The interplay of indexicality between essence and meanings: an interconnection of experiences and memory

The paper investigates intentionalism and the role of (pre)reflective awareness in knowledge formation. It frames a set of questions about the critical role of indexical phenomena in the essence of experiences and the retention of awareness (identity memory), whether the essence of experience belongs to intuitive capacity, and how spatiotemporal and agential indexicals contribute to the structural reality of meaning formation. Starting from Husserl’s analysis of Präsenzzeit and the possibility of a de nunc (present state) in awareness, the study proposes a phenomenological-cognitive approach where experiences, acts, and relations interconnect to ground epistemic evidence and meaning.

The essay engages deeply with Husserl’s phenomenology of time-consciousness (inner time-consciousness, retention, protention) drawing on Brough, Zahavi, and Hopp. It compares Husserlian accounts of object-constitution, noema/noesis, and the givenness of acts with reflection theory and discusses retentional modification and the continuity of just-past phases (Brough; Gallagher). It situates pure, demonstrative, and agential indexicals within philosophical semantics (Kaplan; Perry; Corazza) and examines their identification role (Hintikka). Kant’s a priori forms of intuition (space and time) are contrasted with Husserl’s Wesensschau; Levinas’s reading of intuition and hyle informs the relation between essence formation and empirical experience. Mulligan & Smith’s Husserlian theory of indexicality and objectifying acts supports the link between meaning acts and experiential content. Additional references include Follesdal on phenomenology, Sokolowski on presentation, and discussions on temporal-spatial cognition and imagery (Friedman; Weber; Still et al.).

Conceptual-phenomenological analysis. The paper develops a theoretical framework—the sphere-of-relations—linking object attributes (phenomenal/qualitative, material, structural, functional) with spatiotemporal and experiential relations. It uses phenomenological argumentation (Husserl’s retention/protention, inner time-consciousness), conceptual examples (e.g., perceiving a flower, a sunset), and linguistic/indexical analysis (e.g., here/now/today, demonstratives, agential indexicals) to articulate how meanings emerge from synthesized acts. A synthesization model (Figure 1) relates experiential inferences, indexical forms, intentionality, mental objects, and experiential essence with space-time relations; it proposes Φ = Ei(f(I) Π MO) as a notational summary of how epistemic fulfillment arises from the synthesis of inferences, intentional functions, and mental objects. No empirical data are collected; the work is argumentative and integrative across phenomenology and philosophy of language.

- Indexicals are reflections of relations: Pure indexicals (here, now) encode spatiotemporal relations; demonstrative and agential indexicals encode perspectival, ownership, and action-related aspects. These are structurally connected to object attributes and experiential order. - Sphere-of-relations: Experiential content is organized as a series of perceptions in which object attributes (phenomenal, material, structural, functional) and spatiotemporal relations are retained and coordinated. This organization provides the basis for meaning selection and inferential acts. - Retention/protention and intuitive capacity: Just-past and anticipated phases (retentions/protentions) intentionally structure awareness without preserving impressions reell; they function as feedback-filtering and coordination mechanisms that stabilize and modulate experiential content and indexical reference. - Meaning formation via synthesis of acts: Meanings arise from the coupling and synthesis of signitive, intuitive, and communicative acts; the value of meanings changes with adequacy and the integration of attributes across moments/occasions. Indexical forms help stabilize and transmit these changes. - Epistemic evidence and intentionality: Epistemic evidence is produced by synthesized experiential inferences operating with the function of intentionality over mental objects and relations (captured schematically as Φ = Ei(f(I) Π MO)). It requires active and passive inferential states and many-to-one integration of relational inputs. - Awareness and identity memory: Awareness is treated as a dimension of the presence of experiences (rather than a separate property), tying self/identity memory (I/me-ness) to the continuity of sphere-of-relations and to trusting past experiences as causally efficacious a priori inferential reflections. - Independence of indexical forms: Indexical forms influence meaning functions and vice versa, while maintaining a degree of independence from worldly changes; meanings retain truth-value roles through indexical structures even under linguistic or contextual variation. - Conceptual result: Changes in intuitive capacity (AIC) and changes in meanings (AM) are causally related through the synthesization process; integration across momentary events and continuous series yields new referential trajectories and meaning updates.

The findings address the leading questions by showing: (a) how indexical phenomena can be distinguished and characterized through inference-oriented relations among object attributes, spatiotemporal structures, and experiential order; (b) how the essence of experience is tied to intuitive capacity via retention/protention and Wesensschau, yet epistemic evidence is a product of synthesized inferential activity rather than intuition alone; and (c) how meaning formation requires coordinated synthesis of signitive, intuitive, and communicative acts within a sphere-of-relations. Treating awareness as a dimension of experiential presence links identity memory to the continuity of relations, grounding the reliability of a priori inferential reflections. The framework clarifies the interdependence of intentionality, indexicality, and meaning, contributing to phenomenology, philosophy of mind, and the semantics of indexicals by explaining how experiential essences shape and stabilize meanings without reducing them to mere temporal accidents.

The paper concludes that occasionality is central to indexicality and to setting ontological commitments in motion. Experientiality grounds and reshapes meanings through the interplay of indexicals within a sphere-of-relations that pervades awareness. While Husserl’s view ties meaning acts with empty slots to filling acts, Mulligan’s critique shows perceptual acts and fillings can be specified independently; the paper focuses on the mediation between experiential essence and intuitive capacity in relation to identity memory. Trust in memory’s continuity underwrites changes in intuitive capacity, with a priori inferential reflections being causally efficacious. Awareness should be treated as a dimension of experiential presence, and epistemic evidence rests on continuity in the stream of experience. Finally, the potentialities of intuitive capacity and Wesensschau for essences relative to meanings depend on interactive consistency driven by experiential essence.