intentionality. We may briefly summarize the two faulty interpretations. First, against the erroneous objectivizing of intentionality, it must be said that intentionality is not an extant relation between an extant subject and object but a structure that constitutes the comportmental character of the Dasein's behavior as such. Secondly, in opposition to the erroneous subjectivizing of intentionality, we must hold that the intentional structure of comportments is not something which is immanent to the so-called subject and which would first of all be in need of transcendence; rather, the intentional constitution of the Dasein's comportments is precisely the ontological condition of the possibility of every and any transcendence. Transcendence, transcending, belongs to the essential nature of the being that exists (on the basis of transcendence) as intentional, that is, exists in the manner of dwelling among the extant. Intentionality is the ratio cognoscendi of transcendence. Transcendence is the ratio essendi of intentionality in its diverse modes.
It follows from these two determinations that intentionality is neither objective, extant like an object, nor subjective in the sense of something that occurs within a so-called subject, where this subject's mode of being remains completely undetermined. Intentionality is neither objective nor subjective in the usual sense, although it is certainly both, but in a much more original sense, since intentionality, as belonging to the Dasein's existence, makes it possible that this being, the Dasein, comports existingly toward the extant. With an adequate interpretation of intentionality, the traditional concept of the subject and of subjectivity becomes questionable. Not only does what psychology means by the subject become questionable but also what psychology itself as a positive science must presuppose implicitly about the idea and constitution of the subject and what philosophy itself has hitherto defined ontologically in an utterly deficient way and left in the dark. The traditional philosophical concept of the subject has also been inadequately determined with regard to the basic constitution of intentionality. We cannot decide anything about intentionality starting from a concept of the subject because intentionality is the essential though not the most original structure of the subject itself.
In view of the misinterpretations mentioned, it is not self-evident what is meant by the trivial statement that perception relates to something perceived. If today under the influence of phenomenology there is much talk about intentionality, whether by that name or another, this does not yet prove that the phenomenon thus designated has been seen phenomenologically. That the comportments of representing, judging, thinking, and willing are intentionally structured is not a proposition that can be noted and known so that, say, inferences can be made from it; rather, it is a directive to