Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Intentionality

  • Self-Reference and Individual Concepts

    The following can happen.  You see yourself but without self-recognition.  You see yourself, but not as  yourself.  Suppose you walk into a room which unbeknownst to you has a mirror covering the far wall.  You are slightly alarmed to see a wild-haired man with his fly open approaching you.  You are looking at yourself but you don't…

  • The Philosophizing Hiker: The Derivative Intentionality of Trail Markers

    You are out hiking and the trail becomes faint and hard to follow. You peer into the distance and see what appear to be three stacked rocks. Looking a bit farther, you see another such stack. Now you are confident which way the trail goes. Your confidence increases as further cairns come into view. On…

  • BonJour on Intentionality and Materialism

    Questions about intentionality can be divided into two groups. In logically first place there are questions about what it is, how it is possible, and what ontological resources are required to render it intelligible. And then there are more specific questions about what implications intentionality has for the mind-body problem.  Does it, for example, rule out…

  • The Primacy of the Intentional Over the Linguistic

    Following Chisholm, et al. and as against Sellars, et al. I subscribe to the broadly logical primacy of the intentional over the linguistic. But before we can discuss the primacy of the intentional, we must have some idea of (i) what intentionality is and (ii) what the problem of intentionality is.  Very simply, (mental) intentionality  is…

  • An Argument of Russell Against Mental Acts

    Bertrand Russell's (1872-1970) The Analysis of Mind first appeared in 1921.  Lecture I contains a discussion of Brentano, Meinong, and mental acts.  He quotes the famous Brentano passage from the 1874 Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint, and then confesses that until very lately he believed "that mental phenomena have essential reference to objects . . .'" but…

  • An Argument for Mental Acts

    An earlier post explains the distinction between mental acts and mental actions.  But a logically prior question is whether there are any mental acts in the first place.  Suppose I hear the characteristic rumble of a Harley-Davidson engine and then suddenly think of Peter.  One cannot move straightaway from such a commonplace observation recorded in ordinary English…

  • Thinking and Thinking Of

    I have claimed more than once that, necessarily, to think is to think of something.  But is that right?  Perhaps one can think something without thinking of something.  That would be a spanner in the works.  Suppose I think that Tom is tired. The parsing could be done like this: I/think/that Tom is tired.  This…

  • Mental Acts Versus Mental Actions: Sellars and Bergmann

    I have been assuming that there are mental acts and that there are mental actions and that they must not be confused.  It's high time for a bit of exfoliation.  Suppose I note that the front door of an elderly neighbor's house has been left ajar.  That noting is a mental act, but it is…

  • What Song Did the Sirens Sing and in What Key?

    Ulysses had himself bound to the mast and the ears of his sailors plugged with wax lest the ravishing strains of the sea-nymphs' song reach their ears and cause them to cast themselves into the sea and into their doom.  But what song did the Sirens sing, and in what key?  Were their tresses of golden…

  • Intentional Objects and Dispositional Objects

    One who balks at intentional objects on the ground of their queerness will presumably also balk at dispositional objects.  But there is reason to speak of dispositional objects. And there is the outside chance that  the foes of intentional objects might be 'softened up' by a discussion of dispositions and their objects.  But I am…

  • Representation and Causation, with Some Help from Putnam

    1. Materialism would be very attractive if only it could be made to work. Unfortunately, there are a number of phenomena for which it has no satisfactory explanation. One such is the phenomenon ofrepresentation, whether mental or linguistic. Some mental states are of or about worldly individuals and states of affairs. This fact comes under…

  • Does a Cube Have 12 Edges?

    Well of course.  In reality every cube has 12 edges. But one could think of a cube without thinking of something that has 12 edges, and indeed without thinking of something that lacks 12 edges.  If you know what a cube is, and I ask you, "How many edges does a cube have," you might reply, "I don't know." …

  • The Aporetics of the Intentional Object, Part I

    Here is a puzzle that may be thought to motivate a distinction between intentional and real objects, a distinction that turns out to be problematic indeed. Puzzle.  One cannot think without thinking of something, but if one is thinking of something, it does not follow that  something is such that one is thinking of it.…

  • My Intentionality Aporia ‘Ockhamized’

    Edward of London proposes the following triad O1. The proposition ‘Bill is looking for a nonexistent thing’ can be true even when there are no nonexistent things.O2. The proposition ‘Bill is looking for a nonexistent thing’ expresses a relation between two things.O3. Every relation is such that if it obtains, all of its relata exist.…

  • Intentionality in Locks and Keys?

    The mind-body problem divides into several interconnected subproblems. One concerns the relation of consciousness to its material substratum in the brain and central nervous system. A second concerns the aboutness or intentionality of (some) conscious states. A third problem is how a physical organism can be subject to the norms of rationality: How does an…