Belief, Knowing: Occurrent (lived) and Dispositional

Certainly I "believe" a lot of things even if I am not currently thinking about the things I believe. But am I not conscious of them, even in my "Background or Peripheral Consciousness"? It is to say that unconscious beliefs are suspicious things. And unconscious beliefs can be intentional are still more doubtful.

And suppose I hold the belief "It is raining", it is connected with a network of beliefs, which function in the background, they have a sort of intentionality, background intentionality. But of course occurrent beliefs are different from not occurrent beliefs that function as background of the occurrent beliefs.

And, when I am in dreamless sleep, I am not conscious at all, and I do not have any beliefs, occurrently or peripherally. Phenomenology, as such, does not discuss unconsciousness in this sense.

Phenomenology as....

"Phenomenology as descriptive theory of essence of pure experiences."
Data: Pure Experiences
(It is itself Products of a Method. Data: Experiences in Natural Attitude, Process: Reduction;)
Process: Reflection, Description, Eidetic Variation
Product: Theory of Essence of Pure Experiences. Or, Conceptual Knowledge of the Mind (Or the Mind-Related World)

Quality Control (as Part of the Method):
Evidence Principle, of which examples are:
Test of Absurdity (in extreme conditions)
Test of Distinctness and Clarity (in not so extreme conditions, which can get fuzzy)

Conceptual Analysis, Intentional Analysis and Eidetic Variation

Conceptual analysis is substantially involved with how a proposition can fail to make sense. It is to show, how a proposition, e.g. "Red is on the desk" fails to make sense and therefore fails to have truth condition at all. By doing so, you may know what makes the category "Property" and "Object", different.

Intentional analysis, by contrast, applies not to speech acts, sentences, but also to intentional states like beliefs, desires, etc. It shows, e.g., what are the satisfaction conditions, directions of fit of intentional states, what distinguishes them. This analysis shows you the how mental or other sorts of concepts differ.

Eidetic variation, I suppose, is connected to both of them still different. You vary the x in the sentential function "x...is on the desk", some fit and some do not and yield nonsense. You see you have different types of things. In intentional analysis, e.g., "S believes p", "S desires p", "S *Y* x", you vary *Y* x, you have different types of psychological mode and intentional content. You have different types of mental acts, etc.

Then, I suppose, Eidetic Variation seems to be a more general method, but like all substantial analyses, it can also have its linguistic version, and it can also have its intentional analytical version. It seems to me, then, Amie Thomasson's conjecture that Husserl fails to make use of his conception of "Nonsense" in his investigation of logical grammar is false. Eidetic Variation, it seems to me, is more comprehensive in the respect that it is more general.

Still, it has another advantage. It offers an epistemology with regard to the knowledge of the operations and products of the method, i.e., philosophical data, procedure and final insights. It offers an account for how Phenomena is Known through an exposition of phenomenological reflection, it also offers an account for how Categories or concepts are know through an account of categorial intuition. Even though, both accounts are very suspicious as they are often taken to committ Platonic mistakes.

Fallacies

One can not expect one can get all things right with a single method, perhaps more so in philoyophy. But one may design a reliable method with which some problems can be reliably solved.A reliable philosophical method must enable one to spot fallacies in one's philosophical thinking. Now for analysis, there are data, processes and products. When the product seems to be obviously defective, then one can go back to processes or data. If one finds problem with the process, then one can obviously spot the defective products.

When the whole procedure goes right, then one does not have much to complain,but of course philosophical analyses often goes wrong.To figure out what is wrong, one must see the symptoms, and the corresponding problems. One gives them names, classifies them, and the second time one sees it, it will be easier to do the diagnosis and correct the mistakes.

Method

Searle, p. 26:Explanation of Intentionality offered in this chapter is not a logical analysis in the sense of giving necessary and sufficient conditions in terms of simpler notions. If we tried to treat the explanation as an analysis it would be hopelessly circular because the feature of speech acts that I have been using to explain the Intentionality of certain intentional states is precisely the Intentionality of speech atcs. In my view it is not possible to give a logical analysis of Intentionality of the mental in terms of simpler notions, since Intentionality is, so to speak, a ground floor property of the mind, not a logically complex feature built up by combining simpler elemtns. There is no neutral standpoint from which we can survey the relations between Intentional states and th world and then describe them in non-Intentionalistic terms. Any explanation of Intentionality, therefore, takes place within the circle of Intentional concepts.

Evidence and Interpretation

Now (e.1, e.2, e.3,....e.n) are under interpretation in both cases, but e.1 counts as an evidence for That woman is beautiful if one has the original intentional state, and it counts as an evidence for That wax woman is nice if one has the modified intentional state. E.1 does not intrinsically count for or against B1 and B2, it is apprehended as evidence for either B1 or B2. Therefore, E.1 needs a moment of interpretation, apprehension.

But if singularly it is the case for E1, it is reasonable to doubt it is also the case for a set of evidences from e.1 to e.n, e.1 to e.n do not intrinsically count or against B1 or B2, only the situation becomes more complex. In this case we have constitution, a modified form of simple apprehnsion? But of course this is an extreme exageration.

Fulfilling Condition

Suppose S originally has the belief: B1.That is a woman.
First personally, the possible perceptual evidences (e.1, e.2, e.3,....e.n) will be fulfilling for the original intentional state.
Now, consider there emerges an evidence e.n+1, which says that the material of the seen figure is wax. Then the original belief changes into: B2.That is a wax woman. Now, under this new belief, (e.1, e.2, e.3,....e.n) certainly counts as evidences for B2, or they have different interpretations now.

1. Are the evidences (e.1, e.2, e.3,....e.n) really fulfilling toward B1, or B2? The answers can be one the following: let F be the relation of fulfillment. "B1&B2.F. (e.1, e.2, e.3,....e.n), B1 or B2.F. (e.1, e.2, e.3,....e.n) .B1or-B2.F. (e.1, e.2, e.3,....e.n), -B1&B2.F. (e.1, e.2, e.3,....e.n), B1&-B2.F. (e.1, e.2, e.3,....e.n), -B1&-B2.F. (e.1, e.2, e.3,....e.n), etc. I think the answer is that they are fulfilling toward both B1 and B2, but they are not exclusively fulfilling for either of them. Even in the case where one has a false belief, it is perfectly sensible to say one has fulfilling evidences, even though these evidences might precielsely be the reason why one has that false belief.

This explains the possible oscillation between B1 and B2, but not the oscillation between B1, B2, and B3 and B4: That is a man. &That is a wax man.

Condition of Satisfaction and Condition of Fulfillment

Suppose S has the intentional state of believing p (a perceptual belief, in this case). The condition of satisfaction, as Searle conceives, then is p.
Now consider Husserl's conception of fulfillment, it requires that it has evidence that p, in the most prominent case, S has the intuitive, noninferential evidence that p.
Satisfaction condition is not the kind of thing that is first person available, whereas evidence should be.

Therefore condition of satisfaction and condition of fulfillment is essentially different, despite the similarities.

A problem though, fulfillment is a so-called success word, that is, it is a word for sucess of fulfillment, it is the final stage of the process of fulfilling. But the first person available evidence for perceptual belief is always corrigible, therefore perhaps is better to use fufilling condition rather than fulfillment condition. However, this also has its problem. Fulfilling is always fufilling toward fulfillment of certain intentional state, what if the fulfilling evidence turns out to be non-fulfilling for the original belief but rather another? The skeptical question here is this, if you do not know what this evidence is fulfilling, you do not know if it is fulfilling at all. But, if you want to know what the evidence is fulfilling, you will have to have fulfilling evidence. Sounds hoplessly circular!

I could not care less about the mind-body problem

I could not care less about the mind/body problem, as it is traditionally understood. Of course this is to put it very strongly.

Do not get me wrong, I have considerable interest in the mind/body problem, which has the interpretation of a "mind/body as perceived or lived by mind" problem. Simply put, my version of mind/body problem, following the phenomenologists, is a mind/mind problem. If for the materialists, it is only a body/body problem.

The problem of my interest in this problem is: I have to explain why I do not care about the traditional mind/body problem, and worse still, what is exactly the "mind/lived body" problem.

Tim Crane against Husserl and Searle, etc

Tim Crane is certainly the most prominent and recent example of analytical philosophers who share the visions of phenomenologists broadly conceived, esp. Brentano and Husserl. I think he will serve as a central figure in my discussion of Intentionality too.

His views concerning the scope of intentionality is interesting enough, because he holds a form of Intentionalism, i.e., all conscious states are intentional states, including that of pain, sudden feeling of stress, itch, etc. In this respect, he is against Searle and Husserl, and also Churchland.

Knowledge as a Sub-Theme of Intentionality

Well, I first think I am researching into the problem of Knowledge, but I find out that it is not possible to account for knowledge without accounting for Intentionality, because to know something is simply a unique and special case of being in some intentional states. The general structure of Intentionality must also be shared by the mental acts of knowing.

Intentionality is a complex phenomenon, and its analysis requires the clarification of a network of concepts. But the clarification needs to be guided by a method, otherwise it will be chaotic, and one does not know what is a criterion of a satisfactory or adequate clarification.

However, the Method is something that requires a theory of Knowledge, e.g., what is the evidential status of a phenomena, how does eidetic variation function epistemically, how is the essential structure of something known, in this case, the structure of intentionality, etc.

Therefore, I decide to write a very ambitious dissertation on Method, Intentionality and Knowledge, though it is certainly beyond my ability at this stage. The Genesis of the title actually starts from Knowledge to Intentionality and to Methodology. But the dissertation will certainly begin with a methodological introduction, then to Intentionality and Knowledge.

Husserl and Intentionality

Smith&McIntrye's book Husserl and Intentionality is a very systematic book on Husserl's conception of Intentionality, and it ammounts to an interesting interpretation. But this book dissatisfies me as a book in phenomenology. 1.It does not seem to be phenomenological at all except the views are from the books that are called phenomenological. 2.I think we need a methodological introduction to a thesis on intentionality, as in the case of Mohanty's book.

By contrast, though Searle's book on Intentionality is not phenomenological, but analytical, it has obvious methodological presuppositions which are taken for granted in the analytical community, i.e. the method of Gilbert Ryle and Austin. Nevertheless, he has written something about the difference between intentional analysis and linguistic analysis. Intentional analysis can also be called phenomenological analysis, if you like the terminology.

Precisely, what primarily makes Husserl's theory different from Searle's theory is their methodological committment, firstly and mostly, the suspension of natural attitude and the turn to phenomena. Secondly and secondarily, the distinction between analysis and eidetic analysis of phenomena, but actually, I do not see them as essentially different, they can be seen as constituting the same method.

The Concept of Intentionality

Monhanty's book The Concept of Intentionality is of course a brilliant book. However, I think a methodological introduction will be necessary. 1. Phenomenological Method has essentially two steps, first, Phenomenological Reduction, and second, Eidetic Variation, each serves its particular purpose. 2. I think if we talk about the Concept of Intentionality, it would be nice if we have Gilbert Ryle's project of the Concept of Mind in mind, a sustained essay on mental concepts. Now, we have a sustained essay on intentional concepts.
Are all mental concepts intentional concepts? Like perception, knowing, willing, etc. Ok, now we have Searle's project.

It is better to have some rather than one ongoing project

I have been working on the same project for one entire month, and somehow I find it quite boring to work on one single project for such a long time. The project is on Phenomenological Concepts and Metaphysical Neutrality.
Therefore, I have decided to work on another project in the same time. I will be working on this project in this week, to see if I can work out an outline for the part of my dissertation on the conception of Knowledge.