Consciousness is of or about an object. That is, when we experience something, it is that object itself we are conscious of, not a representative of it.
All agree that objects don’t appear before consciousness magically: A process is involved that makes the presence of the object possible. A fundamental mistake occurs, thinks Husserl, when, in theorizing about the process, we succumb to the temptation to say that it is the process we are conscious of, rather than the object. We then substitute some part of the process for the object and misunderstand consciousness as consciousness of this representative of the object, rather than of the object itself. The doctrine of intentionality is the rejection of this mistake . For example, when we visually perceive a chair, we do it by means of a retinal image and then mental images. Almost no one makes the mistake of claiming that what we are conscious of is the retinal image, but many do hold that it is some mental representative of the chair that we are really conscious of, rather than the chair itself. The most notorious offender, of course, is Descartes, who, in proposing his Theory of Ideas, claims that the mind is never in contact with anything outside of itself. The notion is also prevalent in traditional Empiricism. Husserl insists that it is the object itself that consciousness grasps and he repudiates all . Intentionality is not, of course, a claim that there are no representations – the existence of retinal images itself would overthrow such a foolish stand. Rather it is the claim that whatsoever intermediate entities there may be in the process of grasping an object, it is not these representatives that we are conscious of, but the object itself. Husserl’s doctrine of intentionality maintains that consciousness is of the objects experienced and does not stop at intermediate events along the way, whether these are on one unified stage or dispersed throughout the brain. It’s not just that there is no big picture; there are no little pictures either. Brain events are part of the process, never the objects of experiencing. (An obvious exception, of course, is the case of a neuroscientist for whom brain events are themselves the objects of investigation.)
One of the reasons for this error is an ambiguity in the notion of representation. In the philosophical tradition from Descartes to Kant, “representation” is a mental object, and it is in that sense of the term that Husserl attacks representations. In recent Cognitive Science, “representation” is a brain structure which in one way or another tracks something in the world. While Husserl knew nothing of Cognitive Science, he was fully aware of the fact that the body is involved in perception, so I doubt he would have had any objection to the notion of a brain-representation. His attack on representativism is not a repudiation of representations in the sense of brain-representations. What he objects to is any analysis of experience which would describe us as conscious of mind-representations rather than of objects in the world. Dennett’s distinction between the representing and the represented, correct as it is, slurs the distinction between brain- and mind-representation so that it seems to make sense to ask whether a heterophenomenological report might “unwittingly” be about some event in the brain. But this is to treat the brain event as something represented that experience could be about. What the speaker is reporting, however, is an experience of something which presents itself, correctly or incorrectly, as, say, a moving light in the world. If there is a brain-representation involved, it is on the side of the representing process and is not an object represented to consciousness, a mind-representation. In rejecting representativism, Husserlian intentionality rejects the possibility that a brain-representation could be the object or terminus of consciousness. I think Husserl would claim that Dennett, though he jettisons much of Descartes’ position, hasn’t gone far enough and appears to be stuck with a residual Cartesianism. It is the very notion that to be conscious is to be conscious of some intermediary, be it mental or physical, that Husserlian intentionality is opposed to.
. It was Edmund Husserl who first developed a phenomenological approach. That mean that he would look at the phenomena of consciousness, and bracket them from any question of whether they are true or not. Reflecting on the formal science of Geometry he came to the conclusion that the objectivity of ideas arose from their assent amongst a community of subjects. This was an intellectual development that closely paralleled Wittgenstein’s shift from truth tables to language
Metaphysical Naturalism (MN): The thesis that all reality is physical reality. (physicalism)
Epistemological Naturalism (EN): The thesis that all genuine knowledge is natural scientific knowledge. (scientism?)
Epistemological Naturalism Recast (EN’): The thesis that all genuine propositional knowledge (or all genuine knowledge except know-how) is natural scientific knowledge.
Explanation-Theoretic Naturalism (ETN): The thesis that all genuine explanation is natural scientific explanation. (hempelian positivism?)
Trivial Naturalism (TN): The thesis that all philosophers ought to know something about natural science.
Weisberg Naturalism One (WN1): The thesis that because natural science has been successful at gaining knowledge, philosophy ought to become natural science.
Cerberus Naturalism (WNk): The thesis that (a) epistemology is the study of the epistemic aspects of human cognition and of how humans can improve their epistemic performance; (b) one cannot understand the epistemic status of a state without understanding the processes that generate that state; (c) the main project of epistemology is to describe the processes that are most reliable at generating “epistemically virtuous states” in human beings in our world; and (d) almost nothing is knowable a priori. No epistemological principles are knowable a priori.
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B. What kind of naturalism is Husserl against?
It is important to be clear, I think, that Husserl is not against any and every philosophical position that calls itself naturalism. After all, labels and -isms don’t themselves matter. What is at issue is the content of the doctrines in questions. Thus for instance Husserl has no objection to TN — to take a simple case. More substantively, he can (at least in the context of the Logos Manifesto) grant MN. His quarrel with naturalism here is not a quarrel with physicalism.
Prejudice in Philosophy: Remarks, Conjectures & Confessions
Intentionality concerns the phenomena at the center of consciousness, at its focus. At the periphery of consciousness is what Husserl termed the “horizon,” the background that provides the conditions for comprehending phenomena. In other words, what the horizon provides is pre-understanding (Vorverst?ndnis). For instance, we understand the meaning of words in the context of a horizon constituted from our understanding of other words and their relations. Describing the relationships between horizon and intentionality, Husserl points out:
Consciousness–where the given object is led to its realization–is not like a box with data inside. A current state of consciousness is constituted so that every object shows its selfness.12
Heidegger uses a notion similar to Husserl’s horizon: readiness-to-hand (Zuhanden). The word Zuhanden–at hand–emphasizes that relevant objects are held near the focus of consciousness. Both horizon and intentional states are constantly changing, and a phenomenon placed at the horizon, in the background, can be readily moved to the center by consciousness. Conversely, the phenomena constituted in the field of intentionality form a part of the horizon for the next intentionality field. As they move from center to periphery, they move from present to just-past; they submerge into the horizon, sink in time
Bracketing
Because the mind can be directed toward nonexistent as well as real objects, Husserl noted that phenomenological reflection does not presuppose that anything exists, but rather amounts to a “bracketing of existence,” that is, setting aside the question of the real existence of the contemplated object. An object has meaning only to ion the extent that is given by the subject.
Husserl considered it a great mystery and wonder that a group of beings was aware of their existence. In effect human consciousness is the phenomenological result of introspection. By observing that “I can touch and see my being,” we recognize that we exist. The ego is always present, or nothing exists for the individual.
Bibliography
Because the mind can be directed toward nonexistent as well as real objects, Husserl noted that phenomenological reflection does not presuppose that anything exists, but rather amounts to a “bracketing of existence,” that is, setting aside the question of the real existence of the contemplated object. An object has meaning only to ion the extent that is given by the subject.
Husserl considered it a great mystery and wonder that a group of beings was aware of their existence. In effect human consciousness is the phenomenological result of introspection. By observing that “I can touch and see my being,” we recognize that we exist. The ego is always present, or nothing exists for the individual.