A phenomenologically oriented account of the phenomenon of aspectuality in propositional attitudes

Abstract

My main concern in this paper is to provide an account of the aspectuality of propositional attitudes. After having made the negative point that aspectuality cannot be accounted for in purely semantic terms, I shall maintain that what accounts for aspectuality are phenomenal modes of presentation. The fundamental difference between my modes of presentation and those employed in the several variants of the standard account of aspectuality is that while the latter are properties (taken to be true) of the objects which are involved in the content, my modes of presentation are properties of the subject’s experience of the objects and in this sense qualify as “subjective”. My thesis is that only phenomenal modes of presentation are suited to account for aspectuality because they incorporate that peculiar way of appearing of the object to the subject which explains whether or not he takes different attitudes towards contents which concern the same object. That modes of presentation have to play this role is an unquestioned point in the debate. That in order to do it they need to have a phenomenal nature is what I shall try to argue for here.