Key Arguments

• Ricoeur claims that once delay and projection are acknowledged, ‘the last sentence of the essay reads: "Pure intendings constitute a subclass of the all-out judgements, those directed to future actions of the agent, and made in light of his beliefs"’, emphasizing that pure intentions are ‘directed to future actions of the agent’.
• He then draws a phenomenological conclusion: ‘Concerning the quality of anticipation belonging to intention, it is the intention-to and not its adverbial form that constitutes the basic usage of the concept of intention.’
• He interprets adverbial ‘intentionally’ as a temporal attenuation: ‘In the case of action done intentionally, the temporal dimension of intention is simply attenuated and as if covered over by the almost simultaneous accomplishment.’
• Ricoeur generalizes for temporally extended actions: ‘as soon as we con sider actions which, as we say, take time, anticipation operates during the entire unfolding of the action. Is there any sort of extended gesture that I could accomplish without anticipating in some sense its continuation, its completion or interruption?’
• He cites Davidson’s own example—‘writing a word, I anticipate the action of writing the next letter while still writing the present letter’—and connects it to Augustine’s analysis of temporal consciousness in the Confessions: ‘the famous example of reciting a poem’, where ‘The entire dialectic of intentio and distentio, constitutive of tempo rality itself, is summed up here’.
• In this Augustinian model, he says, ‘I intend the poem in its entirety while reciting it verse by verse, syllable by syllable, the anticipated future transit ing through the present in the direction of a completed past.’
• On the side of the agent, he likewise asserts: ‘Concerning the projective character affecting the agent as such, it is still the "intention to" that constitutes the basic usage of the notion of intcn- tion.’
• He contrasts this to the adverbial use, in which ‘intention appears as a simple modification of action, which can be treated as a subclass of impersonal events’, while ‘"the intention-to," which refers directly to the agent to whom it belongs.’

Source Quotes

For with the delay there appears not only the character of anticipation—the intention's empty sighting, as one would say in a Husserlian perspective—but also the prospective character of the very condition of agency, as one would say in a Heideggcrian per spective. Concerning the quality of anticipation belonging to intention, it is the intention-to and not its adverbial form that constitutes the basic usage of the concept of intention. In the case of action done intentionally, the temporal dimension of intention is simply attenuated and as if covered over by the almost simultaneous accomplishment.

Concerning the quality of anticipation belonging to intention, it is the intention-to and not its adverbial form that constitutes the basic usage of the concept of intention. In the case of action done intentionally, the temporal dimension of intention is simply attenuated and as if covered over by the almost simultaneous accomplishment. But as soon as we con sider actions which, as we say, take time, anticipation operates during the entire unfolding of the action.

In the case of action done intentionally, the temporal dimension of intention is simply attenuated and as if covered over by the almost simultaneous accomplishment. But as soon as we con sider actions which, as we say, take time, anticipation operates during the entire unfolding of the action. Is there any sort of extended gesture that I could accomplish without anticipating in some sense its continuation, its completion or interruption?

But as soon as we con sider actions which, as we say, take time, anticipation operates during the entire unfolding of the action. Is there any sort of extended gesture that I could accomplish without anticipating in some sense its continuation, its completion or interruption? Davidson himself considers the case in which, writing a word, I anticipate the action of writing the next letter while still writing the present letter.

Is there any sort of extended gesture that I could accomplish without anticipating in some sense its continuation, its completion or interruption? Davidson himself considers the case in which, writing a word, I anticipate the action of writing the next letter while still writing the present letter. How could we fail to recall, in this connection, the famous example of reciting a poem described in Augustine's Confes sions?

Davidson himself considers the case in which, writing a word, I anticipate the action of writing the next letter while still writing the present letter. How could we fail to recall, in this connection, the famous example of reciting a poem described in Augustine's Confes sions? The entire dialectic of intentio and distentio, constitutive of tempo rality itself, is summed up here: I intend the poem in its entirety while reciting it verse by verse, syllable by syllable, the anticipated future transit ing through the present in the direction of a completed past.

How could we fail to recall, in this connection, the famous example of reciting a poem described in Augustine's Confes sions? The entire dialectic of intentio and distentio, constitutive of tempo rality itself, is summed up here: I intend the poem in its entirety while reciting it verse by verse, syllable by syllable, the anticipated future transit ing through the present in the direction of a completed past. Concerning the projective character affecting the agent as such, it is still the "intention to" that constitutes the basic usage of the notion of intcn- tion.

The entire dialectic of intentio and distentio, constitutive of tempo rality itself, is summed up here: I intend the poem in its entirety while reciting it verse by verse, syllable by syllable, the anticipated future transit ing through the present in the direction of a completed past. Concerning the projective character affecting the agent as such, it is still the "intention to" that constitutes the basic usage of the notion of intcn- tion. In its adverbial usage intention appears as a simple modification of action, which can be treated as a subclass of impersonal events.

Concerning the projective character affecting the agent as such, it is still the "intention to" that constitutes the basic usage of the notion of intcn- tion. In its adverbial usage intention appears as a simple modification of action, which can be treated as a subclass of impersonal events. The same can no longer be said, however, with respect to "the intention-to," which refers directly to the agent to whom it belongs.

In its adverbial usage intention appears as a simple modification of action, which can be treated as a subclass of impersonal events. The same can no longer be said, however, with respect to "the intention-to," which refers directly to the agent to whom it belongs. By the same token, the question of priority (on the phcnomenological level, between the multiple uses of the notion of intention) refers us to the underlying ontological problem, that of knowing whether an ontology of events is capable of taking intention into account as it belongs—and through it, action it self—to people.

Key Concepts

• Concerning the quality of anticipation belonging to intention, it is the intention-to and not its adverbial form that constitutes the basic usage of the concept of intention.
• In the case of action done intentionally, the temporal dimension of intention is simply attenuated and as if covered over by the almost simultaneous accomplishment.
• as soon as we con sider actions which, as we say, take time, anticipation operates during the entire unfolding of the action.
• Is there any sort of extended gesture that I could accomplish without anticipating in some sense its continuation, its completion or interruption?
• writing a word, I anticipate the action of writing the next letter while still writing the present letter.
• the famous example of reciting a poem described in Augustine's Confes sions?
• The entire dialectic of intentio and distentio, constitutive of tempo rality itself, is summed up here: I intend the poem in its entirety while reciting it verse by verse, syllable by syllable, the anticipated future transit ing through the present in the direction of a completed past.
• Concerning the projective character affecting the agent as such, it is still the "intention to" that constitutes the basic usage of the notion of intcn- tion.
• In its adverbial usage intention appears as a simple modification of action, which can be treated as a subclass of impersonal events.
• "the intention-to," which refers directly to the agent to whom it belongs.

Context

Following his critique of Davidson’s ‘all‑out judgment’ solution, Ricoeur develops a phenomenological account of intending that foregrounds anticipation and projection, drawing on Augustine’s Confessions and on temporal examples, and argues for the primacy of ‘intention‑to…’ over adverbial ‘intentionally’ in both temporal and agentive respects.