THETIC CHARACTERISTIC

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THEM E. A theme for consciousness is that upon which it focuses its attention . T he thematic center of its concern is presented against a background, against the horizons in which it appears. THEORETICAL SCIENCE. A theoretical science is one that is unified by a homogeneity of explanatory principles and laws. They exhibit, in other words, a nomological unity. Their principle of unity is internal, and in this regard they are contrasted with descriptive sciences . THEORY. See THEORETICAL SCIENCE. THEORY-FORM . The result of a formalizing abstraction applied to theories. This formalization abstracts from the material content of the theories and yields the logical forms and structures that unify theories into logical wholes, which forms and structures are applicable in multiple theories. See a ls o F O R M A L L O G I C ; F O R M A L M AT H E M AT I C S ; F O R M A L ONTOLOGY; MATHESIS UNIVERSALIS ; MULTIPLICITY (Mannigfaltigkeit); PURE LOGIC. THESIS. A thesis is something held as true in the form of a conviction. The m ost im portant instance o f a thesis for H usserl is what he calls the general thesis accomplished in a general positing of the natural attitude , the thesis that the world to which consciousness is intentionally directed is a factually existent whole, that it appears as such, and that it can be known as such. It is just this general thesis that is bracketed by the phenomenological reduction such that the reflecting agent attends to the world solely insofar as it presents itself to consciousness and exactly as it p resents itself. See also IN T ENT IO N ALIT Y; P RIN C IP LE O F PRINCIPLES. THETIC CHARACTERISTIC. The correlate of the act-quality and the moment that together with the noematic sense makes up the full noem a . Perception , for example, involves a belief in the existence of the object perceived just as it is perceived, and by virtue of that belief-modality, the object is perceived as actually existent. In acts having a different quality, however, the doxic modality belonging to the act changes; doubt, for example, no longer believes in the existence of its object but considers it as dubitable and as unlikely or, perhaps, as merely possible . The thetic characteristic of doubt, therefore, is as dubitable or as unlikely and as possible. Thetic characteristics are particularly prominent in judgments and are indicated by the copula. For example, the assertoric judgment asserts the being of the state of affairs as in the sentence S is p. W hen