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Single Idea 6491

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / b. Intentionality theories ]

Full Idea

By Berkeley - with his anti-abstractionism and imagist theory of thought - the classical sense-datum conception was firmly established, and intentionality had disappeared as an intrinsic property, not only of perceptual states, but of all mental contents.

Clarification

His 'anti-abstractionism' is his denial of universals

Gist of Idea

Berkeley replaced intentionality with an anti-abstractionist imagist theory of thought

Source

report of George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710]) by Howard Robinson - Perception 1.6

Book Ref

Robinson,Howard: 'Perception' [Routledge 2001], p.19

A Reaction

Intentionality was originally a medieval concept, and was revived by Brentano in the late nineteenth century. Nowadays intentionality is taken for granted, but I still suspect that we could drop it, and talk of nothing but brain states caused by reality.

The 23 ideas with the same theme [how can intentional states be explained?]:

6491 Berkeley replaced intentionality with an anti-abstractionist imagist theory of thought [Berkeley, by Robinson,H]
18088 Intentionality is the mark of dispositions, not of the mental [Place]
2554 Is intentionality a special sort of function? [Rorty]
3481 Consciousness is essential and basic to intentionality [Searle]
3494 Intentionality is defined in terms of representation [Searle]
2325 It seems impossible that an exact physical copy of this world could lack intentionality [Kim]
3365 Intentionality involves both reference and content [Kim]
2527 Unconscious intentionality is the foundation of the mind [Dennett]
3158 Theories of intentionality presuppose rationality, so can't explain it [Dennett]
3976 Intentional science needs objects with semantic and causal properties, and which obey laws [Fodor]
3980 Intentional states and processes may be causal relations among mental symbols [Fodor]
7326 Intentionality doesn't go deep enough to appear on the physicists' ultimate list of things [Fodor]
15494 We can't use propositions to explain intentional attitudes, because they would need explaining [Fodor]
2981 Is intentionality outwardly folk psychology, inwardly mentalese? [Lyons on Fodor]
5000 Behaviourism says intentionality is an external relation; language of thought says it's internal [Kirk,R]
3164 Intentional explanations are always circular [Rey]
6537 Teleological views allow for false intentional content, unlike causal and nomological theories [Lycan]
2978 Consciousness no longer seems essential to intentionality [Lyons]
2400 Is intentionality just causal connections? [Chalmers]
7010 Dispositionality provides the grounding for intentionality [Heil]
7054 Intentionality now has internalist (intrinsic to thinkers) and externalist (environment or community) views [Heil]
4626 The widespread externalist view says intentionality has content because of causal links of agent to world [Heil]
4940 Physicists see information as a measure of order, but for biologists it is symbolic exchange between animals [Edelman/Tononi]