Abstract
Recognition of the phenomenon of intentionality is threatened from two sides. From one side, Nature as an interconnected seamless order of causality leaves no room for intentionality. From another side, holisms of various kinds — the Hegelian absolute spirit as much as Richard Rorty’s “conversation of mankind,” with many intermediate forms in between — present the same threat though with less abruptness and with more tolerance. The thrust of this paper is to argue that not only do the causal order of Nature and the various holistic systems fail to eliminate intentionality, but they in fact presuppose it. Whereas such a thesis is reputedly a form of transcendental philosophy, an exact and satisfactory formulation of the thesis is a matter of utmost difficulty. This is the task I have set for myself in this lecture.
Originally delivered as the Aron Gurwitsch Memorial Lecture on October 30, 1982, at the 21st annual meeting of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy held at Pennsylvania State University.
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Notes
See J. Searle, “Intentionality and Method,” The Journal of Philosophy LXXVIII (1981), pp. 720–733.
J. Searle, “Intentionality and Method,” The Journal of Philosophy LXXVIII (1981), p. 728.
B. Waldenfels, “Intentionalität und Kausalität,” in: Der Spielraum des Verhaltens (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1980), pp. 98–125.
B. Waldenfels, “Intentionalität und Kausalität,” in: Der Spielraum des Verhaltens (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1980), p. 109 (English translation mine).
Searle, “Intentionality and Method,” pp. 729–730.
J. Hintikka, “Degrees and Dimensions of Intentionality,” in: R. Haller and W. Grassel (Eds.), Language, Logic and Philosophy (Wien, 1980), pp. 69–82.
I had earlier used the same locution but in a different sense in my The Concept of Intentionality (St. Louis: Warren Green, 1972).
For this distinction, see D. Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), Essay 7.
See J. Kim, “Perception and Reference without Causality,” Journal of Philosophy LXXIV (1977), pp. 606–620;
H. Putnam, Reason, Truth and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 51–54.
E. Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book, translated by Fred Kersten (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1982), pp. 214–215.
For this point, see J.R. Mensch, The Question of Being in Husserl’s Logical Investigations (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1981).
M.A.E. Dummett, The Interpretation of Frege’s Philosophy (London: Duckworth, 1981), p. 364.
M.A.E. Dummett, “What is a Theory of Meaning?” in: S. Guttenplan (Ed.), Mind and Language (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), pp. 97–138.
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© 1985 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht
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Mohanty, J.N. (1985). Intentionality, Causality and Holism. In: The Possibility of Transcendental Philosophy. Phaenomenologica, vol 98. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5049-8_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-5049-8_6
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