Conscious Intentionality, Bodily Intentionality And Ethical Intentionality

The concept of intentionality has been in a disputed situation since it is posed in Franz Brentano’s philosophy. Husserl gives the concept of act a refined definition, which is identified with "intentional experiences" and its original meaning must be rigidly excluded, in his famous Logical Investigations. He establishes a theory of conscious intentionality by a profound inquiry into the relation between act and its intentional objects. For him, the conscious intentionality is not an accessorial means but the ultimate goal.The establishment of the conscious intentionality in Husserl goes through following steps:Firstly, he makes a distinction between matters and intentional objects, then he points out that it is by matters that the act intends intentional objects, and finally, he divides objectifying acts into nominal acts and propositional acts. It is highly necessary for us to give the last step a more detailed description. Husserl introduces the concept of fullness and category into acts through clarifying nominal acts and propositional acts further. The important role of category in conscious intentionality should be paid a great attention, for it sets the keynote of the conscious intentionality:1. the conscious intentionality is an a priori unity;2. the essence of the conscious intentionality is cognition, which means possession or assimilation. The keynote of the conscious intentionality is expressed only implicitly in Logical Investigations, but it was shown explicitly when Husserl attributed the intentionality to pure consciousness. in Idea I.Heidegger is favorable to Husserl’s idea that a priori intentionality is the thematic field of phenomenology, but he disagrees with Husserl’s ascribing the intentionality to pure consciousness. In his opinion, what Husserl does misses "es gibt". The missing is embodied as the following question:Husserl distinguishes between the existence of pure consciousness and that of physical objects, but he does not make any explanation for it. In fact Heidegger does make a mistake, inasmuch as Husserl considers the pure consciousness as an original existence and that physical objects are derived from it. So, more precisely, Heidegger’s critique means that he disapproves Husserl of laying the pure consciousness at an original place. What is the most original existence for Heidegger? And how does he elucidate the existence? Resorting to intentionality, Heidegger explains the existence in the field of time. And in doing so, he constructs a bodily intentionality which is different from Husserl’s conscious intentionality. Although the bodily intentionality is a refutation of the conscious intentionality, it does not deny the latter s essence. Heidegger criticizes that Husserl accepts a tradition and does not go back to the thing itself, while he himself does the same thing actually. Thus Heidegger and Husserl face the same intentionality, which is a priori unity and in which objects are possessed and assimilated.In the beginning, Levinas rebuts Husserl’s conscious intentionality from Heideggerian standpoint. However, he tries very hard to escape from Heidegger’s philosophy later, since he finds that "es gibt" is still a kind of understanding. In Totality and Infinity, despite of granting a privilege to the other, he nevertheless lays emphasis on body, therefore he establishes a bodily intentionality, which is not a simple repetition of that of Heidegger. It is an inverted ethical intentionality. To escape from Heidegger’s climate completely, Levinas takes a linguistic turn in Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence. He considers that the most significant meaning of language is its humble gesture, which is named as proximity.. It is in the proximity that subject encounters the other and they form a diachronic solidarity. On the base of this, Levinas puts bodily intentionality stated above aside and does not recognize proximity as a kind of intentionality.But is it true? According to the standard of intentionality, we will see that proximity is just not conscious intentionality but another ethical intentionality, where ethic means to be against cognition, possession and assimilation. At this rate, the intentionality accomplishes an authentic transcendence. And it is on the base of this, we make out a good case for Levinas’being a phenomenologist.