Hannah Arendt and the intentionality of appearances

Abstract

At this text, I make an effort to research the concept of intentionality present in Hannah Arendt’s thought. Formulated by Brentano, but with a larger reach with Husserlian phenomenology, the intentionality designates that the consciousness always move itself towards an object, in this case, for Husserl, this is an transcendental ego’s attribute. Arendt, in her posthumous work, displaces the concept: intentionality becomes not only something attached to the subject, but, also, it is linked to the appearances. In this way, just as the subject postulates the object targeted by consciousness, so the phenomenon presupposes some built-in subjectivity, i.e., the appearances donates intentionally themselves to those who perceive their appearances. This relational intentionality, however, only makes sense, in Arendt’s thought, if we highlight human plurality of a group of beings capable of apprehending appearances from a kind of experience that is only possible through plurality itself. Thus, the german-jewish thinker rejects the isolated subject as a criterion of truth and meaning, providing an interpretation about the relation between men and world as a perspective through which we can reach an intersubjective understanding of reality.'