Consciousness and Intentionality: The Face of the Phenomena

I discuss three issues about the relation of phenomenal consciousness, in the sense Siewert isolates, to intentionality. The first is whether, contrary to Siewert, phenomenal consciousness requires higher-order representation. The second is whether intentional features of conscious states are identical with phenomenal features, as Siewert argues, or merely conceptually supervene on them, with special attention to cross modal representations of objects in space. The third is whether phenomenal features are identical with what we can have first person access to, with special attention to features of thoughts that are individuated by reference to the self and the present time.

1984

It must be confessed, moreover, that Eerce2t1on and that which depends on it are Inexplicable by mechanical causes, that is, by figures and motIoos. Arid, supposing that there w.re a machine so constructed as to think, feel and have perception, we could conceive of it as enlarged and yet preserving the same proportions, 80 that we might enter it as into a mill. And this granted, we should only find on visiting it, pieces which push one against another, be never anything by which to explain a perception.

Synthesis philosophica, 2005

The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness

Philosophers traditionally recognize two main features of mental states: intentionality and phenomenal consciousness. To a first approximation, intentionality is the aboutness of mental states, and phenomenal consciousness is the felt, experiential, qualitative, or "what it's like" aspect of mental states. In the past few decades, these features have been widely assumed to be distinct and independent. But several philosophers have recently challenged this assumption, arguing that intentionality and consciousness are importantly related. This article overviews the key views on the relationship between consciousness and intentionality and describes our favored view, which is a version of the phenomenal intentionality theory, roughly the view that the most fundamental kind of intentionality arises from phenomenal consciousness.

Human Studies, 2023

In this paper, I argue that according to Edmund Husserl "tendency" does not designate a specific class of intentional experiences but rather, on par with "consciousness-of," a universal mode of intentionality essential for any constitution of sense. In doing so, I explicate Husserl's distinction between intentionality as tendency (Tendenz), which he describes as a striving (Streben), and intentionality as consciousness-of (Bewusstsein-von), which he describes as a presentation (Vorstellung) of an intentional object. Then, I discuss Husserl's problematic way of relating these two universal modes of intentionality. Although he claims that intentionality as tendency presupposes intentionality as consciousness-of, I argue that the universal validity of this presupposition is put into question by the consideration of drives (Triebe), which Husserl describes as passive tendencies that originally lack any consciousness of the end strived toward, and, hence, do not seem to presuppose any presentation of it. I show that the lack of intentionality as consciousness-of poses two major problems in Husserl's account, in that it makes drives seemingly unintelligible as (i) strivings and as (ii) motivated experiences. Lastly, to find a possible solution to these problems and better clarify the relation between intentionality as tendency and intentionality as consciousness-of at the level of drives, I explore Edith Stein's account of drives as aimless strivings governed by experiential causality (Erlebniskausalität), discussing its advantages and potential drawbacks, as well as its compatibility with Husserl's account. In the phenomenological tradition, the description of the psychic life of the subject has revolved around the concept of intentionality as consciousness of something. The phenomenological analysis of conscious experiences aims to clarify how, for

Philosophical Psychology, 2019

In case you haven't received the news, the phenomenal intentionality research program is under way. It was both recognized and catalyzed as such by Uriah Kriegel in his introduction to the (2013) edited volume Phenomenal Intentionality. Before that, it had been coalescing for over a decadeeven longer if the work of John Searle (1992) and Galen Strawson (1994) in the early 1990s counts. Charles Siewert's (1998) book The Significance of Consciousness helped make respectable the idea, long out of favor, that consciousness and intentionality are bound up with one another. It would be hard to overstate the influence of Horgan and Tienson's (2002) paper "The Intentionality of Phenomenology and the Phenomenology of Intentionality." (A fellow phenomenal-intentionality sympathizer who heard the paper when it was first presented told me that her reaction was one of dizzy elation. She thought, "Really? We get to say things like that?") Brian Loar, David Pitt, and David Chalmers also contributed seminal papers right around the same time. 1 These early contributions paved the way for a flurry of work in the past ten years, comprising two volumes of new essays, 2 themed journal issues in The Monist (2008) and Phenomenology and Mind (2016), numerous journal articles, andso farthree monographs. 3 The most recent is The Phenomenal Basis of Intentionality by Angela Mendelovici. 4 Thomas Kuhn wrote in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions that the early development of a scientific research program (a 'paradigm,' in his jargon) is marked by the publication of books written for a broadly educated readership, whereas a more mature research program proceeds by the working out of puzzles in journal articles directed at other specialists. The Phenomenal Basis of Intentionality is an excellent example of the sort of paradigmestablishing monograph that Kuhn had in mind. Up until now, most work on phenomenal intentionality has sought to establish either the existence or the scope of phenomenallybased intentionality. Mendelovici contributes to these discussions, but she proceeds much further, providing a positive theory of the metaphysics of all intentionality in terms of consciousness. Mendelovici makes it clear when she is making claims that are accepted by all or most members of the phenomenal-intentionality crowd and when her claims are more parochial. This allows the book to serve both as a primer and as a cutting-edge proposal. It is and shall be essential reading for those interested in the phenomenal-intentionality paradigm. Certainly, it raises many puzzles, some of which I discuss below. But these are the sorts of puzzles that galvanize rather than paralyze. Would-be puzzle-solvers within the paradigm can now get to work: The research program has been thoroughly launched.

2021

The chapter's main goal is to argue that Husserl's notion of (conscious) intentionality is not only the core of his oeuvre, but also that it is still philosophically valuable. In order to do so, my discussion revolves around three W-questions: (1) The Why-Question: why does intentionality matter philosophically? (2) The What-Question: what is intentionality? (3) The What-Impact-Question: what is the lasting impact of Husserlian intentionality? Addressing these questions in turn, I first argue that in contrast to Brentano's descriptive psychological approach Husserl is primarily interested in a transcendentally (and ontologically) oriented account of consciousness according to which intentionality amounts to the fundamental structure in virtue of which existent (and non-existent) objects can manifest themselves to us in the first place. Turning to the second question, I briefly describe what I call the "fourfold essence" of Husserlian intentionality. Accordingly, intentionality is a multidimensional property of (most) conscious experiences that exhibits four mutually irreducible and equally indispensable "axes" (subject; noetic mode or "quality"; noematic sense or "matter"; and intentional object). In this context, I also discuss Husserl's notion of "horizon" and hint at an integrative interpretation that tries to combine Husserl's early species theory of content with his later noematic theory. In the third part, I defend Husserlian intentionality against Hilary Putnam's influential charge of an allegedly "magical" connection between mind and world. I conclude that Husserlian intentionality manifests the deep metaphysical fact that, essentially speaking, mind and world are made for each other without being mutually reducible to each other: the essence of consciousness points towards the world, and the essence of the world prescribes possible ways of experiencing it.

Logos & Episteme, 2023

My purpose is to refute the intentionalist approach to perception. Drawing from mainstream literature, I identify a principle on which any version of intentional theory relies. My paper is a detailed attack on the truth of the principle. In the first section I will introduce terminology and will taxonomize various statements of the intentional view. In the second section I will briefly outline a sketch of the skeletal intentionalist theory that develops from the assumption of the principle alone. Then, in the third section, I will advance my reasons against this theory. In the fourth section, I will set forth an intuitive and definitive counterexample to the adequacy of the principle of intentionalism to accounting for ordinary perception. Moving from this, in the fifth section, I will provide some reasons explaining why intentionalism is condemned at being unsuccessful. Finally, in the last section of the paper, I will give my conclusions.

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 the latter’s theory of semantics. This essay argues that Husserl’s alternative solutions to the problems of Brentano run into conflict either with the desired rigor of his phenomenology or with the actual workings of language.