Abstract

This volume of fifteen essays plus an introduction and preface is the outcome of a conference organized by Dominik Perler at Basel in June 1999. The topic is obviously interesting and important. Intentionality has been the hallmark issue of phenomenology for over a century, and it is common knowledge that the name and concept were introduced by Franz Brentano, who said he was reviving a medieval idea that had deeper roots in antiquity. The topic has also entered into analytic philosophy through the problem of representationalism, and at least some thinkers in that tradition, such as Searle and Chisholm, have formulated this problem as one of intentionality. It becomes incumbent on scholars to inquire how the modern issues of intentionality and representationalism are both similar to and different from their formulations in antiquity and the middle ages. The conference and the book have brought together some prominent authorities who can respond to these questions.