ABSTRACT
Max Scheler conceives intentionality as identical with transcendence. This identification is not arbitrary but is the inevitable consequence of Scheler’s commitment to the idea of spirit as a supra-temporal entity. Scheler indeed identifies intentionality with transcendence by stating that intentionality “signifies a goal-directed movement toward something which one does not have oneself or has only partially and incompletely". While the intentionality of consciousness is central to both Edmund Husserl and Scheler, this term is conspicuously absent from Martin Heidegger’s major discussions of phenomenology. The full import of Heidegger’s rejection of the originality of intentionality is evidenced in his demarcation of the genuine field of phenomenological research in terms of transcendence. If intentionality is subsequent to temporality and the latter involves transcendence, then it is clear that intentionality is not identical with transcendence. Since Heidegger perceives a deeper sense of movement in transcendence, he inevitably disputes the originality ascribed to intentionality.
