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 .
105-439: 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
210-451: A 2003 study in which participants viewed animated geometric shapes in different "vignettes," some of which could be interpreted as constituting social interaction, while others suggested mechanical behavior. Viewing social interactions elicited activity in brain regions associated with identifying faces and biological objects (posterior temporal cortex), as well as emotion processing (right amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex). Meanwhile,
315-538: A characteristic of all acts of consciousness that are thus "psychical" or "mental" phenomena, by which they may be set apart from "physical" or "natural" phenomena. Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction towards an object (which
420-412: A computer would provide it with semantic content. Others are more skeptical of the human ability to make such an assertion, arguing that the kind of intentionality that emerges from self-organizing networks of automata will always be undecidable because it will never be possible to make our subjective introspective experience of intentionality and decision making coincide with our objective observation of
525-452: A desire, a belief, and an intention were all present, they would "rationally" lead to a given action. They coined this phenomenon the "ideal of rational action". Existing literature has widely corroborated the fact that social behavior is greatly affected by the causes to which people attribute actions. In particular, it has been shown that an individual's interpretation of the causes of behavior reflects their pre-existing beliefs regarding
630-685: A different manner. So the visual perception and the haptic perception agree in both intentional object and intentional content but differ in intentional mode. Pure intentionalists may not agree with this distinction. They may argue, for example, that the difference in the last case also belongs to intentional content, because two different properties are ascribed to the apple: seen-roundness and felt-roundness. Critics of intentionalism, so-called anti-intentionalists , have proposed various apparent counterexamples to intentionalism: states that are considered mental but lack intentionality. Some anti-intentionalist theories, such as that of Ned Block , are based on
735-557: A distinction between phenomenal and non-phenomenal states—and this distinction seems to be dependent on the structural properties of an entity in a way that ascriptions of non-phenomenal states are not." However, this conclusion is only tentative in view of the high variance among participants. Experiment 2 showed analogous results: Both beliefs and happiness were ascribed most strongly to biological humans, and ascriptions of happiness to robots or cyborgs were less common than ascriptions of beliefs. Intentionality Intentionality
840-597: A double dissociation between the intentional and phenomenal stances. In a follow-up paper, Robbins and Jack describe four experiments about how the intentional and phenomenal stances relate to feelings of moral concern. The first two experiments showed that talking about lobsters as strongly emotional led to a much greater sentiment that lobsters deserved welfare protections than did talking about lobsters as highly intelligent. The third and fourth studies found that perceiving an agent as vulnerable led to greater attributions of phenomenal experience. Also, people who scored higher on
945-440: A given action will fulfill an intention, as in "purchasing a new watch will impress my friends". Ability consists of an actor's conviction regarding his or her ability to perform an action, as in "I really can afford the new watch". In light of this, Heider postulated that ability beliefs could be attributed with causing individuals to form goals that would not otherwise have been entertained. The regulative view of folk psychology
1050-480: A high probability of being unattainable, whereas goals tend to be described as a wide range of common actions. Models of everyday inferences capture folk psychology of human informal reasoning. Many models of this nature have been developed. They express and refine our folk psychological ways of understanding of how one makes inferences. For example, one model describes human everyday reasoning as combinations of simple, direct rules and similarity-based processes. From
1155-404: A higher-level stance can simply fail to be useful. If we were to try to understand the thermostat at the level of the intentional stance, ascribing to it beliefs about how hot it is and a desire to keep the temperature just right, we would gain no traction over the problem as compared to staying at the design stance, but we would generate theoretical commitments that expose us to absurdities, such as
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#17330847677891260-428: A language of thought. Dennett comments on this issue, Fodor "attempt[s] to make these irreducible realities acceptable to the physical sciences by grounding them (somehow) in the 'syntax' of a system of physically realized mental representations" (Dennett 1987, 345). Those who adhere to the so-called Quinean double standard (namely that ontologically there is nothing intentional, but that the language of intentionality
1365-458: A lot going for it" from the perspective of psychology and neuroscience. They review studies on abilities to adopt an intentional stance (variously called "mindreading", "mentalizing", or "theory of mind") as distinct from adopting a physical stance ("folk physics", "intuitive physics", or "theory of body"). Autism seems to be a deficit in the intentional stance with preservation of the physical stance, while Williams syndrome can involve deficits in
1470-477: A relation to the intentional object. This is the most natural position for non-problematic cases. So if Mary perceives a tree, we might say that a perceptual relation holds between Mary, the subject of this relation, and the tree, the object of this relation. Relations are usually assumed to be existence-entailing: the instance of a relation entails the existence of its relata. This principle rules out that we can bear relations to non-existing entities. One way to solve
1575-416: A significant role in comprehending folk psychology from a regulative perspective. Three categories of moral character traits are assigned: virtue-labeling, narrative-based moral assessment, as well as gossiping about traits and they use different approaches to social cognition. Although character judgement is a component in folk psychology, it does not take into consideration other processes that we engage in on
1680-553: A strong desire to do so. Predicting goals and actions, much like the Belief-Desire Model, involves moderating variables that determine whether an action will be performed. In the Goal-Intentional Action Model, the predictors of goals and actions are: the actors' beliefs about his or her abilities and their actual possession of preconditions required to carry out the action. Additionally, preconditions consist of
1785-459: A superman-ly manner or that Mary is thinking superman-ly . Adverbialism has been challenged on the grounds that it puts a strain on natural language and the metaphysical insights encoded in it. Another objection is that, by treating intentional objects as mere modifications of intentional states, adverbialism loses the power to distinguish between different complex intentional contents, the so-called many-property-problem. Daniel Dennett offers
1890-444: A systematic, "reason-giving explanation" for a particular action, and an account of the historical origins of that action, based on deeply embedded assumptions about the agent; namely that: This approach is also consistent with the earlier work of Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel , whose joint study revealed that, when subjects were presented with an animated display of 2-dimensional shapes, they were inclined to ascribe intentions to
1995-450: A taxonomy of the current theories about intentionality in Chapter 10 of his book The Intentional Stance . Most, if not all, current theories on intentionality accept Brentano's thesis of the irreducibility of intentional idiom. From this thesis the following positions emerge: Roderick Chisholm (1956), G.E.M. Anscombe (1957), Peter Geach (1957), and Charles Taylor (1964) all adhere to
2100-442: A thought in his head." Dennett has argued against this by denying the premise, on the basis that the robot is a philosophical zombie and therefore metaphysically impossible. In other words, if something acts in all ways conscious, it necessarily is, as consciousness is defined in terms of behavioral capacity, not ineffable qualia . Another objection attacks the premise that treating people as ideally rational creatures will yield
2205-408: A three level system were Allen Newell , Zenon Pylyshyn , and David Marr . The parallels between the four representations (each of which implicitly assumed that computers and human minds displayed each of the three distinct levels) are detailed in the following table: The most obvious objection to Dennett is the intuition that it "matters" to us whether an object has an inner life or not. The claim
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#17330847677892310-408: Is a primitive practice reserved for the uneducated and non-academics in discussing their everyday lives. There is significant debate over whether folk psychology is useful for academic purposes; specifically, whether it can be relevant with regard to the scientific psychology domain. It has been argued that a mechanism used for laypeople's understanding, predicting, and explaining each other's actions
2415-432: Is about a, and a = b, then the intentional state is about b as well). An intentional state is translucent if it satisfies (i) but not (ii). An intentional state is opaque if it satisfies neither (i) nor (ii). Intentionalism is the thesis that all mental states are intentional, i.e. that they are about something: about their intentional object. This thesis has also been referred to as "representationalism". Intentionalism
2520-708: Is an unconventional way of explaining behavior in law. By looking at behaviors and expressions, folk psychology is used to predict behaviors that have been acted out in the past. The importance of this concept transcends almost all aspects of everyday life: with empirical studies in social and developmental psychology exploring perceived intentionality's role as a mediator for aggression, relationship conflict, judgements of responsibility blame or punishment. Recent empirical literature on folk psychology has shown that people's theories regarding intentional actions involve four distinct factors: beliefs, desires, causal histories, and enabling factors. Here, beliefs and desires represent
2625-429: Is claimed) somehow does not have any thoughts or feelings at all, just a chip which controls his behaviour; in other words, "the lights are on but no one's home". According to the intentional systems theory (IST), Jones and the robot have precisely the same beliefs and desires, but this is claimed to be false. The IST expert assigns the same mental states to Blockhead as he does to Jones, "whereas in fact [Blockhead] has not
2730-455: Is commonly contrasted with naturalism about intentionality, the view that intentional properties are reducible to natural properties as studied by the natural sciences . Several authors have attempted to construct philosophical models describing how intentionality relates to the human capacity to be self-conscious . Cedric Evans contributed greatly to the discussion with his "The Subject of Self-Consciousness" in 1970. He centered his model on
2835-522: Is entailed by Brentano's claim that intentionality is "the mark of the mental": if all and only mental states are intentional then it is surely the case that all mental states are intentional. Discussions of intentionalism often focus on the intentionality of conscious states. One can distinguish in such states their phenomenal features, or what it is like for a subject to have such a state, from their intentional features, or what they are about. These two features seem to be closely related to each other, which
2940-434: Is inapplicable with regards to the requirements of the scientific method . Conversely, opponents have called for patience, seeing the mechanism employed by laypeople for understanding each other's actions as important in their formation of bases for future action when encountering similar situations. Malle & Knobe hailed this systematization of people's everyday understanding of the mind as an inevitable progression towards
3045-591: Is indispensable ), accept Quine's thesis of the indeterminacy of radical translation and its implications, while the other positions so far mentioned do not. As Quine puts it, indeterminacy of radical translation is the thesis that "manuals for translating one language into another can be set up in divergent ways, all compatible with the totality of speech dispositions, yet incompatible with one another" (Quine 1960, 27). Quine (1960) and Wilfrid Sellars (1958) both comment on this intermediary position. One such implication would be that there is, in principle, no deeper fact of
3150-410: Is known as the phenomenal intentionality theory . This privileged status can take two forms. In the moderate version, phenomenal intentionality is privileged because other types of intentionality depend on it or are grounded in it. They are therefore not intrinsically intentional. The stronger version goes further and denies that there are other types of intentionality. Phenomenal intentionality theory
3255-545: Is not a process, and Ayer that describing one's knowledge is not to describe mental processes. The effect of these positions is that consciousness is so fully intentional that the mental act has been emptied of all content, and that the idea of pure consciousness is that it is nothing. (Sartre also referred to "consciousness" as " nothing "). Platonist Roderick Chisholm has revived the Brentano thesis through linguistic analysis, distinguishing two parts to Brentano's concept,
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3360-419: Is not awareness "of" anything. Phenomenal intentionality is the type of intentionality grounded in phenomenal or conscious mental states. It contrasts with non-phenomenal intentionality , which is often ascribed to e.g. language and unconscious states. The distinction is important to philosophers who hold that phenomenal intentionality has a privileged status over non-phenomenal intentionality. This position
3465-411: Is not clear whether in 1874 this ... was intended to carry any ontological commitment" (Chrudzimski and Smith 2004, p. 205). A major problem within discourse on intentionality is that participants often fail to make explicit whether or not they use the term to imply concepts such as agency or desire, i.e. whether it involves teleology . Dennett (see below) explicitly invokes teleological concepts in
3570-526: Is not the same of the intentional stance of folk psychology. This point of view is primarily concerned with the norms and patterns the correspond with our behavior and applying them in social situations. Our thoughts and behaviors are often shaped by folk psychology into the normative molds that help others predict and comprehend us. According to the regulative point of view, social roles, cultural norms, generalizations, and stereotypes are grounded on social and developmental psychology's empirical data, which
3675-625: 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 judgement something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on. This intentional in-existence is characteristic exclusively of mental phenomena. No physical phenomenon exhibits anything like it. We could, therefore, define mental phenomena by saying that they are those phenomena which contain an object intentionally within themselves. Brentano coined
3780-516: Is one of the key determinants in social interaction. Others are the environmental conditions or pre-cognitive matters. For example, a critical remark that is judged to be intentional on the part of the receiver of the message can be viewed as a hurtful insult. Conversely, if considered unintentional, the same remark may be dismissed and forgiven. The folk concept of intentionality is used in the legal system to distinguish between intentional and unintentional behavior. When looking at an individual, there
3885-410: Is possible. Relationalists try to solve the problem by interpreting intentional states as relations while Adverbialists interpret them as properties . Eliminativists deny that the example above is possible. It might seem to us and to Mary that she is thinking about something but she is not really thinking at all. Such a position could be motivated by a form of semantic externalism , the view that
3990-413: Is round and tasting that this apple is sweet both have the same intentional object: the apple. But they involve different contents: the visual perception ascribes the property of roundness to the apple while the gustatory perception ascribes the property of sweetness to the apple. Touching the apple will also result in a perceptual experience ascribing roundness to the apple, but the roundness is presented in
4095-501: Is standing in a thinking relation to the abstract object or the Platonic form that corresponds to Superman. A similar solution replaces abstract objects with concrete mental objects. In this case, there exists a mental object corresponding to Superman in Mary's mind. As Mary starts to think about Superman, she enters into a relationship with this mental object. One problem for both of these theories
4200-626: Is that they seem to mischaracterize the experience of thinking. As Mary is thinking about Superman, she is neither thinking about a Platonic form outside space-time nor about a mental object. Instead, she is thinking about a concrete physical being. A related solution sees possible objects as intentional objects. This involves a commitment to modal realism , for example in the form of the Lewisian model or as envisioned by Takashi Yagisawa . Adverbialists hold that intentional states are properties of subjects. So no independent objects are needed besides
4305-408: Is that we don't just imagine the intentional states of other people in order to predict their behaviour; the fact that they have thoughts and feelings just like we do is central to notions such as trust, friendship and love. The Blockhead argument proposes that someone, Jones, has a twin who is in fact not a person but a very sophisticated robot which looks and acts like Jones in every way, but who (it
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4410-486: Is that, when understanding, explaining, and/or predicting the behavior of an object, we can choose to view it at varying levels of abstraction. The more concrete the level, the more accurate in principle our predictions are; the more abstract, the greater the computational power we gain by zooming out and skipping over the irrelevant details. Dennett defines three levels of abstraction, attained by adopting one of three entirely different "stances", or intellectual strategies:
4515-416: Is the mental ability to refer to or represent something. Sometimes regarded as the mark of the mental , it is found in mental states like perceptions, beliefs or desires. For example, the perception of a tree has intentionality because it represents a tree to the perceiver. A central issue for theories of intentionality has been the problem of intentional inexistence : to determine the ontological status of
4620-470: Is the subscript for the dimensions ( k = 1 , … , K ) {\displaystyle (k=1,\dots ,K)} , and s ( P , E i k ) {\displaystyle s(P,E_{ik})} is the similarity between the prototype and the i {\displaystyle i} th exemplar on the k {\displaystyle k} th dimension. There are other prediction models when it comes to
4725-415: Is then carried out to produce action "A". Schank & Abelson (1977) described this inclusion of typical beliefs, desires, and intentions underlying an action as akin to a "script" whereby an individual is merely following an unconscious framework that leads to the ultimate decision of whether an action will be performed. Similarly, Barsalou (1985) described the category of the mind as an "ideal" whereby if
4830-587: Is thinking about Superman. On the one hand, it seems that this thought is intentional: Mary is thinking about something . On the other hand, Superman does not exist . This suggests that Mary either is not thinking about something or is thinking about something that does not exist (that Superman fiction exists is beside the point). Various theories have been proposed in order to reconcile these conflicting intuitions. These theories can roughly be divided into eliminativism , relationalism , and adverbialism . Eliminativists deny that this kind of problematic mental state
4935-463: Is utilized in everyday life. According to this model, people perform an action if they want an outcome and believe that it can be obtained by performing the action. However, beliefs and desires are not responsible for immediate action; intention acts as a mediator of belief/desire and action. In other words, consider a person who wants to achieve a goal, "G", and believes action "A" will aid in attaining "G"; this leads to an intention to perform "A", which
5040-404: Is what normative structures allude to. Based on how someone displays themselves, things like how you treat babies differently from adults and boys differently from girls might foretell how people will behave or react. According to this regulative perspective, folk psychology fulfills a "curiosity state" and a satisfactory answer satisfies the needs of the inquirer. Moral character judgements play
5145-412: Is what we often do when someone is behaving unpredictably — we look for the reasons why. In other words, we can only deal with irrationality by contrasting it against the background assumption of rationality. This development significantly undermines the claims of the intentional stance argument. The rationale behind the intentional stance is based on evolutionary theory, particularly the notion that
5250-488: Is why intentionalists have proposed various theories in order to capture the exact form of this relatedness. These theories can roughly be divided into three categories: pure intentionalism, impure intentionalism, and qualia theories. Both pure and impure intentionalism hold that there is a supervenience relation between phenomenal features and intentional features, for example, that two intentional states cannot differ regarding their phenomenal features without differing at
5355-704: The Principle of Charity . Dennett (1969, 1971, 1975), Cherniak (1981, 1986), and the more recent work of Putnam (1983) recommend the Assumption of Rationality, which unsurprisingly assumes that the physical system in question is rational. Donald Davidson (1967, 1973, 1974, 1985) and Lewis (1974) defend the Principle of Charity. The latter is advocated by Grandy (1973) and Stich (1980, 1981, 1983, 1984), who maintain that attributions of intentional idioms to any physical system (e.g. humans, artifacts, non-human animals, etc.) should be
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#17330847677895460-600: The eliminative materialism , understand intentional idiom, such as "belief", "desire", and the like, to be replaceable either with behavioristic language (e.g. Quine) or with the language of neuroscience (e.g. Churchland). Holders of realism argue that there is a deeper fact of the matter to both translation and belief attribution. In other words, manuals for translating one language into another cannot be set up in different yet behaviorally identical ways and ontologically there are intentional objects. Famously, Fodor has attempted to ground such realist claims about intentionality in
5565-503: The intentional stance . They are further divided into two theses: Advocates of the former, the Normative Principle, argue that attributions of intentional idioms to physical systems should be the propositional attitudes that the physical system ought to have in those circumstances (Dennett 1987, 342). However, exponents of this view are still further divided into those who make an Assumption of Rationality and those who adhere to
5670-407: The " intentional stance ". However, most philosophers use "intentionality" to mean something with no teleological import. Thus, a thought of a chair can be about a chair without any implication of an intention or even a belief relating to the chair. For philosophers of language, what is meant by intentionality is largely an issue of how symbols can have meaning. This lack of clarity may underpin some of
5775-738: The "distinguishing characteristic of all mental phenomena" was "the reference to something as an object" – a characteristic he called " intentional inexistence ". Dennett constantly speaks of the " aboutness " of intentionality ; for example: "the aboutness of the pencil marks composing a shopping list is derived from the intentions of the person whose list it is" (Dennett, 1995, p. 240). John Searle (1999, pp. 85) stresses that "competence" in predicting/explaining human behaviour involves being able to both recognize others as " intentional " beings, and interpret others' minds as having "intentional states" (e.g., beliefs and desires): According to Dennett (1987, pp. 48–49), folk psychology provides
5880-404: The "intendum" what an intentional state is about, and the "intender" the subject who is in the intentional state. An intentional state is transparent if it satisfies the following two conditions: (i) it is genuinely relational in that it entails the existence of not just the intender but the intendum as well, and (ii) substitutivity of identicals applies to the intendum (i.e. if the intentional state
5985-449: The 'conversational' model because he argued that as a social activity, unlike prediction, explanation requires an audience: to whom the individual explains the event or action. According to the model, causal explanations follow two particular conversational maxims from Grice's (1975) models of conversation—the manner maxim and the quantity maxim. Grice indicated that the content of a conversation should be relevant, informative, and fitting of
6090-425: The ability to make quick predictions of a system's behaviour based on what we think it might be thinking was an evolutionary adaptive advantage. The fact that our predictive powers are not perfect is a further result of the advantages sometimes accrued by acting contrary to expectations. Philip Robbins and Anthony I. Jack suggest that "Dennett's philosophical distinction between the physical and intentional stances has
6195-412: The actor's mental state and motivation behind his or her actions. It follows that they draw on the assumed intentions of actors to guide their own responses to punish or reward the actor. This concept is extended to cover instances in which behavioral evidence is lacking. Under these circumstances, it has been shown that the individual will again draw on assumed intentions in order to predict the actions of
6300-424: The argument that phenomenal conscious experience or qualia is also a vital component of consciousness, and that it is not intentional. (The latter claim is itself disputed by Michael Tye .) Another form of anti-intentionalism associated with John Searle regards phenomenality itself, not intentionality, as the "mark of the mental" and thereby sidelines intentionality, since such anti-intentionalists "might accept
6405-493: The assumptions that: Also, the intentional stance meets the criteria Dennett specified (1995, pp. 50–51) for algorithms: The general notion of a three level system was widespread in the late 1970s/early 1980s; for example, when discussing the mental representation of information from a cognitive psychology perspective, Glass and his colleagues (1979, p. 24) distinguished three important aspects of representation: Other significant cognitive scientists who also advocated
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#17330847677896510-478: The audience's gap in knowledge. Cognizant of this, the Conversational Model indicates that the explainer, upon evaluation of his audience, will modify his explanation to cater their needs. In essence, demonstrating the inherent need for mental comparison and in subsequent modification of behaviour in everyday explanations. The belief–desire model of psychology illustrates one method in which folk psychology
6615-425: The behavior of a self-organizing machine. 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. This is particularly relevant for cases involving objects that have no existence outside the mind, as in the case of mere fantasies or hallucinations. For example, assume that Mary
6720-444: The best predictions. Stephen Stich argues that people often have beliefs or desires which are irrational or bizarre, and IST doesn't allow us to say anything about these. If the person's "environmental niche" is examined closely enough, and the possibility of malfunction in their brain (which might affect their reasoning capacities) is looked into, it may be possible to formulate a predictive strategy specific to that person. Indeed this
6825-522: The central variables responsible for the folk theories of intention. Desires embody outcomes that an individual seeks, including those that are impossible to achieve. The key difference between desires and intentions is that desires can be purely hypothetical, whereas intentions specify an outcome that the individual is actually trying to bring to fruition. In terms of beliefs, there are several types that are relevant to intentions—outcome beliefs and ability beliefs. Outcome beliefs are beliefs as to whether
6930-521: 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 (1971, p. 87) states that he took the concept of " intentionality " from the work of the German philosopher Franz Brentano . When clarifying the distinction between mental phenomena (viz., mental activity) and physical phenomena, Brentano (p. 97) argued that, in contrast with physical phenomena,
7035-414: The circumstances for which it was designed. The actions of a mercury thermometer heated to 500 °C can no longer be predicted on the basis of treating it as a thermometer; we have to sink down to the physical stance to understand it as a melted and boiled piece of junk. For that matter, the "actions" of a dead bird are not predictable in terms of beliefs or desires. Even when there is no immediate error,
7140-417: The controversy inherent in this, there is also some dispute about the extent to which Dennett is committing to realism about mental properties. Initially, Dennett's interpretation was seen as leaning more towards instrumentalism , but over the years, as this idea has been used to support more extensive theories of consciousness , it has been taken as being more like Realism. His own words hint at something in
7245-482: The daily basis. Folk psychology is crucial to evaluating and ultimately understanding novel concepts and items. Developed by Medin, Altom, and Murphy, the Context Model hypothesizes that as a result of mental models in the form of prototype and exemplar representations, individuals are able to more accurately represent and comprehend the environment around them. According to the model, the overall similarity between
7350-440: The differences of view indicated below. To bear out further the diversity of sentiment evoked from the notion of intentionality, Husserl followed on Brentano, and gave the concept of intentionality more widespread attention, both in continental and analytic philosophy . In contrast to Brentano's view, French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre ( Being and Nothingness ) identified intentionality with consciousness , stating that
7455-552: The different cognitive thoughts an individual might have when trying to predict human behavior or human mental states. From Lewis, one platitude includes individuals casually expressing stimuli and behavior. The other platitude includes assuming a type of mental state another has. The prediction model has received some cautions as the idea of folk psychology has been a part of Lewis's ideas. Common statements about mental health have been considered in Lewis's prediction model, therefore there
7560-495: The eliminativists since it attempts to blend attributes of both into a theory of intentionality. Dennett, for example, argues in True Believers (1981) that intentional idiom (or " folk psychology ") is a predictive strategy and if such a strategy successfully and voluminously predicts the actions of a physical system, then that physical system can be said to have those beliefs attributed to it. Dennett calls this predictive strategy
7665-623: The empathetic-concern subscale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index had generally higher absolute attributions of mental experience. Bryce Huebner (2010) performed two experimental philosophy studies to test students' ascriptions of various mental states to humans compared with cyborgs and robots. Experiment 1 showed that while students attributed both beliefs and pains most strongly to humans, they were more willing to attribute beliefs than pains to robots and cyborgs. "[T]hese data seem to confirm that commonsense psychology does draw
7770-409: The entities which are the objects of intentional states. An early theory of intentionality is associated with Anselm of Canterbury 's ontological argument for the existence of God , and with his tenets distinguishing between objects that exist in the understanding and objects that exist in reality. The idea fell out of discussion with the end of the medieval scholastic period , but in recent times
7875-422: The expression "intentional inexistence" to indicate the peculiar ontological status of the contents of mental phenomena. According to some interpreters the "in-" of "in-existence" is to be read as locative, i.e. as indicating that "an intended object ... exists in or has in-existence , existing not externally but in the psychological state" (Jacquette 2004, p. 102), while others are more cautious, stating: "It
7980-416: The former position, namely that intentional idiom is problematic and cannot be integrated with the natural sciences. Members of this category also maintain realism in regard to intentional objects, which may imply some kind of dualism (though this is debatable). The latter position, which maintains the unity of intentionality with the natural sciences, is further divided into three standpoints: Proponents of
8085-577: The idea that executive attention need not be propositional in form. Folk psychology In philosophy of mind and cognitive science , folk psychology , or commonsense psychology or naïve psychology , is a human capacity to explain and predict the behavior and mental state of other people. Processes and items encountered in daily life such as pain, pleasure, excitement, and anxiety use common linguistic terms as opposed to technical or scientific jargon. Folk psychology allows for an insight into social interactions and communication, thus stretching
8190-496: The importance of connection and how it is experienced. Traditionally, the study of folk psychology has focused on how everyday people—those without formal training in the various academic fields of science—go about attributing mental states. This domain has primarily been centered on intentional states reflective of an individual's beliefs and desires; each described in terms of everyday language and concepts such as "beliefs", "desires", "fear", and "hope". Belief and desire have been
8295-495: The intentional use of sentences are: existence independence, truth-value indifference, and referential opacity . In current artificial intelligence and philosophy of mind , intentionality is sometimes linked with questions of semantic inference, with both skeptical and supportive adherents. John Searle argued for this position with the Chinese room thought experiment, according to which no syntactic operations that occurred in
8400-431: The interaction of these simple mechanisms, seemingly complex patterns of reasoning emerge. The model has been used to account for a variety of reasoning data. Folk psychology remains the subject of much contention in academic circles with respect to its scope, method and the significance of its contributions to the scientific community. A large part of this criticism stems from the prevailing impression that folk psychology
8505-400: The main idea of folk psychology as both suggest the mental states we partake in. Belief comes from the mindset of how we take the world to be while desire comes from how we want the world to be. From both of these mindsets, our intensity of predicting others mental states can have different results. Folk psychology is seen by many psychologists from two perspectives: the intentional stance or
8610-404: The matter that could settle two interpretative strategies on what belief to attribute to a physical system. In other words, the behavior (including speech dispositions) of any physical system, in theory, could be interpreted by two different predictive strategies and both would be equally warranted in their belief attribution. This category can be seen to be a medial position between the realists and
8715-466: The meaning of a term, or in this example the content of a thought, is determined by factors external to the subject. If meaning depends on successful reference then failing to refer would result in a lack of meaning. The difficulty for such a position is to explain why it seems to Mary that she is thinking about something and how seeming to think is different from actual thinking. Relationalists hold that having an intentional state involves standing in
8820-413: The mechanical interactions activated regions related to identifying objects like tools that can be manipulated (posterior temporal lobe). The authors suggest "that these findings reveal putative 'core systems' for social and mechanical understanding that are divisible into constituent parts or elements with distinct processing and storage capabilities." Robbins and Jack argue for an additional stance beyond
8925-476: The middle, as he suggests that the self is as real as a center of gravity, "an abstract object , a theorist's fiction", but operationally valid. As a way of thinking about things, Dennett's intentional stance is entirely consistent with everyday commonsense understanding; and, thus, it meets Eleanor Rosch 's (1978, p. 28) criterion of the "maximum information with the least cognitive effort". Rosch argues that, implicit within any system of categorization, are
9030-448: The ontological aspect and the psychological aspect. Chisholm's writings have attempted to summarize the suitable and unsuitable criteria of the concept since the Scholastics, arriving at a criterion of intentionality identified by the two aspects of Brentano's thesis and defined by the logical properties that distinguish language describing psychological phenomena from language describing non-psychological phenomena. Chisholm's criteria for
9135-447: The phenomenal features. Pure intentionalists hold that only intentional content is responsible, while impure intentionalists assert that the manner or mode how this content is presented also plays a role. Tim Crane , himself an impure intentionalist, explains this difference by distinguishing three aspects of intentional states: the intentional object, the intentional content, and the intentional mode. For example, seeing that an apple
9240-474: The physical stance with preservation of the intentional stance. This tentatively suggests a double dissociation of intentional and physical stances in the brain. However, most studies have found no evidence of impairment in autistic individuals' ability to understand other people's basic intentions or goals; instead, data suggests that impairments are found in understanding more complex social emotions or in considering others' viewpoints. Robbins and Jack point to
9345-414: The physical stance; the design stance; and the intentional stance: A key point is that switching to a higher level of abstraction has its risks as well as its benefits. For example, when we view both a bimetallic strip and a tube of mercury as thermometers, we can lose track of the fact that they differ in accuracy and temperature range, leading to false predictions as soon as the thermometer is used outside
9450-423: The possibility of the thermostat not being in the mood to work today because the weather is so nice. Whether to take a particular stance, then, is determined by how successful that stance is when applied. Dennett argues that it is best to understand human behavior at the level of the intentional stance, without making any specific commitments to any deeper reality of the artifacts of folk psychology . In addition to
9555-637: The problem is to deny this principle and argue for a kind of intentionality exceptionalism : that intentionality is different from all other relations in the sense that this principle does not apply to it. A more common relationalist solution is to look for existing objects that can play the role that the non-existing object was supposed to play. Such objects are sometimes called "proxies", "traces", or "ersatz objects". It has been suggested that abstract objects or Platonic forms can play this role. Abstract objects have actual existence but they exist outside space and time. So when Mary thinks about Superman, she
9660-432: The propositional attitude (e.g. "belief", "desire", etc.) that one would suppose one would have in the same circumstances (Dennett 1987, 343). Working on the intentionality of vision, belief, and knowledge, Pierre Le Morvan (2005) has distinguished between three basic kinds of intentionality that he dubs "transparent", "translucent", and "opaque" respectively. The threefold distinction may be explained as follows. Let's call
9765-440: The prototype and a given instance of a category is evaluated based on multiple dimensions (e.g., shape, size, color). A multiplicative function modeled after this phenomenon was created. Here, s ( P , E i ) {\displaystyle s(P,E_{i})} represents the similarity between the prototype and the i {\displaystyle i} th exemplar, k {\displaystyle k}
9870-485: The regulative view. The regulative view of folk psychology insists that a person's behavior is more geared to acting towards the societal norms whereas the intentional stance makes a person behave based on the circumstances of how they are supposed to behave. When perceiving, explaining, or criticizing human behaviour , people distinguish between intentional and unintentional actions . An evaluation of an action as stemming from purposeful action or accidental circumstances
9975-399: The same time in their intentional features. Qualia theories, on the other hand, assert that among the phenomenal features of a mental state there are at least some non-intentional phenomenal properties, so-called "Qualia", which are not determined by intentional features. Pure and impure intentionalism disagree with each other concerning which intentional features are responsible for determining
10080-544: The shapes. Further, Dennett (1987, p. 52) argues that, based on our fixed personal views of what all humans ought to believe, desire and do, we predict (or explain) the beliefs, desires and actions of others "by calculating in a normative system"; and, driven by the reasonable assumption that all humans are rational beings – who do have specific beliefs and desires and do act on the basis of those beliefs and desires in order to get what they want – these predictions/explanations are based on four simple rules: The core idea
10185-404: The subject, which is how adverbialists avoid the problem of non-existence. This approach has been termed "adverbialism" since the object of the intentional state is seen as a modification of this state, which can be linguistically expressed through adverbs. Instead of saying that Mary is thinking about Superman , it would be more precise, according to adverbialists, to say that Mary is thinking in
10290-477: The thesis that intentionality coincides with the mental, but they hold the view that intentionality derives from consciousness". A further form argues that some unusual states of consciousness are non-intentional, although an individual might live a lifetime without experiencing them. Robert K.C. Forman argues that some of the unusual states of consciousness typical of mystical experience are pure consciousness events in which awareness exists, but has no object,
10395-428: The third party. Although the two components are often used interchangeably in common parlance, there is an important distinction between the goals and intentions. This discrepancy lies in the fact that individuals with an intention to perform an action also foster the belief that it will be achieved, whereas the same person with a goal may not necessarily believe that the action is able to be performed in spite of having
10500-534: The three that Dennett outlined. They call it the phenomenal stance : Attributing consciousness, emotions, and inner experience to a mind. The explanatory gap of the hard problem of consciousness illustrates this tendency of people to see phenomenal experience as different from physical processes. The authors suggest that psychopathy may represent a deficit in the phenomenal but not intentional stance, while people with autism appear to have intact moral sensibilities, just not mind-reading abilities. These examples suggest
10605-582: The two were indistinguishable. German philosopher Martin Heidegger ( Being and Time ), defined intentionality as " care " ( Sorge ), a sentient condition where an individual's existence, facticity , and being in the world identifies their ontological significance, in contrast to that which is merely ontic ("thinghood"). Other 20th-century philosophers such as Gilbert Ryle and A. J. Ayer were critical of Husserl's concept of intentionality and his many layers of consciousness. Ryle insisted that perceiving
10710-487: The various conditions necessary in order for realization of intentions. This includes abilities and skills in addition to environmental variables that may come into play. Schank & Abelson raises the example of going to a restaurant, where the preconditions include the ability to afford the bill and get to the correct venue, in addition to the fact that the restaurant must be open for business. Traditionally, people prefer to allude to preconditions to explain actions that have
10815-404: The view that intentionality is grounded in consciousness. The concept of intentionality was reintroduced in 19th-century contemporary philosophy by Franz Brentano (a German philosopher and psychologist who is generally regarded as the founder of act psychology , also called intentionalism ) in his work Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874). Brentano described intentionality as
10920-454: Was an assumed lack of quality scientific research. Given that folk psychology represents causal knowledge associated with the mind's categorization processes, it follows that folk psychology is actively employed in aiding the explanation of everyday actions. Denis Hilton 's (1990) Conversational Model was created with this causal explanation in mind, with the model having the ability to generate specific predictions. Hilton coined his model
11025-422: Was resurrected by empirical psychologist Franz Brentano and later adopted by contemporary phenomenological philosopher Edmund Husserl . Today, intentionality is a live concern among philosophers of mind and language. A common dispute is between naturalism , the view that intentional properties are reducible to natural properties as studied by the natural sciences , and the phenomenal intentionality theory,
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