A nation for which safety and security are leading values is one headed for the ashcan of history. Did the great mariners of sea and space live by Safety First?
Some Questions about Thinking, Relations, and Relational Expressions
Bill, you said by email earlier that the sentence “Jake is thinking of Zeus” would be true if Jake was indeed thinking of Zeus.
BV: That's what I said, although I would put 'is' where you have 'was.' Is what I said a shocking thing to say?
I have questions for you about the terms ‘obtains’ and ‘satisfies’.
(1) If “Jake is thinking of Zeus” is true, and assuming there is no such thing as Zeus, then does the relation “– is thinking of –” obtain? According to what you said earlier, a relation cannot obtain if any its relata do not exist. But we normally think of a relation obtaining precisely in the case where the sentence which asserts the relation is true. What do you think?
BV: We cannot assume that thinking-of is a relation if every relation is such that its obtaining entails the existence of all its relata. For in the case of Jake and Zeus only one of the relata exists, and it's not Zeus. And yet it is true that Jake is thinking of Zeus. I conclude that the sentence 'Jake is thinking of Zeus,' although grammatically relational, does not express a relational proposition. The sentence needs a truth-preserving analysis that does not commit one to the existence of nonexistent things.
Here are two different candidate analysantia. 'Jake is thinking Zeus-ly.' 'Jake is a Zeus-entertainer.' Neither of these sentences is grammatically relational, and both seem to preserve the truth of the analysandum without commitment to nonexistent things. I do not endorse either analysans.
(2) Is the relational expression “– is thinking of –” satisfied when “Jake is thinking of Zeus” is true? For example, is it satisfied by the two things Jake and Zeus respectively? If not, why not?
BV: No. Why not? Because Zeus does not exist.
The Uselessness of Stoicism in the Face of Death
Substack latest.
Latest Substack Articles
Saturday Night at the Oldies: More Musical Duos and Some Duets
Richard and Mimi Farina, Pack Up Your Sorrows
Mimi and Richard Farina, Reno, Nevada
Ian and Sylvia, Early Morning Rain
Ian and Sylvia, You Were on My Mind
Joan Baez and Mimi Farina, Catch the Wind
Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, Blowin' in the Wind
Dick and Dee Dee, The Mountain High, 1961
Dick and Dee Dee, Tell Me, 1962. Where were you in '62?
Santo and Johnny, Sleep Walk. Every garage band from here to Cucamonga did a version of this tune.
Joe and Eddie, There's a Meeting Here Tonight. I'll bet you don't remember this one, Dave Bagwill.
Les Paul and Mary Ford, Vaya con Dios, 1953
Object-Directedness and Object-Dependence
Intentionality cannot be identified with object-dependence. Here is why.
Suppose that I begin thinking about some faraway thing such as the Washington Monument (WM) and that I think of it without interruption through some short interval of time. Half-way through the interval, unbeknownst to me, the monument is destroyed and ceases to exist. Question: does my thinking become objectless half-way through the interval? Or does my thinking have an object and the same object throughout the interval?
The answer depends on what is meant by 'object.' 'Object' could mean the infinitely-propertied thing intended in the act of thinking, or it could mean that which is before my mind precisely as such with all and only the properties I think of the thing intended as having. Either could be called the intentional object, which goes to show that 'intentional object' is ambiguous. On the first alternative the intentional object = the real object; on the second, the intentional object is some sort of incomplete item that either plays an intermediary role, or else is a proper part of the thing intended. (Husserl aficionados will gather that I am alluding to the difference between West Coast and East Coast interpretations of the status and function of the noema .) To avoid the ambiguity of 'intentional object,' I will distinguish the thing intended from the noema, leaving open how exactly the noema is to be understood.
One answer to the above question is that, during the entire interval, my thinking has one and the same object, but this object is not the thing intended but the noema. The noema is the thing-AS- intended in certain ways (under certain incomplete descrioptions) appropriate to finite minds such as we possess, for example, the x such that x is made of marble and honors George Washington. This distinction between noema and thing intended needs explanation, of course, and it raises some difficult if not insoluble questions, but it fits the phenomenological facts. When the WM ceases to exist, nothing changes phenomenologically. If the intentional object were the real, extra-mental, physical thing, then, when the WM ceases to exist, my conscious state would become objectless — which is not what happens. So we need the distinction, and we must not conflate object-directedness with object-dependence.
DEP: The objective reference or aboutness of a mental state S is object-dependent =df S's having objective reference entails the (extra-mental) existence of the thing intended by S.
DIR: The objective reference or aboutness of a mental state S is object-directed =df S's having objective reference is logically consistent both with the (extra-mental) existence and (extra-mental) nonexistence of the thing intended by S.
If we understand aboutness in terms of (DIR), then the answer to my question is that nothing changes phenomenologically throughout the interval: my thinking has an object and the very same object throughout the interval despite the WM's ceasing to exist half-way though the interval.
(DEP) codifies an externalist understanding of 'objective reference' whereas (DIR) codifies an internalist understanding. On (DEP), it is the existence in the external world of the thing intended that grounds S's objective reference or aboutness; without this external ground S would lack aboutness, and S would be objectless. On (DEP), then, the aboutness of a mental state is a relational property of the state as opposed to an intrinsic property thereof. On (DIR), intrinsic features of the subject and his acts suffice to ground S's objective reference or aboutness. This implies a strict act-object correlation: necessarily, every act has an object, and every object is the object of an act.
You will have noticed that 'object' has different senses in the above definitions. In (DEP), 'object' refers to a entity that exists in itself, and thus independently of the existence of minds and their acts. In (DIR), 'object' refers to an intentional correlate which cannot exist apart from minds and their acts.
I'll say a bit more by way of elaboration.
The thing intended is the monument itself, the infinitely-propertied physical thing. Surely that is what my thinking intends when I think about the WM and ask: How tall is it? What is its shape? What is it composed of? I am not asking about any content of my consciousness. So I am not asking about the occurrent episode of thinking itself, the act, or any other contents such as felt sensory data (Husserl's hyletic data). Contents are immanent to consciousness and nothing immanent to my consciousness is 550 feet tall, made of marble, monolithic, or in the shape of an obelisk.
Nor am I asking about the noema. Noemata are akin to Fregean senses. Like the latter, noemata cannot be made of marble or 550 feet tall. (This is the 'California' or 'West Coast' interpretation sired by Dagfinn Follesdal.) Like Fregean senses, they are not contents of consciousness that the subject experiences or lives through. Senses and noemata are more like objects than like contents, except that they are abstract or ideal objects that serve a mediating function. The senses of 'Hesperus' and 'Phosphorus' mediate my linguistic reference to that massive chunk of physical reality, the plant Venus. They are neither mental nor physical; they are 'third world' entities albeit more Platonic than Popperian. Noemata are similar: they mediate thinking reference but are neither mental in the manner of a content of consciousness nor physical.
But there is an important difference. Fregean senses exist whether or not minds and their contents exist. They also exist whether or not physical items exist including marks on paper or acoustic disturbances in the air. But noemata exist only as the correlates of acts or intentional experiencings. They have a curious in-between status. They are not contents of consciousness, but they are also not entities in their own right inasmuch as they exist only as correlates of acts.
Because noemata are ideal or abstract intermediaries, they do not have physical properties and dispositions. A tree is disposed to catch on fire if struck by lightning, say. But no tree-noema can catch on fire. (See Husserl, Ideas I, sec. 89)
Andrew Sullivan on Critical Race Theory
Sullivan writes,
Here is how critical theory defines itself in one of its central documents. It questions the very foundations of “Enlightenment rationality, legal equality and Constitutional neutrality.” It begins with the assertion that these are not ways to further knowledge and enlarge human freedom. They are rather manifestations of white power over non-white bodies. Formal legal equality, they argue, the promise of the American experiment, has never been actual equality, even as, over the centuries, it has been extended to everyone. It is, rather, a system to perpetuate inequality forever, which is the single and only reason racial inequality is still here.
This is pernicious nonsense. Why has "formal legal equality" never led to "actual equality"? Why hasn't equality before the law, equality of opportunity, and the like led to equality of outcome or result? Because, as a matter of empirical fact, we are not equal, not physically, mentally, morally, spiritually, socially, politically, or economically. By no empirical measure are people equal either as individuals or as groups. We are naturally unequal. And because there is no natural equality, it is no surprise that there is no racial equality of outcome. Since there is no "white power over non-white bodies," this nonexistent factor cannot be used to explain racially inequality of outcome or result. Sullivan continues his description of CRT:
Critical Race Theory Attracts the Uncritical
People are suckers for Critical Race Theory (CRT) because they cannot think critically.
A key word in the CRT arsenal is 'equity.' ('Arsenal' is the right word given the Left's weaponization of language.) It is an Unbegriff, an unconcept. It combines something good with something unattainable except by the toleration of grave evils. Let me explain.
'Equity' sounds good and so people are thoughtlessly for it. It is like 'social justice' in this respect. They don't realize that leftists, semantic distortionists nonpareil, have hijacked a legitimate word so as to make it refer to equality of outcome. Being uncritical, people don't appreciate that there is an important difference between equality in its formal senses — equality before the law, equality of opportunity, equality in respect of political/civil rights, etc. — and equality of outcome or result. Formal equality is an attainable good. Material equality is unattainable because of group differences. To achieve material or non-formal equality, equality of outcome, the means employed would be worse than the supposed cure.
Given undeniable group differences, 'equity' does not naturally arise; hence the only way to achieve 'equity' is by unjustly taking from the productive and giving to the unproductive. The levellers would divest the makers of what is rightfully theirs to benefit the undeserving takers. 'Equity' is unjust! It is unjust to deny a super-smart Asian or Jew a place in an MIT engineering program because of a racial/ethnic quota. Judging candidates by merit and achievement, however, naturally leads to the disproportional representation of Asians and Jews in such programs. That is a consequence that must be accepted. Candidates must be judged as individuals and not as members of groups. Indeed, the superior black must take precedence over the inferior Asian or white, but not because he is black, but because he is superior.
Suppose you disagree. Then I argue as follows.
The state apparatus needed to bring about this 'equitization' or equalization of outcomes is vastly larger than the one permitted by our founding documents. The attempt to achieve it brings us closer and closer to an omni-invasive totalitarian police state. That would be worse than a situation in which natural hierarchies are respected.
In any case, natural hierarchies always have the last word. If the USA weakens itself by going 'woke,' it will become easy prey for its foreign enemies. Their dictators are salivating as we speak. Never forget that states are in the state of nature with respect to one another, and that nature is red in tooth and claw. A 'woke' military is a weak military.
The paradox should not be missed: the equalization project requires agencies of equalization vastly more powerful that the groups they seek to equalize. The upshot, then, is not equality of power and position but a situation of material inequality in which the governors oppress the governed.
Is CRT a theory? A commenter on my Facebook page correctly notes that
The advocates of the current re-education program are not presenting a theory but rather requiring their victims to signal their uncritical, obsequious acceptance of a canon of dogmas. Calling a dogma or set of dogmas a theory is a rhetorical ruse used to disguise their insidious indoctrination with the a veneer of real educational activity.
My commenter is right. CRT is not a theory to be discussed and tested but a set of dogmas to be imposed on children of all ages whose critical faculties are no match for the indoctrination.
Demarcation and Directedness: Notes on Brentano
Here again is the famous passage from Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874):
Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction toward an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself…(Brentano PES, 68)
Jedes psychische Phänomen ist durch das charakterisiert, was die Scholastiker des Mittelalters die intentionale (auch wohl mentale) Inexistenz eines Gegenstandes genannt haben, und was wir, obwohl mit nicht ganz unzweideutigen Ausdrücken, die Beziehung auf einen Inhalt, die Richtung auf ein Objekt (worunter hier nicht eine Realität zu verstehen ist), oder die immanente Gegenständlichkeit nennen würden. Jedes enthält etwas als Objekt in sich… (Brentano, PES 124f)
1) For Brentano, intentionality is the mark of the mental: it is what distinguishes the mental from the physical. All and only mental phenomena are intentional. Call this the Brentano Thesis (BT). It presupposes that there are mental items, and that there are physical items. It implies that there is no intentionality below the level of conscious mind and no intentionality above the level of conscious mind. BT both restricts and demarcates. It restricts intentionality to conscious mind and marks off the mental from the physical.
2) BT does the demarcation job tolerably well. Conscious states possess content; non-conscious states do not. My marvelling at the Moon is a contentful state; the Moon's being cratered is not. Going beyond Brentano, I say that there are two ways for a conscious state to have content. One way is for there to be something it is like to be in that state. Thus there is something it like to feel tired, bored, depressed, elated, anxious, etc. even when there is no specifiable object that one feels tired about, bored at, depressed over, elated about, anxious of, etc.
Call such conscious contents non-directed. They do not refer beyond one's mental state to a transcendent object. Other contents are object-directed. Suppose I am anxious over an encroaching forest fire that threatens to engulf my property. The felt anxiety has an object and this object is no part of my conscious state. The content, which is immanent to my mental state, 'points' to a state of affairs that is transcendent of my mental state. In short, there are two types of mental content, object-directed and non-object-directed.
3) 'Every consciousness is a consciousness of something' can then be taken to mean that every conscious state has content. Read in this way, the dictum is immune to such counter examples as pain. That pain is non-directed does not show that pain is not a content of consciousness.
4) Brentano conflates content and object, Inhalt and Gegenstand. The conflation is evident from the above quotation. As a consequence he does not distinguish directed and non-directed contents. This fact renders his theory of intentionality indefensible.
Suppose I am thirsting for a beer. I am in a conscious mental state. This state has a qualitative side: there is something it is like to be in this state. But the state is also directed to a transcendent state of affairs, my downing a bottle of beer, a state of affairs that does not yet exist, but is no less transcendent for that. If Brentano were right, then my thirsting for a bottle of beer would be a process immanent in my conscious life — which is precisely what it is not.
5) To sum this up. Brentano succeeds with the demarcation project, but fails to explain the directedness of some mental contents, their reference beyond the mind to extramental items. This failure is due to his failure to distinguish content and object, a distinction that first clearly emerges with his student Twardowski.
Brentano was immersed in Aristotle and the scholastics by his philosophical training and his priestly formation. Perhaps this explains his inability to get beyond the notion of intentionality as intentionale Inexistenz (inesse).
Presentism and Evil: If Presentism is False, then God does not Exist
Bradley Schneider sent me the following argument and would like my opinion. I am happy to accommodate him. (I have edited his argument for the sake of brevity, the soul of blog. I have also given it a title.)
PRESENTISM FALSE? THEN GOD DOES NOT EXIST!
1) An all-good, omniscient, omnipotent God should not allow any horrendous evil.
2) If there is a solution to the problem of evil, it must entail that God eventually defeats evil and, to defeat evil, God must not only compensate the victims of evil but destroy evil's existence.
3) If presentism is not true, however, it means that past events still exist, even if they do not exist now.4) But this implies that a horrendous evil that occurred in, say, 1994 (the Rwandan genocide, for example) still exists. Not only that, it will always exist. As will every other horrendous evil throughout human history.
5) God may be able to vanquish evil at the eschaton, but all of the horrendous evils will persist throughout all eternity. Even while the blessed are enjoying heaven, the horrendous evils will continue to exist. All of the past evils will remain real and hence undefeated, even if God can assure that no further evil will occur post-eschaton.6) So God ultimately cannot vanquish evil if presentism is false.7) Therefore, God doesn't exist if presentism is false.
The problem is with (3). If presentism is not true, then presumably eternalism is true. Presentism is the view that only temporally present items (times, events, . . .) exist. That is, everything that exists exists at present. On eternalism, this is not the case: past and future items also exist. Now for these two views to be contradictory, 'exist(s)' must be used in the same sense. But what sense is that? It cannot be the present-tensed sense because that would reduce presentism to a tautology and eternalism to a contradiction. How so?
Well, 'Everything that exists (present tense) exists at present' is a trivial logical truth devoid of metaphysical import. On the other hand, 'Past, present, and future items all exist (present tense)' is logically contradictory since wholly past and wholly future items are not temporally present. Presentism and eternalism are substantive metaphysical theses that contradict each other only if 'exist(s)' is taken tenselessly.
Now glance back at (3). It reads, in part, "If presentism is not true, however, it means that past events still exist . . . " This is arguably a presentist misunderstanding of what the eternalist is saying. 'Still exists' means 'existed and exists (present tense).' That is not what the eternalist is saying. He is not saying, for example, that the gladiatorial combat in the Coliseum is still going on. He is saying that past events, i.e., events earlier than his speaking, exist simpliciter, i. e., tenselessly, whatever that comes to.
Note also that if past events still exist, then they do exist now, which contradicts the rest of (3): " . . . even if they do not exist now."
So Schneider's argument needs some work.
My view is that both eternalism and presentism are fraught with insuperable difficulties. Using either for theological purposes is not likely to get us anywhere.
Relations and Nonexistents
Consider the following two sentences:
a) Lions are smaller than dragons.
b) Mice are smaller than elephants.
From this datanic base a puzzle emerges.
1) The data sentences are both true.
2) 'Smaller than' has the same sense in both (a) and (b).
3) In both (a) and (b), 'smaller than' has the same reference: it refers to a dyadic relation.
4) No relation holds or obtains unless all its relata exist.
What we have here is an aporetic tetrad. The four propositions just listed are individually plausible but collectively inconsistent: they cannot all be true. What we have, then, is a philosophical problem in what I call canonical form. Any three of the above four, taken in conjunction, entails the negation of the remaining one. Which limb of the tetrad should we reject?
One might reject (4) while upholding (1), (2), and (3). Accordingly, some relations connect existents to non-existents. It is true that lions are smaller than dragons despite it being the case that dragons do not exist. The sense of 'smaller than' is the same in both (a) and (b). And 'smaller than' picks out one and the same dyadic relation in both (a) and (b).
The idea here is that there is nothing in the nature of a relation to require that its obtaining entails the existence of all its relata. Contrast thinking about the Trevi Fountain in Rome and thinking about the Fountain of Youth. Some will say that in both cases the intentional nexus is a genuine relation since there is nothing in the nature of a relation (to be precise: a specific relatedness) to require that all of its relata exist. It is the same relation, the intentional relation, whether I think of an existing item or think of a non-existent item.
If you don't like this solution you might try rejecting (2) while upholding the remaining limbs: 'smaller than' does not have the same sense in our data sentences. Accordingly, 'are smaller than' in (b) picks out a relation that actually connects mice and elephants. But in (a), 'are smaller than' does not pick out that relation. In (a), 'is smaller than' has the sense 'would be smaller than.' We are thus to understand (a) as having the sense of 'Lions would be smaller than dragons if there were any.'
(2)-rejection arguably falls afoul of Grice's Razor, to wit: one ought not multiply senses beyond necessity. Here is what Grice himself says:
[O]ne should not suppose what a speaker would mean when he used a word in a certain range of cases to count as a special sense of the word, if it should be predictable, independently of any supposition that there is such a sense, that he would use the word (or the sentence containing it) with just that meaning. (Grice, 1989, pp. 47-48, Quoted from Andrea Marchesi, "A radical relationist solution to intentional inexistence," Synthese, 2021.)
Pick your poison.
Forgive and Forget
Forgetting is the easier and more effective of the options if you can manage it. A wrong forgotten is a wrong unavailable for either forgiving or the opposite. But where is the virtue in a mere mental lapse? To forgive the unforgotten wrong — now there is the moral challenge, one rarely met, although almost all of us deceive ourselves in this regard. We try to forgive, and we may succeed for a time, but then, in an unguarded moment, the memory of the offender obtrudes, and suddenly the thought is front and center: That asshole, that worthless piece of crap! Such thoughts do not evince forgiveness.
What advice do I give myself? Guard the mind! But even the monks in their monasteries, far from the world and its provocations, are not very successful at that.
We aim at ideals the realization of which is beyond the reach of our own efforts. One might conclude from this that there must be a Source of help beyond the human-all-too-human. For 'ought' implies 'can': what I morally must do, I must be able to do, if not by my own power, then with the assistance of Another. So there must be this Other.
Or one might conclude that because there is no Other to render assistance, we are crazy to torment ourselves with the contemplation of ideals, which, being unattainable by us, cannot count as ideals for us.
Montaigne on Why Language Matters
My Substack latest begins like this after a quotation from the Frenchman:
Montaigne's point is mine. Language matters. It deserves respect as the vehicle and enabler of our thoughts and — to change the metaphor — the common currency for the exchange of ideas. To tamper with the accepted meanings of words in order to secure argumentative or political advantage is a form of cheating. Ludwig Wittgenstein likened languages to games. But games have rules, and we cannot tolerate those who change the rules mid-game. We must demand of our political opponents that they use language responsibly, and engage us on the common terrain of accepted usage.
Assorted other rants, riffs, railings, resistings, and refusals are on my Facebook page.
Saturday Night at the Oldies: Musical Duos
Saturday night, time to punch the clock and pour yourself a stiff one. Me, I'm drinking a Jack and Coke. How about you?
Mickey and Sylvia, Love is Strange, 1956
Nino Tempo and April, Deep Purple, 1963. The lyrics are pure sweet kitsch. But what's wrong with a little kitsch and sentimentality? Up yours, Theodor Adorno.
Everly Brothers, When Will I be Loved?
Righteous Brothers, Little Latin Lupe Lu
Simon and Garfunkel, I am a Rock. I have my books and my poetry to protect me!
Ike and Tina Turner, It's Gonna Work Out Fine, 1961. I went to see the preacher man.
Sonny and Cher, I Got You, Babe, 1965. Don't let them say you hair's too long!
Jan and Dean, Dead Man's Curve, 1963. Walk not back from Dead Man's Curve.
Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, Foggy Mountain Breakdown, 1949. This one goes out to Hillary Clinton.
Peter and Gordon, I Go to Pieces
Peter and Gordon, Summer Song
Chad and Jeremy, Yesterday's Gone
Doc Holliday and Johnny Ringo, Last Tango
Analysis of a Passage from Husserl’s Logical Investigations
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.