(Early) Husserl and Crane on Intentionality and Non-Existence

In this presentation I will point to remarkable similarities in Husserls and Cranes account of
intentionality with regard to the so called problem of non-existence (PNE). The talk proceeds
in four steps: In (I) I explain my understanding of the PNE, and Cranes and Husserls
systematic outlook; in (II) and (III) Crane and Husserl are compared with regard to PNE;
finally, in (IV), I draw conclusions.

I.

Why Non-Existence Still Matters

Thinking in the broad Cartesian sense of the term1 about what is not has troubled
philosophy from its very beginning.
In order to see this, recall Parmenides poem in which he restricts our thoughts to
Being, declaring every sort of reference to Non-Being as impossible. In a sense, Parmenides
can be called the first externalist in the history of philosophy. Let us call his putative insight
Parmenides thesis:
(PT)

Necessarily, if S thinks about X, X exists.

Why should we believe in (PT)? The following piece of reasoning seems compelling:
(i)

S thinks about X is a dyadic predicate expressing the thinking-about relation

between a thinker/a thinking and an object.

(ii)

Relations require the existence of both of their relata.

(iii)

Hence, if S thinks about X, X exists.2

As is well known, Descartes cogitationes embrace all kinds of intentional (and putatively non-intentional)

mental events. Cf. Descartes 2nd Meditation.

So if (PT) is true, there simply are no cases in which S thinks about X, and X does not exist.
This conclusion can be read in two different ways:

According to the first understanding, the truth of (PT) eliminates prima facie cases
of thinking about something that does not exist. This would be a radical form of externalism.
If this kind of externalism were true, our mental life would become impoverished in a strange
kind of way. In a sense, we would never be in error, nor could we ever really fail in thinking
and intending something. Not in the sense that everything existed, but rather in the sense that
there wouldnt be any hallucinations, no fantasies of a golden mountain, no thinking about the
king of France, no searching for the fountain of youth, no hope for peace on earth, no
intentions to do better next time. If I think, for example, that there is a prime number between
199 and 211, and discover that there is none, I havent been thinking about such a number.
After my mathematical discovery, I make an astonishing psychological discovery about
myself: that I wasnt really thinking about something at all. It just seemed to me as if I was a
thinker. On this radical externalistic reading of (PT), we would (often) be in radical error with
regard to ourselves.
If we dont want to accept this kind of self-illusion, we could read (PT) in a different
manner. According to this second understanding, in a sense, everything exists or has
being. So instead of accepting that some of the above mentioned things do not exist, we
should develop ontological accounts for each of the different cases. Such a position would be
a radically inflationary account of thinking (what D. Lewis once called allism). One
influential version of this is (Neo-)Meinongianism, which claims a substantial distinction

Ultimately, Husserls phenomenology is committed to the Parmenideian thesis that being and thinking (in the

sense of reason) come as a package deal: X exists iff. a rationally justified judgment of the form X exists is
idealiter possible. Cf. Ideas I, 142. I wont elaborate on this further.

between being (there is ) and existence. According to this outlook, there are objects that do
not exist. (Neo-)Meinongians thus rejects (ii), and claim that relations can hold between nonexistent objects. Even impossibilia such as the round square are granted an ontological status.
Strictly speaking, the Meinongian approach does not support (PT), but a modified version of
it, namely (PT*), according to which it is necessarily the case that if S thinks about X, X
either exists or has being:
(PT*) Necessarily, if S thinks about X, X exists or has being.
Another version of this kind of object approach construes the objects of hallucinations and
non-veridical fantasies as mental objects, things existing quite literally in the mind of the
thinker.
I wont elaborate these different ontological positions any further, since neither Crane
nor Husserl do accept them.
But what other possibilities are available besides radical externalism and ontological
inflationism? How to circumnavigate between these two extremes?
The crucial step in doing this is denying premise (i), i. e. denying that thinking-about
is a real relation between thinkers and their objects. This is what Crane and Husserl do.
Crane and Husserl are not willing to give up (ii). Husserl is very explicit about this; he
writes:
Mit der notwendigen Zugehrigkeit eines Gegenstandes zu jedem Vorstellungsakt ist zugleich der
Bestand einer Relation zwischen einem Existierendem und einem evtl. Nichtexistierenden behauptet.
Das scheint unmglich zu sein: besteht eine Relation, so mssen auch die Relationsglieder existieren.
(Hua XXII, 464)

Besides, both philosophers take existence and there is (being) to mean essentially the
same: what there is, exists, and vice versa. Husserl even states a pre-Quinean equivalence
between the two:

So weit der Ausdruck Es gibt ein A Sinn und Wahrheit beanspruchen kann, so weit reicht auch die
Domne des Existenzbegriffs. (Hua XXII, 326; cf. EM***)

Hence, Crane and Husserl deny (i), the relationality of intentionality: intentionality is not
constitutively a relation between S/his acts and the intentional object. This is not to say that
nothing exists or that we never really manage to contact the world. That thinking is no
relation means that thinking about X does not thereby require X to exist. Hence, intentionality
has to be conceived as an intrinsic property of acts. This implies that there is something about
the internal structure of mental phenomena which makes them directed towards their objects.
In will show that Husserl and Crane display this internal structure as a tripartite
structure (S/actmodecontent), in which contents are sharply distinguished from objects and
play the pivotal role in being directed to an object. Lets begin with Crane.

II.

Crane

Cranes approach is driven by the goal to give a faithful description of the way we experience
ourselves pre-scientifically as minded beings in the world. Such a description has
methodological priority over questions such as the compatibility of the manifest and the
scientific image, or as questions concerning the reducibility of the mental to the physical?,
etc.
Within this phenomenological perspective, Cranes central thesis is intentionalism: the
view that intentionality marks the substantial feature of all (and only) mental phenomena.
Hence, clarifying our pre-scientific understanding of ourselves requires elaborating the notion
of intentionality.
In this context, the problem of non-existence plays a crucial role. Cranes goes so far
to claim that the possibility of directedness towards what is not is the problem of
intentionality (EM, 23). Crane clearly denies (PT) and (PT*). His solution focuses instead of

the internally tripartite structure of intentionality. It is this structure which exhibits interesting
parallels to Husserls account.

1. The tripartite structure of intentionality

Intentional objects as schematic objects

According to Crane, the notion of an intentional object or, as he also calls it, of an object of
thought/attention/experience is both phenomenologically indispensible and ontologically
harmless.
As far as I can see, Crane offers two arguments why intentional objects are
indispensable from a phenomenological point of view.
On the one hand, since some mental events are of something (their objects) we
cannot give a complete description of them without taking into account their objects. If I am
perceiving, I am ipso facto in a position to answer the question What do you perceive? in an
affirmative manner. I cannot simply answer: Nothing tout court3 Because of Cranes
intentionalism, this holds true for all mental phenomena. In this sense, descriptions of mental
phenomena require hybrid descriptions, i. e. descriptions which necessarily involves terms
that could also be used when all we wanted to describe were non-mental phenomena.
Besides, the phenomenological necessity of intentional objects is due to Fregean
cases, in which two intentional acts with different contents are directed to one and the same
object. This, for Crane, plainly indicates that there is a further dimension involved in

Of course there are situations in which we answer the question what do you see? or can you see

something? by simply replying nothing. But context makes clear that we mean nothing of the sort of thing
relevant in the situation. Even in the case of pure darkness, we see something, i. e. the darkness (a property).
Seeing seems to be different in this regard than the other senses: if we are not blind, we always see something;
but thats not true, arguably, for hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling.

intentional phenomena. This further aspect just is the fact that acts are directed towards
objects, something we should not dispense with and replace by talk of acts and their contents
alone. (IO, 346 f., 350)
The phenomenological necessity of intentional objects notwithstanding, Crane does
not want to assign to them an ontological status sui generis. A necessary condition for having
such a status consists in being an (existing) entity with an intrinsic nature of its own. Crane
denies that this is the case for intentional objects. This is due to two remarkable features of
mental phenomena: 1) mental phenomena can be directed to non-existent objects; 2) mental
phenomena can be directed towards entities of all possible categories.
Because of 1) intentional objects should not be conceived as entities, the word entity
suggesting existence. Because of 2) intentional objects cannot demarcate a substantial domain
of reality. Strictly speaking, intentional objects have no nature on their own. We cannot
characterize them in the way we can characterize physical, biological, mental or even abstract
objects. We can think about things in the sense of persisting entities (e. g. stones, chairs,
humans, god), but also about properties (individual or general), sets, sums, relations, states of
affairs etc. Intentionality transcends all these different categories.
So, for Crane, intentional objects cannot constitute a substantial domain of reality,
since there is no common feature that unites all such objects and since some intentional
objects do not exist. This is why Crane thinks that the idea of an intentional object is a
schematic idea:
The category of things thought about has no chance of being a metaphysically unified category:
objects of thought are not just particulars, not just properties, and not just events. [] So rather than
introduce a class of objects which includes real events and properties, indeterminate entities, and things
which do not exist, we should conclude that intentional objects, unlike abstract objects, have no nature
of their own. The idea of an intentional object is schematic idea of an object, not a substantial idea.
(2001, 16)

Albeit their possible non-existence, intentional objects can individuate acts (EM, 5-8, 24).
Cranes speaks of intentional individuation (EM, 82 f.) which is supposed to be a nonrelational phenomenon since it doesnt require the existence of the individuating object
contrary to causal or other ontological dependencies. Now, this seems a bit odd: how can
something which does not exist and has no robust ontological status of its own make
something else (an act) what it is? How can an non-existing object make a difference between
two mental phenomena? I think what Crane has in mind can be supported and clarified by
Husserls extensive analyses of the so called Synthesen der Identifikation (syntheses of
identification). Under this label Husserl embraces the capacity of mental phenomena to fuse
together producing thereby a consciousness of one and the same intentional object.
Cranes tripartite structure of intentionality requires two further components. These
are intentional content, and intentional mode.

Content & Mode

The phenomenological necessity of content rests is due to the fact that directedness is always
directedness on something under a certain aspect:
The thesis of aspectual shape is that, where states of mind are concerned, there is no such thing as a
pure reference. All mental access to objects is one-sided and dependent on a standpoint []. (EM, 20)

Crane alludes to Searles notion of aspectual shape in this context. Having aspectual shape is,
for Crane, the same as having intentional content:
X presents Y in a certain way iff. X has aspectual shape iff. X has intentional content
The notion of intentional content thus has to capture the phenomenological datum that
directedness is always directedness in a certain way.
In most of his writings Crane remains relatively neutral with regard to the nature and
the ontological status of content. Most of his claims are ex negativo, such as his rejection of

Propositionalism or Conceptualism. He is primarily interested in the general picture (***)of

intentionality which can be filled out in due time.4
Since content is necessary for the individuation of intentional phenomena, contents
always exist regardless of whether their objects do. And contrary to intentional directedness,
the relation between acts and contents is a genuine relation with existing relata:
What does it mean that intentional states are relations to intentional contents but not to intentional
objects? The relevant point is this: the content of the state must always exist, but the object of the state
need not exist [] It makes some sense for the subject to say something like I was thinking about
Pegasus, but Pegasus does not exist, so in sense my thought was about nothing! But it makes no sense
to say this about the content of a thought. Whether or not the object of a thought exists, it cannot be the
case that a thought has no content, that its content is nothing. (EM, 33)

Now, since acts with the same content are possible (e. g. believing and doubting that p), a
further dimension of acts has to be acknowledged. This is what Crane calls the intentional
mode of an act.
So, albeit not all intentional objects exist, all contents do; and we are related to
contents through modes. What thus emerges is a relational structure of intentional
phenomena, but a structure that is not relational with regard to objects, but rather to contents.
And there is a certain priority of content over object, since when we express the content of an
intentional state, we eo ipso mention the intentional object, but not vice versa.

2. Intentionality as intrinsic property of acts

In his recent papers (2011a, b) Crane argues in support of content pluralism, and accepts
Husserls distinction between reellem und intentionalem Inhalt.

From what has been said so far, it easily follows that intentionality should not be conceived as
a relational property in the strict sense. If directedness towards non-existent objects is
possible, intentionality should be conceived as intrinsic (non-relational) property of acts.
In this sense, Crane is an internalist, since he understands internalism in the a wide
sense of the term according to which intentionality doesnt require the existence of the
intentional object.

3. A Note on Naturalism and Non-Existence

Finally, let me mention that according to Crane PNE poses a problem for the project of
naturalizing intentionality. Since naturalizing intentionality is commonly understood as
finding a suitable tracking relation (usually a causal one) between acts and things outside
the mind, the thesis that intentionality is, au fond, no relation, poses a serious objection to the
naturalization program.
Of course, detailed accounts have been given in order to solve PNE, especially the
problem of misrepresentation, within a relational setting of intentionality. But for Crane these
efforts cannot be successful in principle.

III.

Husserl

Now, lets turn to Husserl. Its interesting to see that all the major points Crane makes with
regard to the tripartite structure of intentionality occur, mutatis mutandis, in Husserls (early)
account, too.
Husserl has been haunted by non-existence ever since his early essay Intentionale
Gegenstnde (1894/98; Hua XXII), which marks the beginning of his lifelong engagement

with intentionality. And in his seminal Logical Investigations (1900/1) Husserl introduces the
basic structure of acts alongside with the problem of non-existence (cf. LI V, 11, 20).
Husserl discusses the problem of non-existence, following Bolzano, under the heading
of the paradox of objectless representations (Paradox gegenstandsloser Vorstellungen). The
paradox consists in the fact that we are pulled to believe two prima facie equally plausible
theses which are mutually incompatible: one the one hand, each presentation has (hat) an
object, on the other hand, not to each presentation corresponds (entspricht) to an object.
Husserl solves this paradox by means of a distinction between intentional directedness as
such and veridical relatedness. According to Husserl, we can always say of a presentation that
it is related to its object assuming that there really is one (unter Assumption). Husserls
approach can be extended to fictional discourse and appears as an early version of what is
nowadays called a story operator approach. He claims, for example, that the statement
Zeus is the highest god of the Olympus should not to be taken at face value, but rather as
elliptical for In Greek mythology Zeus is , or If the Greek myth were true, Zeus would
be .
Focusing on his Investigations, it remains to show at first, that Husserl defends a
similar version of Cranes intentional objects as schematic objects; secondly, that each acts
has a mode and content, and that content plays the pivotal role in the acts directedness.
Contrary to Crane, Husserl offers a simple and explicit account of the nature and ontological
status of content.
Husserls conception of consciousness and intentionality is embedded in his
mereological ontology which couched in terms of foundational relations between intrinsic
parts of wholes. This is what I would like to call Husserls thick conception of
consciousness according to which acts are special cases of wholes or unities that exhibit a
complex and often stratified internal structure. Content and mode appear as distinct, but
inseparable and mutually dependent parts (as so called moments) of intentional events.

Intentional objects as correlates of acts

We find a clear pronouncement of Cranes schematic conception of intentional objects in

Husserl:
Gegenstand zu sein ist kein positives Merkmal, keine positive Art eines Inhalts, es bezeichnet den Inhalt
nur als intentionales Korrelat einer Vorstellung. (Hua XIX/2, 616)

As far as I can see, this is exactly what Crane says. Being an object of thought, is no positive
property, no substantial property all intentional objects necessarily share. Since we can be
directed towards anything, intentional objects cannot share substantial properties. Husserl
says:
Und so kann alles und jedes in der Weise des Bedeutens gegenstndlich, d. i. zum intentionalen Objekt
werden. (Hua XIX/1, 322)

Husserl explicitly argues against ontologizing intentional objects, especially in the case of
non-existent ones. We have to resist the inclination to talk about merely intentional or
immanent objects in a proper manner (im eigentlichen Sinne). If I say, for example, that
Pegasus is an immanent object, not an external one, this does not mean that he exists in an
extraordinary way inside my mind, or that he is one of my one ideas (Vorstellungen) inside
my head. Since then, Husserl says, he would exist. In such a case, we speak in an improper
sense (im uneigentlichen Sinne). Pegasus is a merely intentional or immanent objects means
nothing more that he is an object of thought. For Husserl, intentional objects are reduced to
the phenomenological role they play within our conscious life. The idea of an intentional
object is exhausted in this cognitive function. In order for X to be an intentional object means
that intentional experiences are available that share X as their common (re-)identifiable focus.
Husserl makes this very explicit in his Lectures on Meaning (Vorlesungen ber

Bedeutungslehre 1908), a lecture which can be read, by the way, in large parts as an essay on
the problem of non-existence:
Es gibt also wahre Urteile, in die jede beliebige Vorstellung sich eingliedern lsst, und jede kann und
mu hierbei zum durchgehenden Glied verschiedener verknpfender Identifikationen werden, in denen
sich die Identitt des Gegenstands als wesentliche Identitt durchhlt [...]. (Hua XXVI, 63)

Each presentation, regardless of being empty, can play the role of a common identifiable
focus for a bunch of different intentional acts.
Hence, if X is an intentional object, our ontological commitment is restricted to a
certain class of acts and their contents:
Der Gegenstand ist ein blo intentionaler, heit natrlich nicht: er existiert, jedoch nur in der intentio
(somit als ihr reelles Bestandstck), oder es existiert darin irgendein Schatten von ihm; sondern es heit:
die Intention, das einen so beschaffenen Gegenstand Meinen existiert, aber nicht der Gegenstand.
Existiert andererseits der intentionale Gegenstand, so existiert nicht blo die Intention, das Meinen,
sondern auch das Gemeinte. (Hua XIX/1, 439 f.)

A superficial glance on Husserls ontology will support the view that there is no place for
intentional objects as such. Husserls ontology consists of formal categories and material
regions. Regions are the highest material genera. Husserl distinguishes inter alia the region of
material beings, animals, persons, and cultural entities (such as works of arts or governments).
If x and y fall under the same region, they share those properties (or moments) which
constitute the region. So, for example, if x and y are both material beings (e. g. stones), they
are necessarily extended, have sensual qualities, and stand in causal relations. The region
material being is constituted by these moments (extension, quality, causality). Members of
the same region necessarily share these features. Hence, regions contain substantial objects
in Cranes sense.
Contrary to regions, categories do not comprise entities that share a common nature,
but merely a certain form. So, for Husserl, the highest formal category is object as such
(Gegenstand berhaupt). Husserl even speaks of the Quasi-Region Gegenstand berhaupt

(Ideas I, 59), the word quasi reminding strongly of Cranes talk of non-substantial,
schematic objects.
Within this ontology, it makes no sense to give intentional objects their own niche. For
example, it makes no sense to say that there are Gegenstnde berhaupt which do not exist.
Husserl clearly thinks that if something exists or is, then it must fall under one of the
highest material genera. Of course you could claim that intentional objects are formal objects,
but this is just an pretentious way of saying that they are objects of some thought. It seems
pointless to assume that, for example, Pegasus is a formal object in this sense, because then he
would be neither a horse, nor have wings, nor would he be have been created by the ancient
Greeks etc. He would be a pure logical Leerform, a Leersubstrat something which is
surely not what Neo-Meinongians or fictional realists want their merely intentional objects
to be.5

Content & Mode

Following his early view, Husserl claims that intentional contents should be conceived as
species of certain intrinsic features of acts. So, the relation between my act of judging that the
sun is shining and its content is ontologically the same as that between a particular shade of
red and the species Red. Otherwise put: intentional contents are certain properties of acts.

To be sure, in Husserls later phenomenology, there is the region of Noemata (Sinne), which Husserl also calls

intentional objects as such. But this should not be read in support of a substantial conception of intentional
objects because: 1) Noemata always exist. Each act/Noesis is related to a Noema whether or not the object
exists (cf. Ideas III, 16). 2) Noemata belong to a unified region of objects, they are abstract entities of sorts, but
not all intentional objects belong to a single region (cf. Ideas I, 128). I thus think that Noemata should be
conceived as intentional contents of acts, and not as their objects at least not as their focal or terminal
objects.

In addition, Husserl does not accept mental objects as intentional objects in the case of
non-existence: Zeus does not exist, and there is no Zeus, neither intra mentem nor extra
mentem.

IV. Conclusion

It has become clear that Crane and Husserl are in fundamental agreement with regard to the
problem of non-existence and its systematic role for a theory of intentionality: this problem
reveals the tripartite structure of mental phenomena, wherein content has a robust and
intentional objects have an ontologically innocuous status. Intentionality itself comes to the
fore as a intrinsic (non-relational) property of acts.
Besides, Husserls early theory conceives of contents as intentional properties
(species) of acts, offering thereby a systematic place for contents to play. Furthermore, I
think that Husserls extensive analyses of syntheses of identification offer a way to clarify
some of the problems of Cranes idea of intentional individuation.
To be sure, the more you dig into Husserls writings, the more differences between
him and Crane would surface, especially when it comes to Husserls idea of epoch and his
transcendental constitutionalism. But if you want to make sense of classical phenomenology
within the field of contemporary philosophy of mind which is the focus of this summer
school youre better off emphasizing the similarities than the differences.