• LECTURE-1
• LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
• PPT : DEVELOPMENT OF HUSSERL’S THOUGHT
• FACULTY NAME: PROFESSOR TAPAN KUMAR DE
• SUBJECT: PHILOSOPHY
• COURSE NAME & SEMESTER : M.A., SEMESTER-III
• PAPER NO.: PHI-404
• PAPER NAME: CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY(PHENOMENOLOGY)
• KEYWORDS: PHENOMENOLOGY ,CONSCIOUSNESS, INTENTIONALITY, TRANSCENDENTAL,
DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY , INTENTIONAL INEXISTENCE
(SIGNATURE OF THE FACULTY)
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Born: 8 April 1859, Czech
Republic
Died : 27 April 1938,
Freiburg, Germany
Full Name : Edmund
Gustav Albrecht Husserl
Edmund Husserl
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HUSSERL’S MAJOR WORKS
• Logical Investigations (German: Logische Untersuchungen)
published in two volumes in 1900 and 1901, with a second edition
in 1913 and 1921.
• Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology,
Published1931
• The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental
Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological
Philosophy
• Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological
Philosophy: First Book: General Introduction to Pure
Phenomenology
• Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a
Phenomenological Philosophy
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CONTENT OF OUR DISCUSSION
• What is consciousness?
• What is the source of the concept of
consciousness?
• How does Brentano realize this concept?
• How does Husserl realize this concept?
• Is intentionality a relation?
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INTENTIONALITY IN INTRODUCTION
• ‘Intentionality’ derives from the Latin verb
‘intendere’, which means “to point to” or
“to aim at”.
• It stands for something familiar to us - a
characteristic feature of our mental states
and experiences, especially evident in
what we commonly call being “conscious”
or “aware”.
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• As conscious beings, or persons, we are
not merely affected by the things in our
environment; we are also conscious of
these things – of physical objects and
events, of our own selves and other
persons, of abstract objects such as
numbers and propositions, and of
anything else appear to our minds.
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• Many, perhaps most of the events that
make up our mental life – our
perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, hopes,
fears, and so on – have this characteristic
feature of being “of” or “about”
something and so giving us a sense of
something in our world.
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• When I see a tree, for example, my
perception is a perception of a tree;
when I think that 3 + 2 = 5, I am thinking
of or about certain numbers and a
relation among them; when I hope that
nuclear war will never take place, my
hope is about a possible future state of
the world; and so on
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• Each such mental state or experience is
in this way a representation of something
other than itself and so gives one a sense
of something.
• This representational character of mind
or consciousness – its being “of” or
“about” something – is “intentionality”.
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• But in phenomenology the term bears a special
import.
• There it is used in a technical sense to offer the
typical and unique quality of our mental
process.
• In Husserl's phenomenology intentionality and
consciousness is used in identical sense and it is
accepted that consciousness is always
conscious of something.
• Not only that the concept bears an epistemic
sense in phenomenology.
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• Intentionality is one of the central concepts in
Husserl’s phenomenology.
• Indeed, Husserl calls intentionality the
“fundamental property of consciousness” and
the “principle theme of phenomenology”.
• It is said That the theory of Intentionality,
since Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology has
become an important and spectacular theory of
the study of the genesis of knowledge.
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• For Husserl, however, this unique peculiarity
of consciousness, namely, to be
consciousness of something is one of the
wonders of consciousness to which all
enigmas and riddles of theoretical reasons
leads us book. In this sense, intentionality
does not stand for mere psychological fact as
it does with Brentano, it has for Husserl
basically on epistemological import.
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• This theme of intentionality is so characteristic
of Husserl’s phenomenology that scholars hold
that the development of Husserl’s thought can
be adequately grasped if we simply follow the
stages of development of his thesis of
intentionality.
• For Husserl human consciousness is
intentional in the sense that it refers to
something or other, some content or other, so
that to speak of consciousness is necessarily to
imply that it is the ‘consciousness of’.
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WHAT ACTUALLY INTENTIONALITY IS
• A phenomenological exploration shows that
consciousness is always the consciousness of
something.
• This transcending character of consciousness
has then identified as ‘intentionality’.
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SOURCE OF THE CONCEPT
• The origin of the concept of Intentionality is
found in Medieval Scholastic Philosophy
where it was used to designate some special
objects with the phrase- ‘intentional
inexistence’.
• Brentano hired this concept from its source.
• Husserl inherited it from Brentano.
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DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPT
• Brentano used this concept in his own way. In the first
stage he focused on the concept intentional
inexistence. Later on he tried to get out of this concept
and he expressed his desire in a letter written to Marry
in 1905.
• Husserl takes the first part of the explanation given by
his Teacher Brentano and rejected the rest one.
• He also used this concept in a broad sense than
Brentano.
• Epistemological import was given to the concept by
Husserl.
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BRENTANO’S THESIS
• While investigating psychical (mental)
phenomena Brentano discovered that every
psychical phenomena is characteristically
different from psychical phenomena by being
intentionally related to some object.
• He contended that intentionality is the
sufficiently distinguishing feature of all mental
phenomena, while no non-mental (i.e.
physical) phenomena deserves this peculiarity.
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• His first concern in psychology from
empirical standpoint was to find out a
characteristic which could distinguish
psychical phenomena from physical
phenomena.
• It is said in this connection that he came
to see intentionality as decisive
constituent of psychical facts.
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• He writes. “Every psychical phenomena is characterized by
what that scholastic of the Middle Ages called the intentional
inexistence of an object, and what we should like to call,
although not quite unambiguously, the reference (Beziehung)
to a content, , the directedness (Richtung) toward an object
(which in this context is not to be understood as something
real) or the imanent object quality (imanent
Gegenstaindlichkeit). Each contains something as its object,
though not each in the same manner. In the representation
(Vorstellung) something is represented, in the judgment
something is acknowledged or rejected, in desiring etc. This
intentional inexistence is peculiar alone to physical
phenomena. No physical phenomenon shows anything like it.
And thus we can define psychical phenomena by saying that
they are such phenomena as contains objects in themselves
by way of intention ( intentional)
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• Brentano is famous for a very strong
doctrine about intentionality.
• He claimed that intentionality is the
defining characteristic of the mental, i.e.,
that all mental phenomena are
intentional and only mental phenomena
are intentional.
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• Brentano accordingly characterized the
intentionality of mental states and
experiences as their feature of each being
“directed toward something”.
• Intentionality in this technical sense then
subsumes the everyday notion of doing
something “intentionally”: an action is
intentional when done with a certain
“intention”, i.e., a mental state of “aiming”
toward a certain state of affairs.
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INFLUENCE ON BRENTANO
• Brentano is doing a re-introduction of a
mediaeval philosophical notion into
contemporary use.
• Brentano's account of intentionality consists in
the claim that the object of the presentation is
somehow contained in the presentation itself.
• A major consequence of this claim would be
that the object is then devoid of independent
existence, i.e. its existence on the presentation.
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• These passage contains two different theses: one,
an ontological thesis about the nature of certain
objects of thought and of other psychological
attitudes; the other a psychological thesis implying
that reference to an object is what distinguishes
the mental or psychical from the physical.
• According to the doctrine of intentional
inexistence, the object of the thought about a
unicorn is a unicorn, but a unicorn with a mode of
being (intentional inexistence, immanent
objectivity, or existence in the understanding) that
is short of actuality but more than nothingness.
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• The introduction of the notion of
intentionality seems to succeed in describing
the psychical phenomena. The main feature of
these phenomena therefore consists in their
reference to a certain object.
• However, the above characterization does not
succeed in describing the reference itself. It is
undeniable that presentations are always
presentations of something.
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EXAMPLE
• I have a presentation of an actual apple tree, then the object
of my presentation is the apple tree itself, existing in the
physical world. It is an essential property of this apple tree
that it exists in the unmodified sense of the word, i.e.
without any restrictive qualification.
• Though I can have a presentation of an apple tree whose
existence is “short of actuality but more than nothingness”
(like when I present myself an apple tree that does not really
exists, e.g. an apple tree that is merely thought of), that
presentation would differ from the former one.
• Brentano's account of intentional reference thus, it seems,
substitutes the object qua intentional object (an object that is
merely thought of) in place of the object of an intentional
relationship.
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• Brentano claims that it is the “intentional
inexistence” which “characterizes” the
psychical phenomena.
• Moreover, in the Psychology the introduction
of the notion of intentionality occurs, as a
search for a criterion of the division between
psychical and physical phenomena.
• He considers intentionality to provide a
positive characterization of the psychical
phenomena, and refers back to it many times.
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• He claimed that intentionality is the
defining characteristic of the mental, i.e.,
that all mental phenomena are
intentional and only mental phenomena
are intentional.
• This claim has come to be known as
“Brentano’s Thesis”.
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• The second characterization of the psychic
phenomenon, viz , ‘ reference to are object’ is
more important and permanent one for Brentano.
• As Spiegelberg remarks, this characterization is
completely original with Brentano, except for
whatever credit he himself generously extends to
Aristotle for its ‘first germs’ in a rather short
passage of metaphysics ultimately, reference to an
object is thus the decisive and indispensable
feature of any mental or psychical phenomenon.
No hearing without something heard, no believing
without something believed!
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• It is clear that Brentano introduced the
concept in psychological sense. He wrote
in his ‘Psychology from an Empirical
Standpoint’, “Every phenomenon is
characterized by …..reference to a
content, direction toward an object……In
presentation something is presented, in
judging something is affirmed or denied,
in love loved, in hate hated in desire
desired, and so on”
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DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY
• In this way Brentano initiated the descriptive psychology.
• Descriptive psychology is a study where many of the findings of
empirical psychology are rigorously analyzed from the
standpoint of ‘apodictic’ awareness.
• Intentional nature of consciousness is one of the discoveries of
the descriptive psychology.
• If all psychical processes are ultimately ‘real’ in so far as they are
present to a mind, a self, or a substance that acts as the intuitive
receptor of them all, Brentano had thought , it would be
necessary to assume that to account for there meaningfulness is
primarily to understand the basic constituent of the mind.
• So the task of the descriptive psychology is to describe the
experience-act from the end of consciousness.
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• Descriptive psychology, as explained by Brentano,
creates philosophical problems and offer a typical
reductionist attitude which believes that the
principles of logic, epistemology, ethics,
mathematics, aesthetics, and so on are justifiable
by means of a set of generalizations concerning
the processes of consciousness.
• In other words, descriptive psychology deals
mainly with the basic rules of consciousness and
hence tries to achieve an almost assumption less
portrayal of the ways in which intentionality builds
up experience.
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HUSSERL AND BRENTANO
• There is no doubt that Husserl inherited the
concept of intentionality of consciousness from his
teacher Brentano.
• Though Husserl inherited the concept from
Brentano, he used it in his own framework.
Brentano's notion of intentionality differs from
Brentano.
• In fact the journey starts for phenomenology from
descriptive psychology following the way of
Husserl.
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• Brentano‘s concept of intentionality has not failed
to exercise an impetus on Husserl's thought: Not
only that Husserl makes occasional use of
Brentano's technical terms related to
intentionality, but he also tries to preserve the
intentional inexistence as an operative concept
when constructing his theory of relations.
• There is however a noteworthy difference: Husserl
is not inclined to resort to the theory of
intentionality when thinking about the relationship
between the conscious acts and their objects.
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• Husserl takes over this second concept of
directedness towards object, and rejects the
disputed first characterization of Brentano`s
formulation.
• For Husserl, ‘ intentionality simply means
consciousness directedness towards objects
and not the immanence of object in
consciousness. Intentionality accordingly,
implies strict ontological neutrality with regard
to the object of reference.
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• The fact that something is intended by
consciousness does not necessarily mean that
something is existent or non- existent, either
real or mental. Husserl has further reservation
in general to Brentano`s formulation.
• He raises the problem about sensations,
which are integral part of consciousness acts
but themselves don’t appear to be intentional.
Naturally , he is seen to be inclined to treat
sensation as non-intentional.
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• He writes in Logical Investigations: “ That not all
experiences are intentional is proved by sensations
and sensational complexes, any piece of a sensed
visual field, full as it is of visual content, is an
experience containing many part contents, which are
neither referred to, nor intentionally objective, in the
whole.
• Thus in a sense Husserl`s concept of intentionality is
narrower than that of Brentano. But in another sense
his concept of intentionality is wider than Brentano`s,
since for his not only the mind, but also the body
has intentionality.
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• Husserl surely came nearer to accepting the
thesis of Brentano that everything mental is
intentional . But at the same time he seems to
have moved away from the other half of the
Brentano’s thesis and , as we shall see later
on, come to hold that body, and not merely
the mind , is characterized by intentionality.
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• Brentano was operating within the framework
of a naturalistic psychology which accords a
pre-eminent place to the causal mode of
explanation .
• But Husserl takes the concept of
intentionality in a different way. There the
concept demands a complete abandonment
of the causal attitude in connection with
whatever is intentional.
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• Husserl’s interest is in those mental states or
experiences that do give us a sense of an object,
and those mental phenomena are intentional;
he calls them “acts” of consciousness.
• Husserl seems to have thought that only states
of conscious awareness are intentional, but we
need not be that restrictive: if there are
unconscious beliefs and desires, for example,
they too should be counted as intentional
mental phenomena.
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• The existence-independence of intentionality
means, Husserl believes, that intentionality is
a phenomenological property of mental states
or experiences, i.e., a property they have by
virtue of their own “internal” nature as
experiences, independently of how they are
“externally” related to the extra-mental world.
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• Already, in his Logische Untersuchungen
Husserl pointed out that, although the word
relation may be unavoidable in talking about
intentionality, it is nevertheless misleading.
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• Husserl says in L.U. that In intentional mental processes
an object is meant, is aimed at. That involves no more
than that certain processes are present, which have a
characteristic of intention. … Only one affair is present,
the intentional process, whose essential descriptive
characteristic is precisely the intention.
• If this process is present, with its psychic concrete
fullness, then the so-called “intentional relation” to an
object is effected ipso facto … And naturally such a
process, with its intention can be found in
consciousness even though the object does not exist at
all and, perchance, cannot exist.
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• So , from the above passage, it can be said
that whether intentionality is a relation
between the intention and the intended
object is solved without any hesitation.
• It would be better to avoid to designate
intentionality as a relation. It should be
designated as an inherent quality of mental
processes.
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HUSSERL'S POSITION
• The early work of Husserl has seen many
evaluations, sometimes quite rejective, focusing on
the question whether Husserl's position is to be
characterize as realistic, metaphysically neutral or
idealistic.
• The concept of intentionality implies neither
realism nor idealism regarded as ontological thesis.
• The thesis of intentionality is neutral against
realism and idealism.
• The thesis has an epistemological implications
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• Husserl’s study of noesis and noema implies
the epistemological tone.
• A radical step was taken by Husserl towards
one of the most seminal investigations of the
experience situation as such , and toward pure
abstractionism.
• Here he explain the exact nexus between that
which intentionality intuits as sense or
meaning and the object or the empirical side
of that sense.
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• The former is the noematic and the later is the
noetic in experience.
• How the connection between the act of
experiencing(noematic) and the experienced
( noetic) could be established and how the
noetic itself comes into being – is the main
problem of Husserl.
• This problem is discussed in his pre-eminently
epistemological work-Logical Investigations.
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• Husserl`s noema is neither real in the naive sense,
non ideal in Berkely`s sense; it is irreal, to use
Husserl`s own language.
• This irreal noema stands over again a multiplicity of
real, but a multiplicity of noemata refers, through a
passive process of synthesis, to an ideal.
• In this way the irreal noema mediates between the
real intentional act and the real (or ideal) intended
object.
• If we think of in relation to the acts, the noema is an
identity; and if thought in respect to the noematic
multiplicity, the intentional object is an identity.
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THANKS
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