Category: Intentionality
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Posits or Inventions? Geach and Butchvarov on Intentionality
One philosopher's necessary explanatory posit is another's mere invention. In his rich and fascinating article "Direct Realism Without Materialism" (Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 1994), Panayot Butchvarov rejects epistemic intermediaries as "philosophical inventions." Thus he rejects sense data, sensations, ways of being appeared to, sense experiences, mental representations, ideas, images, looks, seemings, appearances, and the like.…
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Aquinas on Intentionality: Towards a Critique
Yesterday I quoted Peter Geach in exposition of Aquinas' theory of intentionality. I will now quote Anthony Kenny in exposition of the same doctrine: The form is individuated when existing with esse naturale in an actual example of a species; it is also individuated, in quite a different way, when it exists with esse intentionale…
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Esse Intentionale and Esse Naturale: Notes on Geach on Aquinas on Intentionality
A theory of intentionality ought to explain how the objective reference or object-directedness of our thoughts is possible. Suppose I am thinking about a cat, a particular cat of my acquaintance whom I have named 'Max Black.' How are we to understand the relation between the mental act of my thinking, which is a transient datable…
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Two Puzzles Anent Brentano’s 1874 Locus Classicus on Intentionality
All contemporary discussion of intentionality traces back to an oft-quoted passage from Franz Brentano's Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint. First published in 1874 in German, this influential book had to wait 99 years until it saw the light of day in the Anglosphere. And in the Anglosphere to go untranslated is to go unread. Here is…
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The Twardowski-Meinong-Grossmann Solution to the Problem of Intentionality
Perhaps the central problem to which the phenomenon of intentionality gives rise can be set forth in terms of an aporetic triad: 1. We sometimes think about the nonexistent.2. Intentionality is a relation between thinker and object of thought.3. Every relation R is such that, if R obtains,then all its relata exist. The datanic first limb is…
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Two Motivations for a Relational Account of Intentionality (Peter Lupu)
(A guest post by Peter Lupu. Minor edits and comments in blue by BV.) There are at least two ways in which the relational character and object-directedness of intentional states such as beliefs, wants, desires, seekings, etc., is motivated: A. The individuation of intentional states; B. Aristotle’s belief-desire model of explaining actions. I. Motivation (A).…
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Intentionality and Haecceity
Steven Nemes inquires: Do you think that your stand on intentionality not requiring the existence of the intentional object is contradictory with your argument against haecceity properties (as non-qualitative thisnesses)? You say that an individual can have the property of searching after Atlantis, let's say, even if Atlantis doesn't exist. But your argument against haecceities…
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Intentionality: Peter Lupu’s ‘Surrogate Object’ Solution
I suggest we approach the problem, or one of the problems, of intentionality via the following aporetic triad: 1. We sometimes intend the nonexistent.2. Intentionality is a relation.3. Every relation R is such that, if R obtains,then all its relata exist. This is a nice neat way of formulating the problem because, on the one hand,…
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What Is Intentionality?
He now calls himself 'Edward Ockham.' I was pleased to receive an e-mail from him this morning in which he directs me to his latest post, Is There a Problem of Intentionality?, and suggests a crossblogging effort. So I perused his post. He opens: Is there a problem of intentionality? That depends what intentionality is.…
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More on Alienans Adjectives: Relative Truth and Derived Intentionality
I am sitting by a pond with a child. The child says, "Look, there are three ducks." I say, "No, there are two ducks, one female, the other male, and a decoy." The point is that a decoy duck is not a duck, but a piece of wood shaped and painted to appear (to a…
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Intentionality, Potentiality, and Dispositionality: Some Points of Analogy
The influential Austrian philosopher Franz Brentano took intentionality to be the mark of the mental, the criterion whereby physical and mental phenomena are distinguished. For Brentano, (i) all mental phenomena are intentional, (ii) all intentional phenomena are mental, and (iii) no mental phenomenon is physical. (Franz Brentano, Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt (1874), Bk. II, Ch.…
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Original and Derived Intentionality, Circles, and Regresses
1. Original/Derived Intentionality. All will agree that there is some sort of distinction to be made here. A map is not about a chunk of terrain just in virtue of the map's physical and geometrical properties. Consider the contour lines on a topographical map. The closer together, the steeper the terrain. But that closer together…
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Brentano and Whether Propositions are Intrinsically Intentional
Franz Brentano, for whom intentionality is the mark of the mental, is committed to the thesis that all instances of (intrinsic) intentionality are instances of mentality. The last post in this series considered apparent counterexamples to this thesis. But there are others. Joseph Jedwab usefully pointed out in a comment on my old blog that…
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Brentano, Dretske and Whether There is Intentionality Below the Level of Mind
For Brentano, intentionality is the mark of the mental: (i) all mental phenomena are intentional, and (ii) all intentional phenomena are mental. This post considers whether there is intentionality below the level of conscious mind, intentionality that can exist without any connection, actual or potential, to conscious mind. If there is, then of course (ii)…
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Brentano and Three Types of Unconscious Intentionality
We saw that for Brentano, (i) all conscious states are intentional, and (ii) all intentional states are conscious. We also saw that felt pain is an apparent counterexample to (i): to feel pain is to be in a conscious state, a state that is not of or about anything. But there are also apparent counterexamples to…