The Subject-Object Correlation

Abstract

Carefully regarded, the last chapter presented two theories of the ideal vis-à-vis its role in the intentional relationship. The first has its basis in the Fregean distinction between concept and object. The properties of objects are not the properties of the species which define what properties objects must have in order to be subsumed under them. Thus, the concept square is not a square concept. The distinction in predication that is implied in this is taken by Husserl to apply generally to the whole ontological realm of the ideal. It is thus taken to apply to the perceptually embodied sense which, as ideal, cannot be considered as having the same predicates as our real conscious processes. We, thus, have the doctrine that “there dwells an ideal intentional content next to an inherent, actual content” of our psychological processes. The fact that the predicates of the one are not those of the other establishes what we called the “ontological transcendence” that specifically defines the intentional relationship. This is the transcendence of the ideal with regard to the real. It is a transcendence designed to avoid the psychological relativism that attempts to reduce the perceptual sense of the object to the psychological process involved in its apprehension.