How Should We Use ‘Intentional Object’? Is the IO the Thing Itself?

Dr. Buckner comments,

. . . we still need to agree on a clear definition of ‘Intentional Object’. Here are two other definitions I found.

Tim Crane: what an intentional state is about.
Merriam Webster: something whether actually existing or not that the mind thinks about.

These are both very clear, and I suggest we adopt them. That is, if BV is thinking about (or ‘of’) the Washington Monument, then the Intentional Object of his thinking is the Washington Monument itself. If the Washington Monument is then blown into a billion pieces by high explosive and the remains scattered to the four points of the US, and it no longer exists, and if we agree that BV is still thinking about the WM, then the Intentional Object is still the WM.

Do you agree? 

No.

If we adopt both of  the definitions cited, Crane and Webster, then the intentional object (IO) of a mental act or intentional state is the item to which the act is directed, an item which may or may not exist without prejudice to the existence and specific directedness of the act. That is: the specific directedness of the act (which is phenomenologically accessible to the subject of the act via reflection*) is what it is whether or not the IO exists. So Buckner is telling us that if I am thinking of or about the WM over an interval of time during which, unbeknownst to me, the WM goes from existing to not existing, then the  WM itself is the IO both when it exists and after it ceases to exist.

But this implies that my thinking becomes objectless when the WM ceases to exist. And that contradicts the thesis of intentionality according to which, necessarily, to think is to think of something.  In the form of a reductio ad absurdum:

a) The intentional object = the thing itself, not some epistemic deputy or intermediary in the mind or between mind and thing.  In our example the IO = the WM , a massive marble obelisk that exists extramentally if it exists at all. (Bucknerian assumption for reductio)

b) No mental act exists without an intentional object. (Thesis of Intentionality)

Therefore

c) No mental act exists if the thing itself to which the act is directed does not exist.  (From (a) and (b))

Therefore

d) My mental act of thinking of the WM does not exist if the WM does not exist. (From (c))

But

e) My mental act of thinking  of the WM continues to exist after the WM ceases to exist. (Phenomenological datum)

Therefore

f) (d) contradicts (e).

Therefore

g) (a) is false: the IO is not identical to the thing itself. (By reductio ad absurdum)

_____________

*In other words, I know, with certainty, both that I am thinking about something when I am thinking about something, and what I am thinking about when I think about it.  Husserl's phenomenology is committed to this thesis (cf. Ideas I, sec. 36) but it is notoriously denied by Ruth Garrett Millikan whose theory of intentionality is radically externalist. Cf. Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories, p. 92 ff.

The Platonist and the Hedonist

I am a Platonist (broadly speaking), but here I give the floor to the hedonist. The true philosopher aims to examine every side of every issue. He is, qua philosopher, no ideologue and no dogmatist. 

Platonist: You pursue paltry pleasures that cannot last and cannot ultimately satisfy. 

Hedonist: You  pursue objects lofty and lasting, but with no assurance that they exist. I have all the assurance I need, that of the senses.  The sensuous pleasures I attain I can repeat, and in that repetition I have the sign and seal of their reality. The real is repeatable.

You claim to have been vouchsafed intimations of the  Absolute and glimpses behind the veil, but can you repeat those experiences? Do others have them? If few have had them, and those few only a few times in their lives, does that not support the view that those experiences, real as experiences, yet lack reality-reference? No experience proves anything. One man's revelation is another's random neuronal swerve or brain fart.

I grant you that the pleasure of orgasm, the keenest of the fleshly pleasures, is fleeting and that no instance of such pleasure is equipped to put an end to sexual desire. No orgasm is finally satisfactory. One is left hankering for a repeat performance.  One literally itches for more. And what is true of orgasm is true of the less commanding allurements of the flesh.  I will also grant you that no series of repetitions, no matter how  protracted, can render us satisfied in full.  I am even inclined to grant you that one is seduced into an infinite process, a sort of Hegelian bad infinity, that could be called addiction.

Why waste your life on illusions like a monk in a monastery when you could live life to the full, a life that is as real as it gets? Why do you suppose impermanence is an index of unreality and lack of value?

Guest Post: On the Fallacy of Intentionalism

ON THE FALLACY OF INTENTIONALISM

D.E. Buckner, July 2021

Bill Vallicella critiques a short passage in my recent book (Reference and Identity in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Scriptures: The Same God? Rowman and Littlefield, 2020, p. 195) and he levels the following four charges.

1. Buckner has wrongly characterised intentionality as object-dependence.

2. Buckner has wrongly interpreted intentionality along the lines of an externalist model.

3. Buckner has wrongly claimed that the intentional nexus is unmediated or direct.

4. Buckner has wrongly characterised intentionality as a relation.

Here is the case for the defence.

Preliminaries

Some preliminaries. I shall distinguish Intentionality, properly so-called, from Intentionalism. Intentionality is a mental phenomenon which we cannot report without using some relational expression – an intentional verb phrase. For example “Jake is thinking about Zeus”, which predicates the mental state ‘thinking about Zeus’ of Jake using the intentional verb phrase ‘is thinking about’.

Intentionalism, by contrast, I call the philosophical doctrine about intentionality which involves the implicit assumption that statements using intentional verb phrases imply statements which use non-intentional verb phrases. For example, Brentano gets his classic (but false) statement “Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself”, using the non-intentional verb ‘includes’ (enthält), from the perfectly true claim that “In presentation something is presented, in judgment something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on”, which involves intentional verbs like ‘love’ and ‘desire’.

As I argue in Reference and Identity (chapter 7) that there is no such implication. It is illicit to infer statements using non-intentional (I call these ‘logically transitive’) verbs from statements using intentional (or ‘logically intransitive’) verbs. A verb phrase R is intentional if “a R b” is consistent with there being no such thing as b, otherwise it is non-intentional. An intentional verb phrase Ri takes a grammatical accusative, but no logical accusative, that is, there doesn’t have to be an object corresponding to the accusative. Thus, if Ri is intentional and Rt is non-intentional, “a Ri b” does not imply “a Rt b,” since the former is consistent with there being no such thing as b, whereas the latter is not, that is, the former can be true when the latter is not. For example, “Tobit refers to Asmodeus” does not imply “Tobit is related to Asmodeus,” for ‘refers to’ is intentional whereas “is related to” is not. (R&I p.124)

There are two forms of the Fallacy. The first is the move from a construction which is intentional to one which is non-intentional. The second form is the move to a subject-predicate construction where the subject corresponds to the grammatical accusative of the intentional construction.

As an example of the first form of the fallacy, we have Brentano’s move from “Jake desires something”, “Jake loves something” and so on, to “Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself”. But “Jake desires a happy life” is an intentional construction, from which we cannot validly infer the statements “Jake’s mental state (of desire) includes something”, or “Jake’s mental state is directed at something”, for these statements use non-intentional verbs. If A includes or contains B, it follows that something, namely B, is included or contained in A. But no such thing follows from “Jake desires a happy life”. Nothing has to be included or contained or directed at in Jake’s mental state on account of his desiring a happy life. Such a life may be beyond him for now.

Other examples of the first form are:

“Mental states and events are directed at objects” (Searle).

If A is directed at or points at B, there is something that is pointed at.

“Such mental states refer beyond themselves to objects that may or may not exist” (Vallicella, link).

“Refer beyond … to” is a non-intentional construction, implying that there is something that is referred to.

“… my thinking of Max ‘reaches’ beyond my mind and targets — not some cat or other, but a particular cat.” (Vallicella, link).

“the [mental] act has an intentional object” (Vallicella, link).

‘Targets’ is non-intentional, as is ‘has’.

The second form of the fallacy is the move from a non-intentional construction to a subject-predicate sentence where the subject is a noun phrase signifying the Intentional Object, and the predicate a noun phrase qualifying the ‘Object’ in some way. Examples:

“Jupiter is before my mind as the intentional object of my act.”

“Jupiter, as the object of my act, does not exist in my act as a real constituent thereof.”

“If an I[ntentional]O[bject] is nonexistent, then we say it is merely intentional.”

“The intentional object is Jupiter himself”

“Jupiter is the intentional object of my act.”

Pretty much any paragraph by Vallicella will contain at least one instance of the Fallacy. He will likely complain that my point is a nicety of language, and not a genuine metaphysical one. I reply, my point is a logical one, not merely linguistic, and concerns the statements that we can validly derive from ascriptions of mental states like “Jake is thinking of a unicorn”. Whether we can validly derive one statement from another, even if it is a ‘metaphysical’ statement, is a question of logic, not linguistic usage, and Continental philosophers should pay more attention to logic.

In summary, to move from “Jake is thinking of Lucifer” to “Jake’s mental state includes (or contains, or is directed to or targeted at) something” is to commit the fallacy of Intentionalism.

In the next post, I shall reply to the four ‘charges’ above.

No Resolution Here Below

It is a mistake to think that we can resolve in this life the questions pertaining to it and the question of what, if anything, is beyond it. It is a passing scene, a moving image, a chiaroscuro of light and dark, a land of shadows and seemings, a twilit scene of confusion in which the ground shifts and oblivion consumes memory.

Any dogmatic resolution will share in the insubstantiality of this world of shadows and adumbrations. There is no security hereabouts, doxastic or otherwise. Get used to it.

Some Questions about Thinking, Relations, and Relational Expressions

Bill, you said by email earlier that the sentence “Jake is thinking of Zeus” would be true if Jake was indeed thinking of Zeus.

BV: That's what I said, although I would put 'is' where you have 'was.' Is what I said  a shocking thing to say?

I have questions for you about the terms ‘obtains’ and ‘satisfies’.

(1) If “Jake is thinking of Zeus” is true, and assuming there is no such thing as Zeus, then does the relation “– is thinking of –” obtain? According to what you said earlier, a relation cannot obtain if any its relata do not exist. But we normally think of a relation obtaining precisely in the case where the sentence which asserts the relation is true. What do you think?

BV: We cannot assume that thinking-of  is a relation if every relation is such that its obtaining entails the existence of all its relata.   For in the case of Jake and Zeus only one of the relata exists, and it's not Zeus. And yet it is true that Jake is thinking of Zeus. I conclude that the sentence 'Jake is thinking of Zeus,' although grammatically relational, does not express a relational proposition.  The sentence needs a truth-preserving analysis that does not commit one to the existence of nonexistent things.  

Here are two different candidate analysantia. 'Jake is thinking Zeus-ly.' 'Jake is a Zeus-entertainer.' Neither of these sentences is grammatically relational, and both seem to preserve the truth of the analysandum without commitment to nonexistent things. I do not endorse either analysans.

(2) Is the relational expression “– is thinking of –” satisfied when “Jake is thinking of Zeus” is true? For example, is it satisfied by the two things Jake and Zeus respectively? If not, why not?

BV: No. Why not? Because Zeus does not exist. 

Saturday Night at the Oldies: More Musical Duos and Some Duets

Richard and Mimi Farina, Pack Up Your Sorrows

Mimi and Richard Farina, Reno, Nevada

Ian and Sylvia, Early Morning Rain

Ian and Sylvia, You Were on My Mind

Joan Baez and Mimi Farina, Catch the Wind

Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, Blowin' in the Wind

Dick and Dee Dee, The Mountain High, 1961

Dick and Dee Dee, Tell Me, 1962. Where were you in '62?

Santo and Johnny, Sleep Walk. Every garage band from here to Cucamonga did a version of this tune.

Joe and Eddie, There's a Meeting Here Tonight. I'll bet you don't remember this one, Dave Bagwill.

Les Paul and Mary Ford, Vaya con Dios, 1953

Object-Directedness and Object-Dependence

Intentionality cannot be identified with object-dependence. Here is why.

Suppose that  I begin thinking about some faraway thing such as the Washington Monument (WM) and  that I think of it without interruption through some short interval of time.  Half-way through the interval, unbeknownst to me, the monument is destroyed and ceases to exist.  Question: does my thinking become objectless half-way through the interval? Or does my thinking have an object and the same object throughout the interval?

The answer depends on what is meant by 'object.'  'Object' could mean the infinitely-propertied thing intended in the act of thinking, or it could mean that which is before my mind precisely as such with all and only the properties I think of the thing intended as having.  Either could be called the intentional object, which goes to show that 'intentional object' is ambiguous.  On the first alternative the intentional object = the real object; on the second, the intentional object is some sort of incomplete item that either plays an intermediary role, or else is a proper part of the thing intended.  (Husserl aficionados will gather that I am alluding to the difference between West Coast and  East Coast interpretations of the status and function of the noema .)  To avoid the ambiguity of 'intentional object,' I will distinguish the thing intended from the noema, leaving open how exactly the noema is to be understood. 

One answer to the above question is that, during the entire interval, my thinking has one and the same object, but this object is not the thing intended but the noema.   The noema is the thing-AS- intended in certain ways (under certain incomplete descrioptions) appropriate to finite minds such as we possess, for example, the x such that x is made of marble and honors George Washington. This distinction between noema and thing intended needs  explanation, of course, and it raises some difficult if not insoluble questions, but it fits the phenomenological facts.  When the WM ceases to exist, nothing changes phenomenologically. If the intentional object were the real, extra-mental, physical thing, then, when the WM ceases to exist, my conscious state would become objectless — which is not what happens.  So we need the distinction, and we must not conflate object-directedness with object-dependence.  

DEP: The objective reference or aboutness of a mental state S is object-dependent =df S's having objective reference entails the (extra-mental)  existence of the thing intended by S.

DIR:  The objective reference or aboutness of a mental state S is object-directed =df  S's having objective reference is logically consistent both with the (extra-mental) existence and (extra-mental) nonexistence of the thing intended by S.

If we understand aboutness in terms of (DIR), then the answer to my question is that nothing changes phenomenologically throughout the interval: my thinking has an object and the very same object throughout the interval despite the WM's ceasing to exist half-way though the interval.

(DEP) codifies an externalist understanding  of  'objective reference' whereas (DIR) codifies an internalist understanding.  On (DEP), it is the existence in the external world of the thing intended that grounds S's objective reference or aboutness; without this external ground S would lack aboutness, and S would be objectless.  On (DEP), then, the aboutness of a mental state is a relational property of the state as opposed to an intrinsic property thereof.  On (DIR), intrinsic features of the subject and his acts suffice to ground S's objective reference or aboutness.  This implies a strict act-object correlation: necessarily, every act has an object, and every object is the object of an act.

You will have noticed that 'object' has different senses in the above definitions. In (DEP), 'object' refers to a entity that exists in itself, and thus independently of the existence of minds and their acts. In (DIR), 'object' refers to an intentional correlate which cannot exist apart from minds and their acts.

I'll say a bit more by way of elaboration.

The thing intended is the monument itself, the infinitely-propertied physical thing. Surely that is what my thinking intends when I think about the WM and ask: How tall is it? What is its shape? What is it composed of? I am not asking about any content of my consciousness. So I am not asking about the occurrent episode of thinking itself, the act, or any other contents such as felt sensory data (Husserl's hyletic data).  Contents are immanent to consciousness and nothing immanent to my consciousness is 550 feet tall, made of marble, monolithic, or in the shape of an obelisk.  

Nor am I asking about the noema.  Noemata are akin to Fregean senses.  Like the latter, noemata cannot be made of marble or 550 feet tall. (This is the 'California' or 'West Coast' interpretation sired by Dagfinn Follesdal.) Like Fregean senses, they are not contents of consciousness that the subject experiences or lives through. Senses and noemata are more like objects than like contents, except that they are abstract or ideal objects that serve a mediating function.  The senses of 'Hesperus' and 'Phosphorus' mediate my linguistic reference to that massive chunk of physical reality, the plant Venus. They are neither mental nor physical; they are 'third world' entities albeit more Platonic than Popperian.   Noemata are similar: they mediate thinking reference but are neither mental in the manner of a content of consciousness nor physical.  

But there is an important difference. Fregean senses exist whether or not minds and their contents exist.  They also exist whether or not physical items exist including marks on paper or acoustic disturbances in the air.   But noemata exist only as the correlates of acts or intentional experiencings. They have a curious in-between status. They are not contents of consciousness, but they are also not entities in their own right inasmuch as they exist only as correlates of acts.

Because noemata are ideal or abstract intermediaries, they do not have physical  properties and dispositions.  A tree is disposed to catch on fire if struck by lightning, say.  But no tree-noema can catch on fire. (See Husserl, Ideas I, sec. 89) 

 

Andrew Sullivan on Critical Race Theory

Sullivan writes,

Here is how critical theory defines itself in one of its central documents. It questions the very foundations of “Enlightenment rationality, legal equality and Constitutional neutrality.” It begins with the assertion that these are not ways to further knowledge and enlarge human freedom. They are rather manifestations of white power over non-white bodies. Formal legal equality, they argue, the promise of the American experiment, has never been actual equality, even as, over the centuries, it has been extended to everyone. It is, rather, a system to perpetuate inequality forever, which is the single and only reason racial inequality is still here.

This is pernicious nonsense. Why has "formal legal equality" never led to "actual equality"? Why hasn't equality before the law, equality of opportunity, and the like led to equality of outcome or result? Because, as a matter of empirical fact, we are not equal, not physically, mentally, morally, spiritually, socially, politically, or economically.  By no empirical measure are people equal either as individuals or as groups.   We are naturally unequal.    And because there is no natural equality, it is no surprise that there is no racial equality of outcome.  Since there is no "white power over non-white bodies," this nonexistent factor cannot be used to explain racially inequality of outcome or result.  Sullivan continues his description of CRT:

Continue reading “Andrew Sullivan on Critical Race Theory”

Critical Race Theory Attracts the Uncritical

People are suckers for Critical Race Theory (CRT) because they cannot think critically.

A key word in the CRT arsenal is 'equity.'  ('Arsenal' is the right word given the Left's weaponization of language.) It is an Unbegriff, an unconcept. It combines something good with something unattainable except by the toleration of grave evils. Let me explain.

'Equity' sounds good and so people are thoughtlessly for it. It is like 'social justice' in this respect. They don't realize that leftists, semantic distortionists nonpareil,  have hijacked a legitimate word so as to make it  refer to equality of outcome. Being uncritical, people don't appreciate that there is an important  difference between equality in its formal senses — equality before the law, equality of opportunity, equality in respect of political/civil rights, etc. — and equality of outcome or result. Formal equality is an attainable good. Material equality is unattainable because of group differences.  To achieve material or non-formal equality, equality of outcome, the means employed would be worse than the supposed cure.

Given undeniable group differences, 'equity' does not naturally arise; hence the only way to achieve 'equity' is by unjustly taking from the productive and giving to the unproductive.  The levellers would divest the makers of what is rightfully theirs to benefit the undeserving takers. 'Equity' is unjust!  It is unjust to deny a super-smart Asian or Jew a place in an MIT engineering program because of a racial/ethnic quota.  Judging candidates by merit and achievement, however, naturally leads to the disproportional representation of Asians and Jews in such programs. That is a consequence that must be accepted. Candidates must be judged as individuals and not as members of groups.  Indeed, the superior black must take precedence over the inferior Asian or white, but not because he is black, but because he is superior. 

Suppose you disagree. Then I argue as follows.

The state apparatus needed to bring about this 'equitization' or equalization of outcomes is vastly larger than the one permitted by our founding documents.  The attempt to achieve it brings us closer and closer to an omni-invasive totalitarian police state.  That would be worse than a situation in which natural hierarchies are respected.

In any case, natural hierarchies always have the last word. If the USA weakens itself by going 'woke,' it will become easy prey for its foreign enemies.  Their dictators are salivating as we speak. Never forget that states are in the state of nature with respect to one another, and that nature is red in tooth and claw. A 'woke' military is a weak military. 

The paradox should not be missed: the equalization project requires agencies of equalization vastly more powerful that the groups they seek to equalize.  The upshot, then, is not equality of power and position but a situation of material inequality in which the governors oppress the governed.

Is CRT a theory?  A commenter on my Facebook page correctly notes that

The advocates of the current re-education program are not presenting a theory but rather requiring their victims to signal their uncritical, obsequious acceptance of a canon of dogmas. Calling a dogma or set of dogmas a theory is a rhetorical ruse used to disguise their insidious indoctrination with the a veneer of real educational activity.

My commenter is right. CRT is not a theory to be discussed and tested but a set of dogmas to be imposed on children of all ages whose critical faculties are no match for the indoctrination.