Intentionality in Husserl and Heidegger: An interpretative appraisal

The dissertation endeavors to study the controversial relationship of the phenomenologies of Husserl and Heidegger by investigating their respective treatments of intentionality. Husserl's reflective and Heidegger's hermeneutical accounts of intentionality are brought into bold phenomenal relief in order to secure the phenomenal basis underlying their conflicting views of both the character and status of this phenomenon. Specifically, the study discusses Husserl's reflective exhibition of intentionality in terms of its manifestation of the phenomenally original essence of lived-experiences, and Heidegger's immanent critique of the same in terms of its manifestation of phenomenally derivative understanding of Being.;The discussion shows that Husserl finds the reflective securing of intentionality to manifest the most original phenomenal manifestation of die Sachen selbst, while Heidegger finds the hermeneutical securing of the same to manifest the (non-intentional) temporalization of Dasein's being-in-the-world. The issues underlying the discrepancies of these two phenomenological findings are brought into relief with a discussion of the philosophical "prerogatives" of each thinker's understanding of phenomenology. These issues emerge in terms of the Heideggerian 'prerogative' of the hermeneutical advance regard toward Being, and the Husserlian 'prerogative' of the reflective seeing of the phenomenological regard. The study finds that the unavoidable opposition of the phenomenal content of these issues has its basis in the character and status each accords to the essence of the phenomenon of "reflection." The study concludes with a consideration of the phenomenal warrant of what comes forward as die Sachen selbst of the Husserlian 'prerogative' of the ontologically neutral reflective uncovering of the phenomenon of transcendental subjectivity and the Heideggerian 'prerogative' of the hermeneutical disclosure of the ontico-ontological disclosedness of the unreflective phenomenon of Being.