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ON HUSSERL'S THEORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE FIFTH LOGICAL INVESTIGATION

By Quentin Smith

Published in: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. XXXVII, June, 1977.

Husserl's theory of consciousness in the fifth of his Logical Investigations is at the same time one of the most profound and one of the most difficult theories of consciousness to have as yet been developed. Husserl attempts to give a descriptive account of consciousness in terms of a sensation, an intentional act that interprets the sensation, and an intentional object that is referred to by means of the interpretation of the sensation. His main efforts are devoted to analyzing the relation between what he calls the "matter" and the "quality" of the intentional act, and how these two components can be used to understand Brentano's famous proposition that "every act is either a presentation or is founded upon a presentation." Nevertheless, despite the brilliance of many of his descriptions, Husserl's final formulations suffer from ambiguities and difficulties in certain of their main theses. Accordingly, it will be our goal in this paper to, first of all, expound Husserl's basic concepts in a summary fashion, secondly, to show how he develops these concepts by applying them to Brentano's proposition, and finally, to show where the difficulties lie in his final theory. This paper will thus consist of three parts, on 1) the basic structures of consciousness, 2) the four concepts of presentation, and 3) the problem of the nonobjectifying acts.

1 The Basic Structures of Consciousness

The first two chapters of the Fifth Investigation are concerned with laying out the basic structures of consciousness. Husserl does this by way of offering three definitions of the term 'consciousness.' The first definition is that of consciousness as "the entire, real (reelle) phenomenological being of the empirical ego, as the interweaving of psychic experiences in the unified stream of consciousness."[1] These psychic experiences are composed of two contents, the sensations and the 'objectifying interpretation' of the sensations. The sensation, which Husserl will later call a hyletic datum,[2] is an immanent (reelle) part of our experience, and is not to be confused with the property of the object that it corresponds to. For example, in the perception of a red box, there is both a red sensation that is an immanent component of the perceptual consciousness, and an objective redness that is a real (real) property of the box. What I perceive is not the sensation, but the objective property that corresponds to the sensation. What enables me to 'get 'beyond' the sensation and envisage the objective property is the 'objectifying interpretation' of the sensation. This 'objectifying interpretation,' which in later years Husserl will call a noetic phase[3], is also an immanent component of consciousness; it is that which 'ensouls' the sensation and thereby constitutes a reference to the objective property that corresponds to the sensation. But it is important to note that the 'objectifying imerpretation,' like the sensation, is not itself an object that appears. It is merely experienced.

"Sensations, and the acts 'interpreting' them or apperceiving them, are alike experienced, but they do not appear as objects: they are not seen, heard, or perceived by any sense. Objects on the other hand, appear and are perceived, but they are not experienced."[4]

Husserl's second concept of consciousness simply adds to the first concept the notion that its immanent components are adequately perceived by an "inner consciousness." "This is that 'inner perception' thought to accompany actually present experiences, whether in general, or in certain classes of cases, and to relate to them as its objects."[5] Husserl does not elaborate upon the nature of this inner consciousness, nor upon how his conception of it differs from Brentano's, whose conception his own is apparently derived from. But he does note that there is no phenomenological evidence to support Brentano's contention that this inner consciousness is but a secondary direction of the primary act of intentional awareness, and is not a new intentional act in its own right.[6] How Husserl is then able to avoid assuming an infinite regress, which springs from "the circumstance that inner perception is itself another experience, which re- quires a new percept, to which the same again applies etc.,"[7] is not dealt with. However it seems that Husserl has not clearly expressed his position on this problem here, for he later says that inner consciousness is not another intentional experience. In this passage he is explaining that he is abandoning the term "phenomenon" as an expression that describes intentional experiences, as it implies, wrongly, that every intentional experience is itself an object of another intentional experience,

"As 'phenomenon' in its dominant use (which is also Brentano's) means an appearing object as such, this implies that each intentional experience is not only directed upon objects, but is itself the object of certain intentional experiences. One thinks here, mainly, of the experiences in which things 'appear' in the most special sense, i,e" [inner] perceptions: 'every psychical phenomenon is an object of inner consciousness'. We have already mentioned the grave misgivings that keep us from assenting to this."[8]

By the last sentence it is apparent that Husserl is referring to the problem of the infinite regress that he had previously mentioned, and is citing this problem as his reason for rejecting the intentionality of inner consciousness, But if he is now claiming that inner consciousness is not a new experience in its own right, and he has previously claimed that it is not a secondary direction of the primary intentional experience, then what, it may be asked, exactly is the nature of this inner consciousness? It seems that the alternatives are exhausted by the two different conceptions that Husserl has rejected, and Husserl himself offers no clue as to what the third alternative could be. The problem of the nature of this inner consciousness is one that remains unsolved.

If Husserl's explanation of his second definition of consciousness is brief and ambiguous, his explanation of his third definition of consciousness is detailed and comprehensive. He introduces this third concept of consciousness in the second chapter of the Investigation, and this chapter and the remaining four are devoted to its explication.

This third conception of consciousness consists to a fair degree of a concentrated analysis of what Husserl called the 'objectifying interpretation' in his first conception of consciousness.[9] Husserl now calls this 'objectifying interpretation' the act-matter, and opposes it to the act-quality. The matter and the quality of the act together form its intentional essence.[10] Both are immanent components of the intentional act itself. The matter is the component that supplies the 'reference' to an object.

"The matter, therefore, must be that element in an act which first gives it reference to an object, and reference so wholly definite that it not merely fixes the object meant in a general way, but also the precise way in which it is meant."[11]

The matter is what gives Consciousness its 'directedness' towards an object, or, in terms of intentionality, it is the 'intending' of the object. The dis'tinctions that can be made in the sphere of the intention- al object can also be made in the sphere of the matter that gives the directedness towards this object. The intentional object is susceptible of the distinction between "the object as it is intended, and the object (period) which is intended."[12] There can be several acts directed to the same object, and each of these acts can mean the object in a different way, i.e., each can be directed to a different property of the object. This dis'tinction, qua a logical distinction rather than a real one, is duplicated within the.. matter of the act. The matter is the directedness towards an object, and it is the directedness towards one specific property of the object.

In general, the matter is the aspect of the act that determines what it is conscious of. In contrast to this, the quality of the act is the aspect that determines the way the act is conscious of the object. The quality "stamps an act as merely presentative, judgmental, emo- tional, desiderative, etc;"[13] A series of acts can have the same matter with only the qualities of the acts changing. I can doubt, assert, wish, question, or be fearful that there are "intelligent beings on Mars"; all these acts have one and the same matter, the "intelligent beings on Mars," with different qualities, the doubting, asserting, wishing, etc.

This basic distinction between the quality and matter of an intentional act is first introduced in section 20 of the second chapter of the Fifth Investigation. The remaining chapters of this Investigation, chapters three 'through six, aim at clarifying this distinction by at tempting to apply it to Brentano's proposition that every act either is a presentation, or includes a presentation that serves as its basis.

2. The Four Concepts of Presentation

That every act is either a presentation or is based upon a presentation, is one of the main theses of Brentano's Psychology From An Empirical Standpoint (1874). Brentano argued that there are three fundamental classes of mental phenomena, presentations, judgments, and emotions ( or the phenomena of love and hate) , judgments and emotions being the acts that are founded upon the presentations. What he meant by these terms can be briefly explained. By presentation, he meant an act in which something appears to us. “We speak of a presentation whenever something appears to us. When we see something, a color is presented; when we hear something, a sound; when we imagine something, a fantasy image."[14] But it must be under- stood, Brentano remarks, that “by presentation I do not mean that which is presented, but rather the act of presentation.”[15]

By judgment, Brentano meant the act of acceptance or rejection: “’By Judgement’ we mean, in accordance with common philosophical usage, acceptance (as true) or rejection (as false)."[16]

Brentano uses the term “emotions" in a sense that is more extensive than the ordinary meaning of this term: "the term ‘emotion’ is usually understood to mean only affects which are connected with noticeable physical agitation. Everybody would call anger, anxiety and passionate desire emotions; but in the general way in which we use the word, it also applies to all wishes, decisions and intentions."[17]

Husserl's whole analysis in chapters three to six of the Fifth Investigation grows out of these basic insights of Brentano. But Husserl early leaves Brentano behind. To begin with, what Brentano means by presentation, judgment, and emotion is not what Husserl means by these terms. It is only Husserl's first concept of presentation, which we shall discuss shortly, that is near to Brentano's concept of presentation. However we should be careful about identifying their conceptions, as Husserl's is made in terms of certain distinctions that Brentano himself did not make (e.g., the distinctions between object, sensation, matter, and quality).

With regard to judgments, Husserl explicitly refutes the concept of judgment that Brentano offered. "Our analysis shows plainly-as we observe for later Investigations-that any 'theory of judgment,' or, more properly, any purely phenomenological characterization of the judgment, which identifies its peculiar quality with an assent or acceptance, or a denial or rejection, of some presented state of affairs (or of some presented object in general), is not on the right path."[18] For Husserl, judgment is "assertive only in a context of fulfillment;"[19] that is, it is a fulfilling assertion.

Brentano's mental class of emotions has its nearest parallel in what Husserl will call the "non-objectifying qualities" in his fourth theory of presentation; but again we must be hesitant about identifying Husserl's and Brentano's conceptions, for the same reason that Husserl's classifications are based on distinctions that Brentano did not himself make.

With this background to the meaning of Brentano's proposition that every act is either a presentation or is based upon a presentation, and to how Brentano's understanding of this meaning relates to Husserl's understanding, we can now begin our summary of Husserl's four different concepts of presentation. The first three concepts Husserl will reject as inadequate, and the fourth he will retain as the only valid one.

Husserl first conceives of presentation as being basically the same thing as the matter of an act. Presentation and matter are not exactly identical, however, for presentations having the same matter can be "differentiated by further 'moments' which have nothing to do with matter"[20] or quality. What these further 'moments' are Husserl will not discuss until the Sixth Investigation.[21] But ignoring for the present the question of these further 'moments,' this concept of presentation as being basically identical with the act-matter signifies that every act is either a pure matter (a presentation), or that it is a matter compounded with a quality-a quality of judgment, wish, or will, etc. (the act based on the presentation). Husserl concludes from this notion of presentation that "while every other intentional essence is a complex of quality and matter, the intentional essence of a presentation is pure matter-or is pure quality, however one may choose to call it."[22] Therefore, as Farber paraphrases this argument, "it… follows that the distinction between quality and matter is really not a distinction between fundamentally different genera of abstract factors of acts. Considered by themselves, the matters them- selves are nothing other than 'qualities,' namely, qualities of presentation. What has been called the intentional essence of the acts is just the total quality in them."[23]

But a problem immediately arises as to the interpretation of the last specific differences of intentional acts. If we admit that the qualities judgment, wish, will, doubt, etc., are lowest specific differences that determine the various species of intentional essence, then serious difficulties are encountered in the case of presentations. For the quality of presentation is not itself a lowest specific difference. The quality of presentation changes with every act, so that the species of presentation is itself differentiated into all the varieties classified as the presentation of this Or that 'content.' This situation is directly in contrast with that of the other act-qualities. The qualities of judgment, wish, and will remain constant in every act, the differences in the acts being ascribed solely to the differences in their underlying presentations. This can be clarified by an example. In the presentations of a house, a person, and a tree, the quality of the presentations, being exhausted by the contents 'a house,' 'a person,' and 'a tree,' completely changes with each of these acts. In contrast to this, there can be a judgment, wish, or doubt of each of these objects, with the quality of the judgment, wish, or doubt remaining identical in all of the acts. In these complex acts, it is only the under- lying presentations, 'a house,' 'a person,' and 'a tree,' that distinguish one of the judging, wishing, or doubting acts from another.

Clearly, then, there is a problem here with regard to establishing a uniform series of the species of intentional acts, a series where the specific differences of each of these acts are on the same level. Husserl points out that a uniform series of acts can only be established if we assume that the quality of presentation is itself a lowest specific difference, on the same level with the qualities of judgment, wish, and will. This entails that the quality of presentation is a moment that remains constant in all acts of presentation, with the matter being distinguished from this as the moment that differentiates one presentation from another. With this notion we have arrived at Husserl's second concept of presentation.

In this second concept of presentation, presentation is an act- quality, which Husserl calls the act-quality of suspended belief, of 'merely entertaining' something without positing its existence or assenting to its truth. For example, when I merely understand the words of another, without assenting to, fearing, or desiring what he is talking about, then I am experiencing an act of presentation.

But, however useful this second concept of presentation may be for the purposes of establishing a uniform series of intentional acts, it cannot be applied to Brentano's proposition that every act is either a presentation or is founded upon a presentation. For if presentation is itself an act-quality on the same level as the qualities of judgment, doubt, wish, and will, then the claim for its priority over these qualities seems to be a gratuitous assumption. If a presentation quality, combined with a given matter, can constitute a self-sufficient intentional act, then why cannot this also be the case with the other act- qualities? Admittedly, it is true that many act-qualities, e.g., that of wish, will, and feeling, can only make their appearance if they are founded on other act-qualities; but this need not be the case with every act-quality that is not a presentation. For instance, why cannot a judgment quality, combined with a matter, form a self-sufficient intentional act?

In sections 28 to 31 of the third chapter, Husserl offers an argument to the effect that a judgment quality combined with a matter not only can form a self-sufficient act, but that it must form a self- sufficient act. Husserl shows that it is impossible for a judgment quality to be founded upon a presentation quality, for these two qualities are mutually opposed ways of referring to an object. A judgment asserts and believes in the object, while a presentation refrains from taking a belief-position with regard to the object. It is obvious that both these attitudes to the object cannot be had at the same time. Furthermore, a phenomenological analysis shows that in the situations where a judgment follows upon a prior act of presentative 'pondering' of a state of affairs, the judgment quality is not some- thing that is merely added onto the presentation. The judgment is a new and independent act in its own right. "Supervenient assent is not an act-quality supervening upon a prior act of mere presentation: what analysis really discovers is first mere presentation (which here includes the interrelated acts of mere entertainment, putting the question and consideration) passing over by way of fulfillment into a judgment of like material."[24]

The result of this analysis is that judgments are seen to be a species of acts which are not founded upon presentations. This destroys Brentano's proposition that every act that is not a presentation is founded upon a presentation. Consequently, if we wish to retain Brentano's proposition, we will have to formulate a new concept of presentation. This new concept, the third one, Husserl develops in the fourth chapter of the present Investigation. He begins by taking as his clue the "talk of names as expressing presentations."[25] By names Husserl does not mean mere nouns, which by themselves can- not express complete acts. The definite or indefinite article must also be added to the noun, so that names would be such expressions as 'the house,' 'a bunch of flowers,' 'a house built of sandstone,' and 'the opening of the Reichstag.'[26] If we understand presentations in this new sense as "nominal acts"-as acts that can be expressed by names -then the idea that a presentation must cover all the matter of the act that it underlies must be dropped. For presentations in this new sense only cover acts in which "something becomes objective to us in a certain narrower sense of the word, one borrowed from the manner in which percepts and similar intuitions grasp their objects in a single 'snatch,' or in a single 'ray of meaning,' or borrowed likewise from the one term subject-acts in categorial statements, or from acts of straightforward hypothesis, serving as antecedents in acts of hypothetical assertion, etc."[27] Examples of presentations in this sense are one-termed (one-rayed) acts of perception, memory, anticipation, and imagination, and examples of acts founded upon presentations are predicative judgments and the neutralized 'mere understandings' corresponding to them.

But once it is admitted that presentations do not cover the whole matter of underlying acts, particularly where the founded act is a judgment, the problem immediately arises as to what exactly differentiates judgments from presentations. Is the difference between a presentation and a judgment a qualitative difference, or is it merely a difference of matter? This question is an important one, for, according to Husserl, the species of acts can only be differentiated by their quality, and not by their matter. If it turns out that presentations are not qualitatively different from judgments, then it must be that they both belong to the same species of acts, and consequently the present separation of the act-species of presentation from the act-species of judgment must be abandoned. Or, as a more convenient alternative, the act-species of presentation could itself be widened to include both nominal acts (the presentations in the present sense) and judgments.

In order to find an answer to the question of what differentiates nominal acts from judgments, Husserl undertakes a phenomenological analysis of the structure of these two acts. The results of this analysis can best be understood by presenting Husserl's own summary of them. In a judgment

"we do not enact a mere sequence of presentations, but a judgment, a peculiar 'unity of consciousness,' that binds these together. In this binding together the consciousness of the state of affairs is constituted: to execute judgment, and to be conscious of a state of affairs, in this synthetic positing of something as referred to something, are one and the same. A thesis is enacted, and on it a second thesis is based, so that, in this basing of thesis on thesis, the synthetic unity of the state of affairs is intentionally constituted. Such a synthetic consciousness is plainly quite different from setting something before one in a single-rayed thesis, in a possible, direct subject-act, in a presentation."[28]

Husserl then proceeds to conclude that this difference is not a difference of quality, but of matter. At first glance this conclusion appears to be questionable. It seems that being conscious of a state of affairs in a synthetically unifying manner is merely a different way of being conscious of the state of affairs than the consciousness of it in a one-rayed presentative thesis. It seems that the "what," the matter, brings to consciousness the state of affairs itself, with the synthetic or monothetic act simply being the '/way" it is brought to consciousness. At one point, Husserl himself even says that "the state of affairs is in both cases the same, but it is our object in quite a different manner ."[29]

However, despite these questions we have raised, or rather, even because of these questions, Husserl's argument that nominal acts and judgments differ only in their matter can be accepted if we see in it simply his further clarification of exactly what he means by quality and matter. For his initial definition of matter as the "what" of the intending, and of the quality as the //way" of the intending, almost begged the question of what precisely was meant by these terms. The precise meaning of these terms is now offered to us in the way that nominal acts are differentiated from judgments. To understand this further clarification of these terms, this differentiation must be seen in comparison with the differentiation he makes within the nominal and proposition acts themselves-the differentiation between positing and nonpositing acts. Positing acts are those that posit existence, and nonpositing acts are those that are neutral and take no stance with regard to existence. This difference, between positing and nonpositing acts, Husserl calls a qualitative difference. Accordingly, if we compare this with the differentiation between nominal acts and judgments as being a material difference, we can understand exactly what Husserl means by "act-matter" and "act-quality." The matter of an act not only includes what we would normally include as the "what" of the intending, but also all that we would normally understand as the different "ways" of the intending, other than the ways of existential positing and nonpositing.[30] Therefore, although judging and nominally presenting may be different "ways" of intending the same state of affairs, just as positing and nonpositing may be different "ways" of intending it, it is only the latter that Husserl wishes to call act- qualities.

The recognition that there' is no qualitative difference between nominal acts and judgments requires that a new notion of presentation be found. Husserl's new concept of presentation, his fourth one, naturally grows out of the criticism he made of his third concept. As we have previously noted, if there is no qualitative difference between judgments and nominal acts, then it follows that both these acts be- long to the same species of intentional acts. Husserl now brings in the term "objectifying acts" to designate this act-species that includes both judgments and nominal acts. Objectifying acts are now the "presentations" in this new and fourth sense of the term. Brentano's proposition now runs: Every act is either an objectifying act or is founded upon an objectifying act. These founded acts Husserl calls "non-objectifying acts"; they are the qualities of wish, will, love, hate, etc., that can only make their appearance in combination with an underlying objectifying act. This means that matter is always the matter of an objectifying act; other acts can acquire reference to a matter only by being founded upon an objectifying act. Thus we have three basic act-structures here: 1) the matter of the objectifying act (nominal or propositional), 2) the quality of the objectifying act (positing or nonpositing), and 3) the quality of the nonobjectifying act (wish, will, love, hate, etc.)

It is this fourth conception of the nature of presentative and non-presentative acts that Husserl remains with for the rest of the Logical Investigations. It is the only conception that he finds to be applicable to Brentano's proposition, and that does not lead to irresolvable problems and contradictions.

It has been claimed by Mohanty that Husserl meant. this classification of acts into objectifying acts and nonobjectifying acts to be only a partial classification of the whole sphere of intentional acts.[31] According to Mohanty, Husserl believes there are some acts which are neither objectifying nor nonobjectifying. However there is no mention by Husserl of any other kind of intentional act. Further, the very nature of his proposition, that every act is either an objectifying act, or is a nonobjectifying act that is founded upon an objectifying act, excludes the possibility that there could be any other sort of act. And Husserl himself: "Every act whatever, following the conclusion of the Fifth Investigation (see particularly the penultimate chapter, No.41) is either itself an objectifying act, or has such an act as its basis."[32]

3. The Problem of the Nonobjectifying Acts

Although Husserl himself did not believe there to be any problems inherent in his fourth conception of presentative and nonpresentative acts, there are nevertheless certain difficulties that cannot be overlooked. These difficulties lie in his conception of the non- objectifying acts, the acts of "feeling" (a term we will use to cover the phenomena of wish, will love, and hate). These difficulties sort themselves out into the following questions: Are feelings really non-objectifying acts? Are they not rather objectifying acts that have their Own intentional objects? And further, what is the relation between feelings, as nonobjectifying qualities, to the qualities and matters of the objectifying acts? Is it not rather that feelings belong in the same act-genus as the objectifying matters, rather than in the same act-genus as the objectifying qualities?

With regard to .the first two questions, it may be noted that an appropriate phenomenological analysis would reveal that feelings do have their own intentional objects. Joy has enjoyableness as its intentional object, fear has fearfulness as its object, pity has pitiful- ness as its object, and desire has desirableness as its object. These affective objects appear in and through the acts of feeling; they are objects that appear, as it were, 'on top of' the objects of the presentative acts.

By the time of Ideas I (1913), Husserl himself had come to realize that feelings in fact have intentional objects of their own. As Husserl put it, these intentional objects are "objectivities with a new type of content-values."[33] It follows from this "that all acts generally-even the acts of feeling and will-are 'objectifying acts'.”[34]

Emmanuel Levinas had also recognized this problem in the Logical Investigations of classifying feelings as nonobjectifying acts, and notes that the " Ideen mark a progress"[35] by reclassifying them as objectifying acts. However, this reclassification does not solve all the problems of Husserl's conception of the intentional status of feelings. There still remains the question: If feelings are in fact objectifying acts, does not this mean that they are act-matters rather than act-qualities?

With his new conception of feelings as objectifying acts in the Ideas I, Husserl nevertheless remains of the opinion that feelings are qualities. The term "quality'/' is no longer used in this work, but is replaced by the terms "positing" and "thesis."[36] After having introduced one kind of positing, doxic positing-which corresponds to the positing presentative qualities of the Logical Investigations-, Husserl goes on to say that feelings are a second kind of positing. "Every feeling-consciousness with its new kind of secondary feeling-noeses comes under the concept of positional consciousness." "They are in a very wide but essentially unitary sense 'positings,' only not of the doxic kind."[37]

Thus we see that Husserl still maintains that feelings belong to the same basic class as the positing qualities of the presentative acts, and as such are in a different class from that of the matter of the presentative acts. But once it is recognized that feelings are objectifying acts, as Husserl had recognized in the Ideas, does it not follow that they are matters rather than qualities? Husserl stated that the matter of an act is what gives it reference to an object; it determines "what" it is that I am conscious of. Now if affective acts have their own intentional objects, different from that of the presentative acts, then must not they necessarily have a matter which gives them reference to this object? They cannot rely on the matter of the presentative acts, for this matter only constitutes the reference to the object of the presentative act. The affective act itself needs a matter in order to be able to achieve a reference to its own peculiar and separate affective object.

But if we admit that an affective act needs a matter of its own, this does not demonstrate that affectivity cannot also have a qualitative structure, a structure that can belong within the same act-genus as the positing qualities of the presentative acts. But if they have a structure that is within this act-genus of quality, then there must be something that is common both to the affective acts and the existential positings. But what is there that is common to enjoyableness, pitifulness, fearfulness and certainly existent, probably existent and possibly existent? Clearly there is no element of community among these different structures. There is no more community between existential structures and affective structures than there is between existential structures and presentative matters. The affective object "enjoyableness," is just as phenomenologically different from the existential modality, "certain existence," as the presentative matter "green house," is. For both "enjoyableness" and "green house" refer to objects, while "certain existence" refers to an existential modality of objects. It is the feelings and presentative matters that have a community of structure, and not the feelings and existential positings. Thus, if feelings and presentative matters both refer to objects, and in this way they differ from the existential positings, then they must both be classified within the same act-genus, and this act-genus must be differentiated from the genus that the existential positings belong to.

What consequences do these criticisms have for Husserl's theory of consciousness in the Fifth Investigation? First of all, there is no longer any division between objectifying acts and nonobjectifying acts. All acts are objectifying acts. But within the sphere of objectifying acts, there is still the distinction to be made between quality and matter. But now, instead of making this a distinction between presensative matter and the two kinds of quality, existential quality and affective quality, another distinction needs to be made. This is the distinction between the two kinds of matter, presentative matter and affective matter, and the one kind of quality, existentially positing or nonpositing quality.

Now if we add to this an observation that Husserl himself made in the Ideas[38], that the affective act as well as the presentative acts are combined with an existential positing or nonpositing, then we can envisage the complete structure of a complex act. On the founding level, there is a presentative matter combined with a positing or non- positing existential quality, and on the founded level there is an affective matter that is also combined with a positing or nonpositing existential quality.

If we turn to Brentano's proposition that every act is either a presentation or is founded upon a presentation, this now will read: Every act is either a presentative matter combined with a quality, or it is an affective matter combined with a quality that is founded upon the presentative matter and quality.

In conclusion, we may raise the question as to why Husserl did not recognize that affectivity is a matter rather than a quality, even after he saw in the Ideas that affective acts were objectifying. We believe that the reason why Husserl did not recognize this lay in his presupposition that the species of intentional acts had to be determined by qualities, rather than by matters. "Intentional essence is made up of the two aspects of matter and quality, and. ..a distinction of 'basic class' obviously relates only to act-qualities."[39] This belief was still held by Husserl in the Ideas. Positing "indeed is the source also of all the parallel relatings of the different types of consciousness and of all classifications of the same; strictly, the modes of positing were the things classified."[40] This notion that the species of acts can only be classified according to their quality was not arrived at by investigating the "things themselves"; it was brought into the sphere of investigation beforehand. It was one of the few assumptions that Husserl took over from Brentano[41] without first attempting ---0 to ground it in the phenomenological data. Consequently, when Husserl was confronted with the fact that feelings were a different species of acts from presentations, he was forced by this presupposition to find a qualitative difference between feelings and presentations. In the presentative acts, Husserl focused on their existential positing or nonpositing as their unique qualitative moment. But in order to make the difference between this moment and the feelings a qualitative one, Husserl had .to make the feelings themselves qualities. But this manifestly falsifies the phenomenological data. If we do away with the presupposition that the 'act-species must be determined by qualitative differences, we can see that the difference between presentations and feelings is a material difference. Both presentations and feelings have the same kind of quality, existential positing or nonpositing, but they differ with regard to their matter. Presentations refer to judged or nominally presented objects, and feelings refer to values and other types of affective objects.

Hence we can see that the basic genus of intentional acts has to be divided into species of matter as well as of quality. On the side of the matter, the two fundamental species would .be that of feelings and presentations, and on the side of the quality, the two funda- mental species would be that of existential positing and nonpositing.