Husserl’s Doctrine of Noesis-Noema

Abstract

Ever since he first fully formulated the doctrine of noesis and noema in the first volume of Ideas in 1913, 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 remains 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 concern the dimension of “passivity” peculiar to intentionality; the changes suggested by Gurwitsch and Cairns, taken together, concern the relationship of noesis and noema and the concept of “hyletic data.”