In Aesthetic Genesis the author argues for a reversal of the most fundamental tenet of phenomenologynamely that all consciousness is intentional that is directed toward an object. Mitscherling suggests as a new Copernican hypothesis that intentionality i.e. directionality gives rise to consciousness. This book describes not only the origin or genesis of human cognition in sensation but also the genesis of sensation from intentional structures belonging to nature itself. A phenomenological examination of our experience leads to the conclusion that the two sorts of being generally recognized by contemporary science and philosophythat is material being and ideal beingprove ontologically inadequate to account for this experience. Mitscherling rehabilitates the premodern concepts of intentional being and formal causality and employs them in the construction of a comprehensive phenomenological analysis of embodiment aesthetic experience the interpretation of texts moral behavior and cognition in general.