Abstract

Objectivity is one of the oldest of problems in philosophy. Plato, Aristotle and others strived to provide a definitive solution. One of Husserl’s strategies was to introduce a distinction between “sciences of matters of fact” and “eidetic sciences” where the transition from the first science to the second science is possible via intentional sifting which is not to say that something becomes objective because one intends it. For Husserl intentional sifting is cognitive, hence phenomenology should begin by describing “the essence of thinking” in order to later become a genuine science of consciousness. But inside the phenomenological movement there are profound disagreements with respect to the ontology of cognition and intentionality. Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty opted for emotional descriptions of thinking. With few exceptions, contemporary phenomenology has become the praise of emotional experience. In this paper I take the opposite path and make the case for cognitive-intentional character of consciousness I consider one of the most important problems of contemporary philosophy and psychology. I follow the assumption that the only way to generate objective propositions is to assume, against current views, that Husserl was not an idealist and that we can speak about cognition without reducing to emotion and yet without committing to dualism.