Possibilities and the Actual World

Abstract

Smith and McIntyre have developed their interpretation of Husserl’s theory of the noema in the context of responses to various problems concerning intentional and semantic reference, problems to which the Husserlian theory of intentionality and the Fregean theory of sense appear as solutions. They supplement their interpretation with an analysis of Husserl’s concept of horizon and further examine the relations between Husserl’s notion of horizon-analysis and possible-worlds semantics. Indeed, it is one of the virtues of their work that they attempt to demonstrate how Husserl’s theory so interpreted responds both to the problems motivating (in part) Husserl’s own work and to contemporary issues in the theory of intentionality and in semantics. In this chapter, I shall examine how the interpretation I have developed herein addresses the aforementioned problems and discuss the relation between my view of Husserl and that of possible-world semanticists. Let us begin, then, with the semantical issues associated with modal and act-contexts, viz. the failures of the principles of substitutivity of identity and existential generalization.