The Phenomenal Basis of IntentionalityIntentionality is the mind's ability to be "of," "about," or "directed" at things, or to "say" something. For example, a thought might "say" that grass is green or that Santa Claus is jolly, and a visual experience might be "of" a blue cup. While the existence of the phenomenon of intentionality is manifestly obvious, how exactly the mind gets to be "directed" at things, which may not even exist, is deeply mysterious and controversial. It has been long assumed that the best way to explain intentionality is in terms of tracking relations, information, functional roles, and similar notions. This book breaks from this tradition, arguing that the only empirically adequate and in principle viable theory of intentionality is one in terms of phenomenal consciousness, the felt, subjective, or qualitative feature of mental life. According to the theory advanced by Mendelovici, the phenomenal intentionality theory, there is a central kind of intentionality, phenomenal intentionality, that arises from phenomenal consciousness alone, and any other kind of intentionality derives from it. The phenomenal intentionality theory faces important challenges in accounting for the rich and sophisticated contents of thoughts, broad and object-involving contents, and nonconscious states. Mendelovici proposes a novel and particularly strong version of the theory that can meet these challenges. The end result is a radically internalistic picture of the mind, on which all phenomenally represented contents are literally in our heads, and any non-phenomenal contents we in some sense represent are expressly singled out by us. |
Contents
Part One Introduction | 1 |
Part Two Alternative Theories of Intentionality | 31 |
Part Three The Phenomenal Intentionality Theory | 81 |
Part Four Challenging Cases | 121 |
Part Five The Aspect View | 193 |
Part Six Conclusion | 241 |
Glossary | 249 |
255 | |
267 | |
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Common terms and phrases
alleged contents arguably argue argument aspect view attitude Bourget broad contents cashing out thoughts Chapter concepts deep nature derivatively represent derivativism derivativist derived contents derived mental representation derived representation dispositions edenic colors edenic sky-blue eliminativism eliminativist example external folk psychological functional role theories give rise grass is green immediate contents immediately aware instantiations intentional contents intentional mental intentionally represent internalist internally structured introspectively accessible Kriegel long-arm functional role matching Mendelovici numbers object-involving contents objects original intentionality originally intentional property ostensive definition perceptual color representations personal standing phenomenal characters phenomenal consciousness phenomenal contents phenomenal intentionality phenomenal properties predictions psychological roles qualia red square relation view relevant represent contents representational terms representationalism representations represent rise to intentionality self-ascriptivism strategy strong identity PIT subpersonal suggest superficial character supervenience surface reflectance profiles target theory of intentionality theory’s things tracking relations tracking theory truth and reference version of PIT worry