Ed sends this:
Just found this very odd quote from Logical Investigations:
If I have an idea of the god Jupiter, this god is my presented object, he is ‘immanently present’ in my act, he has ‘mental inexistence’ in the latter, or whatever expression we may use to disguise our true meaning. I have an idea of the god Jupiter: This means that I have a certain presentative experience, the presentation-of-the-god-Jupiter is realized in my consciousness. This intentional experience may be dismembered as one chooses in descriptive analysis, but the god Jupiter naturally will not be found in it. The ‘immanent’, ‘mental object’ is not therefore part of the descriptive or real makeup (deskriptiven reellen Bestand) of the experience, it is in truth not really immanent or mental. But it also does not exist extramentally, it does not exist at all. This does not prevent our-idea-of-the-god-Jupiter from being actual, a particular sort of experience or particular mode of mindedness (Zumutesein), such that he who experiences it may rightly say that the mythical king of the gods is present to him, concerning whom there are such and such stories. If, however, the intended object exists, nothing becomes phenomenologically different. It makes no essential difference to an object presented and given to consciousness whether it exists, or it is fictitious, or is perhaps completely absurd. I think of Jupiter as I think of Bismarck, of the tower of Babel as I think of Cologne Cathedral, of a regular thousand-sided polygon as of a regular thousand-faced solid.
This relates to my earlier question. What is the intentional object here? Is it the idea-of-Jupiter? Or Jupiter himself?
1) Note first that 'inexistence' does not mean non-existence. This is a very common mistake made by most analytic philosophers. When I am thinking about the god Jupiter, with or without imagery, Jupiter is the intentional object of my act. An act is an intentional (lived) experience, ein intentionales Erlebnis. It is a mental item I live through, a psychic content if you will, "realized in my consciousness." But every act has an intentional object (IO), just as every such object is the object of an act. In the Jupiter case, the intentional object does not exist in reality. So we say that it is a merely intentional object (MIO). To say that this IO is inexistent in the act is just to say that the act has an intentional object which may or may not exist (in reality) without prejudice either to the directedness of the act or to the identity of the act. (The identity of an act token is determined by its IO; equivalently, act tokens are individuated by their IOs.) So don't confuse 'inexistent' with 'non-existent.' Every intentional object is inexistent, but only some are non-existent. If an IO is nonexistent, then we say it is merely intentional.
2) Mental acts, not to be confused with mental (or physical) actions, are occurrent episodes of object-directed experiencing. Acts exist in reality. Obviously, Jupiter is not a real part or constituent of my act when I think of Jupiter. Jupiter, as the object of my act, does not exist in my act as a real constituent thereof. (The same goes for the PLANET Jupiter. I have a big head, and a broad mind, but not that big of a head or that broad of a mind.) But neither does the god Jupiter exist in reality, extramentally. As H. says, "it does not exist at all." This much is clear. Jupiter is not in my head, nor in my mind as a real constituent of the mental events and processes that occur when I am thinking about Jupiter. It is also not an extramental existent. Jupiter is before my mind as the intentional object of my act. This object is what it is whether or not it exists in reality. Suppose we are all wrong, and the god Jupiter does exist in reality. Nothing would change phenomenologically, as H. says.
3) Ed asks, "What is the intentional object here? Is it the idea-of-Jupiter? Or Jupiter himself?"
It is not the idea-of-Jupiter because that is the act — the occurrent episode of object-directed experiencing — I live through when I think of Jupiter. We cannot say that because Jupiter does not exist in reality, it must exist in my head or in my mind. That is nonsense as Twardowski made clear.
The intentional object is also not a really existent extramental thing.
The intentional object is Jupiter himself, a transcendent non-existent item. The above passage seems headed in a Meinongian direction. How this comports with the strict correlativity of act and intentional object is surely a problem.
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