{"id":10929,"date":"2011-02-15T14:20:16","date_gmt":"2011-02-15T14:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2011\/02\/15\/bonjour-on-intentionality-and-materialism\/"},"modified":"2011-02-15T14:20:16","modified_gmt":"2011-02-15T14:20:16","slug":"bonjour-on-intentionality-and-materialism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2011\/02\/15\/bonjour-on-intentionality-and-materialism\/","title":{"rendered":"BonJour on Intentionality and Materialism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Questions about intentionality can be divided into two groups. In logically first place there are questions about what it is, how it is possible, and what ontological resources are required to render it intelligible. And then there are more specific questions about what implications intentionality has for the mind-body problem.  Does it, for example, rule out materialism?  In What is it Like to be  Human (Instead of a Bat)? <\/a> Laurence BonJour<\/a> mounts an argument from intentionality against materialism. I will quote just the bare bones of his argument, leaving aside many of the supporting considerations:<\/span><\/p>\n

      Suppose then that on a particular occasion I am thinking about a<\/span>
     certain species of animal, say dogs  — not some specific dog, just<\/span>
     dogs in general (but I mean domestic dogs, specifically, not dogs<\/span>
     in the generic sense that includes wolves and coyotes). The Martian<\/span>
     scientist is present and has his usual complete knowledge of my<\/span>
     neurophysiological state. Can he tell on that basis alone what I am<\/span>
     thinking about? Can he tell that I am thinking about dogs rather<\/span>
     than about cats or radishes or typewriters or free will or nothing<\/span>
     at all? It is surely far from obvious how he might do this. My<\/span>
     suggestion is that he cannot, that no knowledge of the complexities<\/span>
     of my neurophysiological state will enable him to pick out that<\/span>
     specific content in the logically tight way required, and hence<\/span>
     that physicalism is once again clearly shown to be false.<\/span><\/p>\n

     [. . .]<\/span><\/p>\n

     Suppose then, as seems undeniable, that when I am thinking about<\/span>
     dogs, my state of mind has a definite internal or intrinsic albeit<\/span>
     somewhat indeterminate content, perhaps roughly the idea of a<\/span>
     medium-sized hairy animal of a distinctive shape, behaving in<\/span>
     characteristic ways. Is there any plausible way in which, contrary<\/span>
     to my earlier suggestion, the Martian scientist might come to know<\/span>
     this content on the basis of his neurophysiological knowledge of<\/span>
     me? As with the earlier instance of the argument, we may set aside<\/span>
     issues that are here irrelevant (though they may well have an<\/span>
     independent significance of their own) by supposing that the<\/span>
     Martian scientist has an independent grasp of a conception of dogs<\/span>
     that is essentially the same as mine, so that he is able to<\/span>
     formulate to himself, as one possibility among many, that I am<\/span>
     thinking about dogs, thus conceived. We may also suppose that he<\/span>
     has isolated the particular neurophysiological state that either is<\/span>
     or is correlated with my thought about dogs. Is there any way that<\/span>
     he can get further than this?<\/span><\/p>\n

     The problem is essentially the same as before. The Martian will<\/span>
     know a lot of structural facts about the state in question,<\/span>
     together with causal and structural facts about its relations to<\/span>
     other such states. But it is clear that the various ingredients of<\/span>
     my conception of dogs (such as the ideas of hairiness, of barking,<\/span>
     and so on) will not be explicitly present in the neurophysiological<\/span>
     account, and extremely implausible to think that they will be<\/span>
     definable on the basis of neurophysiological concepts. Thus, it<\/span>
     would seem, there is no way that the neurophysiological account can<\/span>
     logically compel the conclusion that I am thinking about dogs to<\/span>
     the exclusion of other alternatives.<\/span><\/p>\n

     [. . .]<\/span><\/p>\n

     Thus the idea that the Martian scientist would be able to determine<\/span>
     the intrinsic or internal contents of my thought on the basis of<\/span>
     the structural relations between my neurophysiological states is<\/span>
     extremely implausible, and I can think of no other approach to this<\/span>
     issue that does any better. The indicated conclusion, once again,<\/span>
     is that the physical account leaves out a fundamental aspect of our<\/span>
<\nspan style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">     mental lives, and hence that physicalism is false.<\/span><\/p>\n

I will now sum up BonJour's reasoning in my own way. <\/span><\/p>\n

BonJour is thinking about dogs. He needn't be thinking about any particular dog; he might just be thinking about getting a dog, which of course does  not entail that there is some particular dog, Kramer say, that he is thinking about getting.   Indeed, one can think about getting a dog that is distinct from every dog presently in existence!  How?  By thinking about having a dog breeder do his thing.  If a woman tells her husband that she wants a baby, more likely than not, she is not telling him that she wants to kidnap or adopt some existing baby, but that she wants the two of them it engage in the sorts of conjugal activities that can be expected to cause a baby to exist.<\/span><\/p>\n

BonJour's thinking has intentional content. It exhibits that aboutness or of-ness that recent posts have been hammering away at.  The question is whether the Martian scientist can determine what that   content is by monitoring BonJour's neural states during the period of time he is thinking about dogs. The content before BonJour's mind has various subcontents: hairy critter, mammal, barking animal, man's best  friend . . . . But none of this content will be discernible to the neuroscientist on the basis of complete knowledge of  the neural states, their relations to each other and to sensory input and <\/span>behavioral output. Therefore, there is more to the mind than what can be known by even a completed neuroscience. Physicalism (materialism)  is false.<\/span><\/p>\n

I of course agree.  <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Questions about intentionality can be divided into two groups. In logically first place there are questions about what it is, how it is possible, and what ontological resources are required to render it intelligible. And then there are more specific questions about what implications intentionality has for the mind-body problem.  Does it, for example, rule out … Continue reading “BonJour on Intentionality and Materialism”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intentionality","category-mind"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10929\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}