Phenomenology and linguistic analysis II
pp. 232-242
in: Harold Durfee (ed), Analytic philosophy and phenomenology, Berlin, Springer, 1976Abstract
I agree with Mr. Taylor that "one of the key concepts of phenomenology is that of "intentionality'," but I am somewhat puzzled by the account that he gives of it. I had always understood that the concept of intentionally was associated by Brentano and Husserl with their theory of mental acts. The guiding principle of this theory, which Mr. Taylor cites without comment, is that consciousness is always consciousness of something; in other words that every cognitive state or process is to be analysed in terms of act and object. The object need not be real: one can imagine what does not exist, one can long for something that will never happen; but, whether it is real or not, even in the case where it is thought of as unreal, it is posited by consciousness as an independent entity. I am not entirely clear what this means, but I think the doctrine may best be understood by contrast with what it denies. It is a way of rejecting any analysis of cognition which invokes only the presence of mental contents, or actual and potential behaviour, or some combination of factors of these kinds. It implies, for example, that it is impossible to give an adequate account of belief which eliminates any reference to an object, such as a proposition, on which belief is directed; believing that such-and-such is the case cannot simply be a matter of assenting to a given form of words and being disposed to behave in certain ways.
