NOEMA

Noema is a term used in phenomenology to refer to the object as it is presented to or meant by consciousness. The concept was developed by Edmund Husserl as part of his analysis of intentionality, the idea that every act of consciousness is directed toward an object.

In Husserlian terms, noema stands in a relation to noesis, the act of consciousness itself (seeing, imagining, judging, etc.). The noema is not the external object itself but the object as it is given in the experience of the act. The noematic content can be a physical object, a remembered scene, a dream image, or an abstract proposition, and it may be real or imaginary. The distinction between noesis and noema is used to analyze how various mental acts synthesize objects from the field of experience.

Noematic synthesis refers to the way disparate sensory inputs and meanings are organized into a coherent object within consciousness. Through this synthesis, the object is constituted as a unity despite the diversity of appearances, perspectives, and meanings that can accompany the act of consciousness.

Historically, the term appears in Husserl’s writings on phenomenology, including the Logical Investigations and later works, and has influenced subsequent phenomenologists such as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre. It remains central to discussions of perception, imagination, memory, and meaning, where philosophers examine how objects are constituted in experience rather than simply given in the external world.

In contemporary use, noema is employed to investigate how minds handle the content of experience, how objects are intended in various acts, and how subjective perspective shapes what is presented as the object of thought.