Husserl Studies 10: 81-95, 1993. 1993 KluwerAcademic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Follesdal on the notion of the noema: A critique

MARINA PAOLA BANCHETTI

Florida Atlantic University

1. Introduction Much has been made, in the past several years, of Dagfinn F~llesdal's controversial interpretation of the Husserlian concept of the noema as a Fregean sense. So much, in fact, that an entire movement has sprung which attempts to reconcile phenomenology with analytic philosophy by basing itself upon the related notions that Husserl's views on meaning were analogous to Frege's and that Husserl's shift from the Logical Investigations to the Ideas was from a focus on consciousness to a focus on lanoguage. 1 The influence of F~llesdal's interpretation can be seen, for example, in Jaakko Hintikka's claim that "Husserl's theory is both historically and systematically a further development of Frege's views. ''2 I am not the first to claim that Fllesdal's interpretation is mistaken. 3 What I shall demonstrate, in this paper, is that F~llesdal's interpretation of Husserl's notion of the noema is misguided due to a fundamental misunderstanding, on F~llesdal's part, of Husserlian terminology. I shall do this by giving what I consider to be the most plausible account of Husserl's concept of the noema and back up this account with direct references to Husserl's Logical Investigations and to his Ideas. 4 This will be followed by a discussion of F~llesdal's confusion of the term 'ideal' with the term 'abstract' and of the term 'real' with the term 'concrete', as these terms are used by Husserl. Due to these confusions, F~llesdal reads the noema as a Fregean Sinn. Following Fllesdal's interpretation, David Woodruff Smith and Ronald McIntyre argue that Husserl changed his conception of meaning, from the Logical Investigations to the Ideas, from a view of meaning as the content of an intentional act to a view of meaning as an abstract, intensional entity 'grasped' by consciousness. Thus, these philosophers argue, Husserl was closer to Frege than had been previously imagined. Yet, certain methodological implications with regards to the

82 study of meaning follow from this claim. If Hussed's notion of meaning were truly analogous to Frege' s, the phenomenological method for studying meaning should closely resemble the method of philosophical linguistic analysis. It is in this way that these philosophers hope to pave the path towards a reconciliation between the opposing philosophical traditions of phenomenology and analytic philosophy. I propose that, if the rapprochement between analytic philosophy and phenomenology is to succeed, it certainly cannot do so by founding itself upon misguided claims inspired by terminological misunderstanding. The path to reconciliation will have to be paved by other lines of argumentation, founded upon sounder premises, which I cannot begin to examine in this paper. With this clarified, let us begin the task at hand.

2. Husserl's notion of the noema

Husserl explains the concept of intentionality in the following way. All mental processes, even those which are not themselves intentive, are ultimately borne by intentionality. There are two fundamental distinctions which must be made when discussing intentionality. The first distinction is that between the 'real' moments and the 'ideal' moments of mental processes, and the second distinction is that between 'concrete' noema and 'abstract' noema. At this point, the first distinction, that between 'real' and 'ideal' moments of mental processes, must be clarified. First, one must distinguish the moments of mental processes designated, in the Logical Investigations, as 'primary contents' of mental processes. These moments of mental processes are, what Hussed calls, the 'real' components. To these 'primary contents' belong certain 'sensuous' mental processes, 'sensation-contents', sensuous pleasures and pains, as well as 'drives'. Thus, 'primary contents' constitute sensuous hyle (sensuous matter or 'stuff'). Second, one must distinguish "the mental processes or their moments which bear in themselves the specific trait of intentionality.''5 These moments are the 'ideal' components of the mental process. They arise from 'primary contents' to which has been overlaid a stratum of sense (meaning). Sense has been bestowed on sensuousness. This constitutes intentive morphd (intentional form). In Ideas, Husserl leaves undecided the question of whether the sensuous hyle always have intentive functions or of whether the intentive morphd can have concreteness without sensuous foundations. This duality and unity of hyle and morphd is dominant in the phenomenological sphere. Any clear intuition or valuation forces upon us these concepts of matter and form. When these unities are bestowed with sense, they become intentive mental

83
processes .6 In order to introduce the above distinction between 'real' and 'ideal' moments of mental processes, Husserl must first clarify the distinction between hyletic moments, noetic moments, and their noematic correlates. He describes both hyletic data and noetic acts as really inherent or 'real' moments of a mental process, whereas the noematic correlate is a noninherent or 'ideal' moment of the mental process. In order to clarify this distinction between 'ideal' and 'real' moments of mental processes, Husserl presents the following example of a perceptual act. Let us imagine a treeperception simpliciter and let us imagine ourselves moving from one position and angle to the other such that the tree is presented in greatly different modes. "In this way the unity of one perception can include a great multiplicity of modifications which we, as observers in the natural attitude, sometimes ascribe to the actual object as its changes ''7 not our changes. After the reduction, what is left is described as a phenomenological residuum, and one can distinguish between what is really inherent in the perception as a pure mental process and what is non-inherent. The tree that belongs to actuality, having been bracketed, is non-inherent. The 'stuff' component (hyletic data) and the noetic component are found to be really inherent in the phenomenological residuum reduced to its 'pure immanence'. Husserl distinguishes them from the noematic component in the following manner. The color of the tree is the precise same color post-reduction as it was in the natural attitude. Husserl claims that this objective unchanging color belongs to the noema. The sensed and changing colors of the hyletic moment belong inherently to the mental process. As the perceiving Ego changes its observance points, the modes of presentation of the color change. Thus, the hyletic data are a multiplicity of different colors as sensed. "Accordingly, however, one and the same noematic color which is intended to throughout the continuous unity of changeable perceptual consciousness as an identical and, in itself, unchanged color, is being adumbrated by a continuous multiplicity of sensed colors. ''s It follows, according to Husserl, that everything hyletic really inherently belongs to the concrete mental process, and that everything noematic is non-inherent in the concrete mental process. The hyletic moments, though, undergo 'construings', 'sense-bestowings', as qualities of the objects (noetic moments, intentional acts) as the Ego intends the object rather than the hyletic data. In reflection, these noetic moments are "seized upon precisely and along with" the hyletic data. Once again, it follows that the noetic moments are also really inherent in the concrete mental process.

Now the following is universally true: In itself the perception is a perception of its object: and to every component which is singled out in

84 the object by 'objectively' directed description there correspond a really inherent component of the perception; but, note well, only in so far as the description faithfully conforms to the object as it 'is there' in that perception itself. 9 However, the unity inherent in the mental process of hyletic and noetic moments is different from the unity of noematic components 'intended to' in the noesis. Husserl does not deny the 'givenness' of the noematic components of the mental process. The noema is evidently given. What Husserl claims is that the noema does not exist within consciousness as the noetic and the hyletic data do. The noema belongs to the mental process in an entirely different manner (non-inherently) than do the hyletic and noetic components (inherently). The latter, Husserl claims, are the proper constituents of the mental process. An example can help to clarify this point. The 'perceived tree as such' is identically the same, notwithstanding the variety of the acts to which it corresponds. In the noema, then, we have something identical which, for this very reason, ought not to be mistaken for an element of the corresponding act [noetic act with its corresponding hylefic data]. Were it such an element, it would appear and disappear with the act, and it would be tied up, as the act is, to the place the latter occupies in phenomenal time. l The noema of the perceptual act (noesis) is the perceptual sense of the intended object. It is the object as intended, the perceived object as such. The same real object (a tree, for example) presents itself to the perceiver in a multiplicity of modes depending on the subject's position and perspective (close, far, etc.). Though the hyletic data change according to these variations and only partial tree-perceptions of the tree are experienced, the noema intends more than each of these partial tree-perceptions. The perception of the tree is a partial tree-perception because it is the perception of the tree from only one perspective. It is not possible to perceive every possible perspective of the same tree at the same time. Yet, in each single noema, a synthesis of the hyletic data occurs and the noema intends the tree as an object, rather than this partial tree-perception. The hyletic data are given their perceptual sense (noema) through the noetic act. Each noema is also synthesized with preceding and succeeding noemata. This synthesis of identifications yields the perception of the real object. Thus, the single noema is not to be confused with the real object. The single noema is not the intended object of perception, the perceptual sense that is given to the hyletic data through the noetic act. The real object presents itself through a synthesis of identifications of many noemata. The noema of perception is distinct from the perceptual process, from the noetic act, and from the real object. The noema, then, is an ideal entity

85 because it belongs to the same sphere of unreality as meaning or significations. This sphere is the sphere of sense (Sinn). The noema of perception, where concrete objects are the objects of perception, is itself 'concrete'. But, the noema of abstract thought is 'abstract'. This, then, is the second distinction that must be made when discussing the noema, the distinction between concrete and abstract noema. The unreality of entities belonging to this sphere lies, first of all, in their atemporality, i.e., in a certain independence of the concrete act by which they are actualized, in the sense that every one of them may correspond as identically the same, to another act, and even to an indefinite number of acts. 11 Every act of perception, memory, expectation, representation, imagination, thinking, judging, volition, etc. has a noematic correlate which is the intended object as such as it is presented before the subject's mind. Intentionality or consciousness of something is a conscious act, an act of awareness, in which the subject of experience is presented with a sense and an ideal, atemporal unity. The experience of an act, then, is an actualization of sense. Thus, Descartes fell short in describing consciousness as mere cogito. Rather, following the above description of the noetic-noematic correlation, consciousness must be described in terms of the relation cogitocogitatum qua cogitatum. To describe it merely as a relation between cogito and cogitatum and leave out 'qua cogitatum' would fail to capture the true nature of the cogitatum, in this relation, as the noematic correlate, and the objective sense of the relation would not be accounted for. Intentionality, then, is the objectivizing function of subjective consciousness, for it presents through the subject and to the subject the objective sense of the perceived. The relationship between the 'content' and the 'object' of consciousness deserves more attention. First of all, Husserl agrees that consciousness itself has a content and an object. That is why consciousness is consciousness of something. The content, or noema, is that through which consciousness is related to its object. But Husserl further claims that the noema itself has both a 'content' and an 'object'. To the 'content' of the noema, that is to say its 'sense', Husserl gives the name noematic core. It is through this 'sense' or 'content' that the noema is related to its 'object'. This 'object' is deemed the 'bearer' of noematically modified predicates. [...] we then become attentive to the fact that, with the statements about the relation (and specifically the direction) of consciousness to its objective something, we are referred to an innermost moment of the noema [which] makes up the necessary central point of the core and functions as 'bearer' for noematic peculiarities specifically belonging to

86 the core, that is to say, the noematically modified properties of the 'meant as meant' [...] indeed the distinction between 'content' and 'object' is to be made for the noema taken in itself Thus the noema too is related to an object and possesses a 'content' by 'means' of which it relates to the object [...]12 When Husserl claims that the noema is related to the object by 'means' of the content, he is using 'means' in two ways. He is using 'means' both as 'through' (the noema is related to the object 'through' the content) and as 'meaning' or Sinn (sense) (the noema is related to the object because of the sense of the content). The sense of the content is called noematic sense. It gives direction to the cogito towards 'something objective'. Husserl writes 'something objective' with inverted commas around the terms because it must be kept in mind that this 'something objective' is the noematically modified composition of the object. The reason that this content is 'objective' is that the description of the noematically modified composition includes formal-ontological expressions such as 'object', etc. Excluded are expressions which do not belong to the objective something as meant but which belong, rather, to the mode in which the objective something is meant. These expressions include 'perceptual', 'memorial', 'conceptual', 'given', etc. "Such a description which, as a description of the 'meant objective something, as it is meant,' avoids all 'subjective' expressions. ''13 The reason inverted commas are needed when using predicates to describe the noematically modified composition is that they remind us that we are standing in the phenomenological attitude and not in the natural attitude. As such, the predicates are not predicates of an object simpliciter but of a noema. With this, obviously, a quite fixed content in each noema is delimited [...] we acquire by explication and conceptual comprehension a closed set of formal or material, materially determined or 'undetermined' ('emptily' meant) "predicates' and these in their modified signification determine that 'content' of the object-core of the noema which is spoken of. 14 Husserl goes on to explain what this object is in relation to the noematic sense, the 'content' of the noema. Husserl claims that the something, to which the predicates obviously belong, itself belongs inseparably to the core of the noema. He calls this the central point of connection of the predicates or the 'bearer' of the predicates. But he affirms that "in no way is it a unity of them in the sense in which any complex, any combination, of the predicates would be called a unity. ''15 The 'bearer' of the predicates, the 'determinable X' in the noematic sense, is to be distinguished from the noematically modified predicates of the 'content' although it is inseparable

87 from them. The content determines the object intended. The object is intended in the continuous stream of consciousness but "again and again 'presents' itself 'differently'. ''16 Though the same object is intended, it is intended through a different content, a set of noematically modified predicates with a different determination-content. If this is always understood as noematic description of the currently meant as meant and if this description, as is possible at ~my time, is made in pure adequation, then the identical intentional 'object' becomes evidently distinguished from the changing and alterable 'predicates' .17 Each partial mode of consciousness and act-noema can be regarded as an 'act', and the total act of consciousness as a harmonious unity of acts that combine to intend the object. The object is intended through a series of multiple intentive mental processes each of which, having a different determination-content, intends the same object. Thus, Husserl claims that several act-noemata having different cores are '~ioined together to make a unity of identity, to make a unity in which the 'something,' the determinable which inheres in each core, is intended to as an identical 'something'. ''18 Separate acts of consciousness (e.g., two perceptions) can also be joined to intend the same object through the unity of formerly separated cores. At this point the distinction between sense and object is made explicitly. The point of unity in the noema is the object as 'bearer' of noematically modified predicates. The sense, on the other hand, is the content of the noema. This content consists of the noematically modified predicates which characterize the object. "This pure point of unity, this noematic 'object simpliciter,' [object] and the 'object in the How of its determinations' [sense] [...] are co-meant. 'q9 This determinable X intended through different noemata and thus different senses is the same object. This means that the same object can be designated through different senses. These united senses coincide with one another and with the object. Husserl claims that "the sense is not a concrete essence in the total composition of the noema but a sort of abstract form inherent in the noema. ''2 Yet the full noematic core, in which the sense is contained, is itself fully concrete. As full core we shall [...] count precisely the full concreteness of the noematic component in question, consequently the sense in the mode belonging to its fullness. 21 Husserl, in his discussion of the phenomenology of reason, explains what it means to have 'intellectual' sight or rational consciousness. He maintains that the sense of what is intended is the same whether it be perceptually seen or non-perceptually 'seen'. What changes is the mode in which this sense is fulfilled.

88 If we now ask what rational showing signifies, that is, of what rational consciousness consists, the intuitive presentation of examples and the beginnings of eidetic analysis performed on them offers us at once a number of differences [...] These differences do not concern the pure sense or the pure positum .[...] The diffference concerns the mode in which the bare sense or the bare positum [...] One mode of consciousness pertaining to the sense is the 'intuitive' mode, which is such that the 'meant object as meant' is intentively intuited [...] In just the same manner, the position of the essence of predicatively formed essencecomplex given 'originarily' in the seeing of essences belongs [...] to the 'sense' in its mode of givenness. It is rational and as certainty of believing it is an originarily motivated position; it has the specific character of an 'intellectually seeing position. 22

3. F011esdal's interpretation of the concept Of the noema

In the light of the above discussion, let us examine F011esdal's interpretation of Husserl's noema and examine where and why it is mistaken. F011esdal introduces a conception of the noema as pure Sinn. Fllesdal correctly claims that Husserl resolved the paradox of mental acts directed towards non-existent objects 23 by rejecting the Scholastic concept of 'intentional inexistence' in favor of the concept of the noema, thus modifying the notion of intentionality which he had inherited from Brentano. Husserl resolved this dilemma by holding that although every act is directed, this does not mean that there is always some object towards which it is directed. According to Husserl, there is associated with each act a noema, in virtue of which the act is directed towards its object, if it has any [...] To be directed is simply to have a noema [...]24 The error in interpretation beings when Fllesdal explains what this noema is. His first thesis is that this noema "is an intensional entitty, a generalization of the notion of meaning. ''25 F011esdal goes on to claim that as could be expected, the noemata are like linguistic Sinne in most respets. Thus, the following important consequence of thesis 1 should be noted: 8. Noemata are abstract entities. 26 Fllesdal claims that the above "is one of the many striking similarities between Husserl's notion of noema and Frege's notion of Sinn. ''27 Fllesdal, furthermore, interprets the "special phenomenological reflection" needed to know the noemata as the Fregean "grasping of a Sinn ''28 and goes on to claim, mistakenly, that [p]henomenological reflection is, hence, not a special way of looking or

89 using our sense; the objects grasped in phenomenological reflection are, as we already have observed in the preceding two theses, abstract and nonperceivable.29 Fllesdal does not deny that there are important differences between Husserl's notion of noema and Frege's notion of Sinn but he does believe that, at least, they share the above similarities. The most important manner in which Fllesdal's interpretation of the noema differs from traditional interpretations of this concept is that this new Fregean interpretation holds that the noema is an abstract, intensional entity very close to a linguistic interpretive meaning. It is true that Frege did not claim that the grasping of sense involved any special sort of reflection. But the interpretation that Fllesdal gives is Fregean because it claims that, even in the perceptual acts, the noema is an abstract, intensional entity that is 'grasped' by the Ego. Though Fllesdal is correct in claiming that the noema is not an object, his interpretation fails to take into account the concreteness of the perceptual noema. F011esdal's noema is always purely abstract. Given the long exposition above about the nature of the noema in Husserl' s theory of intentionality, it is obvious that Fllesdal is mistaken in his claim that the noema is always a purely abstract entity that is 'grasped', in the Fregean sense, by the Ego. I argue that Fllesdal' s mistake arises from a fundamental misunderstanding of Husserlian terminology and from a confusion between the term 'ideal' and the term 'abstract' as they are used by Husserl. As a way to support his thesis that the noema is an abstract entity, Follesdal quotes Husserl in the following manner, Sinne are non-real objects, they are not objects that exist in time [...] a Sinn does not have reality, it is related to a temporal interval through the act in which it occurs, but it does not itself have reality [Dasein], an individual connection with time and duration. 30 In my above discussion of Husserl's theory of intentionality and of the noema, I showed that the term 'ideal' is to be distinguished with the term 'real', and that this distinction applies to the moments or components of mental processes. On the other hand, the term 'abstract' is to be distinguished from the term 'concrete', and this distinction applies to the different types of noemata associated either with perceptual or with conceptual acts. In the above quote, when Husserl claims that the noema is not 'real', he is referring to the moments of mental processes. In saying this, Husserl is saying that the noema belongs to the 'ideal' moments of mental processes. Husserl, then, does not mean that the noema is abstract. No reference is made, in the above quote, to 'abstractness'. Yet, Fllesdal interprets this passage as saying that the noema is 'abstract'. When Husserl does talk of

90 the abstract noema, he is using the term 'abstract' differently from Fllesdal. The abstract noema, in Husserl's use of 'abstract', is one type of noema, the noema of conceptual acts. This abstract noema, like all noemata, belongs to the 'ideal' moments of mental processes. The type of noema which is contrasted to the abstract noema is the 'concrete' noema. This is the noema of perceptual acts. The perceptual, concrete noema, like all noemata, has the character of ideality. It belongs to the 'ideal' moments of mental processes. Thus, though the conceptual noema is abstract in type and the perceptual noema is concrete in type, all noemata are ideal moments or components of mental processes. Furthermore, it must be kept in mind that, even for the Husserl of the Ideas, linguistic meaning is the content of expressive acts, not an intensional entity or a mere sign. "Consequently, it is the concept of meaning of linguistic acts, that is generalized to the field of all acts. ''31 Though for Husserl meaning is the 'content' of an act of expression rather than a linguistic entity, for Frege Sinn is the meaning of an expression as a linguistic entity. Furthermore, though for Husserl the noema of linguistic meaning is ideal and abstract, not all noemata are abstract. For Frege, though, Sinn is an abstract, intensional entity. In addition to this, for Husserl, the noema is not 'grasped' by the Ego (as the Fregean Sinn is 'grasped '32) but is, rather, constituted by the Ego and, as such, is ideal. The Husserlian Sinn of nonlinguistic acts, though expressible [within limitations], is nonconceptual; and when it is 'expressed,' the meaning of the expression and the Sinn are 'congruent' but not identical. The Sinn or noema is always ideal. 'Ideality' and 'conceptuality' are not the same. 33 As claimed before, 'conceptuality', for Husserl, means 'abstractness'. The above reinforces the point that 'ideality' and 'abstractness' are not the same. We must refrain from turning the noema into a conceptual entity since, for Husserl, the noema is always ideal but not always conceptual. Unfortunately, this is precisely what Fllesdal does since he interprets Husserl's claim that the noema is not a real component of mental processes as saying that it is an abstract entity. Again, Fllesdal does not understand that, for Husserl 'real' is not distinguished with 'abstract' but is, rather, distinguished with 'ideal'. It is this confusion that leads Fllesdal to draw conclusions about the Husserlian noema that are mistaken and misleading. I shall now discuss one of the consequences of Fllesdal's misinterpretation: its influence on the views of David Woodruff Smith and Ronald McIntyre.

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4. Smith and McIntyre on Husserrs conception of meaning

I contend that these two interpreters are influenced by Fllesdal when they argue that the view of meaning expressed by Husserl in Ideas is radically different from the notion of meaning presented in the Logical Investigations. F~llesdal's influence on Smith and Mclntyre is evidenced by the following claim. "Husserl's notion of noematic Sinn is basically the same as Frege's notion of meaning or sense (Sinn) and [...] noematic Sinne play essentially the same role in Husserl's theory of intentionality that senses play in Frege's theory of reference. ''34 Smith and Mclntyre claim that, as the notion of noema is refined, Husserl changes his conception of linguistic meanings as 'essences' or 'eidetic contents' of expressive acts and adopts a notion of linguistic meanings as 'abstract entities' which are correlated with the acts but which are not a part of the acts in any way. In the first edition of Logical Investigations (1900/1901), Husserl took the same view of meanings that he there adopted for ideal act-contents [...] Husserl thus assumed meanings to be a kind of 'species', or 'universal objects', or 'essences', which are instantiated by such particular acts but which - in keeping with their ideality - exist independently of their instantiations [...] On this view, meanings are properties or types shared by speakers' and hearers' acts of intending the same object [...] By the time of Ideas (1913), when Husserl had formulated his notion of noema and thus refined the general notion of act-meaning (Sinn), he abandoned the view that meanings are act-essences, properties literally instantiated by acts. There he adopted instead the view that meanings are abstract entities correlated with acts and expressible by words but in no sense properties or parts of acts. 35 As discussed earlier, in interpreting the Husserlian noema as a Fregean sense, i.e., an abstract entity, Fllesdal ignores the fact that, for Husserl, the noema is the 'content' that is constituted by a certain kind of intentional act rather than an entity that is 'grasped' by consciousnes. Smith and Mclntyre, influenced by Fllesdal's interpretation, argue that, though Husserl viewed meaning as the content of intentional acts in the Logical Investigations, his views are radically different in the Ideas. According to Smith and Mclntyre, it follows that, if meanings are intensional abstract entities, as opposed to ideal act-contents, they are not properties of meaning-intending acts but are merely correlated with these acts. The way in which meafiing becomes correlated with the expressive act is through the 'grasping', by the Ego, of this abstract intensional Sinn. Implied in the above quote is the view that Husserl, in the Ideas, ceases to focus on consciousness as constituting the noema and, instead, focuses on the noema as an independent and abstract entity that is correlated with the expressive acts through 'grasping'. If this were correct, though, one would have to argue that Husserl changed his

92 view of acts of consciousness as being essentially characterized by intentionality, since one aspect of intentionality is the noetic constitution of noemata. To argue that the noema, in the Ideas, is no longer an intentional entity, i.e., an entity produced by consciousness through the intentive act of noesis, is to argue that Husserl ceases to place the focus on consciousness as the originator of meaning. This claim entails radical methodological implications for phenomenology. For it would follow from this that in the study of meaning, the phenomenologist would no longer have to focus on the intentive acts of consciousness but, rather, on an abstract entity that is in no sense a property or a part of consciousness. The methods of phenomenology would thus begin to resemble closely the methods of analytic philosophy, i.e., of linguistic analysis. These are the radical consequences for phenomenology of Fllesdal's, as well as Smith's and Mclntyre's, interpretation of Husserl' s concept of the noema and concept of meaning. However, Smith and Mclntyre are mistaken. Husserl never gives up the notion that the noema is a content of intentional acts. Husserl always holds on to the notion that the noema, though not a 'real' component of the mental processes, is always an 'ideal' component of intentional acts, whether the noema is of the concrete type or of the abstract type. Husserl never gives up the notion that, though some noemata are abstract (those of conceptual acts), other noemata are concrete (those of perceptual acts). And, I reiterate, they are always components of the acts, albeit 'ideal' ones. The difference between the Logical Investigations and Ideas is not as great as Smith and Mclntyre make it seem, unless one is convinced by F011esdal's misinterpretation of the noema as a purely abstract, intensional entity. It is true that, in the Logical Investigations, Husserl's emphasis is noetic (on the meaning-act) whereas, in Ideas, the emphasis is noematic (on the correlates of the act). Nevertheless, this does not support the view that the noema, and thus the meaning of intentional acts, is an abstract entity that is not itself a part of the act. For Husserl, the noema, the meaning of the intentional act (whether or not this meaning is linguistic) is always the 'content' of the act. At the risk of sounding repetitive, it is true that, in Ideas, Hussed claims that the 'content' of the noema, i.e., the noematically modified predicates, must be kept distinct from the 'object' of the noema, i.e., the 'bearer' of the predicates. As such, they are 'ideal' correlates of the act, not 'real' parts of the act. But it is also true that, in the perceptual noema (the noema of perceptual acts), the predicates and their bearer are inseparable and, thus, concretely present in the act. They are, thus, not conceptual, i.e., not abstract. And, even when a noema is of the abstract type, it is still a part of the act, the 'ideal' part. As claimed many times above, the noema (the Sinn, the meaning) is essentially ideal but not essentially conceptual or abstract. Once again, we must refrain from interpreting the noema as an abstract

93 entity that is not a part of the act. My claim is, therefore, that though Husserl's approach and emphasis in the Logical Investigations is different from that of Ideas, I do not agree that his notion of meaning and of the noema radically change from one work to the other. The notion of the noema is developed and refined in the Ideas. But, in both works, Husserl emphasizes that the intentional act constitutes the noema or meaning. Thus, the noema or meaning is a 'content' of the act. Furthermore, one should not confuse the terms 'ideal' and 'abstract'. Husserl uses the term 'ideal' in one context, to refer to noematic components of mental processes, and the term 'abstract' to refer to a type of noema, i.e., the noema of conceptual acts. Thus, though all noemata retain the characteristic of being 'ideal' components of mental processes that are constituted by consciousness, some noemata (those of perceptual acts) are of the 'concrete' type and other noemata (those of conceptual acts and linguistic expressive acts) are of the 'abstract' type.

5. Conclusion In this paper, I have demonstrated that Fllesdal's famous interpretation of Husserl's concept of the noema is mistaken due to a fundamental misunderstanding of Husserlian terminology. I have given what I consider to be a correct explanation of the notion of the noema and of Husserlian terminology and have backed my claims with direct references to the text. I have then compared and contrasted these with Fllesdal's interpretation and, thereby, have explained the nature of his mistakes with regards to terminology. I have also shown that two of FOllesdal's faithful followers, Smith and McIntyre, have walked a similarly erroneous path with regards to their interpretation of Husserl's theory of meaning in the Ideas. I do not know where the key to the reconciliation of phenomenology and analytic philosophy lies. But, I do know that it does not lie in the claim that Husserl shared Frege's view on the nature of meaning as an abstract intensional Sinn nor does it lie in the related view that Hussefl radically changed his conception of the relation of meanings to intending acts. Hopefully, this paper has shed light on this widely debated issue and has clarified the nature of the mistakes in recent interpretations of Husserl's concept of the noema.

Notes

1. See, e.g., David Woodruff Smith and Ronald McIntyre, Husserl and Intentionality: A Study of Mind, Meaning, and Language (Dordrecht: D. Reidel

94 Publishing Company, 1982); David Woodruff Smith and Ronald Mclntyre, "Husserl's Identification of Meaning and Noema", The Monist 59 (1975): 115-132, and Ronald McIntyre, "Husserl and the Representationalist Theory of Mind", Topoi 5 (1986): 101-113. Jaakko Hintikka, "Concept as Vision", in The Intentions of Intentionality (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1975), p. 228. J.N. Mohanty has extensively discussed both the similarities and differences between Husserl and Frege and has argued that Fllesdal's analogy between noema and Sinn is mistaken. I thus refer the reader to the extensive list of essays and books written by Mohanty on this particular topic, including his books The Concept oflntentionality (St. Louis: Warren Green, 1972), Edmund Husserl's Theory of Meaning (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publ~hers, 1976), Husserl and Frege (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), and his essays "Husserl and Frege: A New Look at their Relationship", Research in Phenomenology 4 (1974): 51-62, "On Husserl's Theory of Meaning", The Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 5 (1974): 229-244, and "Perceptual Meaning", Topoi 5 (1986): 131-136. For further discussions of the relationship between Husserl and Frege, see also John J. Drummond, Husserlian lntentionality and Non-Foundational Realism: Noema and Object (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990). For an important discussion of Husserl's concept of the noema, see Rudolph Bernet, "Husserl Begriff des Noema", in Husserl-Ausgabe und HusserlForschung, edited by Samuel IJsseling (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990), pp. 61-80. Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy: First Book, "General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology", translated by F. Kersten (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1983), 85, p. 203. Ibid., 85. Ibid., 88, p. 214. Ibid. Ibid., 97, p. 238. Aron Gurwitsch, "On the Intentionality of Consciousness", in Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl and Its Interpretation, edited by Joseph J. Kockelmans (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1967), p. 129. See also Gerd Brand, "Intentionality, Reduction, and Intentional Analysis in Husserl's Later Manuscripts", in Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl and Its "Interpretation, pp. 197-217, and J.N. Mohanty, "A Note on the Doctrine of Noetic-Noematic Correlation", in The Later Husserl and the Ideal of Phenomenology: Idealism-Realism, Historicity, and Nature, Analecta Hussefliana, Volume II (1972), pp. 317-321. Aron Gurwitsch, "On the Intentionality of Consciousness", p. 130. IdeasI, 129, p. 311. Ibid., 130, p. 312. Ibid., 130, pp. 312-313. Ibid., 131, p. 313. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 131, p. 314. Ibid.

2. 3.

4.

5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

95 20. 21. 22. 23. Ibid., 132, p. 316. Ibid. Ibid., 136, pp. 326-328. The paradox arises when it is claimed that, if it ever makes sense to say that "S sees y" when y does not exist, then it must be true that S sees something even though it is also true that there is nothing which S sees. Brentano attempts to solve this dilemma by adopting the Scholastic concept of 'intentional inexistence' which claims that the 'object' of a mental act need not be a 'real' object. Dagfinn Fllesdal, "Husserl's Notion of the Noema", The Journal of Philosophy 66 (1969), p. 681. Ibid. Ibid., p. 684. Ibid., p. 686. Ibid., p. 685. Ibid. Edmund Husserl, Noema und Sinn, unpublished manuscript, pp. 109-114, as quoted in Dagfinn Fllesdal, "Husserl's Notion of the Noema", p. 684. J.N. Mohanty, Husserl and Frege, p. 69. For more on the Fregean notion of 'grasping', see Gottlob Frege, "The Thought: A Logical Inquiry", in Philosophical Logic, edited by P.F. Strawson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 17-38, and for an important criticism of Frege's notion of 'grasping', see Susan Haack, Philosophy of Logics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978). J.N. Mohanty, Husserl and Frege, pp. 75-76. David Woodruff Smith and Ronald Mclntyre, Husserl and Intentionality, p. 154. Ibid., p. 175.

24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35.