How Should We Use ‘Intentional Object’? Is the IO the Thing Itself?

Dr. Buckner comments,

. . . we still need to agree on a clear definition of ‘Intentional Object’. Here are two other definitions I found.

Tim Crane: what an intentional state is about.
Merriam Webster: something whether actually existing or not that the mind thinks about.

These are both very clear, and I suggest we adopt them. That is, if BV is thinking about (or ‘of’) the Washington Monument, then the Intentional Object of his thinking is the Washington Monument itself. If the Washington Monument is then blown into a billion pieces by high explosive and the remains scattered to the four points of the US, and it no longer exists, and if we agree that BV is still thinking about the WM, then the Intentional Object is still the WM.

Do you agree?

No.

If we adopt both of the definitions cited, Crane and Webster, then the intentional object (IO) of a mental act or intentional state is the item to which the act is directed, an item which may or may not exist without prejudice to the existence and specific directedness of the act. That is: the specific directedness of the act (which is phenomenologically accessible to the subject of the act via reflection*) is what it is whether or not the IO exists. So Buckner is telling us that if I am thinking of or about the WM over an interval of time during which, unbeknownst to me, the WM goes from existing to not existing, then the WM itself is the IO both when it exists and after it ceases to exist.

But this implies that my thinking becomes objectless when the WM ceases to exist. And that contradicts the thesis of intentionality according to which, necessarily, to think is to think of something. In the form of a reductio ad absurdum:

a) The intentional object = the thing itself, not some epistemic deputy or intermediary in the mind or between mind and thing. In our example the IO = the WM , a massive marble obelisk that exists extramentally if it exists at all. (Bucknerian assumption for reductio)

b) No mental act exists without an intentional object. (Thesis of Intentionality)

Therefore

c) No mental act exists if the thing itself to which the act is directed does not exist. (From (a) and (b))

Therefore

d) My mental act of thinking of the WM does not exist if the WM does not exist. (From (c))

But

e) My mental act of thinking of the WM continues to exist after the WM ceases to exist. (Phenomenological datum)

Therefore

f) (d) contradicts (e).

Therefore

g) (a) is false: the IO is not identical to the thing itself. (By reductio ad absurdum)

_____________

*In other words, I know, with certainty, both that I am thinking about something when I am thinking about something, and what I am thinking about when I think about it. Husserl's phenomenology is committed to this thesis (cf. Ideas I, sec. 36) but it is notoriously denied by Ruth Garrett Millikan whose theory of intentionality is radically externalist. Cf. Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories, p. 92 ff.

Posted

July 24, 2021

Intentionality

Bill Vallicella

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5 responses to “How Should We Use ‘Intentional Object’? Is the IO the Thing Itself?”

oz

July 25, 2021

Nope. Your (c) does not follow from (a) and (b). Your (c) states that not only must the act have an object, it must have an existing object. So your reductio is not valid unless you change (b) to
(b*) No mental act exists without an intentional object that exists.
You may argue that if the act has an object, it must have an existing object, because ‘has’ is not an intentional verb. And of course I agree. But you said earlier that ‘has’ is an intentional verb, in order to licence the inference from
BV is thinking of N
to
BV’s thinking has an object

Reply
Oz

July 25, 2021

Spelling it out.
“If S is thinking of N, then S’s thought-act has N as (intentional) object” which is the substitutional version of the ‘Thesis of Intentionality’.
The question is whether we read ‘has’ as an intentional, or non-existential verb, or as a non-intentional or existential verb.
(A) If an intentional ‘have’, then a thought-act can ‘have’ a non-existing object. Thus if Jake is thinking of Zeus, Jake’s thought-act has Zeus as object, even though Zeus does not exist. In which case the reductio he claims in the OP is not a reductio at all.
(B) If a non-intentional ‘have’, then Jake’s thought-act cannot have a non-existing object. Thus Jake’s thinking of Zeus cannot have Zeus as object, thus the thesis of Intentionality does not hold, and there is still no reductio, because the reductio depends on the thesis holding.
Thus no reductio in either case.

Reply
oz

July 25, 2021

Also, your (a) is not correct. I am not defining the IO as ‘the thing itself’, but rather ‘the object we think about’.
If Jake thinks about the WM while it exists, the object he thinks about is the WM. If he thinks about the WM after it is annihilated, the object he thinks about is the WM. In both cases he thinks about the WM, hence in both cases the WM is the IO.

Reply
BV

July 26, 2021

Disagreement runs deep. More later after my more important work is done.

Reply
OZ

July 26, 2021

>Disagreement runs deep. More later
My strategy is always to start from a point where we have definite agreement, then move forwards to find the place where we disagree. Here are some points for you to mull over while you mull the important work over.
(1) We agree that “BV is thinking about the WM” can be true when the WM exists.
(2) We agree earlier that “BV is thinking about the WM” can be true even after the WM has been annihilated.
I take it that this is completely uncontroversial. But what about this:
(3) BV is thinking about the WM, therefore the object that BV is thinking about is the WM.
Is that consequence valid or not? There is also
(4) BV is thinking about the WM, therefore the object that BV is thinking about is the WM itself.
Is that valid?

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How Should We Use ‘Intentional Object’? Is the IO the Thing Itself?

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5 responses to “How Should We Use ‘Intentional Object’? Is the IO the Thing Itself?”

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