Competing Interpretations of Husserl’s Noema

Edmund Husserl introduces the term «noema» inIdeas Iin order to explicate his theory of intentionality. Given the ambiguities in Husserl’s own usage of the noema, it is no surprise that the term is the subject of conflicting interpretations by scholars. This book undertakes a critical assessment of two such interpretations: the gestalt psychological interpretation of Aron Gurwitsch and the linguistic philosophical interpretation of the Frege scholars, David Woodruff Smith and Ronald McIntyre. The author argues that the ambiguities inIdeas Ican only be resolved by appeal to Husserl’s other works, especially his newly published texts and research manuscripts.