Intentionality cannot be identified with object-dependence. Here is why.
Suppose that I begin thinking about some faraway thing such as the Washington Monument (WM) and that I think of it without interruption through some short interval of time. Half-way through the interval, unbeknownst to me, the monument is destroyed and ceases to exist. Question: does my thinking become objectless half-way through the interval? Or does my thinking have an object and the same object throughout the interval?
The answer depends on what is meant by 'object.' 'Object' could mean the infinitely-propertied thing intended in the act of thinking, or it could mean that which is before my mind precisely as such with all and only the properties I think of the thing intended as having. Either could be called the intentional object, which goes to show that 'intentional object' is ambiguous. On the first alternative the intentional object = the real object; on the second, the intentional object is some sort of incomplete item that either plays an intermediary role, or else is a proper part of the thing intended. (Husserl aficionados will gather that I am alluding to the difference between West Coast and East Coast interpretations of the status and function of the noema .) To avoid the ambiguity of 'intentional object,' I will distinguish the thing intended from the noema, leaving open how exactly the noema is to be understood.
One answer to the above question is that, during the entire interval, my thinking has one and the same object, but this object is not the thing intended but the noema. The noema is the thing-AS- intended in certain ways (under certain incomplete descrioptions) appropriate to finite minds such as we possess, for example, the x such that x is made of marble and honors George Washington. This distinction between noema and thing intended needs explanation, of course, and it raises some difficult if not insoluble questions, but it fits the phenomenological facts. When the WM ceases to exist, nothing changes phenomenologically. If the intentional object were the real, extra-mental, physical thing, then, when the WM ceases to exist, my conscious state would become objectless -- which is not what happens. So we need the distinction, and we must not conflate object-directedness with object-dependence.
DEP: The objective reference or aboutness of a mental state S is object-dependent =df S's having objective reference entails the (extra-mental) existence of the thing intended by S.
DIR: The objective reference or aboutness of a mental state S is object-directed =df S's having objective reference is logically consistent both with the (extra-mental) existence and (extra-mental) nonexistence of the thing intended by S.
If we understand aboutness in terms of (DIR), then the answer to my question is that nothing changes phenomenologically throughout the interval: my thinking has an object and the very same object throughout the interval despite the WM's ceasing to exist half-way though the interval.
(DEP) codifies an externalist understanding of 'objective reference' whereas (DIR) codifies an internalist understanding. On (DEP), it is the existence in the external world of the thing intended that grounds S's objective reference or aboutness; without this external ground S would lack aboutness, and S would be objectless. On (DEP), then, the aboutness of a mental state is a relational property of the state as opposed to an intrinsic property thereof. On (DIR), intrinsic features of the subject and his acts suffice to ground S's objective reference or aboutness. This implies a strict act-object correlation: necessarily, every act has an object, and every object is the object of an act.
You will have noticed that 'object' has different senses in the above definitions. In (DEP), 'object' refers to a entity that exists in itself, and thus independently of the existence of minds and their acts. In (DIR), 'object' refers to an intentional correlate which cannot exist apart from minds and their acts.
I'll say a bit more by way of elaboration.
The thing intended is the monument itself, the infinitely-propertied physical thing. Surely that is what my thinking intends when I think about the WM and ask: How tall is it? What is its shape? What is it composed of? I am not asking about any content of my consciousness. So I am not asking about the occurrent episode of thinking itself, the act, or any other contents such as felt sensory data (Husserl's hyletic data). Contents are immanent to consciousness and nothing immanent to my consciousness is 550 feet tall, made of marble, monolithic, or in the shape of an obelisk.
Nor am I asking about the noema. Noemata are akin to Fregean senses. Like the latter, noemata cannot be made of marble or 550 feet tall. (This is the 'California' or 'West Coast' interpretation sired by Dagfinn Follesdal.) Like Fregean senses, they are not contents of consciousness that the subject experiences or lives through. Senses and noemata are more like objects than like contents, except that they are abstract or ideal objects that serve a mediating function. The senses of 'Hesperus' and 'Phosphorus' mediate my linguistic reference to that massive chunk of physical reality, the plant Venus. They are neither mental nor physical; they are 'third world' entities albeit more Platonic than Popperian. Noemata are similar: they mediate thinking reference but are neither mental in the manner of a content of consciousness nor physical.
But there is an important difference. Fregean senses exist whether or not minds and their contents exist. They also exist whether or not physical items exist including marks on paper or acoustic disturbances in the air. But noemata exist only as the correlates of acts or intentional experiencings. They have a curious in-between status. They are not contents of consciousness, but they are also not entities in their own right inasmuch as they exist only as correlates of acts.
Because noemata are ideal or abstract intermediaries, they do not have physical properties and dispositions. A tree is disposed to catch on fire if struck by lightning, say. But no tree-noema can catch on fire. (See Husserl, Ideas I, sec. 89)
Recent Comments