Talk:Intentionality
http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/brentano/ BV: "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". "someone who wants a sloop does not want 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."
"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. "'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."
"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."
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."
X wants an existing house.
Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object [was die Scholastiker des Mittelalters die intentionale (auch wohl mentale) Inexistenz eines Gegenstandes genannt haben] 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)
Contents
Intentional inexistence
'esse intentionale' gets a fair number of hits. 'inesse intentionale' only gets Brentano-related hits. http://eprints.nuim.ie/997/1/IPS_Brentano_CyrilMcDonnell.pdf Don't forget the 'gold mine in Surrey' idea. See also http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/brentano/#Intentionality "it would be “paradoxical to the extreme to say that a man promises to marry an ens rationis and fulfills his promise by marrying a real person” (Psychology, 385)." "In later texts, he therefore suggested to see intentionality as an exceptional form of relation. A mental act does not stand in an ordinary relation to an object, but in a quasi-relation (Relativliches). For a relation to exist, both relata have to exist. A person a is taller than another person b, for example, only if both a and b exist (and a is, in fact, taller than b). This does not hold for the intentional quasi-relation, Brentano suggests."
The dispensability of (merely) intentional objects Uriah Kriegel. "The intentional object of a thought is that-which-one-thinks-about. Thus, when I think of Vienna, Vienna is the intentional object of my thought. More generally, the intentional object of an intentional act or state is that which the act or state is of or about. Without pretending that this is an analysis, we may say that x is an intentional object iff there is a y, such that y is an intentional act and x is that which y is of or about." "The question I want to address here, then, is whether we should commit to the existence of merely intentional objects." "x is a merely intentional object of act y iff (i) x is an intentional object and (ii) the following counterfactual holds: if there was no y, then there would not be x."
"Once we have reached this conclusion, we enter the can of worms of offering an ontological assay of ‘‘hallucinata.’’ Since the hallucinated tree is ex hypothesi not an existing concrete, physical, spatio-temporal tree, it must be something else. Three main options have presented themselves to philosophers. The first is that the hallucinated tree is an abstract object (see Salmon 1988). The second is that it is a concrete object, but a mental one (see Jackson 1977). The third is that it is a nonmental concretum, but a non-existent one (see Parsons 1980; Priest 2005)."
"We all know that from the fact that x represents y it does not follow that there is a y that x represents. It is not often appreciated, however, that from the fact that x bears a relation to y it should very much follow that there is a y that x bears a relation to. "
Existential loading
Vallicella on existential fallacy.
Unloaded quantifiers
Let's introduce the predicate E!x which can only be satisfied by really existing objects. And let's suppose the quantifier Ex is not 'existentially loaded'. I.e. Ex Fx does not imply there is a really existing F, although it is consistent with it. And let Ux be 'x is a unicorn'.
1. Tom thinks that for Ex, Ux and E!x [i.e. Tom thinks that there is a really existing, extramental unicorn]
2. ~Ex, Ux and E!x [there is no really existing, extramental unicorn]
3. Therefore, (1, 2) Ex Ux [therefore there is a unicorn]
Aquinas on intentionality
http://www.cis.catholic.edu.au/Files/Murray-IntentionaleinAquinas.pdf "The topic is made interesting by the fact that, although modern commentators on Thomas use the term most frequently, Thomas himself used it only twelve times in a corpus of some eight and a half million words."
"Thomas develops this distinction in In II De anima cap. 24 [7]6 where he is discussing Aristotle’s example of the wax seal (De anima II, 12) and where we also find him using the term esse intentionale."
"As previously stated, the term, intentionale, which is a neuter adjective, occurs only twelve times in Thomas’s corpus--eleven times as esse intentionale and once as ens intentionale. These twelve occurrences are found in nine separate passages.8 The adjective, intentionalis, is used only three times apart from these twelve. On the other hand, the noun, intentio, and the verb, intendeo, are used in their various forms with great frequency.9 The adverbial form, intentionaliter, is never used by Thomas, nor is the abstract noun, intentionalitas."
The texts and the dates of their composition are as follows: In IV Sent. d. 44, q. 2, a. 1, qc. 3 obj/ad 2 (twice) (1252-56); De ver. 22, 3 ad 4 (1256-59); ST I 56, 2 ad 3 (twice) (1265-68); ST I 67, 3 (1265-68); De spir. creat. 1 ad 11 (ens) (1267-68); In II De anima cap. 14 (twice) (1267-68); In II De anima cap. 24 (1267-68); In De sensu cap. 4 (1268-69); In De sensu cap. 18 (1268-69). See Roberto Busa, Index Thomisticus, Sect. II, Concordantia Prima, Vol. 12 (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1979-80), 255-256.
Links
- Intentional objects, Tim Crane
