Naturalization of intentionality

Last updated

According to Franz Brentano, intentionality refers to the "aboutness of mental states that cannot be a physical relation between a mental state and what it is about (its object) because in a physical relation each of the relata must exist whereas the objects of mental states might not."

Contents

Several problems arise for features of intentionality, which are unusual for materialistic relations. Representation is unique. When 'x represents y' is true, it is not the same as other relations between things, like when 'x is next to y' or when 'x caused y' or when 'x met y', etc. Representation is different because, for instance, when 'x represents y' is true, y need not exist. This isn't true when say 'x is the square root of y' or 'x caused y' or 'x is next to y'. Similarly, when 'x represents y' is true, 'x represents z' can still be false, even when y = z. Intentionality encompasses relations that are both physical and mental. In this case, "Billy can love Santa and Jane can search for unicorns even if Santa does not exist and there are no unicorns."

History

Franz Brentano , the nineteenth century philosopher, spoke of mental states as involving presentations of the objects of our thoughts. This idea encompasses his belief that one cannot desire something unless they actually have a representation of it in their minds.

Dennis Stampe was one of the first philosophers in modern times to suggest a theory of content according to which content is a matter of reliable causes.

Fred Dretske 's book, Knowledge and the Flow of Information (1981), was a major influence on the development of informational theories, and although the theory developed there is not a teleological theory, Dretske (1986, 1988, 1991) later produced an informational version of teleosemantics. He begins with a concept of carrying information that he calls "indicating", explains that indicating is not equivalent to representing, and then suggests that a representation's content is what it has the function of indicating

Teleosemantics, also known as biosemantics, is used to refer to the class of theories of mental content that use a teleological notion of function. Teleosemantics is best understood as a general strategy for underwriting the normative nature of content, rather than any particular theory. What all teleological theories have in common is the idea that semantic norms are ultimately derivable from functional norms.

Attempts to naturalize semantics began in the late 1970s. Many attempts were and still are being made to bring natural-physical explanations to bear on minds and, specifically, to the question of how minds acquire content. [1] This is an interesting question; it is no surprise that it takes center stage in the philosophy of mind. Indeed, it is certainly an interesting question how minds, thought by those in the natural camp to be "natural physical objects", [1] could have developed intentional properties. In the mid-1980s, with the works of Ruth Millikan and David Papineau (Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories and "Representation and Explanation", respectively), teleosemantics, a theory of mental content that attempts to address the question of content and intentionality of minds, was born.

Ruth Millikan is perhaps the most vocal supporter of the teleosemantic program. Millikan's view differs from other teleosemantic views in myriad ways, but perhaps its most unusual characteristic is its distinction between the mechanisms that produce mental representations from those that consume mental representations. [2] There is a representational function as a whole, at a composite level; and there are two "sub-functions", [3] the producer-function and the consumer-function. In terms that are easy to understand, let's take Millikan's own example of beavers splashing their tails. One beaver alerts other beavers to the presence of danger by splashing its tail on the surface of water. The splashing of the tail tells, or represents to, the other beavers that there is danger in the environment, and the other beavers dip into the water to avoid the danger. The splashing of the beaver's tail produces a representation; the other beavers consume the representation. The representation that the beavers consume guides their behavior in ways that relate to their survival.

Of course, the foci of the teleosemantic program is internal representations, and not just representational states of affairs between two (or more) distinct, external entities. How does the picture of the producer and consumer beavers, for instance, play into a story about internal representations? Papineau and Macdonald describe Millikan's account of this well and loyally, saying "The producing mechanisms will be the sensory and other cerebral mechanisms that give rise to cognitive representations." [2] The consuming mechanisms are those that "use these representations to direct behavior in pursuit of some biological end". [2] Here, we have a picture similar to the beaver example, but this picture portrays the two sub-functions, producer and consumer, operating within a more-obviously unified system, namely, the cognitive system. One sub-function produces mental representations while the other sub-function consumes them in order to reach some end, e.g., danger-avoidance or food-acquisition. The representations consumed by the consumer sub-function guide an organism's behavior toward some biological end, e.g., survival. This is a rather brief sketch of Millikan's overall portrait. Of course, more goes into her account of the relation between producer- and consumer-functions in order to arrive at a nuanced account of mental representation. But that is a matter of how. Details as to the how aside, much of Millikan's efforts are directed towards the why, viz., why it is that perceivers like us have mental representations—why representations are produced in the first place.

The theory of asymmetric dependence, from Fodor, who says that his theory "distinguishes merely informational relations on the basis of their higher-order relations to each other: informational relations depend upon representational relations, but not vice versa. He gives an example of this theory when he says, "if tokens of a mental state type are reliably caused by horses, cows-on-dark-nights, zebras-in-the-mist and Great Danes, then they carry information about horses, etc. If however, such tokens are caused by cows-on-dark-nights, etc. because they are caused by horses, but not vice versa, then they represent horses (or property horse).

Alternative theories

Indeterminacy of translation

20th century American philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine believed that linguistic terms do not have distinct meanings that accompany them because there are no such entities as "meanings". In his books, Word and Object (1960) and Ontological Relativity (1968), Quine considers the methods available to a field linguist attempting to translate an unknown language in order to outline his thesis. His thesis, the indeterminacy of translation, notes that there are many different ways to distribute purpose and meanings among words. Whenever a theory of translation is made it is commonly based upon context. An argument over the correct translation of an unidentified term depends on the possibility that the native could have spoken a different sentence. The same problem of indeterminacy would appear in this argument once again since any hypothesis can be defended if one adopts enough compensatory hypotheses about other parts of the language. Quine uses as an example the word "gavagai" spoken by a native upon seeing a rabbit. One can go the simplest route and translate the word to "Lo, a rabbit", but other possible translations such as "Lo, food" or "Let's go hunting" are completely reasonable given what the linguist knows. Subsequent observations can rule out certain possibilities as well as questioning the natives. But this is only possible once the linguist has mastered much of the natives' grammar and vocabulary. This is a big problem because this can only be done on the basis of hypotheses derived from simpler, observation-connected bits of language, which admit multiple interpretations, as we have seen.

The intentional stance

Daniel C. Dennett's theory of mental content, the intentional stance, tries to view the behavior of things in terms of mental properties. According to Dennett: "Here is how it works: first you decide to treat the object whose behavior is to be predicted as a rational agent; then you figure out what beliefs that agent ought to have, given its place in the world and its purpose. Then you figure out what desires it ought to have, on the same considerations, and finally you predict that this rational agent will act to further its goals in the light of its beliefs. A little practical reasoning from the chosen set of beliefs and desires will in most instances yield a decision about what the agent ought to do; that is what you predict the agent will do."

Dennett's thesis has three levels of abstraction:

  1. The most tangible is the physical stance, which is at the level of physics and chemistry. This level is concerned with things such as mass, energy, velocity, and chemical composition.
  2. Somewhat more abstract is the design stance, which is at the level of biology and engineering. This level is concerned with things such as purpose, function and design.
  3. Most abstract is the intentional stance, which is at the level of software and minds. This level is concerned with things such as belief, thinking and intent.

Dennett states that the more concrete the level, the more accurate is in principle our predictions. Though if one chooses to view an object through a more abstract level, he will gain greater computational power by getting a better overall picture of the object and skipping over any extraneous details. Also, switching to a more abstract level has its risks as well as its benefits. If we applied the intentional stance to a thermometer that was heated to 500 °C, trying to understand it through its beliefs about how hot it is and its desire to keep the temperature just right, we would gain no useful information. The problem would not be understood until we dropped down to the physical stance to comprehend that it has been melted. Whether to take a particular stance should be decided by how successful that stance is when applied. Dennett argued that it is best to understand human beliefs and desires at the level of the intentional stance.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Concept</span> Mental representation or an abstract object

A concept is defined as an abstract idea. It is understood to be a fundamental building block underlying principles, thoughts and beliefs. Concepts play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied within such disciplines as linguistics, psychology, and philosophy, and these disciplines are interested in the logical and psychological structure of concepts, and how they are put together to form thoughts and sentences. The study of concepts has served as an important flagship of an emerging interdisciplinary approach, cognitive science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Dennett</span> American philosopher (born 1942)

Daniel Clement Dennett III is an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mind</span> Faculties responsible for mental phenomena

The mind is that which thinks, imagines, remembers, wills, and senses, or is the set of faculties responsible for such phenomena. The mind is also associated with experiencing perception, pleasure and pain, belief, desire, intention, and emotion. The mind can include conscious and non-conscious states as well as sensory and non-sensory experiences.

A belief is a subjective attitude that a proposition is true or a state of affairs is the case. A subjective attitude is a mental state of having some stance, take, or opinion about something. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to take it to be true; for instance, to believe that snow is white is comparable to accepting the truth of the proposition "snow is white". However, holding a belief does not require active introspection. For example, few carefully consider whether or not the sun will rise tomorrow, simply assuming that it will. Moreover, beliefs need not be occurrent, but can instead be dispositional.

Intentionality is the power of minds to be about something: to represent or to stand for things, properties and states of affairs. Intentionality is primarily ascribed to mental states, like perceptions, beliefs or desires, which is why it has been regarded as the characteristic mark of the mental by many philosophers. A central issue for theories of intentionality has been the problem of intentional inexistence: to determine the ontological status of the entities which are the objects of intentional states.

In philosophy of mind, functionalism is the thesis that each and every mental state is constituted solely by its functional role, which means its causal relation to other mental states, sensory inputs, and behavioral outputs. Functionalism developed largely as an alternative to the identity theory of mind and behaviorism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eliminative materialism</span> Philosophical view that some states of mind, as commonly understood, do not exist

Eliminative materialism is a materialist position in the philosophy of mind. It is the idea that the majority of mental states in folk psychology do not exist. Some supporters of eliminativism argue that no coherent neural basis will be found for many everyday psychological concepts such as belief or desire, since they are poorly defined. The argument is that psychological concepts of behavior and experience should be judged by how well they reduce to the biological level. Other versions entail the nonexistence of conscious mental states such as pain and visual perceptions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jerry Fodor</span> American philosopher (1935–2017)

Jerry Alan Fodor was an American philosopher and the author of many crucial works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. His writings in these fields laid the groundwork for the modularity of mind and the language of thought hypotheses, and he is recognized as having had "an enormous influence on virtually every portion of the philosophy of mind literature since 1960." At the time of his death in 2017, he held the position of State of New Jersey Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at Rutgers University, and had taught previously at the City University of New York Graduate Center and MIT.

In psychology, theory of mind refers to the capacity to understand other people by ascribing mental states to them. A theory of mind includes the knowledge that others' beliefs, desires, intentions, emotions, and thoughts may be different from one's own. Possessing a functional theory of mind is considered crucial for success in everyday human social interactions. People utilise a theory of mind when analyzing, judging, and inferring others' behaviors. The discovery and development of theory of mind primarily came from studies done with animals and infants. Factors including drug and alcohol consumption, language development, cognitive delays, age, and culture can affect a person's capacity to display theory of mind. Having a theory of mind is similar to but not identical with having the capacity for empathy or sympathy.

The language of thought hypothesis (LOTH), sometimes known as thought ordered mental expression (TOME), is a view in linguistics, philosophy of mind and cognitive science, forwarded by American philosopher Jerry Fodor. It describes the nature of thought as possessing "language-like" or compositional structure. On this view, simple concepts combine in systematic ways to build thoughts. In its most basic form, the theory states that thought, like language, has syntax.

The intentional stance is a term coined by philosopher Daniel Dennett for the level of abstraction in which we view the behavior of an entity in terms of mental properties. It is part of a theory of mental content proposed by Dennett, which provides the underpinnings of his later works on free will, consciousness, folk psychology, and evolution.

Here is how it works: first you decide to treat the object whose behavior is to be predicted as a rational agent; then you figure out what beliefs that agent ought to have, given its place in the world and its purpose. Then you figure out what desires it ought to have, on the same considerations, and finally you predict that this rational agent will act to further its goals in the light of its beliefs. A little practical reasoning from the chosen set of beliefs and desires will in most instances yield a decision about what the agent ought to do; that is what you predict the agent will do.

Semantic holism is a theory in the philosophy of language to the effect that a certain part of language, be it a term or a complete sentence, can only be understood through its relations to a larger segment of language. There is substantial controversy, however, as to exactly what the larger segment of language in question consists of. In recent years, the debate surrounding semantic holism, which is one among the many forms of holism that are debated and discussed in contemporary philosophy, has tended to centre on the view that the "whole" in question consists of an entire language.

In philosophy of mind, the computational theory of mind (CTM), also known as computationalism, is a family of views that hold that the human mind is an information processing system and that cognition and consciousness together are a form of computation. Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts (1943) were the first to suggest that neural activity is computational. They argued that neural computations explain cognition. The theory was proposed in its modern form by Hilary Putnam in 1967, and developed by his PhD student, philosopher, and cognitive scientist Jerry Fodor in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. It was vigorously disputed in analytic philosophy in the 1990s due to work by Putnam himself, John Searle, and others.

A mental representation, in philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science, is a hypothetical internal cognitive symbol that represents external reality or its abstractions.

David Papineau is a British academic philosopher, born in Como, Italy. He works as Professor of Philosophy of Science at King's College London and the City University of New York Graduate Center, and previously taught for several years at Cambridge University, where he was a fellow of Robinson College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philosophy of mind</span> Branch of philosophy

Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addressed, such as the hard problem of consciousness and the nature of particular mental states. Aspects of the mind that are studied include mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and its neural correlates, the ontology of the mind, the nature of cognition and of thought, and the relationship of the mind to the body.

William G. Lycan is an American philosopher and professor emeritus at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was formerly the William Rand Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor. Since 2011, Lycan is also distinguished visiting professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut, where he continues to research, teach, and advise graduate students.

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world. Someone who studies metaphysics can be called either a "metaphysician" or a "metaphysicist".

Theories of mental representation are those that rest the cognitive abilities of the mind on the processing of content-laden vehicles, called representations. Naturalizing these theories involves an account of how a representation, initially posited as a theoretical construct, can be realized in a physical system. A central aspect of any account of representation is how they derive and designate semantic content. The possession of meaningful content is the most characteristic property of representations and arguably integral to their functionality. The project of the naturalistic philosopher is to provide an account of the representation relationship between a representation A and its object of intentional content a, such that having content A is entailed by standing in a particular relation with a.

The first half of the topic of agency deals with the behavioral sense, or outward expressive evidence thereof. In behavioral psychology, agents are goal-directed entities that are able to monitor their environment to select and perform efficient means-ends actions that are available in a given situation to achieve an intended goal. Behavioral agency, therefore, implies the ability to perceive and to change the environment of the agent. Crucially, it also entails intentionality to represent the goal-state in the future, equifinal variability to be able to achieve the intended goal-state with different actions in different contexts, and rationality of actions in relation to their goal to produce the most efficient action available. Cognitive scientists and Behavioral psychologists have thoroughly investigated agency attribution in humans and non-human animals, since social cognitive mechanisms such as communication, social learning, imitation, or theory of mind presuppose the ability to identify agents and differentiate them from inanimate, non-agentive objects. This ability has also been assumed to have a major effect on inferential and predictive processes of the observers of agents, because agentive entities are expected to perform autonomous behavior based on their current and previous knowledge and intentions. On the other hand, inanimate objects are supposed to react to external physical forces.

References

  1. 1 2 Adams, Fred. "Thoughts and Their Contents: Naturalized Semantics." In Philosophy of Mind 143.
  2. 1 2 3 Macdonald, G, and Papineau, D. "Prospects and Problems for Teleosemantics," in Teleosemantics 4.
  3. ↑ Shea, Nicholas. "Millikan's Contribution to Materialist Philosophy of Mind," 6.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.