Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Four Uses of ‘Of’ and Non-Intentional Conscious States

The thesis of intentionality can be stated roughly as follows: Every consciousness is a consciousness of something.  I claim that this Brentano thesis is false because of the existence of non-intentional states of consciousness. Peter Lupu understands and agrees but no one else hereabouts does.  So I need to take a few steps back and issue some clarifications.  I begin by distinguishing among four uses of 'of.'  I'll call them the subjective, the objective, the dual, and the appositive.  Once these are on the table one or two impediments to the understanding of my point — which of course is not original with me —  will have been removed.

PART I

As useful as it is to the poet, the punster, and the demagogue, the ambiguity of ordinary language is intolerable to the philosopher.  Disambiguate we must.  One type of ambiguity is well illustrated by the Old Testament verse, Timor domini initium sapientiae, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Clearly, in 'fear of the Lord' the Lord is the object, not the subject of fear, whereas in 'beginning of wisdom,' wisdom is the subject of beginning, that which begins, and is not the object of beginning — whatever that would mean. Thus we could write, "The fear of the Lord is wisdom's beginning," but not, "The Lord's fear is wisdom's beginning." That was an example of subject/object ambiguity.  Here is an example of objective/appositive ambiguity: 'As a young man, I was enamored of the city of Boston.'  The thought here is that the city, Boston, was an object of my love.  Clearly, 'of' is being used in two totally different ways in the sample sentence.

A. Subjective Uses of 'Of.'  'The presidency of Bill Clinton was rocked by scandal.'  'The redness of her face betrayed her embarassment.'

B. Objective Uses of 'Of.'  'When I first met Mary, thoughts of her occupied my mind from morning until night.' Obviously, her thoughts could not occupy my mind; 'thoughts of her' can only mean thoughts about her. Note that 'Mary's thoughts' could be construed in three ways: Mary's thoughts; thoughts about Mary; Mary's thoughts about herself.

C. Dual Uses of 'Of.'  'Thoughts of Mary filled Mary's mind.' In this example, Mary is both the subject and the object of her thoughts.  So in 'thoughts of Mary,' 'of' functions both subjectively and objectively.

D. Appositive Uses of 'Of.'  'The train they call The City of New Orleans will go five hundred miles before the day is done.' 'Former NYC mayor Ed Koch referred to the city of Boston as Podunk.' Clearly, 'city of Boston' is not a genitive construction. We could just as well write, 'the city, Boston.' So I call the 'of' in 'city of Boston' the 'of' of apposition. If the grammarians don't call it that, then they ought to.

PART II

Now how is 'of' to be construed in Every consciousness is a consciousness of something?  The standard intended meaning is the objective meaning.  The idea is that consciousness by its very nature refers beyond itself to something distinct from itself.  The idea is not that every conscious state is the state of a self or subject, although many philosophers maintain that as well. In Edmund Husserl, for example, intentionality has the triadic structure: ego-cogito-cogitatum qua cogitatum.  But in Jean-Paul Sartre, consciousness is subjectless:  the ego is not the subjective source of consciousness but a transcendent object among objects. (See The Transcendence of the Ego for Sartre's critique of Husserl.)

Now consider a feeling of anxiety.  Such experiences are arguably non-intentional: they do not refer beyond themselves to an object distinct from themselves in the way in which remembering, wishing, willing, expecting, desiring, imagining and perceiving do.  (Compare Heidegger's distinction in Sein und Zeit between Angst and Furcht.) The fact that 'feeling of anxiety' superficially resembles 'memory of Nixon' is not to the point.  And this for the simple reason that 'of' is being used in two different ways in the two phrases.  In the first phrase, we have the 'of' of apposition.  Instead of writing 'Jean-Paul is beset by a feeling of anxiety' we could write salva significatione 'Jean-Paul is beset by the feeling, anxiety.'  But we cannot replace 'memory of Nixon' salva significatione with 'memory, Nixon.' The following is nonsense: 'I have a distinct memory, Nixon.'

(Exercise for the reader:  Explain why 'I am anxious about my daughter's safety,' 'Tom was pleased to hear that his son got the job,' and 'It pains me that George Sheehan is pretty much forgotten' cannot be used to show that anxiety, pleasure, and pain are intentional conscious states.)

Further examples: 'feeling of pain,' sensation of red,' 'pleasure of orgasm,' 'sense of foreboding,' sense of elation,' 'pain of a stubbed toe,' 'after-image of yellowish-orange.'  In none of these examples does the 'of' function objectively.  Thus a feeling of pain is just a painful feeling; a sensation of red is just a reddish sensation; the pleasure of orgasm is just orgasmic pleasure.  In each case the conscious state has qualitative CONTENT but this is not to be confused with an intentional OBJECT.  That should be perfectly clear in the case of the yellowish-orange after image: the experience does not present something distinct from the experience.  The same goes for the stubbed-toe pain.  The pain-state does not present anything to consciousness in the way that a memory state presents something to consciousness.  Whatever the cause of a memory of my mother, the memory does not present this cause or causes; it presents my (dead) mother. The cause or causes of my act of remembering exist; my dead mother does not. 

In sum, the 'of' of intentionality is the objective 'of': 'consciousness of something' is a genitivus objectivus.  Failure to appreciate this may be part of the reason why some are unable to discern the phenomenological distinction between intentional and non-intentional conscious states.

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9 responses to “Four Uses of ‘Of’ and Non-Intentional Conscious States”

  1. ocham Avatar
    ocham

    How does this work for ‘the promise of a horse’, ‘desirous of a cigarette’, ‘in want of a wife’? The Nixon test doesn’t make sense ‘I am desirous, cigarette’, ‘Mr Bingley was in want, wife’. But according to your rule, if it doesn’t make sense, it is objective? Not sure I understand.
    The rule I always apply is to check whether the quantification is internal or external. If it makes sense to speak of the (particular) horse promised, the cigarette desired, the wife who was need, then external, and thus objective. Otherwise not.

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  2. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    Why don’t you actually read what I write? Then you would understand it. You’re a nice guy, and I like you, and I’ll buy you dinner the next time I’m in London; but you cannot understand in 60 seconds what it takes me hours to write.
    Your comment on the No True Scotsman showed a complete failure to grasp the obvious point that the fallacy is informal, not formal. That failure reduced your comment to irrelevance.

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  3. StMichael Avatar
    StMichael

    “In each case the conscious state has qualitative CONTENT but this is not to be confused with an intentional OBJECT. That should be perfectly clear in the case of the yellowish-orange after image….”
    I do believe that there is something at least like an object present in pain states in both of these examples. The lingering pain or afterimage is the effect of an previous intentional state; perception of a pain or of a color, respectively. The sensation that occurred and which, in some sense, persists DOES refer (maybe not intentionally, but it seems so) to the object (in a broad sense) that elicited that pain or image.
    Similarly, I’m not sure how “a feeling of anxiety” does not refer to any broad object beyond itself. People that have anxiety attacks do in fact fear something in a broad sense which prompts their attacks. Maybe that’s too limited a case, but it seems with feelings of dread, for instance, we often say “something is hanging over your head,” or “doom is impending,” etc. In both cases, the object is not terribly particular, but it seems to be present. Heidegger seems to back me up in his analysis of Angst, as he remarks that anxiety is about something as well (and thus manifests “care” which is an intentional state, it seems) in SZ 187.
    As I said, maybe I’m just dim, but I can’t seem to “get” these particular examples; each seems to present, especially in pain states, an object to consciousness.

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  4. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    >>I do believe that there is something at least like an object present in pain states in both of these examples. The lingering pain or afterimage is the effect of an previous intentional state<< True in the case of the afterimage, but irrelevant. You are changing the subject. The question is precisely whether the afterimage experience is Intentional, not whether it was preceded by an Intentional experience. If you cannot focus on the exact question at issue, then please no comments!

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  5. Matt Hart Avatar
    Matt Hart

    Bill,
    Those are some pretty subtle distinctions. I think I get them, but I suspect I haven’t completely absorbed them. For instance, I don’t see why, in your exercise for the reader, that your examples can’t be read as to show that anxiety, pleasure and pain ARE intentional mental states. Could you please explain how they fail to do this?
    Taking “I am anxious about my daughter’s safety”, this doesn’t seem to be subjective: anxiousness isn’t pertaining to my daughter’s safety. Nor can it then be dual. Nor does it seem to be apposite: “I am anxious, my daughter’s safety” doesn’t work.
    Of course, you could rewrite it as “I have an anxiety caused by my daughter’s absence”, but wouldn’t that be begging the question in the present context?
    I’m trying hard to understand this, but it’s pretty dense stuff.
    Matt.

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  6. David Brightly Avatar
    David Brightly

    Hello Bill,
    Can we say that an ‘of’ phrase, being a qualifier, specifies some attribute of the thing in question? If the ‘attribute’ that makes sense is ‘belongs-to’ then we have a subjective ‘of’ . If the entity encodes an object then we have an objective ‘of’. Otherwise, we have an appositive ‘of’.
    This scheme can’t find room for a dual ‘of’. I’d say that in ‘Thoughts of Mary filled Mary’s mind’ the use is ambiguous between subjective and objective.

    Appositive:
    presidency(incumbent=Bill Clinton)
    redness(located-in=her face)
    city(name=Boston)
    feeling(type=pain)
    feeling(type=anxiety)
    sensation(colour=red)
    pleasure(type=orgasmic)
    pain(cause=stubbed toe)
    anxiety(cause=daughter’s (lack of) safety)
    pleasure(cause=hearing of son’s job)
    pain(cause=Sheehan’s being forgotten)
    Subjective:
    beginning(belongs-to=wisdom)
    redness(belongs-to=her face)
    presidency(belongs-to=Bill Clinton)
    Objective:
    fear(object=theLord)
    thought(object=Mary)
    memory(object=Nixon)
    need(object=cigarette)
    want(object=wife)

    Answer to homework exercise. In no case does the anxiety, pleasure, or pain *encode* any object. We can imagine the same raw feel arising in different circumstances so it can’t encode a particular object.
    BTW, I think I now number among the converted.

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  7. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    Matt,
    I could have been clearer in that parentetical remark. My point was that when I claim that there are non-Intentional experiences, I am not claiming that every instance of what we call anxiety or pleasure or pain is non-Intentional. Pretty obviously, if I am anxious about my daughter’s safety, then my state of anxiousness is an intentional state, one directed to a state of affairs. And if it pains me that Sheehan has been forgotten, then the mental state I am in is clearly Intentional because directed to the proposition that Sheehan has been forgotten.
    So if you point out examples like this to me, then my response is that they don’t affect my thesis, which is that there are non-Intentional experiences. In other words, you can’t refute my claim that some pains are non-Intentional by pointing to examples in which ‘pain’ is used to refer to an Intentional state. Similarly for the other examples.

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  8. Bill Vallicella Avatar
    Bill Vallicella

    David,
    There may be other uses of ‘of’ besides the uses I mention. My claim above is merely that we have to make at least these many distinctions. You may be right that there is no dual use. It is not all that clear. My example was ‘Thoughts of Mary filled Mary’s mind.’ That says both that Mary’s thoughts filled Mary’s mind and that these thoughts were directed to Mary as their object. I still think that ‘of’ in the sample sentence is being used both objectively and subjectively at the same time, which is not the same as to say that ‘of’ is ambiguous — or is it?
    Is ambiguity a property of word-types or of -tokens? ‘Bank’ — a word-type — is ambiguous as between money bank and river bank. But if on a given occasion you see me leaving the house with a check in my hand and I say ‘I’m going to the bank,’ then the ambiguity of the word-type is disambiguated by its tokening in these circumstances. In some jokes, however, the ambiguity at the type level is preserved at the token level by a dual use of the token. I’ll have to find an example. Here is one, perhaps: “What did Lukasiewicz say to Lesniewski? ‘Logically, we are poles apart.’” The spoken word-type ‘P/pole’ is ambiguous as between Pole (Polish person) and pole. But when Lukasiewicz speaks, he tokens this type, but without disambiguating it, and that is what makes the joke funny. The token of the type ‘P/pole’ is being used in dual fashion. Or so it seems to me.
    I agree with your schema above except that you seem to be making a distinction I do not understand between the presidency of Bill Clinton (appositive) and the presidency of Bill Clinton (subjective), and similarly for redness. Can you explain that?
    As for the ‘homework exercise’ see my response to Matt.

    Reply
  9. David Brightly Avatar
    David Brightly

    Hi Bill,
    I do think subjective genitives can have an appositive interpretation. One can think of presidencies as entities with properties such as a duration in time, a successor and predecessor, a degree of success, scandal, etc. The incumbent can be thought of as another attribute. Similarly, regions of colour in the visual field have size, shape, position, brightness, etc.
    Re ‘dual uses’. Doesn’t this come down to the ambiguity of ‘or’ between inclusive and exclusive? ‘Of’ can be used this way or that way or another way. I guess this doesn’t rule out its being used in two or more ways simultaneously. But for *classificatory* purposes surely we want to give exclusive, ie, non-overlapping definitions? But the joke is now on me because I want to include subjective ‘of’ within appositive ‘of’. Perhaps we should say that the *merely* appositive uses are the ones left after subjective uses and objective uses have been subtracted.

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