  What does intentionality mean, and why is it such a central notion in existentialist thinking about art? Husserl shows that when any type of meaning is articulated (in cognitive, moral, affective, aesthetic attitudes, etc.), a specific act of consciousness occurs. The specificity of the meaning in question depends on the particular way in which consciousness “intends” its content in each case, i.e., the specific way in which it relates to a given (e.g., an object to know, judge, perceive, enjoy, and so on). In other words, different types of meaning depend on the specific structure of the acts of consciousness that carry them; in particular, they depend on the specific temporality of these mental acts. To give an example that made its way into some of the most famous existentialist literary works (e.g., in the famous descriptions in Nausea, Sartre’s first novel): there is a specific temporality involved in perceiving an object in space. The object is not given in an instant, and every perception points to a potential new perception which will confirm or revise the previous ones. This temporality of perception implies recourse to memory and a unification of past moments of perception. This emphasis on the way human consciousness “intends” the world in different ways accounts not just for the content of human knowledge, but also, more radically, for the relationship of the human being to reality. It is not just an epistemological but a metaphysical position.