This essay is a critical examination of how Edmund Husserl, in his appropriation of Franz Brentano’s concept of intentionality into his phenomenology, deals with the very issues that shaped Brentano’s theory of intentionality. These issues concern the proper criterion for distinguishing mental from physical phenomena and the right explanation for the independence of the intentionality of mental phenomena from the existence or non-existence of their objects. Husserl disagrees with Brentano’s views that intentionality is the distinguishing feature of all mental phenomena (...) and that the mental status of intentional objects is what explains the said independence. The crucial concept in Husserl’s theory of intentionality is the noema of consciousness, which functions in the same way as Gottlob Frege’s sense in his theory of semantics. This essay argues that Husserl’s alternative solutions to the problems of Brentano run in conflict either with the desired rigor of his phenomenology or with the actual workings of language. (shrink)

By contrasting rational knowledge with relational knowledge, this paper discusses the forming of agreements as the pursuit of knowledge. Knowledge as agreement is thus discussed in this paper via research methods including ‘autoethnography’ . Pursuing knowledge by virtue of agreements is subsequently valued after positioning the author as a non-Indigenous ‘dagay’, positioning the paper itself as a dissertation, and after assuming an initial relationship between the reader and author. The paper occurs within the cultural context of ‘academia’. Once rational knowledge (...) has been contrasted with relational knowledge, the paper then highlights how agreements may be effectively pursued via ‘dialogue’ and affected by one’s topology . These pursuits, says the paper, are pursuits of knowledge as agreement. This paper is written from within ‘academia’ for the academic reader of a philosophical ilk. It is an attempt at the coherent valuing of relational knowledge and discussion of the possibility of knowledge through the pursuit of agreements. Philosophically, this is a paper about epistemology. As a creative discussion, author and reader share via this paper their mutual pursuit of fresh knowledge. Thus the paper is offered as an invitation for the reader to join the author in creating something that has not existed before – new knowledge. (shrink)