Objective Reference in Husserl’s Theory of Intentionality
Andre Okawara
In the course of discussing Husserl’s idea of intentional experience, I will explore the importance of what Aron Gurwitsch calls the ‘phenomenon of verification’ for the maintenance of the objectivity of consciousness. As a secondary finding of this investigation, I will seek to demonstrate how the lack of a more detailed explanation of the derivation of meaning from sensations in Husserl’s concept of noema could cause an initial arbitrariness to be perpetuated by acts of empty intending.
Brentano maintains that all psychic phenomena, as opposed to physical phenomena, have in common the characteristic of being about something. To talk about this something, Brentano uses the term immanent object, to distinguish it from objects outside the mind. However, he does not mean that the object of a mental act is within the mind. When I propose to my girlfriend, I do not propose to my idea of her, but I intend the real person. This in turn leads to problems regarding mental acts whose objects do not exist in the external world, as when I think of a unicorn. If Brentano resists formulating something to the extent that the object is somehow part of the mental act, then what exactly is the object of such a thought? It becomes clear that Brentano does not have a satisfying answer as to how it is that mental acts could relate to the external world. The Cartesian separation of mind and the physical world is a problem for Brentano’s concept of intentionality, and, as a consequence, for his attempt to define the field of phenomenology as descriptive psychology.
Husserl seems to circumvent this problem when he proposes in his Logical Investigations a pure phenomenology that would ignore empirical interpretations and existential considerations in the study of our mental acts. If phenomenology is to gain full access to inner experiences as such, no constraints should be prematurely imposed on them....