Online research in philosophy

This paper argues that there is no such thing as ?phenomenal intentionality?. The arguments used by its advocates rely upon an appeal to ?what it is like? (WIL) to attend on some occasion to one?s intentional state. I argue that there is an important asymmetry in the application of the WIL phenomenon to sensory and intentional states. Advocates of ?phenomenal intentionality? fail to recognize this, but this asymmetry undermines their arguments for phenomenal intentionality. The broader issue driving the advocacy of phenomenal intentionality is the belief that consciousness must somehow be implicated in intentionality. With this I agree. But because of the asymmetry of application of WIL, the path chosen by advocates of phenomenal intentionality to secure this conclusion cannot succeed. A brief overview of recent philosophy of mind explains the temptation to take this wrong path. Fortunately, there are other routes that implicate consciousness in intentionality. In consequence, though there is no phenomenal intentionality, there is a phenomenology of intentionality.

This paper distinguishes between two senses of the term “phenomenology”: a narrow sense (drawn from Nagel) and a broader sense (drawn from Husserl). It claims, with particular reference to the moral sphere, that the narrow meaning of moral phenomenology cannot stand alone, that is, that moral phenomenology in the narrow sense entails moral intentionality. The paper proceeds by examining different examples of the axiological and volitional experiences of both virtuous and dutiful agents, and it notes the correlation between the phenomenal and intentional differences belonging to these experiences. The paper concludes with some reflections on how the focus on the broader sense of “phenomenology” serves to provide a more precise sense of what we might mean by “moral phenomenology.”.

"Phenomenology on (the) Rocks" shows how an interest in the natural realm can be congruent with globalization if we conceive this globality in a vernacular way. Husserl and Merleau-Ponty first developed a tentative conceptual instrumentarium for this direction of thought. Through a broadening of traditional phenomenology as a philosophy of primordial constitution based upon intentionality of the subject, they began thinking in terms of co-constitution and operative intentionality. In the rest of the paper I mainly show how operant intentionality works in and through the way we take up - or are taken up by - that which seems the most indifferent and impervious to us, namely - the world of stones.

The phenomenology of emotions has traditionally been understood in terms of bodily sensations they involve. This is a mistake. We should instead understand their phenomenology in terms of their distinctively evaluative intentionality. Emotions are essentially affective modes of response to the ways our circumstances come to matter to us, and so they are ways of being pleased or pained by those circumstances. Making sense of the intentionality and phenomenology of emotions in this way requires rejecting traditional understandings of intentionality and so coming to see emotions as a distinctive and irreducible class of mental states lying at the intersection of intentionality, phenomenology, and motivation.

Some philosophers think that intentionality is ontologically distinct from phenomenal consciousness; call this the Thesis of Separation. Terence Horgan and John Tienson (2002, p. 520) call this.

Intentionality is usually defined as the directedness of the mind toward something other than itself. My desire for a cold beer is directed at the cold beer in front of me. Much of consciousness is intentional, my conscious experiences are usually directed at something. However, conscious experiences typically have a phenomenal character: there is something it is like for me to see the deep blue of the Pacific Ocean and to feel the warm water lapping over my feet, and to smell the briny breeze. An important question to answer concerning the relationship between intentionality and consciousness is whether all conscious states are intentional? Another question concerns the explanatory priority of intentionality and phenomenal character: Can phenomenal character be explained in terms of intentionality? Or is it the case that intentionality should be understood in terms of phenomenology? Philosophers from the analytic, phenomenological, and naturalistic traditions have all made important contributions to our understanding of intentionality and consciousness. Some philosophers, such as Dretske, think that our phenomenology is intentionally structured. Others, such as Horgan and Tienson think that intentionality is fundamentally determined by our phenomenology. This looks like an impasse; however it may well be resolved by a combination of contemporary accounts of representation combined with an embodied phenomenology.

This paper will deal with the problem of practical intentionality in the transcendental phenomenology of Husserl. First, through an analysis of a passage found in Logical Investigations, I will show Husserl''s earlier position with respect to the problem of practical intentionality. I will then go on to critically assess this position and, with reference to some of Husserl''s works written after the 1920''s, prove that every intentionality should be regarded as a practical intentionality. Correspondingly, transcendental phenomenology should also be characterized as a practical philosophy. I make this statement with the following two senses in mind; transcendental phenomenology is a practical philosophy, first, in the sense that it investigates the various forms of practical intentionality and, second, in the sense that transcendental intentionality as the grounding source of transcendental phenomenology is also a kind of practical intentionality.

Since the seventies, it has been customary to assume that intentionality is independent of consciousness. Recently, a number of philosophers have rejected this assumption, claiming intentionality is closely tied to consciousness, inasmuch as non- conscious intentionality in some sense depends upon conscious intentionality. Within this alternative framework, the question arises of how to account for unconscious intentionality, and different authors have offered different accounts. In this paper, I compare and contrast four possible accounts of unconscious intentionality, which I call potentialism, inferentialism, eliminativism, and interpretivism. The first three are the leading accounts in the existing literature, while the fourth is my own proposal, which I argue to be superior. I then argue that an upshot of interpretivism is that all unconscious intentionality is ultimately grounded is a specific kind of cognitive phenomenology.

Horgan and Tienson (2002) argue that some intentional content is constitutively determined by phenomenology alone. We argue that this would require a certain kind of covariation of phenomenal states and intentional states which is not established by Horgan and Tienson’s arguments. We make the case that there is inadequate reason to think phenomenology determines perceptual belief, and that there is reason to doubt that phenomenology determines any species of non-perceptual intentionality. We also raise worries about the capacity of phenomenology to map onto intentionality in a way that would be appropriate for any determiner of content / fixer of truth conditions.

Horgan and Tienson (2002) argue that some intentional content is constitutively determined by phenomenology alone. We argue that this would require a certain kind of covariation of phenomenal states and intentional states which is not established by Horgan and Tienson’s arguments. We make the case that there is inadequate reason to think phenomenology determines perceptual belief, and that there is reason to doubt that phenomenology determines any species of non-perceptual intentionality. We also raise worries about the capacity of phenomenology to map onto intentionality in a way that would be appropriate for any determiner of content / fixer of truth conditions.