Learn English – Difference between “Being Of” and “Being About”

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I am trying to understand the difference between Being of something and Being about something.

I've been reading about the difference between Think of and Think about, but I'm still not sure how it applies to Being ?

The complete sentence is :

In summary, any (object-directed) conscious experience, in addition to being of or about its intentional object is pre-reflectively
manifest to itself.

It comes from a very good introductory text related to phenomenology, a philosophical current: By using a technique called "Bracketing", one can focus the analysis on the living or feeling experience rather than on the final object as we're used to.

So now that I have tried to bring some context to my question, how can I understand Being of or about something?

Thank you !

Best Answer

"Be of" in this context means directly a result of or stemming from some first-hand experience. Put in other terms, it refers to something that is personally experienced by an individual.

The memory I have is of being a child and being harshly punished.

"Be about" within this context refers to something that is remembered or related to, but not something that is necessarily part of one's first-hand experience and more anecdotal in origin. This is more of indirect much less personal memory that you are experiencing in that moment.

I have a memory that is about watching television and learning that Elvis had died.

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