Saturday, April 17, 2010
Intentionality according to Rollo May
in his book "Love and Will" begins his chapter on Intentionality with the following quote from Edmund Husserl.
"Learning is not the accumulation of scraps of knowledge. It is a growth, where every act of knowledge develops the learner, thus making him capable of constituting ever more and more complex objectivities-and the object growth in complexity parallel the subjective growth in capacity,"
Edmund Husserl , as interpreted by
Quentin Lauer.
Edmund Husserl , as interpreted by
Quentin Lauer.
Rollo May's book "Love and Will' was published circa 1989. At that time May was living in Tiburan, California. He was then one of the world's most renowned psychiatrists. he began his psychotheraputic studies in Vienna (1930') and completed his doctorate in psychology and his psychoanalytic training in New York. Among other books he authored are one-time bestsellers such as Freedom and Destiny, The Cry for Myth, and Man's search for Himself.
For May intentionality is at the heart of consciousness. he defines intentionality as having two stages. The first is the fact that our intentions are decisive with respect to how we perceive the world.
His explanation of this first stage is in the form of an illustration. If he were to go to see a house up in the mountains what he sees would depend on what he was looking for in a house. If it was looking for a house to rent for summer for some friends, then when he approached the house he will question if it is sound and well built, gets enough sun and does he assess it as having other things that have the the meaning of "shelter" for himself.
On the other hand if he were a real estate speculator: then what would strike him is how easily the house could be fixed up, whether it will bring a price attractively higher than that what he has to pay for it and other things meaning "profit".
Or let us say it is a house belonging to friends he is visiting. then he shall look on it in terms of "hospitality."
On the other hand if he were a real estate speculator: then what would strike him is how easily the house could be fixed up, whether it will bring a price attractively higher than that what he has to pay for it and other things meaning "profit".
Or perhaps on this afternoon he is bent on making a sketch with his watercolours, then he shall see how the house clings to the side of the mountain, the pattern of the lines of the roof leading up to the peaks above, and sweeping away into the valley below, and if it is ramshakle and run down all the better for the greater artistic possibilities it offers.
Rollo May emphasises that."In each one of these instances, it is the same house that provides the stimulus and he is
the same man responding to it. But in each case, the house and the experience have an entirely different meaning."
This however for Rollo May, is only to look at one side of intentionality. For him the other side "is that it does come from the object. It is the structure of meaning which makes it possible for us, subjects that we are, to see and understand the outside world, objective as it is. In intentionality, the dichotomy between subject and object is partially overcome."
THE ROOTS OF INTENTIONALITY
At the time Tillich wrote this he was of the opinion that the concept of intentionality was so important, and had been so neglected in contemporary psychology, that an explanation of its meaning was necessary.
The roots are to be found in ancient thought. He quotes Aristotle as saying, "What is given to the eyes [in our terms, what is perceived] is the intention of the soul." Cicero speaks of the soul as the intention of the body."
CENTRAL TO MIDDLE AGES THOUGHT
The specific concept of intentionality was introduced into Western thought by Arabic philosophers (Muslim) in early medieval times and became central to the thought of the middle ages. As Rollo May says, "It then meant how we know reality, that is it was an epistemology. two kinds of intentionality were made distinct:;intensio primo,referring to knowing particular things-that is, objects which actually exist; and intensio secondo,the relation of these objects to general concepts- that is, knowing by conceptualisation."
"All this presupposes that we could not know a thing unless we already, in some way, participated in it. For St Thomas Aquinas, intentionality is what the intellect grasps about a thing understood.----I take this to mean that in the process of knowing, we are informed by the thing understood, and in the same act, our intellect similtaeously gives form to the thing we understand
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