Intention, Space, Time

Some distinctions between intentional object and intentional objective have already been discussed--cognitive vs. practical; and, at least for Merleau-Ponty, centripetal vs. centrifugal, with respect to the subject. But a further distinction is more fundamental to the Phenomenological account of lived experience. The Consciousness of a chair intends an object that is at a distance from the subject, while the Consciousness of the possibility of sitting down intends an object that may soon be performed. In other words, in the former case, intention is spatial, while in the latter, it is temporal. For all three, temporality is more fundamental to experience than is spatiality, which would seem to entail that practice precedes cognition. On the other hand, centripetality predominates in all three theories--experience is future-oriented, i. e. is teleological. For each, the present is pregnant with the future, except the present of the Phenomenological gaze, which seems, for each, to be an end-in-itself.