noema

is a structure that is associated with each act, corresponding to all the anticipations... anticipations which are tacitly taken over from our culture and never thought about and which never exhaust the object.

The noema is a structure that is associated with each act, corresponding to all the 'anticipations' we have about the acts' object. I put the word 'anticipations' in quotation marks, because normally an anticipation is something we are aware of, but for Husserl, the noema has constituents that we are not aware of, 'anticipations' that we have tacitly taken over from our culture and never thought about, even bodily settings, which we would have great difficulty describing in words even if we should be made aware of them. Also, among our 'anticipations' when we perceive an object is the anticipation that the object has features that go far beyond what we anticipate, features that we have never thought about and that are not even tacitly anticipated, features that have nothing corresponding to them in the noema, except our recognition that the object goes far beyond our anticipations. It is transcendent, Husserl said... it is not exhausted by our anticipations, and it never will be. As we go on examining the object, walk around it, turn it around, explore it with our various senses or with scientific instruments, our anticipations always go beyond what 'meets the eye' or our other senses. The object, in turn, goes beyond anything that we ever anticipate. (føllesdal in dreyfus 'companion to phenomenology' 107)

is an intentional objects of thought while noesis are acts of thought.

acts of thought' (noesis) and 'intentional objects of thought' (noema)

is variously interpreted as either the intentional object as it is intended or the ideal content of the intentional act.

He distinguished between the noesis and the noema, and he claimed that phenomenology involved both noetic and noematic analysis (Husserl 1982, pt. 3, ch.6). The noesis is the act of consciousness... this notion roughly corresponds to what Husserl previously referred to as the 'intentional quality.' Thus, noetic analysis looks at the structure of conscious acts and the ways in which things are consciously intended. The noema is variously interpreted as either the intentional object as it is intended or the ideal content of the intentional act. Thus, noematic analysis looks at the structure of meaning or objects as they are given to consciousness. Exactly how to interpret Husserl's notions of the noema and noematic analysis are much debated (Smith 2007, 304-11), and this debate goes right to the heart of Husserlian phenomenology. (internet encylopedia: Phenomenology)

noema, n.All

noema