Abstract
In this chapter we assess the nature and importance of horizon-analysis as a special kind and part of phenomenological analysis. Basically, we view the analysis of an act’s horizon as a certain way of “explicating”, or making clear, the phenomenological structure of the act, especially its meaning, or Sinn.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
We would agree with the claim, made by Quine among others, that the distinction between observation and theory is not sharp but graded; cf. Quine’s ‘Grades of Theoreticity’, in Experience and Theory, ed. by Lawrence Foster and J. W. Swanson (The University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, Mass., 1970), pp. 1–17. For Husserl, perception — and perceptual judgment, or “observation”, in particular — is always laden with some “theory” or “interpretation” (Auffassung) in virtue of the “noetic” phase that overlays its sensory or “hyletic” phase (Ideas, §§85, 88); this would seem to insure a gradation similar to that of which Quine speaks.
Carnap (Note 17, Ch. V above). Cf. Quine, ‘Epistemology Naturalized’, in his Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (Columbia University Press, New York, 1969), pp. 69–90, esp. pp. 74–78.
For recent discussions, see Robert Stalnaker, ‘Pragmatics’, Synthese 22 (1970), 272–89; and Richard Montague, ‘Pragmatics and Intensional Logic’, Synthese 22 (1970), 68–94; both reprinted in Davidson and Harman (Note 25, Ch. IV above).
See Quine, ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, in From a Logical Point of View (Note 29, Ch. I above), pp. 20–37. Cf. Morton G. White, ‘The Analytic and the Synthetic: An Untenable Dualism’, in John Dewey: Philosopher of Science and Freedom, ed. by Sidney Hook (Dial Press, New York, 1950), reprinted in Linsky (Note 53, Ch. II above ), pp. 272–86.
The proposal we develop was first made by Carnap in conversation, according to Montague, with the difference that possible worlds were taken to be models; see Montague (Note 5 above), p. 91. The conversations were presumably in the late 1950’s. One can also see the beginnings of the idea in Meaning and Necessity (Note 16, Ch. I above), perhaps with some influence from Lewis’ ‘The Modes of Meaning’ (Note 53, Ch. II above): see §16 and §40. (The first edition of Meaning and Necessity was published in 1947.) Also see Carnap’s ‘Replies and Systematic Expositions’, in The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, ed. by Paul Arthur Schilpp (Open Court, La Salle, Illinois, 1963 ), pp. 889–900.
See David Lewis, ‘General Semantics’, Synthese 22 (1970), 18–67, reprinted in Davidson and Harman (Note 25, Ch. IV above).
Hintikka has argued for the same point. See his ‘Carnap’s Semantics in Retrospect’, Synthese 25 (1973), 372–97 (esp. pp. 379–83); reprinted as ‘Carnap’s Heritage in Logical Semantics’, in The Intentions of Intentionality (Note 6, Ch. I above), and in Rudolf Carnap, Logical Empiricist, ed. by Hintikka (D. Reidel, Dordrecht, 1975). Also cf. Hintikka’s The Semantics of Modal Notions and the Indeterminacy of Ontology’, Synthese 21 (1970), 408–24 (esp. pp. 415–20), reprinted in Davidson and Harman (Note 25, Ch. IV above).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1984 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Smith, D.W., McIntyre, R. (1984). Horizon-Analysis and the Possible-Worlds Explication of Meaning. In: Husserl and Intentionality. Synthese Library, vol 154. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9383-5_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9383-5_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-277-1730-6
Online ISBN: 978-94-010-9383-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive