Abstract

The thesis of this essay is that the prospects for finding a reductive physicalist account of intentional mental states are bleak. I reach this conclusion by a critical examination of what would appear to be the viable options for such a theory. These options may be classified as follows. ;First, there is a family of theories which aims to explicate intentional phenomena along causal lines either by reducing the intentional connection to that of reliable causal covariation or by equating historical chains of denotation to causal chains of linguistic utterances. A second class of theories uses evolutionary theory to identify the intentional content of mental states with the biological functions of such states. A third theoretical category encompasses positions which equate intentional content with the conceptual/syntactical role of linguaform mental tokens. Theories within the first category founder as a result of either their incapacity to dissociate meaning from information or their insufficiently reductive account of the act of denotation. Theories within the second group fail as a result of their presumption that selectionism. can be extended distributively to contentful mental states. Deeper doubts as to the adequacy of such theories are raised by a more comprehensive critique of selectionism. Conceptual/syntactical theories are encumbered by their inability to explain why intentional content is a necessary postulate of psychology. Such theories are, as a result, essentially eliminativist in character and fail to account adequately for the explanandum. ;The failure of reductive theories gives rise to a nonreductive physicalism. This position is not consistent, however, as it cannot be reconciled with the fact that complex entities cannot be causes both per se and in virtue of their underlying microstructures. I suggest that a pluralistic ontology offers the best prospects for an adequate account of intentional states, an account capable of accomodating the distinctive features of intentional phenomena