I argue for the following claims: (1) A core Husserlian account of perceptual constancy needs to be given in terms of indicative future-oriented conditionals but can be complemented by a counterfactual account; (2) thus conceived, constancy is a necessary aspect of content. I speak about a “core Husserlian” account so as to capture certain ideas that Michael Madary has presented as the core of Edmund Husserl's approach to perceptual constancy, viz., that “perception is partly constituted by the continuous interplay of (...) intention and fulfilment” and that this “gives us a way to understand the relationship between different appearances of the same object” (See Madary, M. (2012) “Husserl on Perceptual Constancy.” European Journal of Philosophy 20(1): 145–165.). I take myself to be developing, and perhaps correcting, Madary's view as I discuss the role of the core Husserlian ideas, and counterfactuals, in accounting for shape and color constancy, respectively. I bridge constancy and fulfilment-conditional content by appealing to the Husserlian notion of constitution, which captures the process in which objectivity and, correlatively, intentional experience, are built up in the experiential flow. (shrink)

Peter Goldie has argued for the view that the intentionality of emotions is inseparable from their phenomenology, but certain criticisms have revealed his argument as problematic. I will argue that it is possible to address these problems, at least in the case of the emotion of fear, thereby vindicating IPE, by appeal to a Husserlian version of the perceptual account of emotions, centered on the idea that the contents of perceptual experiences are fulfillment conditions. Fulfillment means the achievement of a (...) kind of immediate, or “full”, experience of an object or some of its aspects. In the case of visual perception, suppose you are looking at an apple. If you turn it around, you will find yourself in full view of its back side, which was previously anticipated “emptily”, fulfilling or disappointing some of your anticipations in regard to it. On the Husserlian view, the success or failure of a visual perceptual experience consists in such fulfillments and disappointments. If we can provide an account of the intentionality of emotions along similar lines, it will necessarily involve the phenomenal contrast between fullness and emptiness, enabling us to support IPE. (shrink)

In his book The Significance of Consciousness, Charles Siewert argues that some of our phenomenal features are intentional features, because we are assessable for accuracy in virtue of having these phenomenal features. In this paper, I will, first, show that this argument stands in need of disambiguation, and will emerge as problematic on both available readings. Second, I will use Thomas Szanto’s recent ideas to develop a deeper understanding of the difficulties with Siewert’s argument. Szanto emphatically contrasts the Husserlian, constitutive (...) conception of intentionality with the mainstream, representational conception. If we interpret Siewert’s ideas in representational terms, it will be possible to add to my critical objections. However, I will suggest that it is also possible to interpret, or perhaps to modify, Siewert’s views in Husserlian constitutive terms, thereby addressing the objections raised in the present paper. (shrink)