Medieval theories of intentionality — not to mention more recent philosophers influenced by these theories, such as Brentano (1874) — draw their inspiration from Aristotle’s theory of sensation and understanding, in particular his doctrine that in cognition the form of the sensible or intelligible object is “received without the matter” (On the Soul II 12; cf. III 4 and 8) and the doctrine that the object, or more precisely its activity as an object of cognition, is “one and the same” as the activity of cognition and is present in the cognizing subject (III 2).