Abstract
Our discussion of Husserl’s theory of intentionality has focused on two important notions and their role in the theory: the notions of meaning (or noema) and horizon. In Chapters III and IV our development of Husserl’s theory assumed — along with Husserl — a generally Fregean account of meaning. But in Chapter VI we studied a rather different analysis of meaning, the Carnapian analysis in terms of possible worlds. We found that this view, unlike the Fregean, allowed us to relate the theory of meaning to Husserl’s theory of horizon. Our effort in this chapter will be to develop Husserl’s theory of intentionality further by explicitly incorporating into the theory this possible-worlds analysis, or explication, of meaning and horizon. The result is an interesting extension of Husserl’s basic theory of intentionality featuring, in effect, the view that acts are directed toward objects occurring in possible worlds.
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Notes
Similarly, Hintikka proposes to treat the reference of terms within intensional contexts as “multiple reference”, reference to objects in different possible worlds. This view is used throughout his work on modalities of different species; see, for instance, his Knowledge and Belief (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., 1962), p. 140. The terminology traces to his early paper, ‘Modality as Referential Multiplicity’, Ajatus 20 (1957), 49–64.
Alfred Tarski, ‘The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages’, in his Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics (Clarendon, Oxford, 1956), pp. 152–278 [a translation of’Der Wahrheitsbegriff in den formalisierten Sprachen’, Studia Philosophica 1 (1936), 261–405]. See also his less formal essay, ‘The Semantic Conception of Truth and the Founda-tions of Semantics’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 4 (1944), 341–75, reprinted in Linsky (Note 53, Ch. II above).
Donald Davidson, ‘Truth and Meaning’, Synthese 17 (1967), 304–25.
Cf. Saul Kripke, ‘Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic’, Acta Philosophica Fennica 16 (1963), 83–94, reprinted in Linsky (Note 19, Ch. I above). We draw on Hintikka’s explicitly possible-worlds-semantical ‘Semantics for Propositional Attitudes’ (Note 5 above). This is closely related to his Knowledge and Belief (Note 2 above) and a number of essays in his Models for Modalities (Note 6, Ch. I above), as well as earlier essays, which work in terms of “model sets”; model sets are maximal consistent sets of sentences, which would describe possible worlds. See also the bibliographies in those two books.
Føllesdal, for example, has argued for an epistemic logic in which variables of quantifying-in must range over actual entities only. Cf. his ‘Knowledge, Identity, and Existence’, Theoria 33 (1967), 1–27.
Some of the relevant issues arise in Russell, ‘On Propositions: What They Are and What They Mean’, in Logic and Knowledge (Note 23, Ch. I above), pp. 285–320; and in Bas Van Fraassen, ‘Facts and Tautological Entailment’, Journal of Philosophy 66 (1969), 477–87.
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© 1984 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Smith, D.W., McIntyre, R. (1984). Intentionality and Possible-Worlds Semantics. In: Husserl and Intentionality. Synthese Library, vol 154. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9383-5_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9383-5_7
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