(I wrote this as part of an exercise about Phenomenology and Direct Realism that I did for University and to which I still did not recieve a feedback. Anyway, I decided to post it on the blog just to give people an idea about what I’ve been thinking about lately. As soon as I recieve a feedback I intend to post further observations in a new text. Critique is welcome).
Juliana de Albuquerque Katz
Intentionality implies that every conscience is conscience of something. Therefore, it pictures the relation between the psychological state of the subject and its reference to an intended object. It is a concept based on Aristotle and Scholastic Philosophy that was brought back to discussion by Franz Brentano. An important feature of intentionality is that it helps the identification of psychical and physical phenomenon. The first features and original intentionality while the later only has derived intentionality.
To say that I see a black bird standing on an electric wire through by bedroom window is to say that what relates my conscience to its object is an act of perception to which the content of the object is disclaimed. Thus, whenever we express a mental state in language we are speaking about an intentional act.
But if the conscience comprehends an action towards something then how are our consciences supposed to work in order to have knowledge of the object? If we defend the idea of a direct relation between the subject and the object of its intention we fall into a Direct Realism, which is a doctrine whose main claim is that the senses provides us with the direct awareness of the world. One of the exponents of this doctrine was the 18th century thinker Thomas Reid to whom representationalism should be rejected otherwise we would turn ourselves into victims whether of skepticism of the external world or phenomenalism. To defend such idea would be the same as saying: I directly perceive the bird standing on the electric wire. Against the phenomenalist point of view that I perceive the bird standing on the electric wire trough sense data related to this fact. Thus, the direct realist does not care about sense data at all – the object of our perception is the world and not the mind and its sense data.
Therefore, if I imagine a toothless purple monster it won’t be really relevant to the direct realist because according to the doctrine’s point of view we do not have perception of sensations or even images. I’ll say it more clearly: to the direct realist we can only have perception of external objects which is not the case with me imagining such a monster or even to the fact that I like George’s character from Seinfield.
Other case that wouldn’t be relevant to the direct realist would be me feeling afraid of a dog standing in front of me. Of course that I would have perception of the dog standing in front of me as it surely is an external object. But, I would not have perception of my sensation of fear. Which sounds strange because how can I not have perception of what goes on in my mind? But then and again, it is not a coincidence that direct realism is known as naïve realism.
Now, suppose the bird on the wire wasn’t really an actual bird but puppet or even an illusion. With that we come across the fact that the object I saw doesn’t exist, which puts Direct Realism in the middle of a crossroad. How can its doctrine explain misperceptions? It can only do so by making use of hypothetic-deductive methods, which imply a previous experience and analysis of the phenomenon.
A straw seems to bend when submerged in a cup of soda because it is an optical illusion caused by the misunderstanding of an optical rule. In fact, we know that the straw remains straight inside the cup of soda because we had previous experiences of the same type that informed us of such a fact. To say so, would imply in totally agreeing with Thomas Reid thinking that to everything there is a natural explanation.
But the thing is: nothing is that simple and one can’t have total grasp of reality by experience only. Ideas or sense data are still necessary to explain a whole lot of things such as the purple monster example given above.
In a very interesting article about Reid’s Philosophy of Mind, Rebecca Copenhaver states: “We have no observational evidence for the existence of ideas – understood as images or resemblances of extra-mental objects – and even if we had such evidence, their existence would be insufficient for explaining how our experiences, thoughts, beliefs and other mental states come to be directed at or about objects. In other words, ideas are insufficient to explain the intentionality of our mental states.” (p.280) Thus, pointing the difficulty in a direct realist approach to intentionality.
To this perspective, some critics of Direct Realism make use of the argument from illusion that defends the idea that if we firstly perceive the bend straw it is because we firstly perceive sense data about the straw, and not the straw itself which, by all means, would be straight and not bend, proving that we have indirect perception of the actual straw.
Another answer to the question about how our consciences have knowledge of its objects derives from Phenomenology. But in which grounds is Phenomenology in a better position than Direct Realism? Or, in what way can a phenomenological approach towards intentionality overcome Direct Realism’s difficulty towards that same concept?
As already said, to Direct Realism the object of our perception is the world and the external objects and not the mind and its sense data. And, as a consequence this generates a certain difficulty for the direct realist to explain misperceptions.
But misperceptions and objects that don’t exist are still a phenomenon. Therefore, they can be considered to be objects to which our intentional mental acts are directed. To Robert Sokolowski Phenomenology proves the publicity of the mind because the conceptions of an intra-mental and of an extra-mental world are incoherent. To the author: everything is external. And he goes further: “While discussing intentionality, Phenomenology helps us to demand a public sense of thought, of reasoning and of perception. (…)” (p.21).
This is quite coherent to the words of Martin Heidegger in Being and Time. Heidegger explains that a phenomenon is something that reveals itself or that presents itself for itself. And, furthermore, he explains that “the phenomenon constitute the totality of what is under the light of day or can be put under that light. Something that the Greeks sometimes identified with beings, the totality of all that is.” (p.67).
A very interesting thing is that the beings can present themselves in a myriad of ways which includes the possibility of presenting itself as something it is not. Things don’t only exist but also have ways of presenting themselves. Thus, a misperception only proves the publicity of conscience that is in the world.
When Phenomenology tries to explain the misperception of a bird puppet for a bird the way of reasoning goes like this: “when it happens that we think that we perceive when we are actually imagining, this lack of order can only take place in relation to true perceptions and imaginations. In order to be able to hallucinate, we must have joined the game of intent or aim things. We cannot hallucinate if we weren’t aware of the difference of perceiving and dreaming” (Sokolowski, p.24).
Moreover, objects that do not exist can be real in some sense because they subsist as we have our intentionality directed to them. And, it can also be said that such a reasoning finds its base on Brentano to whom “the intentionality thesis holds out the prospect of understanding the essential nature of thought” (Jaquette, p. 99).
But there is something paradoxical involving Brentano’s concept of intentionality and it regards the immanence of the object in each and every act. Let’s observe Brentano’s quote from Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint where he says that: “every psychic phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called intentional (also indeed mental) in-existence of an object, and which we, although not with an entirely unambiguous expression will call the relation to a content, the direction toward an object (by which here a reality is not understood), or an immanent objectivity. (…)”
Such a quote suggests that immanent intentionality deals with the fact that our intentional object is actually part of a psychological act. This interpretation raised the critique that Brentano was actually embracing psychologism which such a thesis. The critiques came from his students and they also tried to overcome the difficulties of Brentano’s concept of intentionality. Twardowski, Meinong and Husserl were some of these students and critics who later tried to correct Brentano’s intentions.
One of the big difficulties with immanent intentionality is that it makes impossible for two people to think about the same thing. Taking Brentano’s quote from above, we have that the intentionality from an act of thought is directed to its content and not to the actual object. Thus, it follows in a subjectivism and also into a sort of idealism. What is the ontological status of the intentional object? When I perceive a bird on a wire, my act of thought is directed to the mental object of thought and not to the physical object itself – the actual bird. Thus, there is a duplication of objects. But then, if we try to establish that there should be equivalence between mental and physical objects we wouldn’t be able to explain non-existing objects such as illusions or a character in a book or in a TV show.
Least, to Brentano there are three kinds of mental phenomena which are – perceptions, judgments and phenomena of love and hate. Examples of presentation can be: I see a black bird standing on an electric wire (…) or I see the cats sleeping on the sofa; I imagine a toothless purple monster; or, I am looking for an available apartment in some street in Tel Aviv. Presentations are the most basic mental acts and relate to something we see, imagine, expect, remember, etc.
Judgments and phenomena of love and hate are based on presentations but the first involves a qualitative mode of acceptance or denial towards the existence of the object; and the second involves emotions, desires and acts of will. An example of judgment can be given by There isn’t a black bird standing on the wire and I see there is coffee on the table. And an example of phenomena of love and hate is I like George’s character from Seinfield or I wish I had a car and even I’m afraid of the dog which is standing with its mouth opened in front of me.
References:
Copenhaver, Rebecca. Thomas Reid’s Philosophy of Mind: Consciousness and Intentionality. In Philosophy Compass.
Sokolowski, Robert. Introdução à Fenomenologia. (Introduction to Phenomenology)
Heidegger, Martin. Ser e Tempo. (Being and Time)
Jacquette, Dale. Brentano’s concept of Intentionality. In Cambridge Companion to Brentano.
Escrito por Juliana de Albuquerque K. 
