{"id":2524,"date":"2021-07-23T16:39:34","date_gmt":"2021-07-23T16:39:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/07\/23\/guest-post-on-the-fallacy-of-intentionalism\/"},"modified":"2021-07-23T16:39:34","modified_gmt":"2021-07-23T16:39:34","slug":"guest-post-on-the-fallacy-of-intentionalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/07\/23\/guest-post-on-the-fallacy-of-intentionalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post: On the Fallacy of Intentionalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

ON THE FALLACY OF INTENTIONALISM<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

D.E. Buckner, July 2021<\/span><\/p>\n

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

1. Buckner has wrongly characterised intentionality as object-dependence.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Buckner has wrongly interpreted intentionality along the lines of an externalist model.<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Buckner has wrongly claimed that the intentional nexus is unmediated or direct.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Buckner has wrongly characterised intentionality as a relation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is the case for the defence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Preliminaries<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Some preliminaries. I shall distinguish Intentionality, properly so-called, from Intentionalism<\/em>. Intentionality is a mental phenomenon which we cannot report<\/em> without using some relational expression \u2013 an intentional verb phrase<\/em>. For example \u201cJake is thinking about Zeus\u201d, which predicates the mental state \u2018thinking about Zeus\u2019 of Jake using the intentional verb phrase \u2018is thinking about\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

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 \u201cEvery mental phenomenon includes<\/em> something as object within itself\u201d, using the non-intentional verb \u2018includes\u2019 (enth\u00e4lt<\/em>), from the perfectly true claim that \u201cIn presentation something is presented, in judgment something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on\u201d, which involves intentional verbs like \u2018love\u2019 and \u2018desire\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I argue in Reference and Identity<\/em> (chapter 7) that there is no such implication. It is illicit to infer statements using non-intentional (I call these \u2018logically transitive\u2019) verbs from statements using intentional (or \u2018logically intransitive\u2019) verbs. A verb phrase R is intentional <\/em>if \u201ca R b\u201d is consistent with there being no such thing as b, otherwise it is non-<\/em>intentional<\/em>. An intentional verb phrase Ri takes a grammatical accusative, but no logical accusative, that is, there doesn\u2019t have to be an object corresponding to the accusative. Thus, if Ri is intentional and Rt is non-intentional, \u201ca Ri b\u201d does not imply \u201ca Rt b,\u201d 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, \u201cTobit refers to Asmodeus\u201d does not imply \u201cTobit is related to Asmodeus,\u201d for \u2018refers to\u2019 is intentional whereas \u201cis related to\u201d is not. (R&I p.124)<\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/p>\n

As an example of the first form of the fallacy, we have Brentano\u2019s move from \u201cJake desires something\u201d, \u201cJake loves something\u201d and so on, to \u201cEvery mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself\u201d. But \u201cJake desires a happy life\u201d is an intentional construction, from which we cannot validly infer the statements \u201cJake\u2019s mental state (of desire) includes<\/em> something\u201d, or \u201cJake\u2019s mental state is directed at<\/em> something\u201d, 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 \u201cJake desires a happy life\u201d. Nothing has to be included or contained or directed at in Jake\u2019s mental state on account of his desiring a happy life. Such a life may be beyond him for now.<\/span><\/p>\n

Other examples of the first form are:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMental states and events are directed at<\/em> objects\u201d (Searle).<\/span><\/p>\n

If A is directed at or points at B, there is something that is pointed at.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSuch mental states refer beyond themselves to<\/em> objects that may or may not exist\u201d (Vallicella, link<\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRefer beyond \u2026 to\u201d is a non-intentional construction, implying that there is something that is referred to.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 my thinking of Max \u2018reaches\u2019 beyond my mind and targets<\/em> — not some cat or other, but a particular cat<\/em>.\u201d (Vallicella, link<\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cthe [mental] act has<\/em> an intentional object\u201d (Vallicella, link<\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Targets\u2019 is non-intentional, as is \u2018has\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

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 \u2018Object\u2019 in some way. Examples:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJupiter is<\/em> before my mind<\/em> as the intentional object of my act.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJupiter, as the object of my act, does not exist<\/em> in my act as a real constituent thereof.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf an I[ntentional]O[bject] is<\/em> nonexistent, then we say it <\/em>is merely intentional.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe<\/em> intentional object is<\/em> Jupiter himself\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJupiter is<\/em> the intentional object of my act.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/em> 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 \u201cJake is thinking of a unicorn\u201d. Whether we can validly derive one statement from another, even if it is a \u2018metaphysical\u2019 statement, is a question of logic, not linguistic usage, and Continental philosophers should pay more attention to logic.<\/span><\/p>\n

In summary, to move from \u201cJake is thinking of Lucifer\u201d to \u201cJake\u2019s mental state includes (or contains, or is directed to or targeted at) something\u201d is to commit the fallacy of Intentionalism.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the next post, I shall reply to the four \u2018charges\u2019 above.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading “Guest Post: On the Fallacy of Intentionalism”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[168,100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-posts","category-intentionality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2524","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=2524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}