Intentionality – Page 7 – Maverick Philosopher

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 not an action. I didn't do anything to bring about that mental state; I didn't decide to put myself in the state in question; I just happened to see that the door has been left ajar. There is nothing active or spontaneous about the noting; it is by contrast passive and receptive. But now suppose I deliberate about whether I should walk onto the man's property and either shut the door or inform him that it is ajar. Suppose he is a cranky old S.O.B. with an equally irascible old dog. I might decide that it's better to mind my own business and "let sleeping dogs lie." The deliberating is a mental action. So, assuming that there are mental acts and assuming that there are mental actions, it seems as clear as anything that they are different.

Why then are mental acts called acts if they are not actions? It is because they are occurrent rather than dispositional. Not everything mental is occurrent. For example, you believe that every number has a successor even when you are dead drunk or dreamlessly asleep. This is not an occurrent believing. Indeed, you have beliefs that have never occurred to you. Surely you believe that no coyote has ever communicated with a bobcat by cellphone, although I will lay money on the proposition that you have never thought of this before. You believe the proposition expressed by the italicized clause in that you are disposed to assent to it if the question comes up. So in that sense you do believe that no coyote, etc.

Mental acts are so-called, therefore, because they are actual or occurrent as opposed to potential or dispositional. My noting that the old man's door has been left ajar is an occurrent perceptual taking that is not in the control of my will. As Wilfrid Sellars points out,

It is nonsense to speak of taking something to be the case 'on purpose.' Taking is an act in the Aristotelian sense of 'actuality' rather than in the specialized practical sense which refers to conduct. A taking may be, on occasion, an element of a scrutinizing — which latter is indeed an action in the practical sense. To take another example, one may decide to do a certain action, but it is logical nonsense to speak of deciding to will to do it; yet volitions, of course, are mental acts. (Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes, Humanities Press, 1968, p. 74.)

Another example Sellars cites is drawing a conclusion from premises. That is a mental action, but there are mental acts involved in this will-driven thinking process. One is the 'seeing' that the conclusion follows from the premises. It cannot be said that I decide to accept a conclusion that I 'see' follows from certain other propositions. The will is not involved. The 'seeing' is a mental act, but not a mental action.

Gustav Bergmann says essentially the same thing. "An act is not an activity and an activity is not an act." (Realism: A Critique of Brentano and Meinong, University of Wisconsin Press, 1967, p. 153.) He says that this was crystal clear to Brentano and Meinong, but that in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition 'act' carries an implication of activity. "In the Aristotlelian-Thomistic account . . . an act of perceiving is the 'abstracting' of a substantial form; and an 'abstracting' is an activity." (Ibid.)

Very interesting. It sounds right to me, though I wonder if all Thomists would agree. Not being a Thomist, I incline to the later view. So as I use 'mental act' a mental act is not a mental action or activity. This is of course consistent, as already indicated, with its being the issue of certain mental actions.

A deeper and more important question is whether there are mental acts at all. Their existence is not obvious — or is it? Wittgenstein appears to have denied the existence of mental acts. Bergmann believes he did, while Geach believes he did not. There is also the related but distinct question whether mental acts require a subject distinct from the act which remains numerically the same over time. But is even a momentary subject needed? Why couldn't awareness be totally subjectless, a "wind blowing towards objects" in the Sartrean image? Butchvarov takes a line similar to Sartre's.

Clearly, there has to be some distinction between conscious intentionality and its objects. That's a rock-bottom datum upon which "our spade is turned" to borrow a phrase from old Ludwig. But why must consciousness be articulated into discrete acts? Why believe in acts at all? What are the phenomenological and dialectical considerations that speak in their favor?

Future posts will tackle all these questions as we plunge deeper into the aporetics of mind and bang into one impasse after another. It should prove to be a humbling experience.

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 hue? And how long were they? Were the nymphs equipped with special nautical brassieres to protect their tender nipples from rude contact with jelly fish and such?

One cannot sing a song without singing some definite song in some definite key commencing at some definite time and ending at some later definite time. But you understand the story of Ulysses and the Sirens and you are now thinking about the song they sang. But what sort of object is that?

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 not particularly sanguine about bringing the Londonistas out from under their fog and into the Phoenician sunshine.

We can sensibly speak of object-directedness both in the case of thoughts (acts of thinking) and in the case of dispositions (powers, potencies, capacities, and the like). I cannot think without thinking of something. That of which I am thinking is reasonably called the object of my thought. Said object may or may not exist. So we speak of intentional objects. The intentional object of a mental act is the object precisely as intended in the act.

But dispositions have objects too. Call them 'dispositional objects.' Dispositions are directed to these objects which may or may not occur. Thus dispositions to dissolve, shatter, or swell under certain circumstances are directed to dissolvings, shatterings, and swellings which may or may not occur, and indeed without prejudice to object-directedness.

A sugar cube, for example, is disposed to dissolve if immersed in water or some other fluid. Distinguish the following four: the sugar cube, its disposition to dissolve, the causal factors needed to trigger the disposition, and the manifestation of the disposition, i.e., its actual dissolving. The last-mentioned is the object of the disposition, the dispositional object. It is an event that may or may not occur depending on circumstances. A disposition can exist without ever occurring. Suppose a sugar cube is manufactured, exists for a year, and then is destroyed by being pulverized with a hammer. It never dissolves. But at each time during its career it harbors the disposition to dissolve. It is liable to dissolve whether or not it ever does dissolve. It follows that one must not confuse a disposition with its manifestation. Dispositions are what they are whether or not they are manifested, whether or not their dispositional objects occur.

Similarly, acts of thinking are what they are and have the specific aboutness that they have whether or not their intentional objects exist in reality. In an earlier post I drew out the parallel between intentionality and dispositionality more fully. There is no need to repeat myself here. The point I want to make in this post is as follows.

If you admit that there are dispositions, then you must admit that there are dispositional objects. Thus if you admit that a sugar cube, say, has the disposition to dissolve in certain circumstances, then you must admit that this disposition points beyond itself to an event — the manifestation of the disposition — that may or may not occur. Why then balk at intentional objects?

Note that the following is apparently contradictory: X is disposed to do something (e.g., shatter) but nothing is such that X is disposed to it. That parallels: I am thinking of something but nothing is such that I am thinking of it. Clearly, both statement-forms have some true substitution-instances. So the statement forms are not contradictory.

How do we show that the apparent contradictions are not real? By distinguishing between intentional and dispositional objects on the one hand and real objects (objects-as-entities) on the other.

How will the Londonistas respond? Will they deny that there are dispositions? They might. But if they accept dispositions, then they must accept dispositional objects and a fortiori intentional objects. I write 'a fortiori' because, while dispositionality can be doubted, intentionality cannot be doubted, it being phenomenologically evident. It is certain that I think and just as certain that I cannot think without thinking of something.

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 of
representation, whether mental or linguistic. Some mental states are of or about worldly individuals and states of affairs. This fact comes under the rubric 'Intentionality.' How is this intentional directedness possible given materialist constraints? Following Chisholm and Searle, I subscribe to the primacy of the intentional over the linguistic. But let's approach the problem of representation from the side of linguistic reference. How is it that words and sentences mean things? How does language hook onto reality? In virtue of what does my tokening (in overt speech, in writing, or in any other way) of the English word-type 'cat' refer to cats? What makes 'cat' refer to cats rather than to pictures of cats or statues of cats or the meowing of cats? This, in linguistic dress, is the question, What makes my thought of a cat, a thought of a cat? And how is all this possible in the materialist's world?

2. The materialist has more than one option, but a very tempting one is to reduce reference to causation. The idea is roughly that the referent of a word is what causes its tokening. Thus 'cat'-tokenings refer to cats because cats cause these tokenings. Suppose I walk into your house and see a cat. I say: "I see you have cat." My use of 'cat' on this occasion — my tokening of the word-type — refers to cats because the critter in front of me causes my 'cat'-tokening. That's the idea.

3. Unfortunately, this is only a crude gesture in the direction of a theory. For it is obvious, as Hilary Putnam points out (Renewing Philosophy, Harveard UP, 1992,p. 37), that pictures of cats cause 'cat'-tokenings, but pictures of cats are not cats. Cats are typically furry and cover their feces. Pictures, however, are rarely furry and never cover their (nonexistent) feces. Yet I might say, seeing a picture of a cat over your fireplace, "I see you like cats." In that sentence, 'cat' is used to refer to cats even though what caused my 'cat'-tokening was not a cat but a non-cat, namely, a picture of a cat.

Indeed, practically anything can cause a 'cat'-tokening: cat feces, cat hair, cat caterwauling. Suppose I see Ann Coulter engaged in a 'cat-fight' with Susan Estrich on one of the shout shows. I say, "They are fighting like cats." Nota Bene: my use of 'cat' in this sentence is literal, but it is not caused by a cat! (My example, not Putnam's).

4. Our problem is this: what determines the reference of a word like 'cat'? What makes this bit of language represent something extralinguistic? 'Cat' is a linguistic item; a cat is not. (French 'philosophers' take note.) In virtue of what does the former target the latter? If both a cat and a pile of cat scat can cause a 'cat'-tokening, then the causal theory of reference is worthless unless it can exclude these extraneous (excremental?) cases.

The problem is that 'cat' refers to something quite specific, cats, whereas 'cat'-tokenings can be caused by practically anything. To solve this problem, a notion of causation must be invoked that is also quite selective. It turns out, however, that this selective notion of causation presupposes intentionality, and so cannot be used in a noncircular account of intentionality. Let me explain.

4. Context-Sensitive versus Context-Independent Concepts of Causation. We often in ordinary English speak of 'the cause' of some event, a myocardial infarction say, even though there are many contributing factors: bad diet, lack of exercise, hypertension, cigarette smoking, high stress job, an episode of snow-shoveling. Which of these will be adjudged 'the cause' is context- and interest-relative. A physician who gets a kick-back from a pharmaceutical concern will point to hypertension, perhaps, so that he can prescribe a massive dose of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor, while the man's wife might say that it was the snow shoveling that did him in.

To take a more extreme example, suppose a man dies in a fire while in bed. The salient cause might be determined to be smoking in bed. No one will say that the flammability of the bedsheets and other room
furnishings is the cause of the man's incineration. Nevertheless, had the room and its furnishings not been flammable, the fire would not have occurred! The flammability is not merely a logical, but also a causal, condition of the fire. It is part of the total cause, but no one will consider it salient. The word is from the Latin salire to leap, whence our word 'sally' as when one sallies forth to do battle at a
chess tournament, say. A salient cause, then, is one that jumps out at you, grabbing you by your epistemic shorthairs as it were, as opposed to being a mere background condition.

Putnam cites the example of the pressure cooker that exploded (p. 48). No one will say that it was a lack of holes in the pressure cooker's vessel that caused the explosion. A stuck safety valve caused the explosion. Nevertheless, had the vessel been perforated, the contraption would not have exploded!

What these examples show is that there is an ordinary-language use of 'cause' which is context-sensitive and interest-relative and (if I may) point-of-view-ish. A wholly objective view of nature, a Nagelian view from nowhere, would not be able to discriminate the salient from the nonsalient in matters causal. In terms of fundamental physics, the whole state of the world at time t determines its state at subsequent times. At this level, a short-circuit and the current's being on are equally causal in respect of the effect of a fire. Our saying that the short-circuit caused the fire, not the current's being on, simply advertises the fact that for us the latter is the normal and desired state of things, the state we have an interest in maintaining, and that the former is the opposite.

The ordinary notion of cause, then, resting as it does on our interests and desires, presupposes intentional notions. I cannot be interested in or desire something unless I am conscious of it. And I cannot adjudge one state of affairs as normal and the other as abnormal unless I have interests and desires.

5. Recall what the problem was. The materialist needs to explain reference in physicalist terms. He thinks to do so by invoking physical causation. The idea is that the referents of a word W cause W-tokenings. The reference of a word is determined by the causal influence of the word's referents. So it must be cats, and not pictures of cats, or the past behavior or English speakers that causes 'cat'-tokenings. But surely the past behavior of English speakers is part of the total cause of p
resent 'cat'-tokenings. (See Putnam, pp. 48-49.) 'Cat' does not refer to this behavior, however. To exclude the behavior as non-salient requires use of the ordinary interest-relative notion of causation. But this notion, we have seen, presupposes intentionality.

6. The upshot is that the above causal account of representation – which is close to a theory proposed by Jerry Fodor — is viciously circular: it presupposes the very notion that it is supposed to be reductively accounting for, namely, intentionality.

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." During this exchange you are most assuredly thinking of a cube, but a cube indeterminate in respect of the property of having 12 edges. What you have before your mind is an incomplete object, one that, because incomplete, cannot exist. Your thought has an intentional object, but it is an object that does not exist.

Another example. Peter shows up at my door. I note that he is wearing a brown leather vest. Now anything made of leather must be made of cow leather or horse leather or alligator leather or . . . . But the leather vest that is before my mind as the object of my visual experience is indeterminate with respect to type of leather. What is before my mind is an intentional object.

Peter's vest is brown, and in reality everything brown is colored. But the intentional object of my visual experiencing is brown but not colored. Extracting the principle, we may erect the following thesis:

Non-Closure Under Property-Entailment: Intentional objects, reflecting as they do the finitude of the human mind, are not closed under property-entailment.

It follows from this principle that no merely intentional object exists. (For everything that exists is complete.) But that is not to say that they are denizens of Meinong's realm of Aussersein. Talk of merely intentional objects does not commit one to Meinongianism. One could take the line that merely intentional objects are "ontically heteronomous" to borrow a phrase from Roman Ingarden: their existence is parasitic upon the existence of the mental acts whose intentional objects they are.

Now there are problems with this sketch of a theory of intentional objects, but it is not an obviously senseless or incoherent theory. So I suspect Edward of London feigns incomprehension when he says he doesn't understand it. Does he have a better theory?

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.

Example. Tom is thinking of the fountain of youth. So he is thinking of something. But there is no fountain of youth. So from the fact that Tom is thinking of the fountain of youth, it does not follow that something is such that Tom is thinking of it.

The puzzle expressed as an aporetic dyad:

1. One cannot think without thinking of something.
2. If one is thinking of something, it does not follow that something is such that one is thinking of it.

Both limbs make a strong claim on our acceptance. The first is utterly datanic. The second, though exceedingly plausible, and indeed true as far as I can see, is not datanic. It is reasonably denied by Meinong and the Meinongians. For if some items have no being at all, and if the fountain of youth counts as a beingless item (as it does for Meinong & Co.), and if Tom is thinking of the fountain of youth, then it does follow that something is such that Tom is thinking of it. This shows that our puzzle rests on a presupposition which ought to be added to our dyad so as to sire the following aporetic triad or antilogism:

1. One cannot think without thinking of something.
2. If one is thinking of something, it does not follow that something is such that one is thinking of it.
3. There are no beingless items.

Though the limbs are individually plausible, they appear collectively inconsistent. If they really are inconsistent, then we face a genuine aporia, an intellectual impasse: we have three propositions each of which we have excellent reason to think is true, but which cannot all be true on pain of logical contradiction.

There is at least the appearance of contradiction. For if Tom is thinking of a mermaid, and there are no mermaids, then Tom is both thinking of something and not thinking of something. Tom's thought has an object and it does not have an object. It has an object because no one can think without thinking of something. It does not have an object because there are no mermaids. So we have at least an apparent contradiction.

To dispel the appearance of contradiction, one could make a distinction. So let us distinguish the intentional object from the real object and see what happens. Every intentional state is a directedness to an object, and the intentional object is simply that to which the intentional state is directed precisely as it is intended in the mental act with all and only the properties it is intended as having. So when Tom thinks of a mermaid, a mermaid is his intentional object. For it is that to which his thought is directed. But there is no 'corresponding' real object because there are no mermaids in reality. Accordingly, 'Tom's thought has an object and it does not have an object' is only apparently a contradiction since what it boils down to is 'Tom's thought has an intentional object but it does not have a real object' — which is not a contradiction.

Unfortunately, this solution brings with it its own difficulties. In this post I will mention just one.

The putative solution says that if I am thinking about Pegasus or Atlantis or the fountain of youth, my thinking has an intentional object, but that there is no corresponding real object. But what if I am thinking of Peter, who exists? In this case the theory will have to maintain that there is a real object corresponding to the intentional object. It will have to maintain this because every intentional state has an intentional object. The theory, then, says that when we intend the nonexistent, there is only an intentional object. But when we intend the existent, there is both an intentional object and a corresponding real object. There is a decisive objection to this theory.

Clearly, if I am thinking about Peter, I am thinking about him and not about some surrogate intentional object, immanent to the mental act, which somehow mediates between the act and Peter himself. The mental act terminates at Peter and not at an intentional object. Intentionality, after all, is that feature of mental states whereby they refer beyond themselves to items that are neither parts of the mental act nor existentially dependent on the mental act. Clearly, it is intrinsic to the intentionality of my thinking of Peter that my thinking intends something that exists whether or not I am thinking of it.

This objection puts paid to the notion that intentionality relates a mind (or a state of a mind) to a merely intentional object which functions as an epistemic intermediary or epistemic surrogate. This scheme fails to accommodate the fact that intentionality by its very nature involves a transcending of the mind and its contents towards the transcendent. Suppose I am thinking about a mountain. Whether it exists or not, what I intend is (i) something whose nature is physical and not mental; and (ii) something that exists whether or not I am thinking about it.

The point I just made is that when I think of Peter, it is Peter himself that my thought reaches: my thought does not terminate at a merely intentional object, immanent to the act, which merely stands for or goes proxy for or represents Peter. This point is well-nigh datanic. If you don't understand it, you don't understand intentionality. One will be tempted to accommodate this point by saying that when one thinks of what exists, the IO = the RO. But this can't be right either. For the intentional object is always an incomplete object, a fact that reflects the finitude of the human mind. But Peter in reality is a complete object. Now identity is governed by the Indiscernibility of Identicals which states, roughly, that if x = y, then x and y share all properties. But the IO and the RO do not share all properties: The IO is indeterminate with respect to some properties while the RO is wholly determinate. Therefore, the IO is never identical to the RO.

So the point I made cannot be accommodated by saying that the IO = the RO in the case when one thinks of the existent.

Where does this leave us? I argued that our initial puzzle codified first as a dyad and then as a triad motivates a distinction between intentional and real objects. The distinction was introduced in alleviation of inconsistency. But then we noted a serious difficulty with the distinction. But if the distinction cannot be upheld, how do we solve the aporetic triad? It looks as if the distinction is one we need to make, but cannot make.

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.

as a nominalistic equivalent to my

W1. We sometimes think about the nonexistent.
W2. Intentionality is a relation between thinker and object of thought.
W3. Every relation R is such that, if R obtains,then all its relata exist.

Edward imposes the following contraint on aporetic polyads: "The essence of an aporetic polyad is that any proper subset of statements (including the singleton set) should be consistent on its own, and only the whole set being inconsistent." I accept this constraint. It implies that nothing can count as an aporetic polyad if one of its limbs is self-contradictory.

My definition runs as follows. An aporetic polyad is a set S of n self-consistent propositions (n>1) such that (i) any n-1 members of S, taken in conjunction, entail the negation of the remaining member; (ii) each member of S has a strong claim on our acceptance. Edward's constraint follows from this definition. For if any member is self-inconsistent, then it cannot have a strong claim, or any claim, on our acceptance.

If I understand Edward, he is urging two points. His first point is that my formulation of the triad is inept because (W1), unlike (O1), is self-contradictory. If this charge sticks, then my formulation does not count as an aporetic polyad by my own definition. His second point is that his version of the triad has a straightforward and obvious solution: reject (O2).

Reply to the First Point. There is nothing self-contradictory about 'We sometimes think of the nonexistent.' As I made clear earlier, this is a datanic, not a theoretical, claim. On this score it contrasts with the other two limbs. It is meant to record an obvious fact that everyone ought to grant instantly. Because the fact is obvious it is obviously self-consistent. So if Edward denies (W1), then it is not profitable to to continue a discussion with him.

All I can do at this point is speculate as to why Edward fails to get the point. I suppose what he is doing is reading a theory into (W1), a theory he considers self-contradictory. But (W1) simply records a pre-theoretical fact and is neutral with respect to such theories as Meinong's Theory of Objects. Suppose I am imagining a winged horse. If so, then it would be false to say that I am imagining nothing. One cannot simply imagine, or just imagine. It follows that I am imagining something. We are still at the level of data. I have said nothing controversial. One moves beyond data to theory if one interprets my imagining something that does not exist as my standing in a relation to a Meinongian nonexistent object. That is a highly controversial but possible theory, and it is not self-contradictory contrary to what Edward implies. But whether or not it is self-contradictory, the main point for now is that

1. BV is imagining a winged horse

Is neutral as between the following theory-laden interpretations

2. BV (or a mental act of his) stands in a dyadic relation to a Meinongian nonexistent object.

and

3. BV is imagining winged-horse-ly.

The crucial datum is that one cannot just imagine, or simply imagine. We express this by saying that to imagine is to imagine something. But 'imagine something' needn't be read relationally; it could be read adverbially. Accordingly, to imagine Peter (who exists) is to imagine Peter-ly, and to imagine Polonious (who does not exist) is to imagine Polonious-ly. I am not forced by the crucial datum to say that imagining involves a relation between subject and object; I can say that the 'object' reduces to an adverbial modification of my imagining.

So even if the relational reading of (1) were self-contradictory — which it isn't – one is not bound to interpret (1) relationally. Now (1) is just an example of (W1). So the same goes for (W1). (W1) is obviously true. He who denies it is either perverse or confused.

Reply to the Second Point. One can of course solve Edward's triad by denying (O2). But the real question is whether one can easily deny the distinct proposition (W2). I say no. For one thing, the alternatives to saying that intentionality is a relation are not at all appetizing. All three of the limbs of my triad lay claim to our acceptance, and none can be easily rejected – but they cannot all be true. That is why there is a problem.

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 abstract argument-pattern such as Modus Tollens 'find purchase in' and 'govern' the transitions from one brain state to another? A fourth subproblem has to do with mental causation. Obviously, mental states are causally efficacious in bringing about physical states and other mental states. My desire for another cup of java is part of the causal chain that eventuates in the physical process of ingesting caffeine. Note also that knowledge of the physical world would presumably not be possible unless physical states could enter into the etiology of mental states. (I say 'presumably' because my formulation begs the question against idealism. And don't let anyone tell you that idealism is not a live option! The fact that it is not much discussed these days doesn't mean anything. Academic philosophers can be as fashion-conscious as teenage girls, and as worried about how they appear; idealism is currently not discussed in the more fashionable salons.)

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. (1) Curiously enough, however, Butch goes on to posit nonexistent or unreal objects very much in the manner of Meinong! Actually, 'posit' is not a word he would use since Butch claims that we are directly acquainted with unreal objects. (13) Either way, unreal objects such as the proverbial hallucinated pink rat are not, on Butchvarov's view, philosophical inventions.

But now consider the following 1961 passage from Anscombe and Geach's Three Philosophers, a passage that is as if directed against the Butchvarovian view:

But saying this has obvious difficulties. [Saying that all there is to a sensation or thought of X is its being of X.] It seems to make the whole being of a sensation or thought consist in a relation to something else: it is as if someone said he had a picture of a cat that was not painted on any background or in any medium, there being nothing to it except that it was a picture of a cat. This is hard enough: to make matters worse, the terminus of the supposed relation may not exist — a drunkard's 'seeing' snakes is not related to any real snake, nor my thought of a phoenix to any real phoenix. Philosophers have sought a way out of this difficulty by inventing chimerical entities like 'snakish sense-data' or 'real but nonexistent phoenixes' as termini of the cognitive relation. (95, emphasis added)

Butchvarov would not call a nonexistent phoenix or nonexistent pink rat real, but that it just a matter of terminology. What is striking here is that the items Geach considers chimerical inventions Butchvarov considers not only reasonably posited, but phenomenologically evident!

Ain't philosophy grand? One philosopher's chimerical invention is another's phenomenological given.

What is also striking about the above passage is that the position that Geach rejects via the 'picture of a cat' analogy is almost exactly the position that Butch maintains. Let's think about this a bit.

Surely Anscombe and Geach are right when it comes to pictures and other physical representations. There is a clear sense in which a picture (whether painting, photograph, etc.) of a cat is of a cat. The intentionality here cannot however be original; it must be derivative, derivative from the original intentionality of one who takes the picture to be of a cat. Surely no physical representation represents anything on its own, by its own power. And it is also quite clear that a picture of X is not exhausted by its being of X. There is more to a picture than its depicting something; the depicting function needs realization in some medium.

The question, however, is whether original intentionality also needs realization in some medium. It is not obvious that it does need such realization, whether in brain-stuff or in mind-stuff. Why can't consciousness of a cat be nothing more than consciousness of a cat? Why can't consciousness be exhausted in its being by its revelation of objects?

Bewusstsein als bewusst-sein. Get it?

But this is not the place to examine Butchvarov's direct realist conception of consciousness, a conception he finds in Moore, Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Sartre, and contrasts with a mental- contents conception.

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 in the mind of a thinker. Suppose that I think of a crocodile. There seem to be two things that make this thought the thought that it is: first, that it is a thought of a crocodile and not, say, of an elephant; second, that it is my thought and not yours or President Bush's. Other things may be true of thoughts — e.g. that they are interesting, obsessive, vague — but these seem to be the two things essential to any thoughts: that they should be someone's thoughts, and that they should be thoughts of something. The theory of intentionality is meant to set out both these features. The form of crocodile when existing in nature is individuated by the matter it informs; when existing intentionally, it is individuated by the person in whose mind it exists. (Aquinas on Being, Oxford 2002, p. 169)

The idea, then, is that one and the same form is both in the thing outside the mind (the crocodile in Kenny's example) and in the mind of the person who is thinking about the crocodile. It is this self-same form that makes the thought a thought of a crocodile as opposed to a thought of something else. But the form exists in mind and in thing in two different ways. It exists in the mind with esse intentionale (intentional be-ing), but exists in the thing with esse naturale (natural be-ing). (My use of 'be-ing' to translate esse is not for the sake of being cute but to underscore the crucial distinction between the infinitive esse (to be) and the present participle ens, both of which can be translated with 'being.')

The distinction between the two modes of be-ing is needed in order to avoid the consequence that a mind thinking about a crocodile either has a crocodile in it or is itself a crocodile. A thought of a red sunset is not a red thought, and a thought of a crocodile does not have the properties characteristic of a crocodile.

I now pass over to critique. Let's first note a distinction that I fudged yesterday for the sake of brevity, brevity being the soul of blog. Reverting to yesterday's example, it is the distinction between thinking of a cat (some cat or other) and thinking of a particular cat such as Max Black. It is one thing to explain how my thought of a cat is a thought of a cat (as opposed to a dog or a kangaroo), and quite another to explain how my thought of Max the cat is a thought of Max. The Thomist theory may well be up to the first task. But I'm not sure it is up to the second.

Matter is the principium individuationis. What makes a cat an individual cat numerically distinct from other cats is its signate or designated matter (materia signata). In extramental reality, then, Max's individuality is bound up with his signate matter. But when Max's form exists in my mind with esse intentionale, it is exists in an immaterial way. What then individuates Max's form as it exists in my mind with esse intentionale? And if nothing individuates it, then what makes my thought of Max the cat a thought of Max (as opposed to a thought of some cat or other)?

I hope to expatiate further on this tomorrow.

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 event in my mental life, and its object, namely the cat I am thinking of? What makes my thinking of Max a thinking of Max?

Here is what Peter Geach has to say, glossing Aquinas:

What makes a sensation or thought of an X to be of an X is that it is an individual occurrence of that very form or nature which occurs in X — it is thus that our mind 'reaches right up to the reality'; what makes it to be a sensation or thought of an X rather than an actual X or an actual X-ness is that X-ness here occurs in the special way called esse intentionale and not in the 'ordinary' way called esse naturale. This solution resolves the difficulty. It shows how being of an X is not a relation in which the thought or sensation stands, but is simply what the thought or sensation is . . . .(Three Philosophers, Cornell UP, 1961, p. 95)

But what the devil does that mean? Allow me to explain. The main point here is that ofness or aboutness is not a relation between a mental act and its object. Thus intentionality is not a relation that relates my thinking of Max and Max. My thinking of Max just is the mental occurrence of the very same form or nature — felinity — which occurs physically in Max. Max is a hylomorphic compound, a compound of form and (signate) matter. Old Max himself, fleas and all, is of course not in my mind. It is his form that is in my mind. But if felinity informs my mind, why isn't my mind a cat? Here is where the distinction between esse intentionale and esse naturale comes in. One and the same form — felinity — exists in two different modes. Its mode of being in my mind is esse intentionale while its mode of being in Max is esse naturale.

Because my thought of Max just is the intentional occurrence of the same form or nature that occurs naturally in Max, there is no problem about how my thought reaches Max. One could call this an identity theory of intentionality.

What if Max were, unbeknownst to me, to cease to exist while I was thinking about him? My thinking would be unaffected: it would still be about Max in exactly the way it was about him before. The Thomist theory would account for this by saying that while the form occurs with esse intentionale in my mind, it does not occur outside my mind with esse reale.

That in a nutshell is the Thomist theory of intentionality. There is more to it of course, and it is open to some very serious objections. These will be discussed tomorrow perhaps.

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 the passage:

Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction toward an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself, although they do not all do so in the same way. In presentation something is presented, in judgment something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on. (Humanities Press, 1973, ed. McAlister, p. 88)

This passage is not only puzzling in itself, but also puzzling in that it is not clear what it has to do with the discussions of intentionality that it spawned. I think most philosophers nowadays would agree that something like the following is the thesis of intentionality:

Thesis of Intentionality. It is characteristic of certain mental states (the intentional states) to refer beyond themselves to items (i) that are not part of the state and (ii) may or may not exist.

Example. If I am in a state of desire, then a complete description of this mental state must include a specification of what it is that I desire. One cannot simply desire, or just desire. At a bare minimum we need to distinguish between the desiring and that which is desired. As Brentano says above, in desire something is desired.

Unfortunately, the word 'something' will cause some people to stumble including some esteemed members of the Commenter Corps. They will get it into their heads that a concrete episode of desire cannot exist unless there also exists, independently of the desire, something that is desired. But this cannot be what is meant. For if Poindexter desires a perpetuum mobile, he is just as much in a state of desire as his pal Percy who desires Poindexter's sloop, despite the fact that there is and can be no perpetuum mobile, while there is Poindexter's sloop. And as for wanting a sloop, it could be that Percy wants a sloop without wanting any sloop that (presently) exists: he wants a sloop that satisfies a description that no sloop in existence satisfies. Or a woman wants a baby. She doesn't want to adopt or kidnap an existing baby; she wants to 'bring a baby into the world.' Obviously, her longing is for something that does not presently exist, and indeed for something that does not exist at all if what does not yet exist does not exist.

In cases like these , the states of desire refer beyond themselves to items that are (i) not part of the states and that (ii) do not exist. After all, someone who wants a sloop does not want a mental state, or any part of a mental state, or anything immanent to a mental state, or anything whose existence depends on the existence of a mental state. Wanting a sloop, by its very intentional structure, intends something which, if it exists, exists independently of any mental state. And note that from the fact that there is nothing that satisfies the sloop-desire it does not follow that the desire is directed to an immanent object.

It is also important to realize that the reference beyond itself of mental acts is an intrinsic (nonrelational) feature of these acts: what makes my thought of Las Vegas precisely a thought of Las Vegas is not the obtaining of a relation between me (or my mental state) and the city of Las Vegas. For suppose I am thinking of Las Vegas, and while I am thinking of it God does to it what he is said to have done to Sodom and Gomorrah. Would my thinking of Las Vegas be in any way affected as to its own inner nature? No. The act of thinking and its content are what they are whether or not the external object exists.

Part of the thesis of intentionality , then, is that certain mental states are intrinsically such as to point beyond themselves to items that may or may not exist. Intrinsically, because the object-directedness is not parasitic upon the actual existence of the external object. But can one find the thesis of intentionality as I have spelled it out in the above passage?

No, and that is our first puzzle. It is puzzling that the 1874 'charter' has little to do with what subsequently flew under the flag 'intentionality.' Two points:

a. Although Brentano speaks of "reference to an object," he makes it clear that this object is an immanent object, one contained in the mental phenomenon or act. As such, the object is indistinguishable from a mental content. And then there is the talk of "the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object." 'Inexistence' does not mean nonexistence but existence-in (inesse). The idea is that the object exists in the act and not independently of the act. But then the object is a mere content, and the notion of a reference beyond the mental state to something transcendent of it is lost.

b. It is also striking that in the 1874 passage there is no mention of the crucial feature of intentionality that is always mentioned in later discussions of it, namely, that the items to which intentional states refer may or may not exist, or may or may not obtain (in the case of states of affairs). For example, if Loughner believes that the earth is flat, then his mental state is directed toward a state of affairs which, if it obtains, is a state of affairs involving the earth and nothing mental. But neither the obtaining nor the nonobtaining of this state of affairs follows from Loughner's being in the belief-state.

It seems as if for the Brentano of 1874 intentionality is something wholly internal to the mental phenomenon, a relation that connects the act with its content, but does not point beyond the content to the external world. "If every mental phenomenon includes as object something within itself," then every intentional object exists in the mode: existence-in. I am therefore inclined to agree with Tim Crane: "Brentano’s original 1874 doctrine of intentional inexistence has nothing to do with the problem of how we can think about things that do not exist."

Of course, in the later Brentano intentionality is tied to the latter problem. On Crane's analysis, Brentano simply changed his mind after 1874. I see it slightly differently: the later view is implicit in the 1874 passage but cannot emerge clearly because of Brentano's adherence to Scholastic conceptuality. But this is a contested exegetical point.

The second puzzle concerns an apparent misunderstanding by Brentano of the Scholastic doctrine of esse intentionale. This is puzzling because Brentano was steeped in Aristotle and the Scholastics due to his priestly formation, not to mention his doctoral work under Trendelenburg.

In the passage quoted Brentano identifies intentional inexistence with mental inexistence, which implies that below the level of mind there is no esse intentionale. But this is not Scholastic doctrine. For an explanation of this, see Gyula Klima. We will come back to this.

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 nonnegotiable, a 'Moorean fact.' The other two limbs, being more theoretical, can be denied if one is willing to pay the price. But something has to give since they cannot all be true.

Brentano denied (2) with unpalatable consequences to be explored in a separate post. Why not accept (2), deny (3) and admit that there are abnormal relations, relations that connect existents with nonexistents?

Consider the round square, that well-worn example that goes back at least to Bernard Bolzano. Since there is no such thing, and cannot be, one will be tempted to say that the round square is an idea (presentation, Vorstellung) without an object. That is what Bolzano maintained using that very example of rundes Viereck. (Theory of Science, pp. 88-89) In section 5 of Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand der Vorstellungen (1894), Kasimir Twardowski criticizes Bolzano's position.

Twardowski distinguishes among the following: there is the expression 'the round square.' Then there is the mental act, the act of presentation (Vorstellungsact) that transpires in someone who uses the expression with understanding. Corresponding to the act is a content (Inhalt) which constitutes the meaning of the expression. But there is also a fourth item, that to which the expression refers, the round square itself, that which combines logically incompatible properties and whose existence one denies as soon as one advances from the presentation round square to a judgment about it. (Cf. the Brentanian theses that judgments are founded upon presentations, and that every judgment is existential, involving the acceptance or rejection of a presentation.)

This of course sticks in the craw. One hesitates to admit that there is something outside the mind to which 'round square' refers, something that has the property of nonexistence. It smacks of a contradiction. Clearly, 'There exists an x such that x does not exist' IS a contradiction, but this is not what a Meinongian will say.

Note that Twardowski has a couple of powerful reasons for not identifying the round square and its colleagues with mental contents. The first is that contents exist while nonexistent objects don't. So the round square cannot be identified with the content expressed by 'the round square.' The second reason is that we ascribe to the round square attributes that not only cannot be ascribed to the corresponding content, but are logically incompatible to boot. Thus no content is round and no content is square and of course no content is both round and square. Since contents exist, they cannot have contradictory properties.

These arguments, spelled out a bit perhaps, show that mental contents cannot go proxy for nonexistent items, whether merely possible like the celebrated golden mountain or impossible like the round square. One could extend the argument to cover abstract objects which are not mental contents or in any way mind-dependent. They too are unsuited to go proxy for nonexistents. For (1) abstracta exist while nonexistents do not, and (2) the properties of nonexistent concreta cannot be attributed to abstracta. Thus a flying horse is an animal, a golden mountain is a mountain, and a round square is round. But no abstract object is an animal or a mountain or round.

When I think about the round square or the golden mountain (in whatever psychological mode) the object of my thought is neither a mental content nor an abstract object. What is it then? Why, it is the round square or the golden mountain! As bizarre as this sounds, it makes a certain amount of sense. If I want to climb the golden mountain, I want to climb a physical prominence, not a mental content or an abstractum.

The position under examination, then, is not only that every mental act has a content, but that every mental act has an object as well. But not all of these objects exist. One obvious advantage of this approach is that it allows us to hold onto (2) of our opening triad in full generality: in every case, intentionality relates a thinker through a content to a transcendent object, and not to some surrogate object, either!

Why is this a good thing? Well, if intentionality is relational only in some cases, the veridical cases, then it cannot be essential to mental acts to be of an object: whether or not an act actually has an object will depend on contingent facts in the world beyond the mind. For Brentano, all mental acts are intentional by their very nature as mental. The Twardowski-Meinong approach upholds this.

But the price is very steep: one must accept that there are items that actually instantiate properties (not merely possibly instantiate them), and that these items nevertheless do not exist, or indeed, as on Meinong's actual view, have any mode of being at all. This is his famous doctrine of the Aussersein des reinen Gegenstandes, the 'extrabeing of the pure object.' Thus the golden mountain is actually golden and actually a mountain despite having no being whatsoever. It is a pure Sosein utterly devoid of Sein.

Some, like van Inwagen, think that Meinong's theory of objects is obviously self-contradictory. I don't believe this is right, for reasons detailed here. Even so, I find Meinong's theory incoherent. 'Some items have no being at all' is not a formal contradiction. Still, I cannot get a mental grip on the notion of an item that actually has properties, but is wholly beingless.

In addition, one must accept that there are genuine relations that connect existents to nonexistents.

The price is too steep to pay. The Twardowski-Meinong-Grossmann solution is just as problematic as the original problem.

REFERENCE: Reinhardt Grossmann, The Categorial Structure of the World, Indiana UP, 1983, p. 197 ff.

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). Consider the following:

1) Jake seeks the golden mountain;

2) Jake seeks the keys to his car.

Clearly, (1) and (2) express two different intentional states of the same individual. But, in virtue of what do (1) and (2) express two different intentional states? It appears that the best and only explanation for the difference is that the two cases relate Jake to two different objects: i.e., in (1) Jake seeks the golden mountain; in (2) Jake seeks his car keys; and, of course, the golden mountain and Jake’s car keys are two distinct objects.

The point, though correct, needs to be made with a bit more exactitude. Presumably, the intentional states are numerically distinct in virtue of occurring at different times. If so, someone could reply that what makes the states different is their occurring at different times. The question, however, is not what makes the states token-distinct, but what makes them type-distinct. And the answer can only be that it is distinctness of intentional object that explains type-distinctness of states.

Continue reading “Two Motivations for a Relational Account of Intentionality (Peter Lupu)”

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 is that identity-with-Socrates would be nonsense if Socrates didn't exist.

How would you solve the apparent contradiction?

Let's first note an ambiguity that infects 'intentional object.' Intentionality is object-directedness. So there is a clear sense in which every intentional mental state 'takes an accusative,' 'is of or about an object.' That object could be called the intentional object. Accordingly, whether I want a three-headed dog or a one-headed dog, my wanting has an intentional object. The nonexistence of three-headed dogs does not prejudice the object-directedness of my wanting a three-headed dog. It is equally important to note that the existence of one-headed dogs plays no role in making my wanting a one-headed dog object-directed. This is because object-directedness is an intrinsic feature of mental acts. To see this more clearly, suppose I want a one-headed dog that is distinct from every one-headed dog that presently exists. This mental state is object-directed, but its object-directedness does not derive from the present existence of any one-headed dog, or anything else.

But one could also use 'intentional object' to refer to the mind-independent entity, if there is one, that satisfies the description (definite or indefinite) that expresses the content of the intentional state. If we use the term in this second way, then my wanting a three-headed dog does not have an intentional object.

It is only in this second sense that intentionality does not require the existence of the intentional object. It is part of the very essence of wanting as an intentional mental state that it be a wanting of something (that is an objective genitive, by the way, not a subject genitive.) But it doesn't follow that the something exists. Similarly for perceiving, imagining, believing, etc.

As for the haecceity-property identity-with-Socrates, it is nothing at all at times and in worlds in which Socrates doesn't exist. I stick to that self-evident point pace Plantinga. (See A Difficulty With Haecceity Properties)

It seems to me that my line on haecceities is entirely consistent with my line on intentionality. Socrateity (identity-with-Socrates) essentially involves Socrates himself, that very individual, in a way in which seeking Atlantis (construed as a mental state, not as a physical action or actions) does not essentially involve Atlantis itself. And this is a good thing since there is no such island.

You seem to think that an intentional mental state acquires its object-directedness from without in virtue of the mind-independent existence of an entity that the state is directed to. It is this misconception that suggests to you that there is a contradiction in my affirming both

1. An haecceity H of x is nothing if x does not exist
and
2. It is not the case that a wanting W of x is nothing if x does not exist.

But note that 'H of x' is a subjective genitive whereas 'W of x' is an objective genitive. The haecceity or nonqualitative thisness of Atlantis is nothing at all because Atlantis does not exist. There is nothing for it to be the haecceity of. But a wanting of Atlantis is what it is whether or not Atlantis exists.

And similarly in other cases. An ancient Greek can be a Zeus-worshipper whether or not Zeus exists. But the same Greek cannot own a slave unless there exists some slave he owns. The instance of of ownership requires for its individuation the existence of both relata. But the instance of worshipping does not require the existence of both relata.