noeses

Noeses are the plural of noesis, a term in philosophy, especially phenomenology, referring to acts of consciousness through which objects are given to a subject. The word comes from Greek noēsis meaning "intellect, perception, or understanding." In Husserlian phenomenology, noeses designate the intentional acts by which experiences are constituted, including seeing, hearing, thinking, imagining, or judging. The content of the experience, as it is intended by the subject, is the noema; together they form the noesis-noema pairing that characterizes intentional consciousness. Noeses, then, encompass the various ways objects are presented to consciousness across modalities, thoughts, and memories.

In practice, scholars distinguish noeses from their noematic correlates. A visual encounter with a red apple is a noesis of seeing; the apple as the object meant is the noema. An act of recalling a melody is a noesis of remembering; the melody as intended is the noema. The distinction helps analyze how experience is constituted rather than merely what resides in the external world. The term is most common in phenomenological discussion, and usage varies by author. The plural noeses is used to refer to multiple such acts across experiences or modalities.

Critically, some philosophers question the stability of the noesis-noema distinction, or argue that embodied, situated perception defies strict separation between act and object. Nevertheless, noeses remain a foundational concept in discussions of intentionality and the structure of conscious experience within the phenomenological tradition, and are occasionally invoked in cognitive science to describe various mental acts.