Noema and Thinkability: An Essay on Husserl's Theory of Intentionality

Description

The years of study on Husserl’s theory of intentionality have led to a number of non-equivalent interpretations. The present work attempts to investigate the most prominent of these by presenting both their advantages and difficulties. However, its key point is specifically the analysis of Husserl’s theory. This is made in several stages that are concerned with the relation between noesis and noema: whether it is one-to-one or many-to-one, the kind of transcendency and dependency between them, and whether noema supervenes on noesis. Moreover, Husserl’s theory is also examined in—usually ignored—instances of contradiction, nonsense and intentional conflict. The outcome is a fresh reading in which noema occurs as the possibly thinkable content capable of constituting multi-objective references and composed of pure X explained in terms of syntactic matter and form. ABBREVIATIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION Chapter I Foundations of phenomenology 1. The theory of parts and wholes in Logical Investigations 2. Sensuous and categorial forms of unity 3. The concept of experience 3.1. Sensuous data 3.2. The functional moments of real phenomenological content 3.3. Matter and quality 4. The relation between matter, quality and the functional moments of consciousness and its interpretation via Ideas I 5. The intentional content as the intentional object 6. Intentional matter and intentional objects Final notes Chapter II Noema and noetic-noematic correlation in Ideas I 1. The structure of noema and noesis 2. The noetic-noematic correlation 2.1. Preparatory remarks 2.2. The one-to-one relation between noesis and noema 2.3. The “many noeses to one noema” relation 2.4. The noetic-noematic correlation examined on the basis of the one example 3. The issue of transcendence in the sphere of an act’s components 4. The noetic-noematic correlation as a dependent variation 4.1. The examination of noema under nine postulates for supervenient entities 4.2. The question of reducing noema to noesis 4.3. The one and two way covariation between noesis and noema Final notes Chapter III Interpretations and extensions of Husserl’s concept of noema 1. Noema as the Gestalt: Aron Gurwitsch’s theory of noema 1.1. The structure of the Gestalt is the structure of noema 1.2. Noema and object: Against Gurwitsch 2. The idea of identity in manifold analysis: John Drummond’s reading of noema 2.1. Object as identity in the manifold of appearances 2.2. The relation between judgmental noema and the object judged 2.3. Ontological identity of noema and object and their noncoincidence 3. Noematic Sinn as an intensional entity: Dagfin Føllesdal’s interpretation of noema 4. Smith and McIntyre’s concept of noema 4.1. Noema as the sense of definite description 4.2. Noema as the sense of ‘demonstratives’ 4.3. Noematic Sinn as a mediator 4.4. The abstract nature of noema 5. Roman Ingarden’s theory of the purely intentional object 5.1. The concept of experience 5.2. Ingarden’s vs. Husserl’s concept of experience 5.3. The structure of the purely intentional object 5.4. The purely intentional object in relation to experience 5.5. Noema in comparison to the purely intentional object 6. Two subjects in noematic structure: Jacek Paśniczek’s theory of noema 6.1. Two- and three-aspect theories of intentionality 6.2. Noema as the purely intentional object Final notes Chapter IV The noema as possibly thinkable content 1. Noema in the light of contradiction, conflict and nonsense 1.1. Logical investigations vis-à-vis Ideas I 1.2. Noema as the sense of self contradictory formulas 1.3. Noema in the sphere of conflict 1.4. Noema in the sphere of nonsense 1.5. Final remarks 2. The object as the substrate and as the correlate of predicative judgment 2.1. Different levels in objectifying operations 2.2. Intellect and sensibility 3. The idea of “thinkable content” in the context of various interpretations of noema 3.1. The discussion with Føllesdal 3.1.1. An argument that follows the explanation of intentional conflict 3.1.2. An argument that follows the explanation of constitution of categorial objects 3.1.3. An argument that follows the conception of immanent perception 3.1.4. An argument that follows the conception of abstraction 3.1.5. An argument that follows the explanation of the correlate of the sensuous perception 3.2. Discussion with Gurwitsch and Drummond 3.2.1. An argument that follows the ontological undifferentiation of noema from the intentional object Final notes SUMMARY BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX Blank Page