Single Idea 5000

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

Full Idea

The conflict over whether intentionality is a matter of behavioural relations with the rest of the world, or of the internal states of the subject, is at its most dramatic in the contrast between behaviourism and the language of thought hypothesis.

Gist of Idea

Behaviourism says intentionality is an external relation; language of thought says it's internal

Source

Robert Kirk (Mind and Body [2003], §7.10)

Book Reference

Kirk,Robert: 'Mind and Body' [Acumen 2003], p.158


A Reaction

I just don't believe any behaviourist external account of intentionality, which ducks the question of how it all works. Personally I am more drawn to maps and models than to a language of thought. I plan my actions in an imagined space-time world.