In Edmund Husserl's phenomenology Intentionality (Intentionalität) means that consciousness is characterized by the fact that it is always related to something. That is, consciousness is always an intentional act. The simplest definition of intentionality is simply an "awareness of something" (here you can read what a "thing" is).
Intentionality serves a key function in Husserl's phenomenology as the relationship between an act of consciousness and the outside world. Husserl borrowed the term from Franz Bretano who defines it as a key characteristic of mental phenomena. Every psychic act has content, an object "intended" by consciousness. This applies not just to sensual phenomena, but also to things imagined. Every belief, desire, etc. has an object to which it refers: the believed, the desired and the imagined (think about how imagination always has to imagine something).
Husserl gives an example of intentionality with a mannequin in a shop window in front of which we are standing. it can happen that we realize with surprise that it was not a mannequin but a human being. At that moment - and this is the moment when the illusion turns - the meaning of this character changes. The meaning of the object was not in itself (actually mannequin or human) but in the manner in which consciousness actively engaged them. (For a similar example see Freud's Uncanny)
Intentionality, noesis and
noema
In his "Ideas I" Husserl speaks of noesis and noema as basic moments of the constitution of objects and thus as the limit of
what can be said. "Noesis" means how the act of consciousness relates
to its object (believe, want, hate, love) and "Noema" means how the
object appears through these noetic acts (what is believed, wanted, hated,
loved).
In the mannequin/human example, Husserl would say that in both cases we had a perception of the object. Through a change in our "Noesis", the way we realted to the object, its "Noema" changed and its meaning for us shifted from mannequin to human.
Husserl's adumbration
Another central concept in Husserl's phenomenology whish relates to intentionality is
"adumbration" or "shadowing" (Abschattung). Objects are
never presented to us as a complete unit, they only show themselves to us in a
partial manner. We never have full perspective of what we percieve, and this
means for Husserl the total imperceptibility of the object. The prerequisite
for perception is therefore the perspective, which at the same time constitutes
the hiddenness of the thing and therefore makes the phenomenon of misconception
possible in the first place.
For background see: Husserl's Critique of Psychologism
For Husserl's next step see: Phenomenological Reduction and Epoché or Transcendental Subjectivity and the Transcendental I
Back to the beginning: Introduction to Husserl's Phenomenology