Intention

A complex concept that reflects the unity and interaction of the various processes that predetermine a given practical behavior of the human being. I. comprises a chain of events: 1) a decision [or: judgment], either intuitive or rational, of some desire as an aspiration toward an objective; 2) a formulation for oneself and others of the meaning of this objective; 3) a choice of means for its attainment; 4) practical action for its realization. In this way we can conceive an i. as the determining basis, force and energy of any creative activity of the human being, including the creation of one’s own life. Without i. there is no existence. More rigorously, i. has been defined since Brentano as the fundamental characteristic of consciousness. Since the establishment and development of Husserl’s phenomenological method and the contribution of the existentialist currents of thought (*existentialism), intentionality has emerged as what is substantive in all human phenomena.