Intentionality, between the analytical and continental traditions: possible dialogues

Intentionality, between the analytical and continental traditions: possible dialogues

Deborah Moreira Guimarães

Philosophy is essentially a dialogical activity, which requires the constant exercise of searching for presuppositions, reconstructing internal dialogues, and mapping out possible subsequent developments. Based on these general indications, this presentation is divided into two parts: 1) to present the initial traces of the notion of intentionality in phenomenology; and 2) to outline possible dialogues between phenomenology and analytic philosophy. If, on the one hand, the task of conceptualizing the term intentionality appears to be an infinite effort, on the other hand, its countless meanings show the absence of a single aspect capable of characterizing this term; on the contrary, we speak of “intentionalities” in the plural. In this sense, we seek to elucidate historically the origins of phenomenological intentionality, which goes back to Aristotle (according to Anscombe) and the scholastic intentio, especially with Thomas Aquinas, and goes through the school of Brentano until it gains its privileged methodical position in the descriptive study of psychic phenomena. Intentionality is thus the basis of Husserlian phenomenology and marks the common ground of an entire tradition that began with Husserl and continued with Heidegger, since both the French phenomenology that developed with Merleau-Ponty and the various developments of the so-called continental tradition, such as existentialism and deconstruction, are based on the fertile ground opened by the normative model and theoretical approach of phenomenology. However, intentionality is also a relevant problem for the analytic tradition, showing that both analytics and continentalists start from certain common roots, one of which is intentio, especially since its reformulation in Brentano’s theory. Starting from the problems concerning the philosophy of language inaugurated by Frege, Searle approaches Brentano’s definition with a view to thinking of intentionality in its relation to speech acts. In other words, our central theme is considered in Searle’s theory to be a property of mental states or events through which such states and events are directed towards objects and states of affairs in the world, and language is therefore derived from intentionality. In Heidegger, intentionality is also articulated with language, although in ways that diverge from Searle’s proposal. Our hypothesis is that: 1) the intentionality operative in Husserlian phenomenology – indispensable for the passive syntheses of consciousness – constitutes the basis of Heideggerian understanding; and 2) as in Searle and Frege, the notion of meaning (Bedeutung) in Heidegger has a referential appeal, which can be understood both in the relation with the world, constitutive of existence itself as an intentional flow, and as a breaking point regarding the nexus between intentionality and language from the perspective of the genesis of significativity.