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15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / a. Nature of intentionality

[what exactly is intentionality?]

17 ideas
All mental phenomena contain an object [Brentano]
     Full Idea: Every mental phenomenon contains something as object within itself.
     From: Franz Brentano (Psychology from an empirical standpoint [1874], p. 88), quoted by Jaegwon Kim - Philosophy of Mind p.21
     A reaction: This gives rise to the slogan that 'intentionality is the mark of the mental', which notoriously seems to miss out the phenomenal aspect of mental life. We note now, though, that even emotions have objects.
Intentionality defines, transcends and unites consciousness [Sartre]
     Full Idea: Consciousness is defined by intentionality. Through intentionality it transcends itself, it unifies itself by going outside itself.
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (A))
     A reaction: The standard view for a hundred years was Brentano's idea that intentionality defines the mind. Qualia are the modern rival. If I had to choose I think I would go for intentionality, but they may be naturally and metaphysically inseparable.
Either there is intrinsic intentionality, or everything has it [Searle]
     Full Idea: If you deny the distinction between intrinsic and derived ('as-if') intentionality, then it follows that everything in the universe has intentionality (for example, stones seem to want to fall).
     From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 3.IV)
     A reaction: Searle makes this claim because he always takes mental phenomena like intentionality or consciousness to be all-or-nothing - and he's wrong. He refuses to acknowledge non-conscious intentional states - and he's wrong again.
Water flowing downhill can be described as if it had intentionality [Searle]
     Full Idea: Water flowing downhill can be described AS IF it had intentionality: it tries to get to the bottom by seeking the line of least resistance through information processing and calculation…
     From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 7.II.1)
     A reaction: John Searle could be described as if he had intentionality, as his neurons chart their way through the information and desires that flood them. I am wary of his all-or-nothing approach to intentionality.
Intentional phenomena only make sense within a background [Searle]
     Full Idea: Intentional phenomena such as meanings, understandings, interpretations, beliefs, desires, and experiences only function within a set of Background capacities that are not themselves intentional.
     From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch. 8.I)
     A reaction: Why would the background not be intentional? Presumably the background is a set of beliefs about, or images of, how the world is taken to be.
Both thought and language have intentionality [Kim]
     Full Idea: Mental states are not the only things which exhibit intentionality - words and sentences can also refer to or represent facts or states of affairs.
     From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 22)
     A reaction: This points to Searle's distinction between 'intrinsic' and 'derived' intentionality (see Idea 3465). We must now explain the difference between verbal intentionality and non-verbal intentionality (both as phenomena, and as information).
Do intentional states explain our behaviour? [Fodor]
     Full Idea: Intentional Realism is the idea that our intentional mental states causally explain our behaviour; so holistic semantics (which says no two people have the same intentional states, or share generalisations) is irrealistic about intentional mental states.
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 6)
     A reaction: ...presumably because two people CAN have the same behaviour. The key question would be whether the intentional states have to be conscious.
How does anything get outside itself? [Fodor, by Martin,CB]
     Full Idea: Fodor asks the stirring and basic question 'How does anything get outside itself?'
     From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (works [1986]) by C.B. Martin - The Mind in Nature 03.6
     A reaction: Is this one of those misconceived questions, like major issues concerning 'what's it like to be?' In what sense am I outside myself? Is a mind any more mysterious than a shadow?
If a bird captures a worm, we could say its behaviour is 'about' the worm [Kirk,R]
     Full Idea: When a bird pulls a worm from the ground, then swallows it piece by piece, there is a sense in which its behaviour can be said to be about the worm.
     From: Robert Kirk (Mind and Body [2003], §5.4)
     A reaction: This is preparing the ground for a possible behaviourist account of intentionality. Reply: you could say rain is about puddles, or you could say we have adopted Dennett's 'intentional stance' to birds, but it tells us nothing about their psychology.
Physical powers like solubility and charge also have directedness [Molnar]
     Full Idea: Contrary to the Brentano Thesis, physical powers, such as solubility or electromagnetic charge, also have that direction toward something outside themselves that is typical of psychological attributes.
     From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 3.4)
     A reaction: I think this decisively undermines any strong thesis that 'intentionality is the mark of the mental'. I take thought to be just a fancy development of the physical powers of the physical world.
Intentionality comes in degrees [Lycan]
     Full Idea: Intentionality comes in degrees.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 5.4)
     A reaction: I agree. A footprint is 'about' a foot, in the sense of containing concentrated information about it. Can we, though, envisage a higher degree than human thought? Is there a maximum degree? Everything is 'about' everything, in some respect.
If intentional states are intrinsically about other things, what are their own properties? [Robinson,H]
     Full Idea: Intentional states are mysterious things; if they are intrinsically about other things, what properties, if any, do they possess intrinsically?
     From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], 1.1)
     A reaction: A very nice question, which I suspect to be right at the heart of the tendency towards externalist accounts of the mind. Since you can only talk about the contents of the thoughts, you can't put forward a decent internalist account of what is going on.
Intentionalism does not require that all mental states be propositional attitudes [Crane]
     Full Idea: Intentionalism (the doctrine that all mental states are intentional) need not be the thesis that all mental states are propositional attitudes.
     From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 3.22)
     A reaction: This points to the requirement for an intentionalist to prove that so-called 'qualia' states are essentially intentional, which is not implausible.
Object-directed attitudes like love are just as significant as propositional attitudes [Crane]
     Full Idea: Love, hate, and the other object-directed attitudes have as much of a role in explaining behaviour as the propositional attitudes.
     From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 4.34)
     A reaction: A good clarification of the range of intentional states. Objects seem to be external, where propositions are clearly internal.
Propositional attitudes are not the only intentional states; there is also mental imagery [Heil]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers have thought that intentional states are exhausted by propositional attitudes, but what about mental imagery? You may have propositional attitudes to food, but I would wager that most of your thoughts about it are imagistic.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: Seems right. If I encounter an object by which I am bewildered, I may form no propositions at all about it, but I can still contemplate the object.
Dreams and imagery show the brain can generate awareness and meaning without input [Edelman/Tononi]
     Full Idea: Dreaming and imagery are striking phenomenological demonstrations that the adult brain can spontaneously and intrinsically produce consciousness and meaning without any direct input from the periphery.
     From: G Edelman / G Tononi (Consciousness: matter becomes imagination [2000], Ch.11)
     A reaction: This offers some support for Searle's claim that brain's produce 'intrinsic' (rather than 'derived') intentionality. Of course, one can have a Humean impressions/ideas theory about how the raw material got there. We SEE meaning in our experiences.
Intentionality is too superficial to appear in the catalogue of ultimate physics [Sider]
     Full Idea: One day the physicists will complete the catalogue of ultimate and irreducible properties of things. When they do, the like of spin, charm and charge will perhaps appear on the list. But aboutness sure won't; intentionality simply doesn't go that deep.
     From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 4 Intro)
     A reaction: Fodor's project is to give a reductive, and perhaps eliminative, account of intentionality of mind, while leaving open what one might do with the phenomenological aspects. Personally I don't think they will appear on the list either.