In this note I describe the phenomenon, and list some of the questions we can take up.
Mental states, such as belief, are said to be ‘intentional’. That is, they are “of” or “about” or “directed upon” some object or objects. For example, Fred’s belief that spiders make fine pets is (on the face of it) about spiders. Alice’s belief that Fred should return Alice’s stockings is (apparently) about Fred and a pair of stockings. When someone believes something or hopes or fears or desires something, she represents objects in a certain way, as having certain characteristics. Intentional objects are represented objects.
Intentionality is a very odd sort of relation, if it is a relation at all. A intentional mental state relates a person to some object that she is thinking about, yet the objects to which a person is supposedly thus related may fail to exist, as for example, when Bob believes that leprechauns make fine pets or that Spiderman will be arriving soon. An object that fails to exist is nothing at all. By contrast, genuine relations manifest only where the relata actually exist. For example, the relation –being on top of–, as in “The book is on top of the table”, or the relation –kicking–, as in “Alice kicked Fred” hold between objects that actually exist, if they hold at all.
A second distinctive feature of the relation (or quasi-relation) of intentionality is that a person can believe something under one description of the object(s) involved, but not under another description. For example, famously Oedipus believed it would be a good idea to marry Jocasta, the beautiful Queen of Thebes. But Jocasta was his mom, and he did not believe it would be a good idea to marry his mom. Or so he said, we can imagine.
So intentional objects have two features:
(1) Seemingly, people can think about things that do not exist, and
(2) it makes a big difference how the objects of a person’s desires or beliefs are described as to whether people will actually admit to having them. I am sure that you can think of your own examples here.
There are many interesting issues about intentionality. Here are some:
(1) In the case where someone is thinking about an object that does not exist, what is she REALLY thinking about? An idea of the object?
(2) If a person believes or desires something when it is described one way, but does not believe it when it is described in another way (as in the case of poor Oedipus) does this person have contradictory beliefs?
(3) If you look at a television image, are you seeing the person whose image it is, or just the image? Now consider thought rather than visual perception. What is your thought about: The person or the image? How about the representations on SL? Is your thought about the image or the person?
(4) What underlying natural processes could be capable of supporting our ability to represent objects? Could it be because of our causal interactions with them? But then, what should we say about beliefs about Pegasus, Santa and so on? We certainly don’t have any causal interactions with them.
(5) Famously, the philosopher Brentano said that intentionality was the mark of the mental. But does EVERY kind of mental state or attitude involve intentionality, or only some of them? Specifically, do emotions such as fear or anger have intentional objects, or is this an illusion? (Consider that emotions contrast with cognitive states such as belief in that they have a qualitative aspect — a way they “feel”.) Are there states of awareness that are not ‘about’ anything at all?
We can talk about any of these questions, but to narrow things down, I suggest (1) to start and then wherever the conversation takes us, without expecting to get to more than two of the questions. If I bring any prepared material other than this note card to the discussion, it will be on question (1). And I am really hoping to hear your ideas on (5).
REFERENCES (for Background Reading):
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intentionality/ (Sections 1, 2 and 10)
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Second Philosophy
Led by Vajra Raymaker
Place: Open Habitat, Second Life
Date: Sunday 26 July 2009
Time: 12h00 Standard Linden Time / 20h00 GMT
Directions: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Open%20Habitat/22/113/23
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May 13th, 2010 at 09:43
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Join us at 12:00 PDT on Sunday for a discussion on Intentionality, led by Vajra Raymaker at Second Philosophy, Open Habitat…..
May 18th, 2010 at 15:46
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Join us at 12:00 PDT on Sunday for a discussion on Intentionality, led by Vajra Raymaker at Second Philosophy, Open Habitat…..