 As already noted, Marty’s approach to language differs from that of many others insofar as he makes the notion of intentionality central in his investigations. In his earlier work he followed Brentano in adopting an immanentist version of this notion. That is to say, for the early Marty the thesis that every mental phenomenon intentionally refers to an object is equivalent to saying that there is an object (content) immanent to every phenomenon of mind. In his letter to Husserl (reprinted in Schuhmann 1994, 71–74, English translation in Mulligan 1990, 228–232), Marty points out the problem of non-existing objects as the main motivation of this theory. Intention, as any proper relation, requires the existence of its terms. If an intention exists, its intentional object must exist as well. However, the actual object of the intentional presenting does not always exist. Therefore the actually non-existing presented object does not exist really but only intentionally and immanently “in” the presentation. While the transcendent object of presentation sometimes exist and sometimes does not, the immanent object (or immanent content as it was also called) of presentation always exists. Furthermore, judgments and phenomena of love and hate have their own immanent contents – the judged as such (the being or non-being of the presented object) and the loved and hated as such (the positive or negative value of the presented object). Marty was of consequently critical of other philosophers, such as William James (in connection with the thesis that an idea never occurs twice in consciousness, as stated in James 1890, especially Chapter XII), for failing to distinguish between the object immanent to an act of consciousness and the real object allegedly external to consciousness (Marty 1916a, 139 ff.). As the immanentist understanding of intentionality was eventually abandoned by Brentano and other students of his (see for example posthumously published collection of Brentano’s texts, Brentano 1966), Marty is no exception in this regard. In his main work he accordingly attempted another formulation of the notion of intentionality. The consciousness of an object is taken by Marty to be a similarity (Ähnlichkeit), “similarizing” (Verähnlichung), likeness (Gleichheit), conformity (Konformität), or adequation (Adäquation) between the mental act and its object, though he stresses that this similarity (to use one of his terms) is purely mind-dependent (ideell) and indeed altogether unique to these phenomena (Marty 1908a, 333, 406 ff., 413–418, 423 ff., 430, 444, 453, 481, 487). As stated, the ideal similarity or ideal (Ähnlichkeit), “similarizing” appertains to the intentional act, not to the immanent object, for there are no immanent objects. These are now viewed by Marty as linguistic fictions suggested by the inner form of such expressions as “presented object”, “judged object”, “loved object” etc. Marty’s alternative concept of intentionality as similarity is, without a doubt, one of the most difficult aspects of his descriptive psychology. Ideal similarity is for him in no way the same as the similarity to be found among physical objects (Marty 1908a, 408). While similarity in the ordinary sense has a negative character and allows for degrees of more and less, ideal similarity holding between the act and its object lacks these features (Marty 1908a). However, the fact that ideal and ordinary similarity are both grounded relations and that in both cases we find a relative determination next to a correlation (Marty 1908a, 413) makes it possible to use the word “similarity” in an analogical way to characterize “intentional directedness” of mental phenomena (for further explanations see Chrudzimski 2001, Cesalli, Taieb 2013, Cesalli 2017, Majolino 2017). It should be noted that correlation of the act and its object is now formulated by Marty in counterfactual terms: if the object of the mental act existed, it would necessarily be the correlate of that act. Therefore the intentional being of the in-existing immanent object is not required for the act to count as intentional. Marty is very critical of philosophers who make intentionality central in their treatment of mind and yet fail to take into account mind-dependent likeness. Such a philosopher, according to Marty, is Husserl, who allegedly construes intentionality in terms of the relation of sign to signified object and thereby falls into an unacceptable semanticism (Semantizismus) (Marty 1908a, 762; for a discussion of Marty and Husserl, see Rollinger 1999, 209–244). It is, however, fortunate that a good deal of what he says of mind and language does not require an understanding of this concept.