In this paper, I argue that how a mind can come to be about an object and how the world is independently of the workings of any mind are inextricably linked. Hence, epistemology, at its most basic, and metaphysics are systematically related. In order to demonstrate the primary thesis of the paper, I first articulate two contrary accounts of the nature of reality and then two contradictory general views of intentionality. I argue that these positions can be combined in (...) only two ways. This argument turns on the impossibility of there being an object that cannot, in principle, be thought of or referred to, so I present reasons for thinking such a thing cannot exist. The upshot is that there are but two intentional-cum-ontological positions, that is, two unified positions regarding how a mind relates to the world and what the world is like in itself. This might be surprising, for one might have thought that the views in the different domains were independent; it is significant, because it shows that views that might have seemed related by mere affinity are, in fact, necessarily conjoined. I conclude by presenting reasons for thinking one of the two intentional-cum-ontological positions is untenable. (shrink)

Kriegel described the problem of intentional inexistence as one of the ‘perennial problems of philosophy’, 307–340, 2007: 307). In the same paper, Kriegel alluded to a modal realist solution to the problem of intentional inexistence. However, Kriegel does not state by name who defends the kind of modal realist solution he has in mind. Kriegel also points out that even what he believes to be the strongest version of modal realism does not pass the ‘principle of representation’ (...) and thus modal realism is not an adequate solution to the problem of intentional inexistence. In this paper, I respond to Kriegel by defending a modal realist solution that he did not consider in 2007, called ‘extended modal realism’. EMR is a version of modal realism where possible worlds are not completely isolated as they are under the Lewisian model. Rather, under EMR worlds are, in a way, spatiotemporally related. The fact EMR worlds are related allows EMR to sufficiently pass the principle of representation and thus can be deemed a legitimate solution to the problem of intentional inexistence. I conclude that either EMR can pass the principle of representation in some cases or, and I think the more sensible option, we give up on the principle of representation altogether. (shrink)

In this paper, I outline a disjunctivist proposal for understanding the intentionality of perceptions and hallucinations within a naïve realist framework. For the case of genuine perceptual experience, naïve realists can endorse a version of the view that their intentionality is phenomenally-grounded: perceptual experiences have intentionality in virtue of being relations of conscious acquaintance to aspects of the mind-independent environment. By contrast, hallucinations have intentionality dependently or derivatively, in virtue of their indiscriminability from, or similarity with (...) respect to, perceptual experiences. Within this proposal, naïve realists can allow that perceptions and hallucinations have a property in common – that of being intentionally directed at apparently mind-independent entities – whilst having wholly different metaphysical natures. (shrink)

Dennett's intended rapprochement between physical realism and intentional relativism fails because it is premised upon conflicting arguments governing the status of design. Indeed, Dennett's remarks on design serve to highlight tensions buried deep within his theory. For inasmuch as Dennett succeeds in objectifying attributions of design, attributions of intentionality readily follow suit, leading to a form of intentional realism. But inasmuch as Dennett is successful in relativizing attributions of design, scientific realism at large is (...) subject to renewed anti-realistic criticism. Dennettian-inspired considerations of adaptationism substantiate the former move towards intentional realism, while considerations of the relativity of artifactual design encourage the latter move towards physical relativism. The ambivalence intrinsic to Dennett's ``mild realism'' can be viewed as a function of these two conflicting positions on design, for Dennett can no more avoid objectifying intentionality when he is realistic about design than he can avoid relativizing physical causality when relativistic about design. (shrink)

The paper analyzes the limitation of alternative concepts of knowledge, constructivism and realism. A necessity of their complementarity is grounded. The core of controversy between constructivism and realism is a belief about “the given”. The author follows R. Rorty who considers two meanings of a notion of “the given”: “making” and “finding”. The author shows that these different meanings of concept of “the given” are connected with different types of subject consciousness activity. Together with intentional ability of (...) consciousness he considers responsive ability. Both abilities were a subject of phenomenological analysis (E. Husserl, A. Reinach, B. Waldenfels). The author argues that there are certain connections between intentionality and interpretative function of knowledge, on the one hand, and between responsiveness and expressive function of consciousness, on the other hand. Developing the communicative concept of knowledge he shows the meaning of cognitive cycles «interpretation_expression» in the process of knowledge. -/- A consideration of cognitive process as a semiotic one allows to show that interpretation is provided by such kind of basic function of sign as indication, and expression is provided by the other function of sign as substitution, or presentation. The author shows that complementary of interpretation and expression is a consequence of two processes – finding a name and making a meaning. The conclusion about complementary of interpretation and expression leads to a belief about cognition cultures and their types. He shows a place of constructivism and realism in the context of typology of cognition cultures. (shrink)

Building upon Brentano’s Psychology from an empirical standpoint. Routledge, London, [1874] Brentano 1995) reintroduction of the concept of intentionality to the contemporary philosophy, Tim Crane has famously presented the intentionality as the mark of the mental. Accordingly, the problem of “intentional existence” has resurfaced in Crane’s revival of the Brentanoian theme. Here, I revise Crane’s construal of Brentano’s notion of intentional inexistence and reinterpret it in terms of a moderate version of relationalism. My relationalist theory of (...) intentionality is inspired by what goes by the name of Noneliminativist Structural Realism in the contemporary philosophy of science. NSR allows for a robust realist interpretation of the role of scientific models. The underlying insight of the paper is that it is best to be realist about the structure of the intentionality, which is the common element of the diverse theories of intentional objects. The Outcome is Structural Realist theory of Intentionality. I argue that SRI is not liable to the notorious objection of the impossibility of relata-less relations. I conclude that SRI fulfils the goal of robust psychological realism more economically and straightforwardly than Crane’s application of the notion of models. (shrink)

Dispositional Realism is the view according to which some denizens of reality – i.e., dispositions – are properties, that may exist in the natural world and have an irreducible modal character. Among Dispositional Realists, Charlie Martin, Ullin Place and George Molnar most notably argued that the modal character of dispositions should be understood in terms of their intentionality. Other Dispositional Realists, most notably Stephen Mumford, challenged this understanding of the modal character of dispositions. In this paper, I defend (...) a fresh version of the intentional understanding of dispositions. I start by distinguishing two questions about properties, respectively addressing their identity conditions and their individuation conditions. I, then, define categorical and dispositional properties in terms of their qualitative character, and examine their identity and individuation conditions. I conclude that the attribution of intentions is a conceptual tool: it was introduced in order to help specifying the conditions of individuation of a disposition; however, such attribution does not affect the identity of a disposition. (shrink)

Dispositional Realism is the view according to which some denizens of reality – i.e., dispositions – are properties, that may exist in the natural world and have an irreducible modal character. Among Dispositional Realists, Charlie Martin, Ullin Place and George Molnar most notably argued that the modal character of dispositions should be understood in terms of their intentionality. Other Dispositional Realists, most notably Stephen Mumford, challenged this understanding of the modal character of dispositions. In this paper, I defend (...) a fresh version of the intentional understanding of dispositions. I start by distinguishing two questions about properties, respectively addressing their identity conditions and their individuation conditions. I, then, define categorical and dispositional properties in terms of their qualitative character, and examine their identity and individuation conditions. I conclude that the attribution of intentions is a conceptual tool: it was introduced in order to help specifying the conditions of individuation of a disposition; however, such attribution does not affect the identity of a disposition. (shrink)

According to “intentionalist” interpretations of Kant’s transcendental idealism, Kant’s empirical objects are to be understood as mere intentional objects. This interpretation requires a corresponding account of intentionality and intentional objects. This paper defends an account of how the intentionalist should understand the intentional structures at work in the sensory consciousness of physical bodies. First a relational conception of intentionality (articulated in terms of an object’s presence to consciousness) is distinguished from a non-relational conception (articulated in (...) terms of representational content). I argue that the intentionalist’s claim that Kant’s empirical objects are mere intentional objects is primarily a claim about non-relational intentionality. I then ask whether the intentionalist should also recognize a role for relational intentionality as well. After rejecting two possible answers (that there is no relational intentionality, or that there are intentional relations to things in themselves), I argue that sensory consciousness involves having spatially arrayed collections of sensations presented to consciousness in intuition, and then conceptualizing these sensation-arrays as physical objects. The obvious worry about such a phenomenalist interpretation has to do with the consistency of this interpretation with Kant’s empirical realism; these concerns are addressed in detail in the final section. (shrink)

Esteemed philosopher Jocelyn Benoist argues for a renewed realism that takes seriously the context in which intention occurs. "What there is"-the traditional subject of metaphysics-can be determined only in context, Benoist contends, carving out a new path that rejects acontextual ontologies and approaches to the mind.

Semantic Indeterminacy and Scientific Realism are perhaps the two most ubiquitous and influential doctrines of the Quinean corpus. My concern is to argue against neither in isolation, but against their joint compatibility. Scientific Realism, I argue, when understood as Quine's realistic attitude toward the posits of physical theory, is essentially intentional in character. Thus, Realism requires Intentionality. In Section 1, I provide some necessary exegesis. In Section 2, I attempt to show how this Realism/ (...) class='Hi'>Intentionality connection arises, surprisingly, within Quine's own mature work to create a tension in his views which he does not himself resolve. In Section 3, I examine the source of the Realism/Intentionality connection more deeply, and respond to possible Quinean objections to my account. In Section 4, I consider the consequences of the connection for various debates in recent analytic philosophy. (shrink)

In this book, Dennett determines just how far we can push the idea that mental states are distinguished by intentionality, that is, by the fact that they have content in virtue of being about, or directed towards, the world at large. Intentionality is characteristic of such states as belief and desire, since all belief is belief of something or that something be the case. In contrast to the physical stance and the design stance, the intentional stance is (...) the predictive attitude or strategy philosophers or cognitive scientists adopt when, in order to explain the behavior of a sufficiently complex system, they treat it as if it had beliefs and desires and acted rationally on its beliefs to satisfy its desires. Dennett insists that this stance is essentially a heuristic that informs the formation of scientific theories which are void of mental state terms. For Dennett, the interesting question, whether we are considering mechanical systems, computer systems, enzymes, microorganisms, vervet monkeys, humans, or martians, is just how far should we go in employing the intentional strategy? At what point must we abandon a strict realism about beliefs, desires, and the other concepts of folk psychology? (shrink)

This article brings two outstanding figures into conversation about the problem of fictional entities and their indeterminacies: Roman Ingarden and David Lewis. Lewis’s account of fiction lacks an adequate ontology of ficta-qua-objects. Relying on his modal realism does not help, for it would make ficta “concrete” entities that merely indexically differ from our world’s entities. In this regard, I refer to Ingarden’s “purely intentional entities”. I read Lewis’s possible worlds in terms of Ingarden’s ontology; hence establishing what I (...) term a “Purely Intentional Modal Fictionalism”. In so doing, the demarcation between fiction and actuality is preserved. In return, Lewis’s Analyses adequately account for Ingarden’s “spots of indeterminacy”. Therefore, my proposal reconciles Ingarden’s ficta with Lewis’s possibilist approach to truth in fiction. This approach grounds Lewis’s account in a less problematic ontology with a distinct sui generis status for ficta and provides Ingarden’s ficta with better determination principles. (shrink)

In recent philosophy it has been much disputed whether the content of perception is conceptual or not. This paper advocates the view that it is trivial to say that the content of perception is conceptual, if one considers perception in its mere epistemic significance. In this regard, the concept of perception is indeed completely determined by the idea of the object of perception. The concept of perception, however, is bi-dimensional. Perception, certainly, is essentially intentional. However, a certain reality plays (...) an essential part in it: the one of the sensible being that can be determined thus or thus in a perception, but that, as sensible reality, nevertheless remains as it is. Gestalt Theory can be interpreted as an exploration of one side of this reality, insofar as it has to do with something other than the intentionality of perception: i.e. with those structures of the perceivable thing that make it perceivable. In perception, the reality of the sensible element and the unreality of content should be logically distinguished. Thus, to open a new, non-epistemic dimension for perceptual realism, is possible. (shrink)

I argue for three principle claims. First, philosophers who seek to integrate the semantic and the intentional into a naturalistic metaphysical worldview need to address a task that they have thus far largely failed even to notice: explaining into- level connections between the physical and the intentional in a naturalistically acceptable way. Second, there are serious reasons to think that this task cannot be carried out in a way that would vindicate realism about intentionality. Third, there (...) is much to be said for an irrealist, non-eliminativist, naturalistic approach to intentionality that I call "preservative irrealism". (shrink)

In The Elm and the Expert, Jerry Fodor tries to reconcile three philosophical positions he is presently committed to: a computational theory of mind, intentional realism and a denotational theory of meaning. One problem he faces is this: a denotational semantics, according to which the meaning of a singular term like a name is exhausted by its referent, seems to rule out there being true intentional generalizations, or generalizations which advert to the contents of a subject's mental (...) states. That there are such true generalizations is a major element in Fodor's intentional realism. Accordingly, Fodor is forced to find a way of dissolving this apparent incompatibility. This paper looks at his attempts to do so and concludes that they fail. (shrink)

A theory of intentionality is outlined, in which the desideratum that the intentional be the same as the real object is argued for in terms of an anti-realist ontology. According to such an ontology, an ordinary object is in itself an object of discourse taken as intentional when posited phenomenologically and as possible when posited naturalistically, i.e. as not existing in some possible worlds but as existing in others. If the actual world is included among the latter, (...) the object deserves to be called "rear". Qua possible object, it answers to a principle of individuation which also works as a criterion of discrimination. According to such a principle, any possible object has a counterfactual individualising property which takes substance plus origin in a given spacetime as the object's essential properties, where it exists. It is, moreover, an object of discourse insofar as it generically depends, for its own being, on a singular term being publicly used to refer to it. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I examine the role that intentional descriptions play in our scientific study of the mind. Behavioural scientists often use intentional language in their characterization of cognitive systems, making reference to “beliefs”, “representations”, or “states of information”. What is the scientific value gained from employing such intentional terminology? I begin the dissertation by contrasting intentional descriptions with mechanistic descriptions, as these are the descriptions most commonly used to provide explanations in the behavioural sciences. I (...) then examine the way that intentional descriptions are employed in various scientific contexts. I conclude that while mechanistic descriptions characterize the underlying structure of systems, intentional descriptions allow us to generate predictions of systems while remaining agnostic as to their mechanistic underpinnings. Having established this, I then argue that intentional descriptions share much in common with statistical models in the way they characterize systems. Given these similarities, I theorize that intentional descriptions are employed within scientific practice as a particular type of phenomenological model. Phenomenological models are used to study, characterize, and predict the phenomena produced by mechanistic systems without describing their underlying structure. I demonstrate why such models are integral to our scientific discovery, and understanding, of the mechanisms that make up the brain. With my account on the table, I then look back at previous accounts of intentional language that philosophers have offered in the past. I highlight insights that each brought to our understanding of intentional language, and point out where each ultimately goes astray. I conclude the dissertation by examining the ontological implications of my theory. I demonstrate that my account is compatible with versions of both realism, and anti-realism, regarding the existence of intentional states. (shrink)

This paper is about perception and its objects. My aim is to suggest a new way to articulate some of the central ideas of direct realism. Sections 1 and 2 offer from different perspectives a panoramic view of the main problems and options in the philosophy of perception. Section 3 introduces the notion of “camouflage” as an interesting and promising alternative in order to explain the nature of the intentional objects of perception. Finally, section 4 makes use of (...) this new notion in the analysis of the relationships between the intentionality of perception, the intentionality of thought, and the intentionality of language. (shrink)

We situate the debate on intentionality within the rise of cognitive neuroscience and argue that cognitive neuroscience can explain intentionality. We discuss the explanatory significance of ascribing intentionality to representations. At first, we focus on views that attempt to render such ascriptions naturalistic by construing them in a deflationary or merely pragmatic way. We then contrast these views with staunchly realist views that attempt to naturalize intentionality by developing theories of content for representations in terms of (...) information and biological function. We echo several other philosophers by arguing that these theories over-generalize unless they are constrained by a theory of the functional role of representational vehicles. This leads to a discussion of the functional roles of representations, and how representations might be realized in the brain. We argue that there’s work to be done to identify a distinctively mental kind of representation. We close by sketching a way forward for the project of naturalizing intentionality. This will not be achieved simply by ascribing the content of mental states to generic neural representations, but by identifying specific neural representations that explain the puzzling intentional properties of mental states. (shrink)

This volume contains papers from a 1962 Symposium in the Philosophy of Mind held at Wayne State University. There are seven essays, each accompanied by lengthy and usually quite astute comments, and followed by a shorter rejoinder. Chisholm contributes a refinement of his much discussed criteria for intentional connectives: "On Some Psychological Concepts and the 'Logic' of Intentionality." The scare quotes are well-placed around "Logic," as it is Chisholm's intuitive rather than formal logical perspicacity which carries the weight (...) of the argument. Ayer's paper, "The Concept of a Person," has already been published in his book of the same name. The most deliberate exercise in epistemic logic is Castañeda's paper, "Consciousness and Behavior: Their Basic Connections." This essay deserves close scrutiny, as it represents a disciplined attempt to rehabilitate more traditional conceptions of consciousness and, particularly, self-consciousness. Putnam has some more to say about minds and machines in "The Mental Life of Some Machines." In what is possibly the best paper in the volume, Sellars develops the dialectic that runs from phenomenalism, through various forms of realism, to a critical scientific realism mediated by a Kantian-style phenomenalism. Aune's comments on the paper are very illuminating. Alston, owing to the delay in publication of the Symposium, joins a bit late the list of those who are criticizing and rejecting the logical barrier between reasons and causes that has been erected by Melden et al. Finally, Firth tries to delimit our concept of seeing by arguing in a manner more suggestive than definitive for causal criteria for the use of the term. The general tone of the volume is exploratory.—E. A. R. (shrink)

Outline by Section: INTRODUCTION HUSSERL'S TRANSCENDENTAL POSITION Brentano's Notion of Intentionality Frege's Notion of Sinn Husserl's Transcendental Position Intentional Relations are not Causal. Realism is Wrong, Objects must be Meaningful Psychological States are Empirical. Meanings cannot be In-Themselves, but always for an Ego SEARLE'S THEORY OF INTENTIONALITY CONFRONTATION OF SEARLE'S THEORY WITH THE FOUR THESES Searle Intentionalizes or Trivializes Causation Searle is still a Realist Visual Experience is a Thing-In-Itself Intentional States Presented as Stopping Points (...) CONCLUSION. (shrink)

What follows is a first step towards an ontology of conscious mental processes. We provide a theoretical foundation and characterization of conscious mental processes based on a realist theory of intentionality and using BFO as our top-level ontology. We distinguish three components of intentional mental process: character, directedness, and objective referent, and describe several features of the process character and directedness significant to defining and classifying mental processes. We arrive at the definition of representational mental process as a (...) process that is the bringing into being, sustaining, modifying, or terminating of a mental representation. We conclude by outlining some benefits and applications of this approach. (shrink)

The realm of intentionality is definitive of phenomenology as a reflective methodology. Yet it is precisely the focus on the intentionalgiventhat has been condemned recently.Speculative realism argues that phenomenology is unsatisfactory since the reduction to the intentional realm excludes the ‘external’, i.e. reality independent of consciousness. This criticism allows me to clarify the nature of intentionality.Material phenomenologyfinds, in contrast, that the intentional realm excludes the ‘inner’. This criticism allows me to discuss the way in whichipseityenters (...) as an element of experience. Intentionality, viewed psychologically, is rightly the distinct arena of phenomenological psychology. However, there is no doubting the difficulty of maintaining a research focus precisely on the realm of intentionality; there areaporiasof the reduction. I discuss some of the difficulties. (shrink)

The point of departure for Perceiving Reality is the idea that per- ception is an embodied structural feature of consciousness whose function is determined by phenomenal experiences in a corresponding domain (of visible, tangibles, etc.). In Perceiving Reality, I try to develop a way of conceiving of our most basic mode of being in the world that resists attempts to cleave reality into an inner and outer, a mental and a physical domain. The central argument of the book is that (...) what we apprehend in perception are not, to paraphrase J.L. Austin, the external, mind-independent, medium-sized dry goods that populate the realist’s ontology. Rather, to paraphrase Husserl and a group of Buddhist philosophers in league with Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, the objects apprehended in perception are the intentional or aspectual object. (shrink)

Like the ring of fire around the Pacific, conceptual fracture between everyday acceptance of mentality and allegiance to the physical arouses uneasy attention. Theorists have dedicated impressive ingenuity to domestication of belief/desire psychology within a physical worldview; they have enthusiastically welcomed its demise in the wake of inevitable falsification by future science. At least one philosopher has urged that we cross our fingers when attributing intentional states. Rejecting assumptions common to these responses, Scott Sehon proposes that the claims of (...) commonsense psychology cannot and therefore need not be vindicated by inclusion among the truths of physical science, nor can they be threatened by conflict with its findings. Facts about mind are in this sense “foundationless” but still “firm,” by virtue of making possible a view of each other as persons. Central to Sehon’s brief is his proposal that CSP explanations of human behavior are teleological rather than causal, answering questions about the purposes of agents rather than the antecedents of their actions. Sehon takes up a wide range of related issues—Jerry Fodor’s brand of functionalism, Lynne Rudder Baker’s nonreductive “Practical Realism,” relations between global supervenience and entailment, and between causal explanation and Humean moral theory. Sehon does not, however, discuss either consciousness or intentionality beyond noting briefly that the first is very likely apt for reduction, the second, almost certainly not. (shrink)

This chapter, which is concerned with the phenomenology of perception, especially the role of content and context in the intentionality of perception, tries to provide an account of the structure of perceptual experience and its intentional relation to its objects. In particular, it presents an analysis of consciousness and intentionality in perception. Perceptual experience is sensuous and paradigmatically intentional. The intentional character of a visual experience of an object is different to the successful intentional (...) relation between the experience and the object. The twin-tomatoes experiment reveals that content alone does not settle which tomato is the correct object of perception. Perception gives a direct awareness of an object in the sense that the external object is itself the object of perception, and the object is actually present to the subject and experienced as actually present in the context of perception. (shrink)

John Searle sees previous philosophers as failing to distinguish between "intention-with-a-t" and "intension-with-an-s". This, he believes, leads them to mistake properties of reports for properties of things reported, in their discussions of intentionality, since reports may be "intensional" while what is reported is "extensional". Thus, speaking about John's belief that King Arthur killed Sir Lancelot, he says: "It is completely extensional: it is true if there is a unique x such that x = King Arthur and there is a (...) unique y such that y = Sir Lancelot and x killed y. That is as extensional as anything can get." But all Searle means by the claim that "the belief", as opposed to "the report" of it, is completely extensional is that one gives the "truth condition" for "the belief", by giving the truth condition for the sentence King Arthur killed Sir Lancelot'. Put simply, the sentence King Arthur killed Sir Lancelot' does not raise the familiar issues about substitution raised by John believes that King Arthur killed Sir Lancelot'. While this is true, the analysis of intentional contexts that lies behind it fails to adequately take up, let alone resolve, the familiar logical and ontological problems of intentionality that Searle purports to solve.(edited). (shrink)

According to an idea which is widespread among philosophers, linguistic entities derive their intentionality from the intentionality of mental entities by virtue of some relation between them. Typically, it is some kind of intention on the speaker’s part – e.g., an intention to produce in the hearer a belief with a certain content – that is supposed to endow words with content. This paper argues that the concept of the derivation of content from one entity to another, if (...) understood realistically, is flawed: derived intentionality, I will argue, is merely ascribed intentionality, not a real property of its possessor. Irrealistic-ascriptivist senses are suggested for the ideas of content derivation, of original intentionality, and of the mind as the source of linguistic intentionality. Thus, endorsing the idea that mental intentionality is the source of non-mental intentionality need not tempt one to intentional realism. In an intentional irrealistic framework, what forms of intentionality are original and what are derived is a deeply contingent matter, determined by our practice of content ascription. But while intentional irrealism accommodates all those ideas, this paper defends “content-derivation irrealism” but not thoroughgoing intentional irrealism – the idea that there is real original intentionality is not ruled out. Still, assuming that some entities possess real intentionality, what can make them endow intentionality upon other entities is also our practice of content ascription. (shrink)

In this study I am going to present and discuss some of the central themes of Gustav Bergmann's theory of perception. I shall be concerned, however, only with "later Bergmann," that is, with the perceptual theory worked out in a series of essays in which Bergmann shifts from phenomenalism to a form of intentional realism. This label ("intentional realism") indicates the two dominant themes in Bergmann's later thought about perception: perceivings are analyzed as mental acts (thoughts) (...) which are intentionally related to real and mind-independent objects and states of affairs. In a timely essay, " Intentionality" (1955) Bergmann presented an impressive defense of mental acts, and although the framework of that essay was still phenomenalistic, the structural analysis of mental acts and their intentionality presented there has not been significantly altered by Bergmann in later writings. In two subsequent essays, "Acts" (1960) and "Realistic Postscript" (1963) his realistic turn was worked out in detail in the context of giving a satisfactory account of ordinary perceptual experience. These three essays will comprise the core texts of the study that follows. (shrink)

Although Brentano generally regarded himself as at heart a metaphysician, his work then and subsequently has always been dominated by the Psychology. He is rightly celebrated as the person who reintroduced the Aristotelian-Scholastic notion of intentio back into the study of the mind. Brentano's inspiration was Aristotle's theory of perception in De anima, though his terminology of intentional inexistence was medieval. For the history of the work and its position in his output may I refer to my Introduction to (...) the reprinted English translation. Alongside Aristotle the work shows influences of Descartes, Comte and the British empiricists. The theory of intentionality presented in the Psychology is much less modern and less plausible than almost all recent commentary would have it, and was in any case not where Brentano's main interest lay. Intentionality simply served to demarcate mental phenomena from physical, in Book One, but the main aim was a classification of the mental, outlined in Book Two. Books Three to Five were to have dealt in detail with the three main classes of presentations, judgements and feelings, with the final book considering the metaphysics: mind-body and the immortality of the soul. Brentano's shifting views, recently documented in English with Benito Muller's translation of Descriptive Psychology, a work from the transitional 1890s, made the original plan obsolete. The role of an a priori, philosophical or descriptive psychology, methodologically prior to empirical-experimental genetic psychology, foreshadowed and influenced Husserl's notion of phenomenology, and Brentano's Comtean methodological epoche of desisting from controversial metaphysical statements in favour of an examination of the phenomena likewise presaged Husserl's more ponderous phenomenological reductions. Brentano's other work covers most areas of philosophy, notably ethics, where he upheld a form of a priori intuitionism much admired by G. E. Moore, the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, philosophy of language, deductive and inductive logic, and the history of philosophy. I shall mention just two areas. In his logic lectures from 1866 onwards (a compilation published 1956) Brentano rejected the subject-predicate analysis of simple judgements and proposed instead (for which he apparently secured written assent from Mill) that all judgements are logical compounds of positive and negative existential judgements. For example the universal judgement All men are mortal becomes the negative existential There are no immortal men. On this basis Brentano radically simplified the inference rules of deductive logic. While unlike de Morgan, Frege and others he does not go beyond logic's traditional scope by recognising relations, within its bounds his reformed-term logic is simple, elegant and easily teachable. Some of his ideas in logic influenced the young Husserl. Unfortunately Brentano took against mathematical logic, which he wrongly associated exclusively with Hamilton's confused doctrine of the quantification of the predicate. His inductive logic, which takes up by far the greater part of his logic lectures, remains unresearched to this day. (shrink)

Sensorimotor psychology studies the mental processes that control goal-directed bodily motion. Recently, sensorimotor psychologists have provided empirically successful Bayesian models of motor control. These models describe how the motor system uses sensory input to select motor commands that promote goals set by high-level cognition. I highlight the impressive explanatory benefits offered by Bayesian models of motor control. I argue that our current best models assign explanatory centrality to a robust notion of mental representation. I deploy my analysis to defend (...) class='Hi'>intentional realism, to rebut eliminativism and instrumentalism regarding mental representation, and to explore the relation between intentionality and normativity. (shrink)

A chapter surveying Jerry Fodor's contributions to philosophy and cognitive science. In 12 Modern Philosophers, edited by Christopher Belshaw and Gary Kemp.

Highlights the roles of intention and intentionality in social cognition.

This article further explains and develops a recent, comprehensive semantic naturalization theory, namely the interactive indexing (II) theory as described in my 2008 Minds and Machines article Semantic Naturalization via Interactive Perceptual Causality (Vol. 18, pp. 527–546). Folk views postulate a concrete intentional relation between cognitive states and the worldly states they are about. The II theory eliminates any such concrete intentionality, replacing it with purely causal relations based on the interactive theory of perception. But intentionality is (...) preserved via purely abstract propositions about the world that index, or correlate with, appropriate cognitive states. Further reasons as to why intentionality must be abstract are provided, along with more details of an II-style account of representation, language use and propositional attitudes. All cognitive representation is explained in terms of classification or sorting dispositions indexed by appropriate propositions. The theory is also related to Fodor’s representational theory of mind, with some surprisingly close parallels being found in spite of the purely dispositional basis of the II theory. In particular, Fodor’s insistence that thinking about an item cannot be reduced to sorting dispositions is supported via a novel two-level account of cognition—upper level propositional attitudes involve significant intermediate processing of a broadly normative epistemic kind prior to the formation of sorting dispositions. To conclude, the weak intentional realism of the II theory—which makes intentional descriptions of the world dispensable—is related to Dennett’s ‘intentional stance’ view, and distinguished from strong (indispensable) intentional realist views. II-style dispositions are also defended. (shrink)

Michael Thompson recently advanced a “naïve action theory” as an alternative to the “sophisticated” accounts of action displayed by ordinary folk psychology. In what follows I defend the plausibility of intentional psychology and folk psychological explanations. I do this in two ways. First I question that naïve explanations are more naïve than the ones provided by folk psychology and suggest that the latter are phenomenologically prior to the former. Second, I focus on the role of intentionality in deliberation (...) and action planning, suggesting that folk psychology provides a better answer than naïve theory to the question of what makes actions intentional. (shrink)

My aim is to arrive at a better understanding of the distinction between direct realism and representationalism by offering a critical analysis of Steven Nadler.

The aim of this article is to show that the prospects for intentional irrealism are much brighter than it is generally thought. In the first section, I provide a general haracterization of some of the various forms that the realism/irrealism debates might take. In the second, I ask whether there is any defensible form of realism about intentional states. I show that most candidates are nearly trivially false, and that the only form of intentional (...) class='Hi'>realism which is not, is a restricted one which is prima facie no more plausible than the corresponding form of irrealism. In the third and last section, I defend my interpretation of what intentional irrealism amounts to against some possible misunderstandings, give some reasons why it should be taken seriously and argue that it could plausibly be attributed to Davidson. (shrink)

Is intentionally doing A linked to the intention to do A? Knobe and Burra believe that the link between the English words ‘intention’ and ‘intentional’ may mislead philosophers and cognitive scientists to falsely believe that intentionally doing an action A requires one to have the intention to do A. Knobe and Burra believe that data from other languages..

Contemporary philosophers of history and interpretation theorists very often deny the thesis of intentional realism, because they reject intentionalism or the thesis that an agent's or author's intentions are relevant for the interpretive practice of the human sciences. I will defend intentional realism by showing why it is wrong to whole-heartedly reject intentionalism and by clarifying the logical relation between intentionalism and intentional realism. I will do so by discussing the two central arguments against (...) intentionalism; the argument from the perspective of narrative anti-realism and the epistemic argument focusing on the fact that an agent's or author's intentions are not epistemically accessible in a direct manner. In particular, I will show that the fact that historians write narratives does add a level of complexity as far as the giving of explanations of individual actions are concerned. Yet it does not follow that the explanatory power of a full fledged historical narrative can be understood as being completely independent of our folk psychological account of individual agency. Accordingly, we should also be prepared to accept a methodological distinction between the human and the natural sciences as long as the human sciences use the folk psychological framework for explanatory purposes, since it is only in the former that empathy plays an epistemically central role. I however do not claim that empathy is the only method of the human sciences nor do I claim that all interpretive disputes can be settled merely in light of our empathic capacities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Intentionalität aus semiotischer Sicht. Peirceanische PerspektivenChristian StrubStefan Kappner Intentionalität aus semiotischer Sicht. Peirceanische Perspektiven. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter2004, ISBN 3–11-018288–2, 432 pp.1. Problem focusKappner intended only partially a Peirce-interpretation; he attempts to think further along with Peirce, and he succeeds as well. The first chapter serves as a sketch of the problem of intentionality from a historical perspective, starting from Brentano. Kappner formulates the problem correctly by (...) stating that from the contemporary standpoint on the one hand every sort of methodological mind—body dualism is obsolete, because the mainstream of research has adopted a methodological physicalism along with an anti-foundationalistic epistemology; yet on the other hand our common sense view of psychic and thus also of intentional phenomena, which is inclined towards just such a dualism, must be taken into consideration. The systematic task thus consists in describing the particular quality of psychic phenomena in such a manner that this description "is compatible with methodological naturalism" (47). Kappner's main concern is thus the attempt to anchor the intentionality of thoughts and of human consciousness in more primitive forms of intentionality which are already exhibited by non-psychic goal-oriented natural processes. The solution to this task must accomplish two things: firstly, Kappner must justify the distinction between three types of "carriers" of "intentionality": concrete objects which intentionally contain an object in themselves, i.e. signs (381f.): Ch. 7; organisms which are capable of producing "inner signs for the simulation of external processes" (cf. 320–326: insightful behavior) (382f): Ch. 8; organisms which are capable of understanding this production as their own (self-consciousness) (383): Ch. 9. I will call this distinction the "internal differentiation thesis" (IDT). Secondly, Kappner must demonstrate that these three types of carriers are founded in one another. Over and above this, Kappner asserts that sign-intentionality is founded in something which he (with Arno Ros, 263, cf. 144) calls "quasi-intentionality" (Ch. 6). I will call this the "founding thesis" (FT). Obviously FT presupposes IDT, but not vice versa. Kappner claims to have successfully concluded such an ambitious naturalization program (342). Even when one [End Page 439] does not always agree with the partial solutions of Kappner, reading the book is definitely rewarding, as it shows in what a precisely differentiated manner one can reflect on a central problem of the "philosophy of mind" using Peirce's array of semiotic instruments.The reader is, naturally, astonished to hear the name Peirce in the context of a program for the naturalization of intentionality, for Peirce himself never used the concepts of "intention" and "intentionality" in the sense in which Brentano used them (47, 66), and himself clearly espoused an antifoundationalism and a methodological monism—but never a methodological naturalism; rather its opposite, namely a methodological idealism which can only conceive of physical properties as derived from psychic properties (synechism; 50–54). The reader is all the more eager to see how Kappner will prove his thesis to the effect that Peirce nevertheless has made a systematic contribution to the solution of the problem of intentionality under contemporary conditions. The decisive methodological step of Kappner (60) in Ch. 2 consists in declaring Peirce's metaphysics to be independent of his epistemic realism, which holds reality to be independent of the subject's mode of access to this reality. It is first at the end of the work that Kappner can precisely formulate what he means by Peircean naturalism: "For [Peirce], it is not primarily a question of how in (mere) thought relations to real things can be produced [as it is for Brentano and Husserl], but rather the opposite, namely how the progressive distancing of humans from the linguistic or mentally denoted object was and is possible [ellipsis]. In my opinion Peirce's approach can above all for this reason be characterized as 'naturalistic'" (376). This is plausible—of course, only under the assumption (not acknowledged as such by Kappner) that something like a "protodistancing" from the world can already be ascertained in the realm of quasi-intentionality. Nevertheless, Kappner employs two different concepts of "naturalistic": a naturalistic theory of intentionality means (1... (shrink)

Philosophers debate whether all, some or none of the represcntational content of our sensory experience is conccptual, but the technical term "concept" has different uses. It is commonly linked more or less closely with the notions of judgdment and reasoning, but that leaves open the possibility that these terms share a systematic ambiguity or indeterminacy. Donald Davidson, however, holds an unequivocal and consistent, if paradoxical view that there are strictly speaking no psychological states with representational or intentional content except (...) the propositional attitudes of language users, since thc source or fundamental bearer of intentionality is the employed sentence. Accordingly he claims that what has content in ordinary sense experience is not sensation, but propositional belief caused, but not justified, by sensation. John McDowell, sharing some ofDavidson's premises,holds a less paradoxical, but (l will argue) equivocal and incoherent view that post-infantile human sensory expcrience must have content in so far as it is what grounds perceptual belief but that this content is itself conceptual or propositional, dependent on language and culture. Reasons are givcn in the present article for rejecting both views, and their common premises. It is argued that perceptual or sensory states have intentional content which is no more conceptual or propositional than the world is. Recognition that perceptual content and conceptual content are, in a certain unsurprising way incommensurable allows for a more realistic understanding of the relationship between Language and the world as we experience it. (shrink)