FREDERICK KERSTEN

HUSSERL'S DOCTRINE OF NOESIS-NOEMA

Ever since he first fully formulated the doctrine of noesis and

noema in the first volume of Ideas in I9I3, Husserl consistently
and conscientiously made it the central theme of his philosophical
analysis. And even though in later writings the terms "noesis"
and "noema" become more and more infrequent, even though
the doctrine of which they are part was never again subject to
full-scale critical appraisal, the importance of the doctrine re-
mains unaltered. Nonetheless the course of Husserl's work was
such that it implicitly changed the content of his doctrine in
substantial ways. The main purpose of this essay is to state the
doctrine of noesis and noema and then reformulate it first as
regards those changes implicitly made by Husserl, and second as
regards changes suggested by Aron Gurwitsch and Dorion Cairns.
For the most part the changes implicitly made by Husserl con-
cern the dimension of "passivity" peculiar to intentionality; the
changes suggested by Gurwitsch and Cairns, taken together, con-
cern the relationship of noesis and noema and the concept of
"hyletic data."

§ I. Intentional Analysis
In the Cartesian Meditations Husserl says that an intentional
analysis of any actual or possible full constitutional concretion
must be carried out both noetic ally and noematically.l In the
language of Ideas, volume I, what is discovered as a consequence
of the transcendental phenomenological epoche is seen as having
"an entirely fundamental distinction in respect of intentionality,
1 Edmund Husserl, Cartesian Meditations (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960),
translated by Dorion Cairns, § 59.

F. Kersten et al., Phenomenology: Continuation and Criticism

© Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands 1973
 HUSSERL'S DOCTRINE OF NOESIS-NOEMA lIS
namely the distinction between components proper of intentive
processes and their intentive correlates, or of their components." 2
On the one hand this signifies that we have to discriminate that
which we find by an "analysis of the really inherent [reelle A na-
lyse]" belonging to mental processes, that is, an analysis of those
moments composing the processes in question (perceivings, be-
lievings, thinkings, willings, likings, etc.). On the other hand, it
signifies that which we find by an analysis of those moments
which are not really inherent to the intentive process itself: a
mental process always intends to something, and the something
to which it intends forms an essential part of the analysis of the
mental process. 3 A mental process is called by Husserl a "noetic"
process:
that signifies that it is of its essence to include in itself something such
as "sense" and potentially manifold sense, and to effectuate on the basis
of and concretely with these sense-bestowings further productions which
thereby become "sense-fu!." 4

In the context of Ideas, volume I, such noetic moments of

intentionality are, for instance, directings of the gaze of the ego
to the objects meant and intended to by the mental process in
which it lives, graspings of the object in question, holding it in
grip while the ego's gaze is directed perchance to other objects
meant and intended to, explicatings, relatings, and the like. And
just as the manifold of mental processes points back to what is
really inherent in them, intendings are always "self-intendings,"
so they likewise point to components which are not really inher-
ent in them: the "noematic content" or, in short, the "noema." 5
In the language of the Cartesian Meditations, intentional analysis
always and of essence deals with the dual topic of "cogito-cogita-
tum (qua cogitatum)." 6 In the earlier language of the Ideas, and
without the explicit Cartesian nuance, the mental process is called
the "noesis"; correlatively, the intended to and meant as such is
called the "noematic sense of the noesis," or simply the noema.
The noema is that which is intended to and meant purely and
2 Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phanomen%gie und phanomenoiogischen
Philosophie (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1928), I, § 88, p. 181. (Hereinafter referred to as
Ideen 1.)
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
• Ibid., pp. 18d.
6 Cartesian Meditations, § 8, §§ qf.
rr6 FREDERICK KERSTEN

precisely as it is intended to and meant in the noesis. For example,

every perceiving is a perceiving of something, the perceived. Per-
ception has its noema, its "perceptual sense," or the "perceived
as such." 7 The noema is analyzed under the general heading of
sense. s

§ 2. The Phenomenological Signification of Sense. Objective Sense

and Intentional Object
In any noesis, in any intentive mental process such as the seeing
of this ashtray, the ego can be busied with something as having
certain determinations, qualities and relations. We also say that
this active meaning and intending to the ashtray has its "objective
sense." Husserl also calls the objective sense the "what" of the
intending to the object. But the term "what" does not signify the
species of the object; instead it signifies the determinations, qual-
ities, relations the object is meant as having. The object meant is
sometimes called the "intentional object." Since the terms "ob-
jective sense" and "intentional object" are sometimes employed
as equivalents by Husserl, the distinction requires clarification.
Relative to a given act of consciousness, i.e., a mental process
in which the ego is now living and busied with the object of the
mental process, the object meant and intended to is said to have
this or that "objective sense." The limiting case would be the
meaning and intending to something as having the objective
sense, "something, no matter what." However, it is usually the
case that the object in question has a more or less determinate
sense relative to the mental process in which it is given. For
example: in one act of consciousness I mean and intend to Napo-
leon as the victor at J ena and in another act I mean and intend
to Napoleon as the vanquished at Waterloo. 9 A Husserlian way
of expressing this is that throughout variation in several dimen-
sions of intentionality "Napoleon," the object meant and intend-
ed to, remains identical. But the objective sense is different in
each case. This raises the question as to when something is self-
same throughout variations in dimensions of intentionality, and
7 Ideen, I, § 88, p. 182; § 98, p. 206; § 128, p. 268.
B Ibid., § 88.
9 See Edmund Husser!, Logische Untersuchungen (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1928)4,
II, I, § 12, p. 47.
 HUSSERL'S DOCTRINE OF NOESIS-NOEMA IIJ

when something is the objective sense. 10 To take another exam-

pie: I remember X as "a great man," and also the unique great-
ness of the man. In the former case, I remember X with the sense,
"a man"; in the latter case, I remember X with the sense, "great-
ness." In remembering Napoleon, I am busied with him as having
the sense, "great man"; then I am busied with the sense, "great-
ness," then with the military aspects of the greatness of the man,
and so forth. That is to say, in the one case I am busied with an
"ultimate" or fundamental substratum X as having a particular
determination, "this - great man." Whereas in the second case
the determination "greatness" has become my object: "this -
greatness of someone." And I mean this second sense as great-
ness, military capacity of someone. Military capacity is now my
object: "this - the military capacity peculiar to the greatness of
someone."
Within the framework of the first volume of Ideas, these exam-
ples suggest that the distinction between the object intended to
and the objective sense, depends on the function of the
"ego-quality," of the busiedness of the ego in the intending in
question - the remembering of Napoleon, the moral and military
approving of him. This function is expressed by HusserI with his
concept of "objectivation" (Vorstellung, Objektivierung). I am
busied with, engaged or living in the intending to Xl as having
such and such objective sense. When now I turn to X2, which
may have been part of the sense of Xl, X 2 is said to be objectivated
by virtue of my being busied with it - I am not now busied with
the object of the first act. The "objectivity" of something objec-
tivated is more than simply being intended to; it is also being
intended to by an ego.!l
Terminologically we shall designate Xl, that which is meant
and intended to as the substratum of a particular determination,
as the intentional object; and the particular determination relative
to an ego-dimension of consciousness as the objective sense of the
intentional object.
So far we have confined ourselves to stating the explicit doc-
trine of the first volume of Ideas. But in later writings, such as

10 Cf. I deen I, § 94.

11 Cf. Aron Gurwitsch, The Field 01 Consciousness (Pittsburgh: Duquesne Uni-
versity Press, 1964), pp. 18Sf.
lI8 FREDERICK KERSTEN

the Cartesian Meditations and Experience and Judgment, HusserI

more and more makes explicit that dimension of intentionality
which he called "inactuality" in Ideas, and which he calls "pas-
sivity" in later writings. In line with that explicitation, Dorion
Cairns has noted that the concept of intentional object must be
correspondingly broadened. Thus anything meant and intended
to in a mental process is an intentional object, be the mental
process an act in the pregnant sense or be it "inactual," "pas-
sive." In this light, we can further distinguish from this broadest
sense of the term "intentional object" the narrowest sense of the
term, which seems characteristic of Ideas: only that which is
meant and intended to by a mental process in which the ego is
doxically engaged is an intentional object. A possible narrower
sense of the term, characteristic of the Cartesian Meditations, is
that which is meant and intended to by mental processes in which
the ego is engaged - be they doxic or non-doxic mental processes.
In line with the broad extension later given to the concept
expressed by the term "intentional object," Cairns has also noted
that another and broader concept of "objective sense" must be
introduced. This is the concept which includes not only an ex-
plicit objective sense, but also an implicit objective sense. If we
follow Cairns here, then we may formulate the situation in the
following way: in the broadest sense of the term, the intentional
object can be anything meant and intended to by a mental process,
"actual or inactual," "active or passive." When "inactual" or
"passive," the mental process in question has an implicit objec-
tive sense; the "what" of the "inactual" or "passive" intending
is not (perchance, not yet) an object for the ego potentially living
in the intending in question. When the mental process is an act,
lived in by the ego, then it has an explicit objective sense.

§ 3. The Phenomenological Signification of Sense. Continued

It is well-known that the concept of sense which we have been
discussing was first developed by HusserI as regards perception
and the "content" of perception. In this connection, though not
simply in this connection, Dorion Cairns has pointed to
the tendency to think still of the "relationship" of transcendental con-
sciousness to the world as analogous to the objective relationship of phe-
 HUSSERL'S DOCTRINE OF NOESIS-NOEMA II9
nomenal consciousness to other real processes in the world - to think,
let us say, of the relationship between, on the one hand, a transcendental
process of perceiving a material thing and, on the other hand, the material
thing itself, as analogous to the objective relationship between the "same"
process, as an event in the world, and the material thing. The difficulty
has its roots in the fact that, in the world, perceiving and perceived are
not only related as perceiving and perceived but also as realities in time,
with objective temporal relations. There is some sense in asking how soon
after a change takes place in the thing a change in the perceiving (as an
event in the world) takes place. The question would, however, be absurd
if asked concerning the perceiving as transcendental and the object as
phenomenal. The "relationship" of consciousness purely as intending and
objects purely as intended is utterly sui generis; it has no objective
analogue. 12

In these terms the term "content" is clearly inadequate since not

only is the "relationship" of consciousness as intending and ob-
jects purely as intended to sui generis, but the term "content of
a perception," as Aron Gurwitschpointsout, can only refer to an en-
ti ty sui generis - designated by the term "sense" - e.g., "perceptual
sense" or "perceptual noema." 13 Generalized beyond the domain
of perception, the concept of sense in Husserl can be accounted
for in terms of the completely universal characteristics of inten-
tional object and objective sense spelled out in the previous
section. Intentional objects, taken in the broadest as well as
narrower and narrowest ways, turn out to be "identical and
identifiable ideal entities, devoid of both spatiality and tempo-
rality, and, of course, also of causality ... " 14 Thus not only
must the doctrine of noesis-noema be reformulated to include the
broadened concepts of intentional object and objective sense as
regards "active" and "passive" intentionality, but the very sui
generis "relationship" must be reformulated as the

12 Dorion Cairns, "An Approach to Phenomenology," in Essays in Memory of

Edmund Husserl, edited by Marvin Farber (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1940), p. 17. Cf. below, p. 237.
13 Aron Gurwitsch, "Towards a Theory of Intentionality," Philosophy and Pheno-
menological Research, XXX (I970), p. 363: "By virtue of its 'content' a perception
is not only a perception of a certain thing, e.g., a house rather than a tree, but also
that determinate and well specified perception which it actually is, that is to say, a
perception through which the house presents itself under this aspect, from this side,
and not in a different (though equally possible) manner of adumbrational appearance.
For that reason, Husser! calls the object as perceived - to be taken exactly as it
appears through a given perception - the "perceptual sense" (Wahrnehmungssinn)
or perceptual noema, a term which henceforth replaces that of "content."
14 Ibid.
I20 FREDERICK KERSTEN

conception of consciousness as a correlation between items pertaining to two

entirely different planes: on the one hand, the plane of temporal psycho-
logical events; on the other hand, that of ideal, i.e., atemporal meanings
in the wider sense. 15

These formulations, however, carry us far beyond our present

stage of discussion of the doctrine of noesis-noema. It is to that
stage that we now return.

§ 4. The Phenomenological Signification of Sense. Concluded

Earlier we noted that the terms "intentional object" and "ob-
jective sense" are sometimes used ambiguously by Husserl.l 6 At
times it would seem to be more consistent with Husserl's later
usage to designate that moment of the noema which is called in
the Ideas the "substratum X" of determinations, the "central
noematic moment," as the intentional object qua intentional ob-
ject, or the intentional object as such.!? This appears to be in
line with the following passage of the Cartesian Meditations where
H usserl sa ys that
descriptions of the intentional object as such, with regard to the deter-
minations attributed to it in the modes of consciousness concerned, at-
tributed furthermore with corresponding modalities, which stand out
when attention is directed to them.IS

But then Husserl goes on to speak as though the intentional

object were an objective sense when, as an identity throughout a
multiplicity of intendings and throughout a mUltiplicity of per-
spectival appearances, it is taken as continuously immanent in
the noesis, though not as a really inherent component part: it is
immanent as a "being-in-it 'ideally' as something intentional,
something appearing - or, equivalently stated, a being-in-it as its
immanent 'objective sense.' " 19 Here the term "objective sense"
is what we have called the "intentional object" in § 2. 20 The
passage itself may be interpreted, I believe, in the following way:
What Husserl is describing is the object of the intending taken
precisely and purely as intended to, the object intended to as
15 Ibid., p. 364.
16 See, e.g., Ideen, I, § 37, pp. 66f.; § 90, pp. IBSf.
17 Ibid., § 131, p. 27I.
18 Cartesian Meditations, § IS, p. 36.
19 Ibid., p. 42.
20 Cf. ibid., § 20.
 HUSSERL'S DOCTRINE OF NOESIS-NOEMA I2I

such in the sense which it has for consciousness of it. As a con-

sequence, the intentional object is contrasted with the objective
sense of that object for consciousness of it and, on the other hand,
the term "objective sense" is so broadened in that it now signifies
the intentional object with respect to the objective sense it has for
consciousness. The virtue of this formulation for Husserl's doc-
trine of noesis-no em a is that not only does it point to the fact
that intentionality consists in having a sense, but also to the fact
that no intentional object is presented as such without having a
more or less determinate sense.
In this connection it is necessary to observe something else. In
the first volume of Ideas Husserl also speaks of the intentional
object under the heading of the "determinate X in the noematic
sense." 21 A distinct Kantian nuance is apparent at first sight
in Husserl's speaking of the "pure X in abstraction from all pre-
dicates - and it is distinguished from these predicates or, more
precisely, from predicative noemata [PradikatnoemenJ." A brief
consideration of this Kantian nuance will help clarify what it
signifies to say that the intentional object and the objective sense
are moments of the full noema.
In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant speaks of a "something =
X":
All our representations are, it is true, referred by the understanding to
some object; and since appearances are nothing but representations, the
understanding refers them to a something, as the object of sensible intui-
tion. But this something, thus conceived, is only the transcendental ob-
ject; and by that is meant a something = X, of which we know, and
with the present constitution of our understanding can know, nothing
whatsoever, but which, as a correlate of the unity of apperception, can
serve only for the unity of the manifold in sensible intuition. 22

The profound difference between Husserl and Kant is clear with-

out further commentary: The X of which Husserl speaks is deter-
mined and further determinable, hence known and further know-
able. In § I3I of Ideas Husserl is saying that in the noema of any
particular mental process we can distinguish phenomenologically
between the determined and determinable object X, the inten-
tional object, and the determinations imputed to it in the mental
21 Ideen I, § 131, p. 270. See also ibid., § 88, p. r81, where the term "sense" also
has this broad extension.
22 1. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (London: Macmillan, 1953), translated by
Norman Kemp Smith, p. 268 (A250).
122 FREDERICK KERSTEN

process in question. Obviously then the Kantian notion of a

"transcendental X" and the Husserlian notion of a "pure X"
are completely distinct.

§ 5. The Concept of Obiectivation

Defined in a word, objectivating acts of consciousness are those
in which the ego makes something "objective" for himself. This
is the explicit, as contrasted to the implicit, objective sense of
the act. Living in mental processes, the ego can be busied with
intentional objects in various ways: doxically (e.g., believingly,
doubtingly, supposingly), non-doxically (emotionally, likingly,
valuationally), and willingly, strivingly.23 However, active valu-
ing or active willing, for instance, still do not make the valued
or the willed an object for the ego living in the intending in
question; equivalently stated, if the intending is non-doxic or
conative, nothing is objectivated for the ego even if he is living
in the intending in question. Reformulated in a positive way,
only a doxic intending in which the ego lives can be an act wherein
something is made objective for the ego. 24 For example, a ham-
mer is constituted as such in the hammering; yet the hammer is
not grasped, let alone objectivated, in the hammering. Nonethe-
less, such an act is said by Husserl to be a "potential objectivat-
ing act" so far as it is subject to a new and further act, namely a
doxic objectivating. 25
Here as before we can see the "relativity" of the objective
sense to those mental processes in which the ego is engaged.
Precisely this phenomenological situation requires further clari-
fication in order to further develop and critically revise the con-
cept of objective sense, the "noematic What."
In this connection perhaps the first thing to note is that not
only are all non-doxic intendings non-objectivating, but that
some doxic intendings are also non-objectivating. For example,
I judge step by step that all men are mortal, that Socrates is a
man, that therefore Socrates is mortal. Another and further doxic
act is required to objectivate the syntactically formed state of

23 Ideen I, § II7, p. 244.

24 Ibid.; also § X2X, p. 25X.
25 Ibid.
 HUSSERL'S DOCTRINE OF NOESIS-NOEMA 123

affairs constituted in the judging. Or, suppose that I am living

in the act of collecting things - this, that and the other thing;
living in the act I am busied with the collection, forming it for
myself. But, again, this is still not an objectivating of the collec-
tivum as such for me; another doxic act is required to invoke the
collection as a "theme," to make the collection as such thematic,
"objective." 26 We shall return to these examples again in a later
section.

§ 6. Continuation. Objectivation and Attention

The two examples of doxic acts which do not objectivate can
be contrasted with two examples of doxic acts which do objec-
tivate. In developing these examples it is necessary to invoke the
concept of attention as employed by Husser! in the first volume
of Ideas. Let us take the case of a sensuous perceiving, such as a
seeing, in which the ego is engaged and busied with something.
In this case of busiedness, though as we shall suggest later (§ 9)
not in all cases, I am paying attention to something, and what
I am paying attention to is objectivated for me (even though not
all that which is intended to in that act is or need be objectivat-
ed). Suppose that I am living in the seeing of the ashtray; I turn
my attention to the ashtray which I had been seeing all along,
but "inactually." Something is now objectivated for me: "This-
X." But X is not merely intended to as X; this is not a mere
seeing of X. Instead it is actively intended to as X, as "This -
blue, elongated rectangular ashtray." When I first turn to the
seeing of the ashtray, X is posited by me in the mode of simple
certainty. Until I turn my attention to the seeing of a quality or
part whereof there continuously was a seeing, and grasp it, the
quality or part in question are not objectivated for me.
In other words, if I am paying attention to the ashtray, it is
objectivated for me; or if I am paying attention to its color or
shape, then they are objectivated for me, made thematic. As it

26 See Edmund Husserl, Formale und transzendentale Logik (Halle: Max Niemeyer,
19'18), § 39, p. 95. See also Aron Gurwitsch, "Phenomenology of Thematics and of
the Pure Ego: Studies of the Relation between Gestalt Theory and Phenomenology,"
Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology (Evanston: Northwestern University Press,
1966), pp. 247ft.
124 FREDERICK KERSTEN

were, objectivation orients and centers the perceptual field, gives

to the field a center of attention. As a rule anything that is the
center of attention as regards perception becomes spatially cen-
tral to the visual field, for instance. But this need not be the
case; for example, suppose that I do not want someone to know
that I am watching him; in this case the spatial center of the
visual field and the center of attention are not the same. But if
we are interested in something which we wish to see with max-
imum clarity we make the center of attention the spatial center
of the perceptual field.
Still another example of an objectivating doxic act is that of
recollection. I no longer see the ashtray, but now recollect it as
having been seen before. Living in the recollecting, I make "ob-
jective" for me what was perhaps only implicitly imputed to the
ashtray in the seeing of it: the bottom of the ashtray which had
been previously apperceived.
All of these examples point to a distinction important for the
understanding of the concept of objectivation, namely the dis-
tinction between objectivating and grasping.

§ 7. Continuation. Objectivating and Grasping

Let us return to our earlier examples of a step-by-step judging.
I am presently looking at a table and now proceed to judge that
it is dark oak in color. First I pay attention to the table, then
to its color, then turn my attention back to the table, step by
step judging that this table has that color. In this case there is
constituted a complex mental act at each stage of which some-
thing is objectivated for me. It makes sense, to be sure, to say
that I am living in acts and busied with the table, but in the
further course of the act I am busied with the table not only in
paying attention to it but also in judging about the table as a
"substrate object." Indeed, I am living primarily in judging about
the table rather than in the seeing of it. But even though I am
busied doxically with the seen table, the seen color of the table,
and the judgment I produce about the colored table, I am busied
with the seen table and color "receptively," so to speak. In con-
trast, I am busied with the judgment productively. And the
productive busiedness does not objectivate; rather it takes still
 HUSSERL'S DOCTRINE OF NOESIS-NOEMA 125

another doxic act to objectivate the judgment produced. In each

of the examples we have considered, but especially in this last
one Husserl holds that all objectivatings are ipso jacto graspings
of the things or states of affairs objectivated.
In this last example, in virtue of grasping and objectivating the
seen oak-colored table, I proceed to produce the judgment that
this table is colored. In virtue of grasping and objectivating the
judgment about the table I can proceed to grasp and objectivate
its judgmental form, and so forth. The constituting of the objec-
tive sense in each case points back to mental processes not only
in which I am living, but also to ones, specifically, which grasp
and objectivate. Thus not only is the objective sense "relative"
to the ego-dimensionality of consciousness, but only to those acts
which grasp and objectivate. This, however, need not be the case.
Indeed, were this the case, then it would mean that to objec-
tivate, e.g., the predicative form of the judgment, "This table is
oak-colored," not only would that form have to be grasped, but
also there would have to be a grasping of the seen table, the seen
color, etc. Clearly this is not necessary. Or, in the case of recol-
lecting having seen the ashtray, to objectivate the unseen but
apperceived bottom of the ashtray it not only would be necessary
to grasp it but also to have grasped (and perchance objectivated)
the bottom on the basis of an original seeing of it. Or, consider
still another example: objectivating the Pythagorean Theorem.
To grasp the Theorem, according to Husserl, it would be neces-
sary to rehearse its demonstration step by step - just as in the
case of the judgment, "This table is oak-colored." Then on this
basis, namely of rehearsing the demonstration, I would proceed
to grasp and objectivate the Theorem. But clearly I can turn to
the Theorem, advert to it, for instance, as a general topic of
discussion, without having to demonstrate it; moreover, I can do
so without necessarily having to recollect what it is about - just
as I can objectivate the apperceived bottom of the ashtray with-
out actually having had to see it. (Of course, I might want to see
it, or I might want to demonstrate the Theorem to prove my
prowess at geometry - but this is an entirely different matter.)
Even in terms of the first volume of Ideas, all of this suggests
I) that grasping is not the same as objectivating, making the-
I26 FREDERICK KERSTEN

matic, and 2) that grasping is not a sufficient, let alone necessary,

condition for objectivating. 27
These conclusions allow for significant revision of the concept
of objective sense, of the "noematic What," and provide for,
among other things, the distinction between explicit and implicit
objective sense.

§ 8. Conclusion. Objectivating, Paying Attention to and Grasping

So far as the first volume of Ideas is concerned, doxic acts
which are graspings of that to which attention is turned are eo
ipso objectivating acts. But this seems to be a limitation, and
definitely not a necessary one. The chief reason for this is two-
fold. In the first place, what Husserl in effect has done is to take
a special case of intentionality as actuality, namely attention, and
make it go bail for all other cases of actuality, all other cases
where the ego lives in mental processes. As a consequence, Hus-
serl uses the special case to explain objectivating. 28 Because of
this the concept of the objective sense, indeed of the noema as a
whole, is defined with respect to the ego-dimensionality of the
noesis. 29 All grasping turns out to be the paying attention to
something, and all paying attention to something is objectivat-
ing. 30 But if this is not necessarily the case, then the noema
cannot be defined relative to acts of consciousness alone. We shall
return to this point at the beginning of § g.
In the second place, Husserl also defines the "belief quality"
of the noesis with respect to ego-engagement in mental life. Thus
in our earlier example of perceiving the ashtray, that perceiving
was a believing in the ashtray as existing. According to Husserl,
just as I may actually posit a part or quality of an intentional
object, so I may likewise turn my attention to its existence, grasp
it, make it "existence for me." As in the case of the objective
27 This view has been systematically developed by Dorion Cairns in his lectures
on "Husserl's Theory of Intentionality" at the Graduate Faculty of Political and
Social Science, The New School for Social Research. Also cf. Edmund Husserl, Ideen
zu einer reinen Phiinomenologie und phiinomenologischen Philosophie (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, I952), Vol. II, edited by Marly Biemel, § IO, p. 23, lines 28-38.
28 See Ideen I, § II3; also Ideen I (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950), edited
by Walter Biemel, Beilage XX (I9I4), pp. 406f.; and Edmund Husserl, Analysen
zur Passiven Synthesis (I9I8-I926) (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966), edited by
Margot Fleischer, p. 322; and Logische Untersuchungen, II, I, pp. 409ff.
29 Cf., e.g., Ideen, I, § 103, pp. 2I4ff.
30 See especially ibid., § 37, pp. 66f.; also § 35, p. 63 and § 92.
 HUSSERL'S DOCTRINE OF NOESIS-NOEMA IZ7

sense, the "characterization" of the noema, its "thetic character,"

is relative to the ego-dimension of consciousness. But more than
with the case of attention, this is inconsistent with the later
results of Husserl's work. Husserl himself realized this perhaps
as early as I9I6,31 and certainly no later than I9I8.32 By that
time he had begun to fully develop his insight into "passive Doxa"
and hence had begun to break away, in the actual course of his
analyses, from the idea that non-attention was simply a special
case of attention, that it must be defined solely in terms of atten-
tion and attentional modifications, and from the idea that atten-
tion, as a special case of act, could explain all cases of acts. Both
the noema at large and the objective sense in particular must be
reformulated to take account of these developments in Husserl's
thought. In the next section we can briefly indicate the extent of
this reformulation suggested earlier in the distinction between
explicit and implicit objective sense.

§ 9. Revision of the Concepts of Objective Sense and Objectivating

a. Husserl's Concept of "Passive Doxa." The title of § 4 of
Formal and Transcendental Logic reads: "The Problem of Ascer-
taining the Essential Limits of the 'Thinking' Capable of the
Significational Function." 33 Under this heading Husserl defines
"thinkings" as mental processes whose objective senses are ex-
pressed or expressible by locutions, or which can be the significa-
tions of mental processes. Such mental processes are said to be
"sinngebend," to bestow signification on locutions. Taking §§ 3
and 4 together, examples of mental processes having this capac-
ity are judgings, wishings, askings, commandings, and doubtings.
Husserl then goes on to distinguish those mental processes which
do not have the capacity to bestow signification, that is, whose
objective senses cannot be significations of expressions or ex-
pressed by locutions. An obvious case would be the objective
sense of a sensuous perceiving; for instance, the touched as touch-

31 Cf. Ideen I (Biemel), pp. 406f. See also Theodor Celms, Der phanomenologische
Idealismus Husserls (Riga: LettIand, 1928), pp. 33rf.
32 See especially the manuscripts published in A nalysen zur Passiven Synthesis,
pp. 342ff., in particular, p. 345.
33 Formale und transzendentale Logik, p. 22. The translation is by Dorion Cairns,
Formal and Transcendental Logic (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969), p. 25.
u8 FREDERICK KERSTEN

ed cannot itself be expressed by a word or sentence. § 4, however,

also offers a somewhat different contrast.
From judgings, wishings, askings, etc., HusserI distinguishes
those mental processes characterized by "original passivity," by
"passivity" which would include "passive Doxa." Examples are
associating mental processes, retentions, protentions and the
like. 34 That is to say, he suggests a classification which cuts
across the difference between mental processes capable and in-
capable of bestowing signification, across the difference ultima-
tely between mental processes in which the ego is or can be
engaged and those in which he is not and cannot be engaged.
Thus not only must the objective sense be defined with respect
to those mental processes in which the ego is or can be engaged,
but it must also be defined with respect to those in which the
ego cannot in principle be engaged. These latter mental processes
likewise not only intend to but also mean their objects as this or
that. To be sure, according to HusserI's later view 35 originally
passive mental processes are never full objectivatings if by "to
objectivate" we not only mean to invoke the objective sense as
theme but also to "seize upon" and "have" it as it itself. For this
reason it is necessary to introduce the distinction between ex-
plicit and implicit objective sense. We cannot develop this dis-
tinction further here, however.

b. Husserl's Concept of Attention. Once the distinction between

explicit and implicit objective sense is drawn, and once it is seen
that grasping is not ipso facto a necessary and sufficient condition
for objectivating, that even in original passivity there is a partial
objectivating, it is possible to set the concept of attention within
a different framework, namely one in which it no longer serves
as the special case of act of consciousness explaining all acts of
consciousness in the pregnant sense.

34 Ibid., p. zz: "Denn nicht aile haben diese Fiihigkeit. Erlebnisse urspriinglicher
Passivitiit, fungierende Assoziationen, die BewuBtseinserIebnisse, in denen sich das
urspriingliche ZeitbewuBstsein, die Konstitution der immanenten Zeitlichkeit ab-
spielt und dgl., sind dazu unfiihig." See also ibid., Beilage II, for concrete examples.
35 See, e.g., ibid., §§ 58f., and Cartesian Meditations, § 20, p. 48: " ... that is to
say: not only the actual but also the potential SUbjective processes, which, as such,
are 'implicit' and 'predelineated' in the sense-producing intentionality of the actual
ones and which, when discovered, have the evident character of processes that
explicate the implicit sense."
 HUSSERL'S DOCTRINE OF NOESIS-NOEMA 129

As with the case of passive Doxa, we can only indicate the

nature of the reformulation which has been carried out on several
occasions by Aron Gurwitsch, but most notably in his essay,
"Phenomenology of Thematics and of the Pure Ego" (1929).36
The theory of theme and thematization developed by Gurwitsch
in this essay purports to be an adequate account of the "noematic
What." 37 The concrete phenomenological analyses he reports
show what we have already suggested in the previous section,
namely that RusserI's account of the objective sense is incorrect
because it is finally explained by the theory of attention. But
Gurwitsch does not stop here; he goes on to show that the theory
of attention is itself incorrect since it falsely holds that attention
and attentional modifications do not affect the material content
of what is given. 38 This is shown on the basis of the analysis of
three kinds of attentional modifications, the results of which
contradict precisely the thesis that attentional modifications are without
import for the noematic material vvnat. We have shown that the noema
is affected just as to its material content and that, furthermore, the sense
and the direction of its alteration varies from case to case. Attentional
modifications must, therefore, not be considered as changes in illumina-
tion; nor is the comparison with the moving beam of light appropriate
at all. On the contrary, attentional modifications affect the material
content of the noema to such an extent that a radically different noema
results. 39

This leads Gurwitsch to the formulation of the "general trans-

formation law" pertaining to the objective sense:
To every datum correspond other data, to every theme in its thematic
field other themes in their fields, in such a way that any given experience
motivates certain transitions as possible. ... Thus, we are confronted
with a system of different noemata interconnected in such a way that
each one of them contains motivations for possible transitions to anyone
of the others. 40
36 Op. cit., loco cit., pp. 175ft.
37 Ibid., pp. I84f., 249, 265.
38 Ibid., pp. 213ff., 248f., 265f.
39 Ibid., p. 265. The three kinds or series of modifications examined by Gurwitsch
are Il the identical theme over against variations in thematic surroundings, 2) the
situation where the theme ceases to be the theme, even though it nevertheless remains
the same as to its material content, and 3) where there is a change or alteration in
the material content of the theme.
40 Ibid., pp. 266f. See ibid., pp. 248f., and Aron Gurwitsch, "Contribution to the
Phenomenological Theory of Perception," Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology,
pp. 346ff. It remains to be seen whether or not certain cases of possible transitions
involve objectivating ("thematizing") which always and of necessity presupposes a
grasping simpliciter of the objective sense.
I3 0 FREDERICK KERSTEN

Ultimately this revision demands a formulation of noesis-

noema which goes beyond Husserl and which concerns Gurwitsch's
theory of the organization of the field of consciousness. It is out-
side the scope of the present essay to consider that theory. It is
rather necessary to deal with several other aspects of Husserl's
noesis-noema doctrine.

§ IO. Other Noetic-Noematic Components

In addition to the objective sense, the "noematic What,"
Husserl distinguishes several other components of the noema:
chiefly the "noematic How" or manners of presentation, "given-
ness," and the existential characterization of the noema, "posi-
tionality." 41 In addition, and in what is perhaps the only full
commentary published on Husserl's noesis-noema doctrine,
Theodor Celms further distinguishes the noematic sense "in the
mode of fulness" 42 - a concept which Husserl had first developed
in the Sixth Logical Investigation. 43 Finally, on the noetic side
there is hyletic data. As in the case of the objective sense, these
"analytic" distinctions present difficulties and ambiguities whose
full clarification and reformulation lie outside our present in-
quiry. As with our discussion of the concept of objective sense,
so here we shall be primarily interested in suggesting the extent
to which the initial formulation of the doctrine of noesis-noema
must be changed to allow for Husserl's later views.

§ II. Manners oj Presentation

An intentional object can be meant and intended to as having
the same or different objective senses in intendings which them-
selves differ in such a way that the manners of presentation or
41 See below, § 12. Cf. Gurwitsch, "Phenomenology of Thematics ... ," pp. 184f.
42 Celms, op. cit., pp. 335f. See also the commentary of Paul Ricoeur to Ideen, I,
§ 88: Idees directrices pour une phenomenologie (Paris: Gallimard, 1950), translated
by Paul Ricoeur, p. 305, note 2.
43 Celms summarizes Husserl's view as follows: "Das jeweils sinnlich Anschauliche
ist also dem Akte selbst immanent, d.h. nicht ein Moment der Transzendenz, sondern
der Immanenz. Der 'Sinn im Modus seiner Fulle' bedeutet dann auch nicht den Sinn
als abstrakte Form, sondern den anschauungsmiissig erfullten Sinn und nur solern
diese Erlullung jeweils wirklich vorhanden ist, d.h. das konkrete Ganze aus der Sinnes-
lorm und hyletischem Inhalt. Es leuchtet auch ohne weiteres ein, dass derselbe absolut
identische Sinn verschiedene Fiillen haben kann." P. 330.
 HUSSERL'S DOCTRINE OF NOESIS-NOEMA I3I

"givenness" of the intentional object differ accordingly.44 This

suggests a dimension of description different from the one we
have been pursuing up to now. So far we have been concerned
with a line of description in which we would apply such formal
ontological expressions as "object," "syntactically formed state
of affairs"; or we would apply such material ontological expres-
sions as "thing," "shape," "cause"; or, again, we would apply
such expressions of material determinations as "rough," "color-
ed," and the like. 45 But the dimension or line of description with
which we are now concerned deals rather with that in which we
would employ such expressions as "perceptual," "memorial,"
"clearly intuitive," "conceptual," "presented," and the like. That
is to say, it deals with the manners in which there is consciousness
of something.46 This line of description is completed if we further
speak of that in which we also employ such expressions as
"original," "less original," "non-original" - the "modes of full-
ness." 47
The gist of Husserl's view may be stated as follows: an apple,
for example, can be presented in a sensuous perceiving or in a
remembering, or in an "empty" or "blind" intending as having
the sense, "This - red, hard." The term "presentation" (or
"givenness") is to be taken in a very broad sense to express not
only what is strictly presented, but also to express what is not
strictly presented. And within the sphere of strict presentation-
for example, perceptual or memorial presentation - the difference
between, say, tactual and visual presentations, is said to be a
difference in the manner of presentation of the "what" of the
intending. For instance, the perceived or remembered sense "red"
is presented visually; the perceived or remembered sense "hard"
is presented tactually. Also within the sphere of one such manner
of presentation we find, for example, that the visual objective
sense remains identical throughout variations in clarity or obscu-
rity of presentation.
Basically for Husserl we may speak of two kinds of presenta-
tion: I) presentation which is intuitive and clear; 2) presentation
which is non-intuitive (e.g., symbolic presentation, obscure pres-
44 Idem I, § 99, pp. 209t.; § 132, p. 273.
45 Ibid., § 91, p. 189; Logische Untersuchungen, II, I, § 20, pp. 41St.
46 Ideen I, § 99, p. 20g; § 130, pp. 267ft.
47 Ibid., § 132, p. 273; § 136, p. 284; § 138, p. 287.
132 FREDERICK KERSTEN

entation). As regards the first kind, intuitive presentation can be

either original or non-original, either a "giving" of the affair as
it itself, "in person," or not. For the most part this distinction
holds in Husserl's later writings, although it must be extended
to the domain of "passivity," of "passive 'pregivenness.' "Thus
intentional analysis of manners of presentation is an analysis of
the How or the way in which there is active and/or "passive"
meaning and intending to something as it itself, or as symbolized,
or depicted by something else. It should be noted here that in
writings after the first volume of Ideas manners of presentation
are dealt with more and more under the heading of "evidence." 48

§ I2. Positionality and Noematic" Characterization"

Objects appear to us through our consciousness of them in
various manners of presentation not only meant and intended to
as having this or that implicit or explicit sense, but also as
"characterized," as being thus and so. The "characterization"
involves the "positional character" of the noesis, the positional
modality of consciousness. 49 Within the framework of the first
volume of Ideas, a main class of positionality is that of doxic
positionality which includes all acts which are believing in, or
disbelieving in their intentional objects either with simple cer-
tainty or with some degree of uncertainty. 50 Disbelievings, doubt-
ings, neutrality and the like are said to be modifications or mod-
alities of believing with simple certainty. In this connection
Husserl also speaks of "potential" or "inactual" positionality,51
the concept of which must be extended to include purely "pas-
sive" positing and its modes as well as, ultimately, the primal,
yet unmodalized, "passive Doxa" at the basis of all experiencing
of the world. 52
More particularly, Husserl distinguishes the "act thesis" or
"noetic thesis" of intendings from the "thetic character" as their
noematic correlate. 53 For example, in perceiving the ashtray I
See, for example, Cartesian Meditations, § 24.
48
See I deen I, § II4.
49
50 See ibid., §§ I03ff.
51 Ibid., § II3, p. 228.
52 See Edmund Husserl, Erfahrung und Urteil (Hamburg: Classen Verlag, 1954),
edited by Ludwig Landgrebe, §§ 7, IIft.
53 Ideen I, § II4, p. 233; § II7. p. 242.
 HUSSERL'S DOCTRINE OF NOESIS-NOEMA 133

believe in it with simple certainty; instead of objectivating the

percept I may objectivate the thetic character: "Ashtray - exist-
ent." Relative to the simple believing in the ashtray, "existent"
is not part of the objective sense, not part of the "predicative
noemata." 54 Instead, the thetic character belongs to an entirely
different dimension. The ashtray is meant and intended to as
round and existent; "round" designates a component part of the
objective sense, while "existent" designates something complete-
ly distinct. Suppose, furthermore, that I am engaged in the judg-
ing, "This is something round," and that I then proceed to judge,
"This round something exists." Restated, the first judgment is:
"This thing is something round" ; the second judgment is: "This
meant thing is not only something meant, but also something
existent." Determinations such as round, colored, on the table
to the left of the inkwell, etc., are predicated of things, that is,
of the object "which is intended to"; existence (or non-existence)
54 To the best of my knowledge, there has been no work in depth carried out on
the significance of Husserl's view expressed here for modern philosophy, especially
as regards Kant's epoch-making refutation of the ontological argument. As is known,
that argument centers around Hume's account of existence in the A Treatise of Human
Nature (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1951). There Hume states that all impressions
and ideas are conceived as existent, and from that conception the "perfect idea and
assurance of being is deriv'd." This gives rise to a dilemma, namely that the idea of
existence is either derived from an impression constantly conjoined with every object
of thought, or the idea of existence is the same as the idea of the object of thought
(see Book I, Part II, § VI, p. 65). Hume concludes that the idea of existence is not
derived from an impression since it would signify that there are cases where two
distinct impressions would be inseparably joined. As a consequence, the idea of
existence "is the very same with the idea of what we conceive to be existent. To
reflect on any thing simply, and to reflect on it as existent, are nothing different
from each other. That idea, when conjoin'd with the idea of any object, makes no
addition to it. Whatever we conceive, we conceive to be existent. Any idea we please
to form is the idea of a being; and the idea of a being is any idea we please to form."
Anyone who does not agree with this "must necessarily point out that distinct impres-
sion from which the idea of entity is deriv'd, and must prove, that this impression
is inseparable from every perception we believe to be existent. This we may without
hesitation conclude to be impossible." (p. 66)
Kant's answer to Hume is correct: namely, that existence is not a real predicate.
But this must be understood, following Husser!, in the sense that "existence" is not
just another property among others, in Husserl's language that the noematic thesis
is a "character" rather than a stratum of the noema. Not only must the meant sense
"existing" not be confused with the objectivated form "existence," but neither must
be confused with a property of a thing. Existence or being has nothing at all to do
with property. (See Erjahrung und Urteil, § 75.) Indeed, to assert the contrary would
be, phenomenologically expressed, to assert that there is an objective analogue in
the wor!d of the "relationship" of consciousness as intending and its object purely
and precisely as intended to. Hume assumes that if existence is anything at all it
must be a property in some sense; Kant realizes that this is not the case, but fails
to provide a positive answer which Husserl does with the discovery of the noematic
thesis. Here we cannot enter further into this problem.
134 FREDERICK KERSTEN

is "predicated" of the object "as it is intended to." 55 By objec-

tivating the senses of the seeing of the ashtray, its shape and
color are made thematic for me; but by objectivating the noem-
atic correlate of the believing, existence is made thematic. The
object seen, the ashtray, is believed in as existing.
Here again objectivation evokes a distinction in dimensions of
consciousness, 56 namely between the dimension of noetic theses
and the tic characters such as existence on the one hand, and the
dimension of manners of presentation on the other hand. If the
manner of presentation varies, for example, if the seen ashtray
is presented as absent, then there is a correlative variation in the
the tic character - the ashtray is believed in dubitatively, uncer-
tainly as only probably existing, or perchance as not existing at
all. 57
Before turning to a development of Husserl's concept of thetic
character, it is necessary to note two things in passing. In the
first place, it is necessary to distinguish with Husserl doxic
positionality from non-doxic positionality, doxic thetic characters
from non-doxic thetic characters. 58 There can be a simply certain
liking, or a dubious liking, or an uncertain liking of something
perceived, for example. In the case of the simple certain liking
of what I perceive, the thetic character is good; in the case of
disliking, the character is bad, or evil. We cannot enter into this
further here. In the second place, suppose that I am living in the
seeing of the ashtray, explicating the shape and color of the ash-
tray with which I am busied. In no way, however, is this an
objectivating of the thetic character the ashtray is posited as
having in seeing it. This objectivation only occurs in a new and
further act in which I am busied with the "being busied with the
ashtray intended to and believed in as existing." Generalized,
the implication of this is highly important because it signifies
that for every thesis, doxic or non-doxic, there is always a possible
doxic objectivation. As a consequence, doxic intentionality ac-
quires a primacy, being and non-being, finally, reason and un-

55 See Logische Untersuchungen, II, I, pp. 400ff., especially 435f.; Gurwitsch, The
Field ot Consciousness, pp. 185ff.; Husser!, Cartesian Meditations, § 23, p. 56.
56 However, the distinction is not in levels: precisely for this reason Husser! speaks
of "modalities" of consciousness; see Cartesian Meditations, § 24, p. 58.
5? I deen, I, § 107, p. 220; § 136, pp. 282ff.; Cartesian Meditations, § 26, pp. 59£.
58 Ideen, I, § 114, p. 234; § 115, p. 237; § II7, p. 241; § 121, pp. 250ff.
 HUSSERL'S DOCTRINE OF NOESIS-NOEMA I35

reason include everything - even valuing and disvaluing, liking

and disliking. 59 When the thetic character is objectivated in a
new and further doxic act, ipso facto there is a new thesis with
the previous thesis as the objective sense. Thesis is always, for
Hussed, syn-thesis:

As we have said, the multiplicities of modes of consciousness that belong

together synthetically and pertain to any meant object, of no matter
what category, can be explored as to their phenomenological types. Among
such multiplicities are included those syntheses that, with regard to the
initial intending, have the typical style of verifying and, in particular,
evidently verifying syntheses - or else, on the contrary, that of nullifying
and evidently nullifying syntheses. When such a synthesis takes place,
the meant object has, correlatively, the evident characteristic existing,
or else the evident characteristic non-existing ... These synthetic occur-
rences are intentionalities of a higher level, which, as acts and correlates
of "reason," essentially producible by the transcendental ego, pertain (in
exclusive disjunction) to all objective senses. 60

Reason is not then an "accidental de facto ability," but always

refers to "possibilities of verification." To be sure, to say that
objects in the broadest sense "exist for me is a statement that
says nothing immediately about evidence; it says only that ob-
jects are accepted by me - are, in other words, there for me as
cogitata intended in the positional mode: certain believing." 61
But should that acceptance have to be abandoned, for instance,
in the further course of experience, then

we can be sure something is actual only by virtue of a synthesis of

evident verification, which presents rightful or true actuality itself. It is
clear that truth or the true actuality of objects is to be obtained only
from evidence, and that it is evidence alone by virtue of which an "actually"
existing, true, rightly accepted object of whatever form or kind has sense
jor us 62

That possible doxic objectivating of every thesis whereby an

existing object of whatever form, real or ideal, has sense for us,
is grounded ultimately in the very nature of transcendental
subjectivity.

59 See Cartesian Meditations, § 24, p. 58.

60 Ibid., § 23, pp. 56f.
61 Ibid., § 26, p. 59.
62 Ibid., p. 6 o.
 FREDERICK KERSTEN

§ I3. The Phenomenological Signification of Sense Reconsidered

One of the chief concerns of the first volume of Ideas, and the
setting in which the doctrine of noesis-noema is developed, is
explication and clarification of the "general thesis of the natural
attitude," the "thetic character" or existential sense the world is
posited as having. In this connection, Aron Gurwitsch has recast
Husserl's concept of the "thetic character" of the noema in terms
of a principle of organization. 63 By this I mean that in and
through acts of consciousness the world and objects of all kinds
are presented - both through single, one-sided perceptual acts
and through concatenated systems of acts of all kinds. Presented
in and through those acts, objects meant and intended to not
only exhibit their properties, qualities, determinations, relations
to one another, but they also show themselves as existing (or
probably existing, not existing) in specific manners - for instance,
as really existing (or as really not existing), as ideally existing
(or not ideally existing). Earlier (§ 3) we noted that the "relation-
ship" between noesis and noema is not only sui generis but that
it also consists in correlation of items belonging to separate
planes. Consciousness so understood within the transcendental
reduction turns out to be the universal medium of access to the
world and objects of the most diverse description, and to their
multiple modes of being.
This signifies, among other things, that existence and non-
existence, being and nothing, can only be approached indirectly.
Most fundamentally to say that consciousness is the (always
indirect) access to the general thesis of the natural attitude
toward the world signifies that consciousness is most primor-
dially characterized as having a positional-presentational func-
tion. Positional presentationality is the basic dimension of the
intentionality of consciousness, the basic characterization of con-
sciousness as at or toward the world. At the risk of inviting pos-
sible, and perchance even further, misunderstanding of the noesis-
noema doctrine, we can introduce a metaphor to express the
various descriptive dimensions of intentional analysis involved
here.
63 See Aron Gurwitsch, "The Problem of Existence in Constitutive Phenomeno-
logy," Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology, pp. II6ff.
 HUSSERL'S DOCTRINE OF NOESIS-NOEMA 137

Metaphorically, consciousness positionally presenting the world

can be likened to a theatre; the audience sits in the darkened
area, while the stage is illuminated. Across the dark, the light,
the illuminated play is presented. The darkness is consciousness
which, by "degrading" itself, making itself dark, allows the light
(the play) to be presented. Across the negative, darkness, the
positive shows itself - the play (the world). That "positive" is
equally a "playing along with the play," a primordial credulity
mutually locked into the illuminating presentationality.
This metaphor surely has its inadequacies. But in spite of them
and in the first place, it underscores the fact that the world and
things, events and others in it are not presented chaotically but
instead as always organized, arranged, ordered, standing in a
specific context. In the second place, it makes prominent the fact
that the relation of consciousness to the world is not a causal one;
instead, it is the "relationship" of relevancy and significancy
which, in turn, is rooted in the "relationship" of, e.g., perceiving
and perceived as perceiving and perceived. The positional pres-
entationality of consciousness cannot be reduced to some sort of
objective analogue such as the relation in time between an event
of consciousness and another real event in the world (the percept).
The relation of the perceiving and the perceived as such is wholly
sui generis, which we have tried to express in the metaphor with
the expression, "playing along with the play."
Of course the expression is deceptive since, fundamentally, it
is not a question of "play" at all. Rather, "serious" presenta-
tion of the world as organized, ordered, believed in as having a
certain context of relevance and significancy is presentation of
the world as existing. "To be," "to exist," signifies accordingly
insertion into a specific context dominated by some principle of
relevancy and significancy. Two brief examples will suffice to
suggest what we have in mind and, at the same time, indicate
the nature of Gurwitsch's reformulation of the the tic character
of the noema.
Consider the case of "ideal existence," such as the case of
numbers. Every number holds a definite place within a system-
atic context; numbers are presented through certain acts of con-
sciousness, such as those of computation used by the mathemati-
cian. Moreover, numbers are presented as existing only with
 FREDERICK KERSTEN

reference to other numbers intrinsically co-present with the given

number in a given context - e.g., a certain number system such
as the system of cardinal numbers. A second example in the case
of "real existence": material things are presented in perceptual
consciousness and believed in as spatiotemporally ordered. In
this case, that spatiotemporality is the principle of relevancy and
significancy. That is to say, for a thing or event to be real, it must
occur at a certain place and at a certain time. A basic feature of
real existents is that they are presented and believed in as mun-
dane, and the (objectivated) thetic character of such things may
be designated as "mundaneity" - equivalently stated, "mun-
dane" is the thesis things and events are posited as having in a
spatiotemporal context.
Here we cannot enter further into Gurwitsch's account of the
inherent organization of the noema, which is a direct consequence
of his critique of HusserI's concept of attention (§ 9, b). Instead
the example of real existence leads us to our final consideration
of the doctrine of noesis-noema: the concept of "hyletic data."

§ I4. Husserl's Concept of "Hyletic Data"

Of all of HusserI's concepts, that of "hyletic data" is one of the
most notorious for causing difficulties in rehearsing and advanc-
ing his thought. Nonetheless, the concept of "hyletic data" forms
a basic part of HusserI's theory of sense perception, hence of the
intentional analysis of real existence.
Although concepts similar to that expressed by "hyletic data"
had been employed before the first volume of the Ideas, it is there
that it receives its clearest formulation. Generally speaking, the
concept arose in connection with the analysis of fields of sensuous
data within which "Abgehobenheiten," prominencies or saliencies,
stood out from a background and from one another. But this is
only part of the task of the analysis of sense perception. Indeed,
it was Husserl's contention that in any concrete perception we
can discover a highly stratified structure, each lower stratum
founding the stratum above it - whereof the lowest founding
stratum belonging to any sensuous perceiving of something phys-
ical has, as a component "really inherent" [reelles BestandstiickJ
to the perceiving, what Husserl calls "hyletic data." 64
 HUSSERL'S DOCTRINE OF NOESIS-NOEMA I39

Reflective observation of any concrete sensuous perceiving of

something material discloses another "really inherent" compo-
nent, namely an intentive component. The hyletic and intentive
components together make up the "Erlebnisse," the "subjective"
processes of mental life. Hyletic data, Husser! says, designate the
"phenomenological residuum of what is mediated in normal ex-
ternal perception by the 'senses.' " 65 Purportedly uncovered by
the phenomenological reduction, they concern what is "mediated"
in sense perception, that is, they mediate the founding-founded
relationship of the multilayered perceptual structure. An example
will help illustrate what is at stake here. In examining fields of
sensuous data, such as visual or tactual fields, we find specific
differences which stand out, are salient or prominent with respect
to each other and their background. It is in referring to the role
which they play in sensuous perceivings of physical things that
Husser! calls these saliencies "hyletic data." 66 And it is precisely
this role in the perception of physical or material things which
distinguishes hyletic from other kinds of sensuous data, such as
kinaesthesias, somatic data such as muscle tensions, "feelings"
of the movement of the body, and the like. 67
Accordingly, to say that the "physical thing is mediated by the
senses" signifies that between the stratum of hyletic data on the
one hand, and the founded stratum of the perceiving of the phys-
ical thing on the other hand, there lies still another stratum found-
ed on that of the hyletic data and founding that of the perceiving
of the physical thing as self-same throughout a multiplicity of
appearances of it. An example of that intermediate stratum is
that which functions as the appearances of physical things in
concrete sensuous perceivings. To put the matter in the language
of the first volume of Ideas, the intentive component is both an
"animating" construing of the founding stratum of hyletic data
as adumbrations of a multiplicity of, e.g., visual appearances of

64 Ideen I, §§ 85, 97. For a penetrating account of the distinctions involved here,
see Rudolf Boehm, "Les Ambiguites des concepts husserliens d"immanence' et de
'transcendence'," Revue Philosophique, IV (1959), pp. 482ff.
65 Ibid., p. 173.
66 Ibid., p. I76.
67 Ibid., pp. 65, I72, 205. See also Edmund Husser!, Vorlesungen zur Phiinomeno-
logie des inneren Zeitbewu/ltseins (Halle: Max Niemeyer, I928), edited by M. Heidegger,
§§ 8, 42; in addition, see Edmund Husser!, "Notizen zur Raumkonstitution," Philo-
sophy and Phenomenological Research, I (1940), edited by Alfred Schutz, pp. 220ff.
 FREDERICK KERSTEN

the physical thing and a perceiving (a seeing) of the physical thing

meant as self-identical throughout those appearances.
Two other things must be noted in this connection. In the first
place, hyletic data, that founding stratum of sensuous perceiving
and really inherent noetic component, belongs in the realm of
original passivity - as early as the first volume of Ideas Husserl
refers to hyletic data as a case of "intentionality" which does not
bestow signification (see above, § 9, a).68 The other is that the
temporal/arm of hyletic data, according to the theory, is that of
the intentive component of the noesis.

§ IS. Gurwitsch's Criticism 0/ Husserl's Theory 0/ Hyletic Data

In his Field 0/ Consciousness, 69 Gurwitsch explains H usserl' s
theory of perception as a dualistic one, with the duality obtaining
between sense-impressions on the one hand, and intentive acts of
apprehension, interpretation, objectivation and apperception on
the other hand. Gurwitsch points out, in effect, that if we grant
Husserl the distinction between determinations of the physical
thing appearing through and adumbrated by noetically construed
hyletic data on the one hand, and the hyletic data themselves
endowed with adumbration-functions on the other hand,70 then
we must also assert, as Husserl would seem to do, that there is
nothing peculiar to the nature of hyletic data themselves which
unambiguously determines the adumbrations of this rather than
another sensuously perceived physical thing. Thus, although
Husserl first develops his concept purely with regard to the role
hyletic data play in a sensuous perceiving, to account for that
role he must then regard hyletic data as indifferent to the perceiv-
ing in question. In other words, hyletic data remain identical
throughout different noetic construings, animatings. We must
also add that the distinction between hyletic and kinaesthetic
68 Ideen I, p. 172.
69 Gurwitsch, The Field of Consciousness, pp. 265ft. In addition see Harmon Chap-
man, Sensations and Phenomenology (Bloomington and London: Indiana University
Press, 1966), Chapter VII. Jean-Paul Sartre should also be mentioned in this connec-
tion. However, his critique of Husserl's concept of hyletic data is deeply emhedded
in his metaphysics, and accordingly presents difficult problems of interpretation into
which we need not enter here. Suffice it to say that in L'Etre et le neant (Paris:
Gallimard, 194-5), pp. z6f. he rejects Husserl's concept to save the appearances, as
it were, of the physical thing as an ideal pole of identity.
70 Gurwitsch, The Field 01 Consciousness, p. 269.
 HUSSERL'S DOCTRINE OF NOESIS-NOEMA 141

and other sensuous data disappears if there is nothing peculiar

to the nature of hyletic data in virtue of which they play the role
they do in sense perception. To account for that role, Husserl
must introduce an organization-form extraneous and supervenient
to hyletic data: a version of the "constancy hypothesis" which
Gurwitsch has elsewhere shown to be false. 71
Here, again, we cannot develop Gurwitsch's alternative to
Husserl's concept, important and original as it is. Clearly Hus-
serl's concept of hyletic data must be rejected. But before reject-
ing the concept out of hand, or even before reinterpreting it in
the light of philosophically established results of Gestalt theory,
it is worth while considering a Husserlian response to this crit-
icism. In the previous section we noted that, for Husserl, the
noetic and hyletic strata have the same temporal form. It is to
this feature that we now turn.

§ I6. A Possible Revision ot Husserl's Theory ot Hyletic Data

Dorion Cairns has called attention to the fact that at the very
beginning of the Vorlesungen zur Phiinomenologie des inneren
ZeitbewufJtseins Husserl states that this study deals with the con-
stitution of a pure datum of sensation, i.e., a hyletic datum, and
the primary or originally passive constitution of "phenomeno-
logical time" underlying active mental life. 72 Thus Heidegger, in

71 Ibid., pp. 2·70f. It is worth while citing some representative passages from
Husserl's writings in this connection in addition to the passages from the first volume
of Ideas. In the 1912 manuscript published as Hussertiana, volume 5 (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1952), edited by Marly Biemel, Husserl says, p. 14, that "die
Empfindung steht als Gemeinsames an der Grenze sozusagen der zweiten und dritten
Stufe. Auf der zweiten Stufe ist sie Bekundung der Empfindsamkeit des Leibes.
Andererseits ist sie auf der dritten Stufe stoffliche Unterlage fiir perzeptive Auf-
fassungen, z.B. fiir die materielle Wahrnehmung, hierbei in den doppeJten oben be-
sprochenen Auffassungsfunctionen stehend: als kinaesthetische in Funktion des
Motivierenden, als darstellende Empfindung in der Funktion des Motivierten ... "
Here hyletic data and kinaesthetic data are distinguished and distinguishable only
in virtue of their motivating and motivated functions. The implication is that in
and of themselves they remain identical whether construed as exhibiting a real
physical thing or one's own organism. Again, in the lecture course published under
the title of "Phanomenologische Psychologie" (Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925)
[Hussertiana, Volume IX (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962), edited by Walter
Biemel], Husserl says that we can "abstract" from the appearance- and adumbration-
functions and consider the "pure data of sensation" in and of themselves, p. 165.
For the difficulty here, see Gurwitsch's example of perceiving clouds and sky-line,
op. cit., pp. 27If.
72 Vorlesungen liIur Phiinomenologie des inneren Zeitbewu{Jtseins, p. 367.
 FREDERICK KERSTEN

his I928 introduction to these lectures, following Husserl in the

first volume of Ideas, states in effect that hyletic data and the
noetic components of the Erlebnisse have the same temporal
form.73 In this connection Cairns has also observed that at least
part of the de facto course of analysis carried out by Husserl is at
variance with his explicit theory. As a matter of fact, Husserl
begins the actual course of his analysis (§ 8) by speaking of the
temporal form of an auditory sensation - e.g., the sound he
describes is said to have "its own time-form." Indeed, Husserl
had earlier referred to the "phenomenologically given" as "the
abstract parts of mental processes which specifically found tem-
poral construings as such and, therefore, found ... the specific
temporal content." 74 The "temporal content," the datum's own
temporal form, is, correspondingly, a founded noematic stratum,
and not identical with the temporal form of the noesis in question.
If we carryover the results of Husserl's de facto course of anal-
ysis into his doctrine of noesis-noema, we have a very different
view than the one usually stated by him both in published writ-

73 This view, already developed in the Logische Untersuchungen (V), is found, e.g.,
in the posthumously published lectures; for example, in Husserliana, IX, p. 171:
"Der Strom des Subjektiven, also in unserer Sphare der Strom der subjektiven
Empfindungsdaten, Perspektiven, Erscheinungen heiJ3t als Strom von immanent-
zeitlichen Gegenstanden, und selbst zur Einheit einer Zeitgegenstandlichkeit sich
zusammenschlieJ3end, auch Erlebnisstrom. Alles, was wir aus dieser immanenten
Zeitsphare als einzeln immanenten Zeitgegenstand, als ein Erlebnis herausfassen, ist
Seiendes nur als Stromendes. So jedes Empfindungsdatum, aber auch jede Erschein-
ung von, jedes intentionale Erlebnis iiberhaupt." Likewise, in a manuscript dating
from 1916 and appended to the Husserliana edition of the first volume of Ideas as
Appendix XXIV (pp. 4IIff.), Husserl is even more explicit about this than in the
main text (§ 85 - though the appendix is annexed to § 132).
74 Husserl, Vorlesungen zur Phiinomenologie des inneren Zeitbewuj3tseins, § I, p. 370.
An example of that "temporal content" is given in § 8, p. 385 (English translation
by James B. Churchill, with an Introduction by Calvin O. Schrag, The Phenomenology
ot Internal Time-Consciousness [Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press,
1964], p. 44): "In this sinking back, I still 'hold' it fast, have it in a 'retention,' and
as long as the retention persists the sound has its own temporality" (the emphasis is
mine). That specific temporal content is, in the terms of Ideen, I, the noematic
correlate of an auditory sensing on which is founded the apprehending of world-time.
To be sure, the whole issue is not so simple. In other places in the lectures on time-
consciousness Husser! is consistent with his theory. Though he may at times be
unwitting about the theory, he is not uncritical - the theory often bothered him,
and he seems always to have been aware of the fact that the account of time-constitu-
tion would, or should, confirm or disconfirm it (see, e.g., Ideen, I, pp. 162f.; the
Introduction of Rudolf Boehm to Edmund Husser!, Zur Phiinomenoiogie des inneren
Zeitbewu(Jtseins (I893-19I7) [Husserliana Vol. Xl (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,
I966), pp. XXXff.). In other research manuscripts relevant to the lectures on time-
consciousness Husserl seems to realize the absurdity of his theory (e.g., those of
around 1908/09, Husserliana X, pp. 333f.).
 HUSSERL'S DOCTRINE OF NOESIS-NOEMA 143

ings and in posthumously published lectures. Nonetheless, it is

one which Husserl had himself developed. Certainly part of Gur-
witsch's critique is answered because hyletic data are no longer
conceived as "inherently real" components of the concrete per-
ceiving, hence the dualistic theory of perception "officially"
promulgated by Husserl falls. Indeed, we no longer need call
those components "hyletic data" since, as their different time-
form suggests, they are instead constituted as transcendent to the
flux of mental processes. The "hyle-morphe" relationship stated
in the Ideas is vitiated. 75 As a consequence, instead of distin-
guishing between the construing of sensuous data as adumbrative
of appearances of things on the one hand, and perceiving the
things themselves through those appearances on the other hand,
we must now speak of sensuous perceivings of objective physical
things noetically-noematically founded on intendings to sensuous
data.
This founding-founded structure is quite distinct from that
proposed by Husserl in the first volume of the Ideas and, if work-
ed out, provides, I believe, a concept consistent with a Husserlian,
if not Husserl's, doctrine of noesis-noema. 76

§ I7. Conclusion
In this essay we have attempted to state, often in an abbrevia-
75 Although we cannot develop the consequences here, this would entail, among
other things, I believe, revision of many of Husserl's doctrines into which the "Form-
Stoff" metaphor is carried (and relativized), and of which the Hyle-Morphe concept
is a special case (e.g., Husserl's doctrine of judgment, the theory of language). For
the extent of the use of this metaphor, see Robert Sokolowski, The Formation of
Bussert's Concept of Constitution (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, I964), pp. 54ft.,
especially pp. 57f. Here we may also mention that Sokolowski attempts to untangle
the various versions of Husserl's concept of hyletic data in connection with a discus-
sion of the development of the concept of genetic phenomenology, according to which
"sense data and noeses are no longer conceived as two distinct elements; they are
now seen to be one immanent reality, one inner flow of consciousness" (p. 2II). This
is, of course, nothing but Husserl's theory all along - the temporal form is the same
for hyletic data and noeses. To go on to say that hyletic data are now but one step
in genetic constitution (p. 2II) would mean, at the least, that not all noeses and sense
data are "one inner flow of consciousness" (hence they are still radically distinct from
other noeses in other steps of genetic constitution). The change would seem to be one
of emphasis, rather than of theory. For this see Chapman, op. cit., p. 152.
76 In my doctoral dissertation, "Husserl's Investigations Toward a Phenomenology
of Space" (Graduate Faculty of Social and Political Science, The New School for
Social Research, 1964), I attempt to articulate in detail the founding-founded struc-
ture in question. However, the presentation there is still infected with Husserl's
theory, especially in discussion of the "higher" levels of constitution distinguished.
144 FREDERICK KERSTEN

ted and sometimes simplified way, Husserl's doctrine of noesis-

noema as it is stated in the first volume of Ideas. At the same
time we have further attempted to show how that doctrine must
be brought "up to date" with the later writings of Husserl, but
nonetheless in line with significant phenomenological criticism of
Husserl- here chiefly represented by that of Aron Gurwitsch and
Dorion Cairns. This essay makes no pretense of exhausting the
possible scope of that criticism, and its positive results need to be
more fully formulated. In concluding it is necessary to say, how-
ever, that it is my belief that the wide range of revision required
of the noesis-noema doctrine, and the radical nature of the crit-
icism it evokes, testify not to the weakness of Husserl's doctrine
but rather to its strength and richness.