shrink)

Brentano et Husserl reconnurent tous deux que certaines de nos intentionnalités posent des enjeux normatifs. Seulement, Brentano croyait que les intentionnalités ne peuvent être qualifiées normativement que si elles sont incompatibles avec une autre façon opposée de se rapporter intentionnellement à un même objet. Husserl insista pour sa part sur le fait qu’il n’y a des enjeux normatifs que là où il y a une relation intentionnelle et positionnelle. Malgré cette distinction, en imposant ces conditions (incompatibilité et position) pour qu’il (...) soit question de normativité intentionnelle, Brentano et Husserl se trouvèrent tous deux à favoriser un réductionnisme normatif. Je proposerai pour ma part, dans un geste rappelant celui de la pragmatique d’Austin mais sans m’y restreindre pour autant, de dépasser ce réductionnisme normatif en cessant de limiter à ces conditions l’application de normes à nos intentionnalités. (shrink)

In this paper, I compare the debate on phenomenal intentionality in the philosophy of mind with Husserl's phenomenology. I make a survey of various theoretical options within the " phenomenal intentionality research program ", in order to show how these issues are present also in phenomenology. I focus my analysis on the distinction between static and genetic phenomenology, in relation to the issue of the relationship between phenomenal consciousness and intentionality and I argue that, in order to address this issue, (...) we must turn to the analysis of the temporal self-manifestation of subjectivity. (shrink)

The contemporary debate on phenomenal intentionality, in philosophy of mind, is focused on the discussion of the relationship between phenomenal consciousness and intentionality. The aim of this work is to show that this theme is a crucial issue also in Husserl’s phenomenology. After making a survey of some theoretical options that are at play within the so-called “phenomenal intentionality research program”, I will show how these issues take form within the phenomenological perspective. I will do that, in particular, thematizing the (...) fundamental distinction between static and genetic level of the phenomenological inquiry. Furthermore, I will claim the need to maintain a clear distinction between phenomenal content and phenomenal character of experience. In conclusion, I will claim the importance of Husserl’s analysis of the temporal self-manifestation of subjectivity, in order to clarify the relationship between phenomenality and intentionality. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the possibility of noninten-tional phenomena in the contemporary phenomenology, based on the phenom-enological works of French thinker Jean-Luc Marion and the founder of phenomenology Edmund Husserl. It is shown that in determining nonintentional phenomena Marion operates with a very narrow understanding of intentionality, which he incorrectly ascribes to Husserl, and that nonintentional phenomena he is describing are in fact intentional in the broad sense of the word. It is argued that nonintentional phenomena (...) in Marion’s phenomenology are equated with non-conceptual phenomena and are possible only based on a narrow understanding of intentionality understood as conceptualization, which is not substantiated. It is demonstrated that if intentionality is understood more broadly as the constitution of any temporal unity – conceptual and nonconceptual – Marion cannot justify the possibility of nonintentional phenomena. Despite Marion’s inability to account for the possibility of nonintentional phenomena at the end of the paper the possibility of nonintentional phenomena based on the broad understanding of intentionality is suggested. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this article I argue that Sartre’s notions of nothingness and “negatity” are not, as he presents it, primarily reactions to Hegel and Heidegger. Instead, they are a reaction to an ongoing struggle with Husserl’s notion of intentionality and related notions. I do this by comparing the criticism aimed at Husserl in Sartre’s Being and Nothingness to that presented in his earlier work, The Imagination, where he discusses Husserl more elaborately. Furthermore, I compare his criticism to Husserl’s own criticism of (...) the “doctrine of immanent objects”, in order to show that Sartre’s notion of nothingness is a continuation of Husserl’s criticism, and that he turns Husserl’s own arguments against himself. (shrink)

This paper deals with Husserl’s idea of pure logic as it is coined in the Logical Investigations. First, it exposes the formation of pure logic around a conception of completeness ; then, it presents intentionality as the keystone of such a structuring ; and finally, it provides a systematic reconstruction of pure logic from the semiotic standpoint of intentionality. In this way, it establishes Husserlian pure logic as a phenomenological epistemology of mathematical logic.

This research will attain mainly in the work of Husserl called Experience and Judgment. This book traces the possibility of a common ground for judgments in the way that it can raise new perspectives, facing its limits and variations. Husserl fosters an implication between the Ego and the world through the living experience in the process of constitution itself. Therefore, every abstraction, imagination, subjectivity, objectivity and even hallucinations take a stand on the same ground and follow some same identic logical (...) structures. It does not mean a deterministic point of view, but a latent process of constitution of meaning that goes forever on a march; the march of our living experience. (shrink)

Aristotle famously asserted that the mind is identical with its object in an act of cognition. This “identity doctrine” has caused much confusion and controversy, with many seeking to avoid a literal interpretation in favor of one that suggests that “identity” refers to a formal isomorphism between the mind and its object. However, in this paper I suggest that Aristotle’s identity doctrine is not an epistemological claim about an isomorphism between a representation of an object and the object itself, but (...) is a phenomenological claim about the character of human cognition and intelligible being. Drawing on texts from Edmund Husserl and Aristotle, I offer a phenomenological interpretation of Aristotle’s identity doctrine. I ultimately argue that, for Aristotle, mind and being are essentially unified, for intelligible being is partially constitutive of the mind. (shrink)

In this paper, I use the comparison between human beings and intelligent machines to shed light on the concept of teleology. What characterizes human beings and distinguishes them from a robot capable of achieving complex objectives? In the first place, by stipulating that what characterizes human beings are mental states, I consider the mark of the mental. A smart robot probably has no consciousness but we might have reason for doubt while interacting with it. And a smart robot shows intentionality. (...) I focus on the type of naturalized intentionality that is at stake here. Then I go back to the traditional idea of teleology, and to the scientific criticism of it, through the question of the kind of purposes that artificial intelligence may set itself. Husserl's basic idea of teleology therefore serves to have an authoritative term of comparison and to introduce the intuitive difference between human beings and intelligent machines based on the homo pictor thought experiment proposed by Jonas. My conclusion is that a specific finalism, understood in a non-criterial sense, is what qualifies the human being and differentiates the latter from smart robots. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper reconstructs and defends a Husserlian transcendental conception of intentionality. Initially, naturalistic conception of intentionality seems attractive, however, a naturalistic understanding conceals the true meaning of the puzzle and the nature of intentionality. Following Kant and primarily Husserl, this paper tries to determine the conditions a transcendental conception of intentionality must satisfy in order to be qualified as “transcendental”. Additionally, following Husserl, this paper argues that the alternative transcendental conception is not only possible, hence plausible; but also necessary, in (...) the sense that a thorough understanding of intentionality can only be achieved if a transcendental conception is adopted. (shrink)

This paper aims to examine the argument between Husserl and Levinas on the issue of intentionality: for Husserl, the “noesis and noema” correlation is the basic structure of intentionality, every intentional act has “I-pole” and “object-pole.” However, for Levinas, there is kind of intentionality without object, that is the sensibility of intentionality, and this kind of intentionality keeps the otherness of the other. Levinas modifies Husserlian intentionality and applies a wider meaning to it: for Husserl it’s kind of conscious intentionality, (...) but in Levinas, it represents a kind of bodily intentionality. With the challenge to Husserl’s priority of the presentation of intentionality in consciousness Levinas goes further into the ethical revelation on the face of the other. In Levinas’s view, the face of the other belongs to the exteriority which is totally outside of my consciousness, and the welcoming of the face and the work of justice condition the birth of truth itself. (shrink)

This paper examines Husserl’s theory of intentionality as it is developed in Logical Investigations and other early writings. In Section 1, the author attempts to capture the core of Husserl’s concept of intentionality. Section 2 is devoted to a detailed analysis of the account of intentional relation developed in the fifth Investigation. In Section 3, the author tries to flesh out what is meant by the claim in the sixth Investigation that the designation ‘object’ is a relative one. In Section (...) 4, the author discusses Husserl’s conception of intentionality in light of the mereology outlined in the third Investigation. In Section 5, the author explains how Husserl criticizes the so-called theory of immanent objects and how he addresses the problem of non-existents. In Section 6, the author argues that a phenomenological theory of intentionality grounded in Husserl’s insights cannot be a non-relational one. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIf we take Heidegger's ontology to be a philosophy of history, then, for Husserl, the problem of history is only one among the three major directions of his thoughts. After Husserl met Dilthey in 1905, he more and more attended to the problem of history and reflected upon the longitudinal intentionality of time-genesis-history. His basic idea is to grasp the condition of possibility of history by means of an eidetic intuition upon the longitudinal intentionality. However, because Husserl never explicates his (...) thoughts on history in his published works, he is often regarded as a “non-historical” philosopher. In fact, like Dilthey, Husserl purports to combine historical enlightenment with critique of knowledge. It is hence Dilthey-Yorck, Husserl, Heidegger and Gadamer who established together the most important tradition of history of philosophy in the twentieth century, namely, phenomenological-ontological philosophy of history. (shrink)

Both Millikan’s brand of naturalistic analytic philosophy and Husserlian phenomenology have held on to teleological notions, despite their being out of favor in mainstream Western philosophy for most of the twentieth century. Both traditions have recognized the need for teleology in order to adequately account for intentionality, the need to adequately account for intentionality in order to adequately account for meaning, and the need for an adequate theory of meaning in order to precisely and consistently describe the world and life. (...) The stark differences between their accounts of these fundamental concepts stem from radically different conceptions of the world, the natural and life. I argue that Millikan’s teleosemantic approach relies on a teleology of determination by means of the lawfulness of nature that leaves no room for the freedom of self-determination, for reason, or for experience—for the reality of lived human life. In contrast to Millikan’s account, Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology situates teleology as a function of reason and first-personal experience, part of an extended account of intentionality and meaning according to which the full range of our making sense of the world is conceived as a rational activity that is itself a part of that world, and not an unnatural activity to be separated from it. While Husserl’s account of these issues is indeed symptomatic of what Millikan calls “meaning rationalism,” I argue that it is immune to the sorts of problems she claims will plague any such account, since these problems arise only against the background of a set of presuppositions about intentionality that Husserl does not share. Husserl’s position can itself be understood to be within the bounds of a suitably liberal conception of naturalism, and interpreting him in this way it has the added benefit—contra Millikan—of not divorcing teleology from reason, the latter construed as our first-personal striving to make sense of the world as we experience it—of life. (shrink)

This paper examines how practical intentionality is described by Husserl and Heidegger respectively, and looks at the phenomenological and sociological issues of these descriptions. In Husserl, the phenomenological reduction reveals that the practices of the world involve two intentionalities which wrap one inside the other. The foundation of this dynamic is a theoretical intentionality: there are always reasons which make it possible to understand why such and such an object is surrounded by such and such a value. In the early (...) Heidegger’s work, life is not expressed by means of judgments, and it coils around itself, perpetuating itself in the ordinary practices of the world. We show that this phenomenological immanentism is put in question by Heidegger himself, and in particular in connection to the issue of the social source of intentionality. We consider the question of the compatibility between immanentism and normativity, which involve a dialectic that sheds new light on the phenomenological project. (shrink)