David Smith

The body, merleau-ponty claimed, carries a unique form of intentionality that is not reducible to the intentionality of thought. i propose to separate several different forms of intentionality concerning such ``bodily intentionality'': awareness of one's body and bodily movement; purposive action; and perception of one's environment in acting. these different forms of awareness are interdependent in specific ways. no one form of intentionality--cognitive or practical--is an absolute foundation for the others.

Responding to the myth of a purely sensuous “given”, we turn to phenomenology, to the structure of consciousness in an everyday perception of an everyday object. We first consider Brentano’s model of an act of consciousness: featuring the presentation of an object “intentionally” contained “in” the act, joined by the presentation of that object-presentation in “inner consciousness”. We then dig into Husserl’s intricate “semantic” theory of intentionality: featuring “noematic” meaning within a “horizon” of implicated meaning regarding the object of perceptual consciousness. Brentanian inner consciousness morphs into “inner time consciousness” for Husserl, where noematic sense shapes more basic sensory elements of temporal experience. Drawing on these Brentanian and Husserlian analyses, we develop an enhanced account of how an object is “given” in perceptual acquaintance or “intuition”: by virtue of a structure of meaning entertained in the experience. This account we develop further in a “modal” model of the structure of consciousness in everyday perception: distinguishing fundamental factors of phenomenal intentional experience, including inner awareness, phenomenality, and spatiotemporal awareness. Within this model, we specify how the external object of perception is “constituted” in consciousness by virtue of ideal meaning, all within the real world wherein an intentional relation of acquaintance links the perceptual experience with its object. What is “given” in a familiar type of perceptual acquaintance turns out to be quite complex, embracing: the object perceived, the visual experience, its subject, the spatiotemporal context including consciousness and object, and the manifold of meaning shaping the “constitution” of the given object. Where we refer to historical figures, including Husserl, the aim is theoretical rather than exegetical, seeking to develop a contemporary theory of “the given” with roots in classical philosophical views. The resulting theory develops in a series of explorations of increasing complexity in the phenomenology and attendant ontology of “the given”.

Pike’s phenomenology of mystical experiences articulates sharply where theological content may enter the structure of Christian mystics’ experiences (as characterized in their own words). Here we look to Buddhist (and other) accounts of pure or nibbanic consciousness attained in experiences of deep meditation. A contemporary modal model of inner awareness is considered whereby a form of pure consciousness underlies and embraces further content in various forms of consciousness, including mystical experiences in different traditions and experiences of full union (with God)

This essay explores an ideal notion of form (mathematical structure) that embraces logical, phenomenological, and ontological form. Husserl envisioned a correlation among forms of expression, thought, meaning, and object—positing ideal forms on all these levels. The most puzzling formal entities Husserl discussed were those he called ‘manifolds’. These manifolds, I propose, are forms of complex states of affairs or partial possible worlds representable by forms of theories (compare structuralism). Accordingly, I sketch an intentionality-based semantics correlating these four Husserlian levels of form—thereby integrating logic, phenomenology, and ontology.

This is a study of the epistemology of indexical reference, Or its foundation in the intentionality of the speaker's awareness of the referent. Where the referent is the object of the speaker's acquaintance on that occasion, The sense expressed is the generic content of that awareness. This, Indexical sense determines indexical reference, But indexical sense works by appeal to the context of the speaker's awareness of the referent. It is discussed how, By virtue of indexical sense, Indexical reference is rigid, I.E. Picks out the same referent in any possible world

This essay is a study of Edmund Husserl’s conception of meaning. In this first section we indicate its importance for his conception of phenomenology. In Section 2 we see that Husserl’s conception of linguistic meaning, of its nature as “ideal” and its role in mediating reference, is almost exactly that of his contemporary Gottlob Frege. In Sections 3 and 4 we further argue that, for Husserl, linguistic meaning and noematic Sinn are one and the same. For, according to Husserl, every linguistic meaning is a noematic Sinn expressed, and every noematic Sinn is in principle expressible and therefore a linguistic meaning. Section 3 argues the former; Section 4, the latter.

This chapter, which is concerned with the phenomenology of perception, especially the role of content and context in the intentionality of perception, tries to provide an account of the structure of perceptual experience and its intentional relation to its objects. In particular, it presents an analysis of consciousness and intentionality in perception. Perceptual experience is sensuous and paradigmatically intentional. The intentional character of a visual experience of an object is different to the successful intentional relation between the experience and the object. The twin-tomatoes experiment reveals that content alone does not settle which tomato is the correct object of perception. Perception gives a direct awareness of an object in the sense that the external object is itself the object of perception, and the object is actually present to the subject and experienced as actually present in the context of perception.

Cognitive phenomenology may be defined as the study of “cognitive” experiences _as_ experienced, including consciously thinking, perceiving (sensory‐conceptual experience), judging (either self‐evidential or inferential), etc. The present study will address: (i) the _phenomenality_ of consciously thinking, i.e. its “appearing” in consciousness, with a character of “what it is like” to so think; (ii) the _intentionality_ of thinking, i.e. its character of being directed through a propositional content or “thought” toward a putative state of affairs; and (iii) the form of _inner awareness_ commonly found in thinking, i.e. the character whereby one is immediately aware of one's so thinking. On the “modal” model of consciousness, an act of _consciously_ thinking is _phenomenally_ directed _from_ the act, _centered_ in its subject, _through_ its meaning‐content _toward_ its putative object _with_ immediate awareness thereof. Several distinct “modal” characters will here be factored from the form of inner awareness: phenomenality, reflexivity, egocentricity, and temporal and spatial sensibility. On this account, phenomenality is not restricted to sensory experience bearing sensory “qualia.”