Intentionality as a shadow of desire. The Role of Drive in the Constitution of Husserl’s Concept of Intentionality

Abstract

Although there are many reflections and studies on Husserlian intentionality, the textual investigations aimed at recording the presence of an instinctual root in the first formulations of this concept (1887-1893) are meagre and negligible. Apart from episodic investigations and circumstantial findings, the most advanced research has been offered by Jocelyn Benoist, who, in Intentionality and drive (The Bounds of Intentionality), suggests an examination of texts prior to 1894. The scope of the article is therefore to work on the writings of the period 1887-1893 and to extend the Benoist repertoire through the inclusion of unexamined texts.