This is a re-do of a post from 13 April 2009. The addenda are new.
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I have argued at length for the non-intentionality of some conscious states. Here is an entry that features an uncommonly good comment thread. None of the opposing comments made on the various posts inclined me to modify my view. I was especially pleased recently to stumble upon a passage by the great F. H. Bradley in support of the non-intentionality of some experiences. Please note that the intentionality of my being PLEASED to find the supporting Bradley passage has no tendency to show that PLEASURE is an intentional state, as 'pleasure' is used below by Bradley. No doubt one can be pleased by such-and-such or pained at this-or-that, but these facts are consistent with there being non-intentional pleasures and pains. The passage infra is from Bradley's magisterial "Pleasure for Pleasure's Sake" (Ethical Studies (Selected Essays), LLA, 1951, p. 37, bolding added):
Pleasure and pain are feelings and they are nothing but feelings. It would perhaps be right to call them the two simple modes of self-feeling; but we are not here concerned with psychological accuracy. The point which we wish to emphasize and which we think is not doubtful is that, considered psychically, they are nothing whatever but states of the feeling self. This means that they exist in me only as long as I feel them, and only as I feel them, that beyond this they have no reference to anything else, no validity and no meaning whatsoever. They are 'subjective' because they neither have, nor pretend to, reality beyond this or that subject. They are as they are felt to be, but they tell us nothing. In one word, they have no content; they are as states of us, but they have nothing for us.
How do I know that Bradley is right? By doing a little phenomenology. Right now I am stretching my back in consequence of which I am experiencing a pleasant kinaesthetic sensation. At the same time I am gazing out my window at a blooming palo verde tree. Both the kinaesthetic sensation and the gazing are 'states of me' to adapt a Bradleyan phrase, but only the second 'has anything for me,' i.e., presents an object, pretends to a reality beyond the subject, intends or means something, takes an accusative, has an intentional object, possesses a content, refers beyond itself — pick your favorite phraseology. The second 'state of me' is object-directed; the first is not. Either you 'see' (with the mind's eye) the distinction between the seeing of the tree (using the eyes in your head) and the feeling of the sensation, or you do not. No amount of argument or dialectic can make you 'see.' At most, argument and dialectic can remove impediments to 'seeing.' And if there were no 'seeing,' how could there be arguments? Arguments need premises, and not all premises can be the conclusions of arguments.
ADDENDA (11 December 2020)
1) The issue is whether Franz Brentano was right to maintain that intentionality is the mark of the mental, and that therefore every mental state is object-directed. I have long held, probably under the influence of Edmund Husserl (Logical Investigations, vol. II, tr. J. N. Findlay, Humanities Press, 1970, 572 ff.) that this is not right, that there are mental states that are not object-directed. From the entry referenced above:
Let's think about Searle's example of an itch, one 'in' the scalp, say. Not every mental item is a conscious item, but this itch I feel right now is a conscious mental item. Attending to this datum, a distinction suggests itself: there is the qualitative character of the itch, its sensory quale or raw feel, and there is its unpleasantness. Since I am attending to the itch, it is the intentional object of a series of acts of phenomenological reflection. At the same time of course, I am 'living' the itch, not just reflecting on it and analyzing it. The itch is an experience, an Erlebnis in something like Husserl's sense; it is something man erlebt, one lives through.
Now the question is whether the itch itself is directed to an object or 'takes an accusative.' Please don't confuse this question with the question whether the itch can itself be made the intentional object of acts of reflection. Of course it can, and I just did. But that is not to say that the itch has an intentional object. Attending carefully to the itch as it presents itself to me, I discern no object to which it points. Surely Searle is right: itches and the like are not about anything in the way a desire to drink a cold beer is about drinking a cold beer, or the seeing of a bobcat is about a bobcat and not a tire iron or nothing at all.
2) I suggest above that some questions in philosophy can be answered phenomenologically, just by carefully attending to what is qiven, the itch sensation in our example, under bracketing of all questions about causes and effects. One compares the felt itch, precisely as felt, with a clearly object-directed conscious mental state such as desiring to be itch-free. The act of desiring is obviously a desiring of something, namely, being itch-free. The act (intentional experience) refers beyond itself to something not contained within it. One cannot just desire; necessarily, to desire is to desire something that is no part of the act of desiring. Having done the comparison, one just 'sees' the difference: it is not intrinsic to sensory qualia that they refer to anything beyond themselves in such a way as to present an object to a subject; but this is intrinsic to intentional states. As Bradley puts it, sensory qualia, "have no reference to anything else . . . ." They have "no meaning whatsoever." That is, they do not mean, signify, intend, or refer. Qualia have content alright, but not intentional or representative content. (Cf. Husserl's distinction between descriptive and intentional content, Log. Inv. II, 576 ff.)
3) Was I able to make my point above with phenomenology alone thereby avoiding dialectic or argument entirely? No, I argued in a way that can be explicitly set forth as follows:
a) Some sensory qualia are not object-directed.
b) All sensory qualia are mental states.
Therefore
c) Some mental states are not object-directed.
I had to reason to my conclusion, but I did so from a premise — (a) — the evidence for which is phenomenological. To be precise, (a) itself is a conclusion of an inference from 'This itch sensation is not object-directed.' Phenomenology needs dialectic and vice versa.
4) In the comment thread to the linked entry above, Harry Binswanger, the noted Objectivist (follower of Ayn Rand ), gives essentially the following argument against that thesis that some mental states are non-intentional:
d) An itch is a bodily sensation.
e) The intentional objects of bodily sensations are states of one's body.
Therefore
f) An itch is an intentional mental state.
But in what sense is an itch a bodily sensation? Only in the sense that its cause is physical. In itself, the itch is not bodily or physical but mental. It is a mental state with a physical cause. But one ought not confuse cause with intentional object, a mistake that Husserl exposes at Log. Inv. II, 572. Binswanger's argument commits this very mistake. Whatever the cause in the scalp or elsewhere of the itchy sensation, that cause is not presented by the sensory state. The state has a cause but no intentional object.
Hi Dr. Vallicella,
Just one quick note on your informative article here. You say here that “The issue is whether Franz Brentano was right to maintain that intentionality is the mark of the mental, and that therefore every mental state is object-directed.” I’m a little confused. I understand “intentionality is the mark of the mental” as meaning ” intentionality entails mentality,” so from that it wouldn’t follow that mentality entails intentionality as you allude to. So it doesn’t seem like you’re actually disagreeing with Brentano here, unless my interpretation of his slogan is wrong.
Jacob,
“Intentionality is the mark of the mental” means that every mental state is an intentional state, and vice versa. In terms of entailment, it means that being a mental state entails being an intentional state, and being an intentional state entails being a mental state.
Thank you for the clarification!