Husserl's noema: A critical assessment of the Gestalt and analytic interpretations

Husserl introduces the term noema in Ideas I in order to explicate his theory of intentionality. His statements about the term, however, are notoriously ambiguous. For instance, he speaks of the noema as "intended object as intended," "intentional content of an act," "sense," and "meaning." These names have certain connotations which are not necessarily synonymous or interchangeable. Given the ambiguities in Husserl's own usage of the noema, it is no surprise that the term is the subject of conflicting interpretations by scholars. The purpose of this dissertation is to undertake a critical assessment of two such interpretations, the Gestalt interpretation as formulated by Aron Gurwitsch and the analytic interpretation as articulated by the Frege scholars, David Woodruff Smith and Ronald McIntyre.; Gurwitsch elaborates an object-theory of intentionality, according to which the noema is a whole of parts, that is, the infinite, systematically, organized totality of the object's (noematic) appearances, or, in other words, "the very idea [in the Kantian sense] of an infinite system or continuum of appearances all realized in actual sense experience." Smith and McIntyre reject Gurwitsch's object-theory and in its stead, develop a mediator-theory of intentionality, according to which the noema is an abstract entity [intentional object or intentional content] distinct from the intended object itself, an entity which mediates the relation of an act to the object in the manner of Frege's senses.; I defend a three-pronged thesis: (1) that Husserl explicates the concept of noema within a twofold framework, the framework of a phenomenological epistemology where 'noema' is defined as "an idea in the Kantian sense" and the framework of a phenomenological theory of meaning where 'noema' is defined as ideal meaning of judgment; (2) that the phenomenological theory of knowledge and the phenomenological theory of meaning do not contradict but rather complement and perfect each other; and, therefore, (3) that Gurwitsch's noematic theory appearances is ultimately reconcilable with Smith and McIntyre's linguistic theory of noema. In developing these theses, I throw into sharp relief Husserl's unique and original contributions in the areas of philosophy of mind, theory of truth, and hermeneutics.