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Husserl and Intentionality: A Study of Mind, Meaning, and Language
Book by David Woodruff Smith, R. McIntyre
- GenresPhilosophy
446 pages, Hardcover
First published September 30, 1982
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September 10, 2009
First off, this is the clearest, most probing secondary source on Husserl's phenomenology I have yet read. Second off, the authors embark on a complex and pretty controversial reconstruction of Husserl's notion of intentionality in terms of Fregean semantics. This amounts to more than an interpretation of Husserl, since it seems to suit the authors needs in the theories-of-intentionality department more than it does Husserl's.
Smith and McIntyre argue that Husserl's "determinable X," part of the noema that is supposed to correspond to the identical core of "an object" which a variety of acts can "give" in other "ways" (believing X to be Y, wishing that X were Y, doubting that X is Y, etc.), is insufficient to pick out one and just one concrete particular in the world. The "reference" acheived by the determinable X is over-determined. The authors then go on to solve the problem of intentional reference by re-interpreting Husserl's notion of "horizon" as a commitment to (or at least something performing the function of) possible world semantics for modal logic. Reference can then be achieved "pragmatically," that is through the horizonal context of an act and its correlated noema, where the horizon is interpreted as pointing to possible worlds in which the state of affairs "prescribed" by the given noema is modified in some of its features.
The problem is that they conceive of the determinable X as an explanatory posit to achieve something like linguistic reference, in the first place. And that they conceive of the noematic core as a Fregean "Sinn," an ideal object by virtue of which linguistic reference is accomplished (and the objectivity of meaning among different subjects guaranteed) in Frege's semantics. The problem is that both of these moves commit Husserl (and Smith and McIntyre, certainly) to the ~necessity of the existence~ of ideal, Fregean Sinne, and the determinable X as a device for achieving reference to a (transcendent) object. For Husserl at least, both of these commitments are unacceptable from the perspective of transcendental phenomenology, because the transcendental subject cannot be dependent upon any truly transcendent entities-- real or ideal --to achieve the meaningful experiences it does. The noema is a phase of conscious experience, for Husserl; albeit one that we do not notice when living in the "natural attitude," in something like the sense (thought not exactly) that we experience hyletic data (raw, meaningless sensations) without ~perceiving~ the hyletic data themselves, but only perceiving "this apple," for example, which the hyletic data fulfill, i.e., provide evidence for the existence of, as I experience "it."
Dallas Willard argues for these points in his lengthy review of this book (available on his website), published when Husserl and Intentionality first came out, paying a lot of attention to Smith and McIntyre's own terms "entertaining" and "prescription," which are explanatory posits the authors come up with to understand what the noema does for the noesis, and what the noema does for the transcendent objects or states of affairs. The noesis "entertains" a noema, and the noema "prescribes" a state of affairs. The problem is that this makes it look like the noema is an intentional object of the noesis, even though Smith and McIntyre vigorously dissuade the reader from that conclusion. It also makes it seem that the noema somehow achieves reference to a transcendent state of affairs in the same sense that a Fregean sense mediates reference to an object. But Frege had an entirely different metaphysics and philosophy of language than Husserl had circa Ideas I, as evidence by the fact that he thought it the role of sentences to refer to objects and the role of Sinne to enable that, even though neither Sinne nor sentences seemingly depend on consciousness (and certainly not our concrete practices) for this function. These criticisms can all be found in Willard's review, although at much greater length and detail.
All in all, I feel that Husserl and Intentionality helped me even to ask these questions and appreciate these criticisms, due to the uncompromising analysis that the authors attempt in the book. So, I give it 4 stars for being exemplary of a great book of philosophy, but not 5 because I agree with Willard that the authors could have parted ways with Husserl halfway through the book and developed their own theory of intentionality (explicitly conceived as a theory, i.e., with explanatory ambitions like Frege's).
Smith and McIntyre argue that Husserl's "determinable X," part of the noema that is supposed to correspond to the identical core of "an object" which a variety of acts can "give" in other "ways" (believing X to be Y, wishing that X were Y, doubting that X is Y, etc.), is insufficient to pick out one and just one concrete particular in the world. The "reference" acheived by the determinable X is over-determined. The authors then go on to solve the problem of intentional reference by re-interpreting Husserl's notion of "horizon" as a commitment to (or at least something performing the function of) possible world semantics for modal logic. Reference can then be achieved "pragmatically," that is through the horizonal context of an act and its correlated noema, where the horizon is interpreted as pointing to possible worlds in which the state of affairs "prescribed" by the given noema is modified in some of its features.
The problem is that they conceive of the determinable X as an explanatory posit to achieve something like linguistic reference, in the first place. And that they conceive of the noematic core as a Fregean "Sinn," an ideal object by virtue of which linguistic reference is accomplished (and the objectivity of meaning among different subjects guaranteed) in Frege's semantics. The problem is that both of these moves commit Husserl (and Smith and McIntyre, certainly) to the ~necessity of the existence~ of ideal, Fregean Sinne, and the determinable X as a device for achieving reference to a (transcendent) object. For Husserl at least, both of these commitments are unacceptable from the perspective of transcendental phenomenology, because the transcendental subject cannot be dependent upon any truly transcendent entities-- real or ideal --to achieve the meaningful experiences it does. The noema is a phase of conscious experience, for Husserl; albeit one that we do not notice when living in the "natural attitude," in something like the sense (thought not exactly) that we experience hyletic data (raw, meaningless sensations) without ~perceiving~ the hyletic data themselves, but only perceiving "this apple," for example, which the hyletic data fulfill, i.e., provide evidence for the existence of, as I experience "it."
Dallas Willard argues for these points in his lengthy review of this book (available on his website), published when Husserl and Intentionality first came out, paying a lot of attention to Smith and McIntyre's own terms "entertaining" and "prescription," which are explanatory posits the authors come up with to understand what the noema does for the noesis, and what the noema does for the transcendent objects or states of affairs. The noesis "entertains" a noema, and the noema "prescribes" a state of affairs. The problem is that this makes it look like the noema is an intentional object of the noesis, even though Smith and McIntyre vigorously dissuade the reader from that conclusion. It also makes it seem that the noema somehow achieves reference to a transcendent state of affairs in the same sense that a Fregean sense mediates reference to an object. But Frege had an entirely different metaphysics and philosophy of language than Husserl had circa Ideas I, as evidence by the fact that he thought it the role of sentences to refer to objects and the role of Sinne to enable that, even though neither Sinne nor sentences seemingly depend on consciousness (and certainly not our concrete practices) for this function. These criticisms can all be found in Willard's review, although at much greater length and detail.
All in all, I feel that Husserl and Intentionality helped me even to ask these questions and appreciate these criticisms, due to the uncompromising analysis that the authors attempt in the book. So, I give it 4 stars for being exemplary of a great book of philosophy, but not 5 because I agree with Willard that the authors could have parted ways with Husserl halfway through the book and developed their own theory of intentionality (explicitly conceived as a theory, i.e., with explanatory ambitions like Frege's).
Displaying 1 of 1 review