Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

Intentionality and Noema

Author(s): J. N. Mohanty
Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 78, No. 11, Seventy-Eighth Annual Meeting of the
American Philosophical Association Eastern Division (Nov., 1981), pp. 706-717
Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2026580
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 INTENTIONALITY 707

occurrences which exhibit, at the phenomenal level, the property of

intentionality. Consequently, physical nature, which as a whole is
nonintentional, may still be regarded as exhibiting intentionality
with regard to one of its proper subsets. Physical theory, then, al-
lows for a subordinate theory which is not truth-functional, but in-
tensional. The two theories would coexist insomuch as the inten-
sional theory holds good of the phenomenal properties of that
subset, while the physical, extensional theory is true of its nou-
menal reality. If intentionality is true of the mental states in their
phenomenological aspects, physics is still true of their real, onto-
logical nature. Intentionality, then, would be an appearance of
physical nature under specifiable conditions. Phenomenology
would be grounded in physics.
I consider this naturalistic conception of intentionality to be
fundamentally flawed, i.e., flawed in its very project. If nature is a
causal order, the intentional act qua intentional cannot have a
place within it. If a causal explanation of intentionality is permis-
sible, as it has to be within a naturalistic theory, then such an ex-
planation should be allowed to go through. Philosophers such as
functionalists pay lip service to intentionality, only in the long run
to eliminate it (without at the same time wanting to give the im-
pression that they are doing so). But a causal explanation misses
the very point about intentional reference. Nor does functional ex-
planation fare any better. Denial of intentionality and elimination
of intensional discourse certainly would be a more consistent and
honest course for naturalistic philosophies. The claim to have a
theory of intentionality within a naturalistic framework is an act of
"bad faith." Intentionality and causal theory are compatible, not in
the sense that they supplement or complement each other, nor in
the sense that the former is the phenomenal explanandum while
the latter is the theoretical explanans, but rather in the sense that
the two belong to two different levels of discourse. Of these two
levels of discourse, the intentional is prior in a transcendental
sense. The causal theory is an ontic theory. It presupposes the pos-
sibility of talking about, identifying, referring to entities (phenom-
enal or theoretical) and to nature as a system of entities. This pos-
sibility of referring has to be found in intentionality; so a theory of
intentionality has to be a transcendental theory. Such a theory can-
not presuppose that very order of entities, i.e., nature, whose sense
derives from intentionality.
The priority and independence, consequently the transcendental
character of a theory of intentionality, can be shown in another
way. Suppose the basic category of a theory T1 is F and that of a

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 708 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

theory T2 is G. T1 is prior to and independent of T2 iff T1 can have,

within its discourse, an analogue of G, while T2 cannot have,
within its discourse, an analogue of F. In other words, it is not
enough if T1 offers a theoretical explanation of T2. It is necessary
that T1 does not deny G, but finds a place within its discourse for a
G-like category, while T2 cannot find a place within its discourse
for an F-like category. In this case, T1 is a more powerful theory
than T2. My contention is that the intentional discourse (or theory)
is, in this sense, more powerful and prior to the causal. The causal
theory cannot capture, within its discourse, anything intentionality-
like. However, an intentional theory may have, within its dis-
course, something like causality. I have in mind, as far as percep-
tual experience is concerned, Merleau-Ponty's category of "motiva-
tion," a sort of phenomenological account, of "being acted upon
by what the act intends as its object" without postulating, or mak-
ing use of the belief in the real existence of the object in the order
of physical nature.'
What I am then suggesting is that a theory of intentionality has
to be transcendental. Only such a transcendental theory of inten-
tionality can account for the possibility of a causal theory. A rather
extreme version of this approach, one I do not want to defend for
my present purpose, would be as follows: a causal theory has ulti-
mately to be a physical theory. A physical theory is constituted by
intentional acts of a community of scientists. Since the theoretical
entities of physics are posited in the context of the theory, the talk
of such entities, and of scientific realism itself, presupposes inter-
subjectively performed and validated intentional acts of scientific
theorizing. By the very sense of physical theory, its entities are
posited as independent of such theorizing; but such independence
is itself in a sense constituted by intentionality. One can go even
further: by a sort of Hegelian "cunning of reason," intentionality
conceals its own operation and constituting function beneath a
theory which, by its very sense, is sustained by such concealment
and the consequent naivete of denying intentionality. Although
such a metaphysics of intentionality provides a healthy antedote to
the dogmatic scientific realism in prevalence, I am opting for a
weaker version.

'I understand that John Searle has been developing such a concept of phenome-
nological causality. Hintikka's construal of the causal relation as an intentional re-
lation is a very different move from this. An opposite move, i.e., to find within a
causal theory an analogue of the intentional, is suggested by the information-theo-
retic approach of Fred Dretske. To my mind, Dretske's theory remains causal. The
"flow of information" is restricted causal process.

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 INTENTIONALITY 709

One may want to suggest, in response to the transcendental

problem posed, that what a physical theory needs is not a transcen-
dental theory of intentionality, but a linguistic, semantic metathe-
ory of that physics. Such a metatheory of physics would assign to
names and predicates in that theory appropriate entities as their
referents, and, if the semantics is Fregean, appropriate senses. Such
a metatheory may be initially an uninterpreted semantics, and an
interpretation of that semantics would work for a given physical
theory. I am not questioning the possibility of such a semantic
theory, nor am I questioning its value. What I am denying is that
such a semantics, which shares in the ontological naivete of a phys-
ical theory, can provide a solution of the transcendental problem I
have formulated. A phenomenology of acts with their correlative
senses and intentional objects is needed for this purpose. In the rest
of this paper, the talk of intentional acts will be from a transcen-
dental perspective. In other words, it will be talk not about mental
acts as referred to within the discourse of naturalistic epistemology
or psychology, but as belonging to an autonomous founding
domain.
II. NOEMA AND FREGEAN SINN2

In order to introduce the concept of noema, it is best to begin with

the simple Brentano thesis:
(1) All mental acts are directed toward some object or other.
This thesis needs to give an account of the sort of relation "being
directed toward" is, and also of the ontological status of the object
toward which an act is allegedly directed. With regard to the first,
Brentano recognized that "directedness" is not a relation, but is re-
lation-like; as for the second question, he wavered between taking
the object as having a mental existence (suggested by his term 'in-
existence') and taking it to be an entity that may be either existent
or nonexistent. If the object is nonexistent, to what is the mental
act directed? We need a theory that would be equally well applica-
ble to thinking about the moon and to thinking about dragons.
Brentano did not have one. Husserl gives us such a theory.
(2) All mental acts have their correlative noemata or senses.
No matter whether the object exists or not, it is presented in the
act intending it in a certain manner, as having certain features,
under a certain description, as such and such.
As'a preliminary step in understanding (2), it has been custom-
ary to start with linguistic expressions, which refer through the

2The theme of this section has been developed more fully in my forthcomin
Husserl and Frege: An Historical and Philosophical Essay.

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710 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

medium of their senses. What the Fregean sense is to a linguistic

expression (word or sentence), the noema is to all intentional acts.
Like the Fregean sense, the noema of an act makes reference possi-
ble, i.e., makes it possible that the act be directed to this, and such
an, object rather than to another; it is the object of the act of re-
flecting upon the primary act (whose noema it is); it is that of
which 'truth' and 'falsity' and their modalizations are originarily to
be predicated; as contrasted with the act which is a temporally in-
dividuated particular, the noema is nontemporal, intersubjectively
available, and so makes "understanding" and "communication"
possible. We may now formulate the new thesis thus:

(2') To be intentional is to have a (correlative) sense or noema.

It is this last move, with its closeness to the Fregean semantics,

which is a likely source of mistake, against which I want to cau-
tion. The mistake consists in overlooking the deep differences be-
tween the Fregean Sinne and noemata, and between their roles in
intentionality. These differences may, for my present purpose, be
formulated in the following manner:
The Fregean Sinne are either linguistic meanings or timeless en-
tities or cognitive contents. Frege explicitly characterized them as
timeless entities. Although he conceded that there may be unex-
pressed meanings, he also thought we have no access to them save
through language. His senses are senses of linguistic signs. But
again the concept of sense is introduced for explaining "cognitive
value." Not only is the sense what one grasps when one under-
stands an expression, but it also contains the "mode of presenta-
tion" of the object referred to. Since the mode of presentation is de-
termined by the unique context and (subjective) perspective of the
thinker, the sense is also the "cognitive content." But what sense
can we attach to the locution of 'cognitive content' within the
framework of Frege's philosophy of mind? It appears to me that, in
spite of Frege's concern with acts in his later essays, a sense remains
externally related to the acts that grasp it. There is no suggestion
in his writings of a concept of intentionality of acts. The senses are
still senses of the appropriate signs. The mental acts grasp them, or
exhibit some appropriate attitude toward them. When in an act of
thinking I grasp a thought, the thought is not the content but the
object of my grasping. That in an act one grasps an object-no
matter if the latter is a concrete or an abstract entity-does not
amount to the intentionality of that act. One needs some concept of
the structure of the act (and not merely a structure which that act
grasps) which would account for its directedness. Since the senses

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 INTENTIONALITY 711

are abstract entities, Frege saw and dealt with the problems asso-
ciated with intensionality but he did not arrive at a concept of
intentionality.
The point of the thesis that the Fregean Sinne are not senses of
acts which the noemata in phenomenology are-may be clarified
in another manner. Of course, an act of presenting Venus as the
morning star does grasp Venus as the morning star. But it is not
the act of presentation which, for Frege, originarily does this. It
is the expression 'morning star' which, through its sense, refers to
Venus as the morning star. The intentional act of presenting Venus
as the morning star is itself possible because the expression 'morn-
ing star' has that sense and that reference in the first place. Like-
wise in judging: a sentence itself expresses a thought, whereas an
act of judging consists in grasping that thought and recognizing its
truth value.
Now, as contrasted with this thesis, a noema, in phenomenology,
is the sense of an act itself-no matter whether the act is linguistic
(as in speech acts) or nonlinguistic (as in perception). It is true that
mental acts, insofar as they intend such senses, are expressible in
language, but for that reason it would not do to say that the mean-
ing of the sentence expressing an act is the same as the sense of the
act that is being expressed. This thesis that the noemata are senses
of acts has two important consequences to which I want now to
draw attention. The first of these is:
(3) All noemata are not conceptual. The noema of an act of per-
ception is not so.
This has been challenged by some, especially by those who want
to assimilate the concept of noema too strongly into the Fregean
model. A correct understanding of the perceptual noema, i.e., of
the concept of "the perceived exactly as it is perceived" requires
that we avoid the two extremes of construing it either as the sensi-
ble percept or as the Fregean abstract, conceptual Sinn. It is not the
former, for whereas the percept is a sensible particular, the percep-
tual noema is thematized only as a result of a reduction; it is
grasped by reflection on perception, not by the perceptual act itself.
In this it resembles the Fregean Sinn, but, unlike the Sinn, it is not
in toto linguistically expressible. It is not itself a conceptual entity,
but an entity that is implicitly conceptual, that can be raised to the
level of conceptual meaning.
But the Fregean Sinn itself is not linguistic meaning. Recent
commentators, most notably Tyler Burge,3 have noted that it is

"Sinning against Frege," Philosophical Review, LXXXVIII, 3 (July 1979): 398-432.

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712 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

rather a cognitive content. I am in full agreement with this reading

of Frege. I would only want to add that Frege's philosophy of mind
has no place for a genuine notion of cognitive content. If the con-
tent is a real part of mental life, it is incurably psychological, i.e.,
private; if the content is to be intersubjectively available, then it be-
comes the timeless object extrinsic to the act. Not having the no-
tion of a structured and intentional mental act, Frege's Sinn re-
mains in an unstable poise between the concepts of cognitive
content, linguistic meaning and ontological abstract entity. I am
suggesting that, instead of assimilating the Husserlian noema to
the Fregean Sinn, i.e., understanding the former in the light of the
latter, it would be more profitable to assimilate the Fregean Sinn to
the Husserlian noema. A Fregean reading of Husserl I reject, but a
Husserlian reading of Frege is what I espouse.
The other consequence of the thesis that noemata are senses of
acts may be brought out by considering an issue with which se-
mantics, at least since Frege's time, has been concerned. Frege had
recognized that different persons may attach different senses to
'Aristotle', but he also insisted that these variations of sense should
be avoided in a scientifically perfect language. But if different
speakers attach different senses to 'Aristotle', one may still want to
know which of those many senses really is the sense of 'Aristotle'
and how to single out this sense from all the many true descrip-
tions of the philosopher. There are two responses to this demand,
both of which are rendered unnecessary by the thesis that noemata
are senses of acts. The first of these is to say that there is a true
sense of 'Aristotle' and this is but the unique essence of Aristotle.
The second is to say that the word 'Aristotle' does not have a sense
at all. The first response confuses the sense of 'Aristotle' and the es-
sence of Aristotle; the two need not coincide. Not finding a way to
ascertain the true sense from among a host of variable senses, the
second response denies that the name has a sense after all. My con-
tention is that, since the sense contains the mode of presentation,
what sense one attaches to the proper name depends upon how the
person Aristotle is presented to one. This is part of the thesis that
the signs derive their senses from intentional acts, that senses do
not originally belong to the signs. Since an intentional act is also
interpretive-either itself initiating an interpretation or taking over
an already available interpretation-the sense is conferred by an in-
terpretive act. The question, What is the sense of 'Aristotle'? is then
misconceived, as much as the view that it has no sense after all.
III. SOME INTERPRETATIONS OF NOEMA CONSIDERED

In the preceding section, I have maintained that intentional acts

are those which have sense or noemata, and that these senses or

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 INTENTIONALITY 713

noemata are originally those of acts, only derivatively of the signs

(words or sentences) in which these acts are expressed. As a conse-
quence, the Fregean Sinn is given a phenomenological reading. If
only Frege's philosophy of mind is enriched by a sufficiently
powerful concept of intentionality, the Sinne could then be under-
stood as cognitive contents.
I shall now briefly consider two recent attempts to interpret the
concept of noema (and, therefore, the concept of intentionality):
one from the perspective of semantics, and the other from the per-
spective of cognitive psychology. The former views the noema as a
function from possible worlds to truth values; the latter as an "in-
ternal representation." On the semantical account,4 the meaning
function in question is given in extension, i.e., simply as a set of
ordered pairs {(W1, O1), . . . (W,, Oi) . . .}; consequently, all we
have is a list of what is "picked out" in each world by a noema N.
We have no account of why Oi is the image under N of Wi, i.e., of
why 0i is picked out. We are given nothing in virtue of which 0i is
the relevant object in Wi. Cognitive psychology claims precisely to
be able to give such an account by construing the noema as an
"inner representation," regarded either as mental or as neural or as
both. It is held that it is because of such an inner representation
that an act refers to its object and to none other, in the precise
manner it happens to refer and in no other.5 This inner representa-
tion is, for one thing, a theoretical entity, posited in the theory of
cognitive psychology, whereas I want the noema to be an entity
that is grasped in a reflective act which thematizes the act whose
noema it is. Furthermore, the inner representation, if it is a real
neural inscription of a real mental picture, is as such noninten-
tional, and to juxtapose such an entity between an act and its refer-
ent is hardly a gain in explanatory power. For such a state to be of
whatever the act refers to, it is necessary that it be interpreted as
being its representation. In effect, we need another intentional act
of interpretation, but we are dealing here not with a datum in need
of interpretation (as in the case of a picture claiming to be a pic-
ture of), but with a theoretical entity which is posited precisely
with the interpretation that it is a representation of so and so.
The semantic interpretation and the cognitivist interpretation
have their respective merits. The semantic interpretation, even if it

4Cp. J. Hintikka, The Intensions of Intentionality and Other New Models for
Modalities (Boston: Reidel, 1975). For a detailed criticism of Hintikka's interpreta-
tion of 'noema', see my "Intentionality and Possible Worlds: Husserl and Hintikka"
(together with Hintikka's response) in Hubert L. Dreyfus, ed., Husserl, Intentional-
ity, and Cognitive Science (forthcoming).
'Dreyfus appears to suggest something like this in, among other places, his In-
troduction to Husserl, Intentionality and Cognitive Science.

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714 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

does not provide us with an entity that is grasped when the inten-
tional act is being reflectively thematized, does however bring out
the close relation between intentionality and the modalities. But
the relevant modalities are not logical but epistemological-not
open, but motivated, to use a Husserlian terminology.6 The cogni-
tivist interpretation offers us an entity, but the entity, the internal
representation, is only seemingly intensional, and so powerless to
do what it is called upon to do. As contrasted with the semantic
meaning function, the internal state fails to account for the refer-
ence to possible objects of possible acts (having the same sense),
unless one covertly construes the (extensionally conceived) internal
state as a meaning, i.e., as an intensional entity.
It is at this point that we begin to see the merits of John Searle's
version of the cognitivist thesis: the "internal representation" is
construed by Searle as a representation of the conditions of an act's
own satisfaction.7 Every intentional state, on this account, has con-
ditions of its satisfaction, which are internal to that state. Searle
also calls it the "intentional object." To have an intentional expe-
rience is also to know that the experience has those conditions of
satisfaction. And yet he also says that "where the conditions of sat-
isfaction contain actual things (objects, events, etc.) I call these the
Intentional objects of the Intentional states" (254). What I find
puzzling here is the use made of: (a) "conditions of satisfaction" as
internal to an intentional state; (b) "representation" (or "presenta-
tions," in the case of perceptual states) of the same conditions of sat-
isfaction, which are also internal to that intentional state; and (c)
intentional objects or actual things which may be "contained in"
those conditions of satisfaction. Of these three, actual things can-
not account for intentionality, the intentionality of a state does not
require that there be an actual object as its intentional object. A rep-
resentation, even if it is an internal representation, (neural or men-
tal) is posited as a real "inscription" and cannot be the "bearer" of
intentional reference, any more than a picture can intentionally
refer to its original except through the medium of an interpretive
act. If it is an internal language, its intentionality would be on a
par with the intentionality of any other sign, and we would there-
fore be required to posit its meaning. The idea of "conditions of sat-
isfaction" is closer to the idea of "noema." The noema determines
the reference; to grasp the sense is to know what sort of experiences

6 Cp. my "Husserl on the Modalities," forthcoming in Ideas, Bergmann Center for

Philosophical Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
"The Intentionality of Intention and. Action," Inquiry, xxii, 3 (Autumn 1979):
253-280.

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 INTENTIONALITY 715

(or objects) would satisfy/verify/fulfill it. My hesitation, neverthe-

less, to say that the noema is the same as Searle's "conditions of sat-
isfaction" is due to several reasons. In the first place, a noema may
be a priori incapable of satisfaction; this is true in the case of the
thought of "round square." Secondly, to say that the noema is a set
of conditions that would satisfy it (e.g., render a belief true) is to
identify it with a set of entirely disjoined events, things or states of
affairs, any of which may possibly satisfy. We would lack some-
thing that could bind them together. We appear to be back with an
extensional set like that yielded by the semantic reading of mean-
ing functions.

I conclude this section by briefly returning to the question, Why is

the concept of noema introduced after all? What role does it play?
In some sense, it accounts for, explains, or renders intelligible, an
act's intentional reference to its object. If the question were, How
does this object over there become my intentional object?, the
noema theory would look trivial, for the theory says it is through
its noema that this object becomes the intentional object of this act.
The noema is, then, identified through the object. But there is
another, quite different question, and that is, How does this act in-
tend that object? A causal theory fails to answer that question; for
(a) the object cannot be identified as the cause of the act; (b) even if
the object is a cause, it is only one of the causes, and one still
would want to know why does this one among the causes function
as the object; and (c) the intentional object may be nonexistent, in
which case being the object does not, even extensionally, coincide
with being a cause. The theory of noema answers the question,
How does this act intend that object and none other?, by saying
that this act has a structure which determines what its intentional
object is. This structure, regarded as an irreal correlate, is the no-
ema, and it is because the act has this noema as intrinsic to it, that
the act refers to an object of such and such sort.
At this point, one is tempted to make what appears to me to be a
serious, but widely shared, mistake. I am referring to the view that,
if the sense or noema is to determine reference, as Frege and Hus-
serl thought it did, then the sense or noema must determine refer-
ence uniquely. In other words, the sense, consisting as it does of a
set of predicates, is a description that must be true of one and only
one object. Now, I think this is too rigid an interpretation of the
thesis "sense determines reference." The sense by itself always
leaves room for some indeterminacy with regard to the referent.
This indeterminacy is removed by perception and by the contextual
clues. Even if a description is true exactly of one and only one ob-

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716 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

ject, it does not follow that one who grasps the sense, i.e., the de-
scription, could, merely by virtue of that accomplishment of hav-
ing understood it, pick out the object. If it were so, reference would
have been part of the sense, and understanding (the sense) would
have been equal to knowing (i.e., identifying) the referent.
IV. DE RE INTENTIONALITY

One may want to distinguish between acts that are intentional by

virtue of the noematic structures of those acts themselves, and acts
which, though intentional in that sense, also refer to a real object
out there as the unique individual that it is by being related to it in
some appropriate manner. These latter acts possess de re intention-
ality; they are related to a res. An account of de re intentionality,
paradigmatically exemplified in perceptual experiences, would
then require, besides the noematic structures of the acts concerned,
also real factors-contextual and causal-which make it possible
for the act to be related to a real object. I cannot, however, follow
this approach, which would amount to giving a naturalistic ac-
count of de re intentionality. What is still more important is that
this concept of de re intentionality, and not merely the theory sug-
gested, is naturalistic. It makes intentionality, when it is de re, a
real relation between an act and an object out there. Because of our
committment to a transcendental concept of intentionality, we
need to make a fresh beginning.
If for all intentionality, then also for de re intentionalities, the
real existence, or in fact any sort of existence, of the object is not es-
sential. The object of de re intentionality may be a real thing out
there (e.g., the tree I see through my window), an abstract entity
such as the number 2 or a fictional object (Ulysses). It is not the ex-
istence or nonexistence of the object which is at issue, but the well-
definedness and uniqueness. It would not then do, for our purpose,
to construe de re intentionality as relational and de dicto as propo-
sitional. We have an over-all category of "noematic intentionality."
All intentionality is determined by the noematic structure of the
act. Without having to relate the act to an object, we need to look,
within the noema, for some structural element or elements which
are such that they succeed in making possible a determinate refer-
ence to a unique intentional object in its uniqueness. To have a
concept of de re intentionality, and also in order to give an account
of it, we do not want to step outside the noematic point of view.
Upon the success of this project, would depend the adequacy of a
transcendental theory of intentionality.
That de re beliefs require the mediation of names has been rec-
ognized. Names, in the strict sense, require: for Russell, knowledge

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 INTENTIONALITY 717

by acquaintance; for Husserl, Vorstellung; for David Kaplan, some

sort of vivid presentation. A connected thesis concerns the role of
perception in making de re belief possible.8 More recently, Roder-
ick Chisholm has emphasized the idea of epistemic intimacy.9 In
consonance with these insights, I want to emphasize that the per-
ceptual noema, along with the horizonal structure of the noema
(which is the noematic equivalent of the objective idea of context)
will provide the appropriate medium for de re intentionality. Two
elements are particularly important in this structure: one is the
temporal horizon, and the other is the presence of an indexical
element within the structure of the perceptual noema. With regard
to the first, in a transcendental theory of intentionality we cannot
make use of the objective time series. Although the noema is an ir-
real structure, and so not itself a temporal occurrent (even if the act
is one), the noema may contain within its structure a temporal
value attaching to the object of reference. The temporal horizon of
the act will be represented within the noema, and so the object will
be intended as having a certain temporal sense. Connected with it
is the fact that a perceptual noema has an indexical component,'0
the object is presented as a "this-there-now."
Although perceptual experience provides us with the paradig-
matic instance of de re intentionality, it is by no means the case
that all de re intentionality is perceptual. In fact, when a belief is
de re, it is not necessary that the belief itself should be perceptual.
One may nevertheless argue that all de re belief must be, at some
point, dependent upon perceptual experience of the object of be-
lief. But sometimes the mere name may do the job by functioning
like an indexical.
Between the two extremes of perceptual de re intentionality and
totally de dicto acts, there is a whole range of intermediate possibil-
ities, with regard to which the distinction between dicta and res
tends to get blurred.

University of Oklahoma J. N. MOHANTY

8Cp. Burge, "Belief De Re," this JOURNAL, LXXIV, 6

In "The Logic of Believing," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, LXI, 1 (January
1980): 31-49.
'?I owe this suggestion to Charles Brown.

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