INTENTIONS

INTENTIONS (from Latin intentio - intention), a term found in scholastics meaning the relationship of consciousness to its object. This term was introduced into modern psychology by Brentano, and then became established in the so-called Würzburg school (Gusserl, Stumpf, Kulpe and others). Every mental phenomenon is characterized for Brentano by a relationship to some content, a direction toward some object. This directedness is intention. Our directedness can manifest differently in representation, in judgment, in love, in hatred, etc. Since each of these acts relates to a specific object, the individual's relationship to this latter is experienced as a special psychological state - I. The directedness of consciousness should be distinguished from its content. Contents - sensations, representations, feelings - can be the same, while our relationship to them, our directedness toward them, can be different; conversely, contents can change while the directedness remains the same. In this case, our directedness does not relate to representations as such, but to the actual objects which they represent. One must distinguish the chronological sequence of experiences, when for example the representation 'sky' by association causes another representation 'blue', and the establishment of a connection in the form of the judgment 'sky is of blue color'. This connection is not attributed to representations, but to reality itself; it is this objective meaning of judgments that Brentano calls intention, the directedness of our thought to some object existing outside of it. From the point of view of modern psychology, the isolation of consciousness from the general complex of our holistic behavior is incorrect. Consciousness is united with all other properties into one whole. The understanding of one or another directedness of our entire behavior, however, has a perfectly legitimate meaning. The subjective expression of this very objective directedness is intention.