Husserlian Intentionality and Non-Foundational Realism

The rift which has long divided the philosophical world into opposed schools-the "Continental" school owing its origins to the phenomenology of Husserl and the "analytic" school derived from Frege-is finally closing. But this closure is occurring in ways both different and in certain respects at odds with one another. On the one hand scholars are seeking to rediscover the concerns and positions common to both schools, positions from which we can continue fruitfully to address important philosophical issues. On the other hand successors to both traditions have developed criticisms of basic assumptions shared by the two schools. They have suggested that we must move not merely beyond the conflict between these two "modem" schools but beyond the kind of philosophy represented in the unity of the two schools and thereby move towards a new "postmodern" philosophical style. On the one hand, then and for example, Husserl scholarship has in recent years witnessed the development of an interpretation of Husserl which more closely aligns his phenomenology with the philosophical concerns of the "analytic" tradition. In certain respects, this should come as no surprise and is long overdue. It is true, after all, that the early Husserl occupied himself with many of the same philosophical issues as did Frege and the earliest thinkers of the analytic tradition. Examples include the concept of number, the nature of mathematical analysis, meaning and reference, truth, formalization, and the relationship between logic and mathematics.

Contenu

Notes.- I: Intentionality and the Reduction.- 1. Intentionality: A Philosophical Context.- A problem: intentional relations and intentional objects.- Brentano and Husserl.- Problems in the philosophy of logic and language.- Sense and reference.- Notes.- 2. Intentionality: Husserl's Early Theory.- Logische Untersuchungen: intentional content as intentional object.- Intentional content as matter.- Intentional content as intentional essence.- Logische Untersuchungen: the second edition.- Notes.- 3. The Reduction.- The phenomenological reduction.- . Neutralization and the variations in reflective attitudes.- . Noesis-noema.- Notes.- II: Noema and Object.- 4. Contra Gurwitsch.- . Gurwitsch on the perceptual noema: the object as perceived.- . Gurwitsch's generalization: the noema as object as experienced.- . Dreyfus on Gurwitsch: interpretive and intuitive sense.- . Dreyfus on Gurwitsch: reference and referent.- . Dreyfus on Gurwitsch: perceptual appearances and the perceived object.- . Dreyfus extended: categorial and ontological differences.- . Gurwitsch's "phenomenological phenomenalism".- Notes.- 5. Contra the Fregean Approach.- . Recapitulation.- . First interpretive thesis: the noema as intentional content and abstract entity.- . Intention via Sinn.- . Second interpretive thesis: the noema as intensional entity.- . The expressibility thesis.- . The structure of noematic Sinne.- . The intended in the Sinn.- Notes.- 6. Identities and Manifolds.- . Requisites of an alternative interpretation.- . The ambiguity of appearances and the eliminability of hyletic data.- . The perceptual noema: the object as appearing under psycho-physical conditions.- . Wholes and parts/identities and manifolds.- . Structural significance versus "pre-logical" sense.- . The manifold of manifolds.- . The intentional structure of associational syntheses.- Notes.- 7. Noemata, Senses, and Meanings.- . Noemata: the later works.- . The double sense of the judgmental Satz: position and proposition.- . Propositions and judgmental noemata.- . Meanings: the expressibility thesis revisited.- . Irenics and polemics.- Notes.- 8. Possibilities and the Actual World.- . Modalities and act-contexts.- . Intentional reference.- . The horizon.- . Possibilities in the actual world versus possible worlds.- . The world: foundation, surroundings, horizon.- Notes.- III: Non-Foundational Realism.- 9. Husserl and Foundationalism.- . A perverse suggestion?.- . Varieties of foundationalism.- . Essential insight without foundationalism.- Notes.- 10. Husserl and Realism.- . Realisms and anti-realisms.- . The phenomenological reduction and ontological realism.- . The noema and epistemological realism.- . Three formal sciences, two logics, and logical realism.- . Husserl's realism.- . Conclusion.- Notes.