The Heuristic Principle: “Intentionality”

Abstract

The analysis of the contents of consciousness to utterances in the primary-language led to the conclusion that consciousness is a fact. This, however, is most trivial since it does not entail any other fact; it does not afford the deduction or induction of any fact of ‘the world’ from the fact of ‘consciousness’. What then, you may ask, is the sense of pursuing scepticism to such lengths? It is evident that some propositions concerning the events of experience must be capable of being formulated in addition to the fact that they take place if the sceptic’s argument is to have value as an empirical inquiry into the nature of reality. If it can have nothing whatsoever to say of reality, the sceptic’s enterprise is foredoomed and becomes an intellectual exercise in contradicting realistic notions on grounds of being speculative. No doubt the role of such a critic is flattering, but if it is purely destructive, it does more harm than good. Scepticism must be able to come up with some coherent propositions concerning reality if it is to be worth the trouble of being taken seriously. However, the ready assertion that “coherent propositions” concern ‘the world’ and thus affirm realism is too hasty and entirely ungrounded. The sceptic does not require the existence of the external world to advance coherent statements concerning the contents of consciousness: he can restrict his inquiry to the evidence and take the experience of ‘reality’ for the experience of ‘consciousness’. The only thing he cannot do is to formulate a principle explaining the act of consciousness as apodictic, fully grounded in and derived from the facts of experience, for as we have seen the act of consciousness is (i) unpostulable without involving an infinite regress, (ii) distinct from the content, hence not discoverable in a consistent analysis of the immediate data of experience.