Noema
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Noema (plural: noemata) is Greek for the meaning of something. It is the mental equivalent of a schema or schematic of something. It is the "representation" of an experience of a meaning based system through its own self-referential process. It could also be considered as the projection of one's own experience onto oneself.
Noema is employed in phenomenology to refer to the terminus of an intention as given for consciousness. The mind breaks down external experiences into what we know as external reality. Noesis is the "thinking" process in such a manner that detects the meaning of the object itself (noema). It is the intentional thinking act which is directed upon the noema. In contrast to noesis (ability to sense or know something immediately), a noema is the object itself of perception or thought.[1]
Something noetic has to do with something involving intellectual activity (from the Greek nous, "mind"). One can speak of the noetic faculty as the "intellect proper." Another Greek word for mind is novhma (noema), which translates as mental thought or perception: that which thinks of an idea.
There is a noema corresponding to every act of memory, expectation, and representation. Noema is in the OED, which has shown its use for more than three centuries. It first was used in English in the field of rhetoric to denote "a figure of speech whereby something stated obscurely is nevertheless intended to be understood or worked out." In other words, a noema in rhetoric is obscure speech or speech that only yields meaning upon detailed reflection.
Peacham's 1577 Garden of Eloquence [2] used it this way,
"Noema, when we doe signify some thing so privily that the hearers must be fayne to seeke out the meaning by long consideration."
[edit] References
- ^ The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Edmund Husserl, Section 5:(Ideas I, 1913)
- ^ Peacham's 1577 Garden of Eloquence - Publications from Stockholm University [1]
