Intentionality - Introduction

Reading

Lecture where this is primarily covered

Week 4: 'Instrumentalism'

LANGUAGE ITEMS HAVE INTENTIONALITY

If you think of language for a moment as something that is independent and outside the mind, you will notice that statements or propositions or sentences possess 'aboutness', intentionality.

'George Fox was a religious man' is about GF.

'Charles Dickens wrote "Dombey and Son"' is about Charles Dickens, and about the novel.

'I have this troublesome toothache' is about me and a toothache.

Thus: sentences seem to have intentionality.

(AT LEAST SOME) MENTAL STATES HAVE INTENTIONALITY

But mental states have intentionality also.

Example: beliefs

Take the thought which I may report goes through my mind as I watch The Avengers: the thought that my brother lives in London.

Here again is something that seems to have 'aboutness'. It seems to be about my brother and his living in London.

There is on the one hand my thought.

And on the other a fact.

And the thought seems to be 'about' the fact.

Thus: two aboutnesses, two intentionalities, the intentionalty of (a) sentences and (b) thoughts.

There is a suggestion then that these two intentionalities are connected - that the intentionality of mental states and the intentionality of language are connected.

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Review Questions

1. What is the difference between my thought being about my brother and a tidal wave being about the earthquake that produced it? This?

2. Do all mental items have intentionality? Eg do pains have it?

Suppose I have toothache. Does this ache 'point' to something beyond itself in the way that my belief that my brother lives in London points to something beyond itself, namely a state of affairs, my brother's living in London? Saith the wise

'SEMANTIC' EXPLAINED

Sentences seem to be about their subjects or topics because of their meaning.

In general it seems to be the meaning of linguistic items that gives them their intentionality. Considered as marks on paper, a sentence doesn't have intentionality. It gets intentionality through meaning something.

Meaning is sometimes called 'semanticity' or 'semantic content'.

I have said that sentences get their intentionality in virtue of having meaning.

In the jargon, this is the claim that it is the semantic dimension of language items that gives them their aboutness, their intentionality.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE INTENTIONALITY OF THOUGHTS AND THE INTENTIONALITY OF SENTENCES

I said that thoughts appeared to have intentionality, and that sentences seemed to have it too. How might these two facts be connected?

Here is one possible way.

When a belief passes through my mind,
say the belief that my brother is in London,
it reflects a state of my brain.
And that state of my brain bears meaning,
the same meaning as the sentence 'My brother is in London'.

The thesis that is expressed here is labelled 'the Representational Theory of Thinking'.

THE REPRESENTATIONAL THEORY OF THINKING.

Here is another formulation:

'For a subject S to think or "concurrently believe" that P
is for there to be
a state of S's central nervous system
that bears the semantic content that P;
the state bears that content
in much the same sense
and in much the same way
that a sentence of English or another natural language means that P.'

(Lycan, in Lycan, p.277.)

So on this view, when I have the belief that my brother is in London there is a state of the brain which means what the sentence 'my brother is in London' means.

The 'langauge of thought' hypothesis goes one step beyond this. It says that the structure of the two things will be similar - the structure of the brain state corresponding to the belief will parallel the structure of the sentence expressing the belief.

END

Does a thought which you don't intentionally call up have intentionality? Saith the wise.