Intentionality and Mental Representation

This is a course about the way in which mental states, like beliefs, hopes, or fears, can be about something. Can we break that down? How is the mind capable of doing that? Should we think of this capacity in terms of representation? (The suggested readings are for the most part taken from the faculty reading list. The full faculty reading list is available here)

1. What is intentionality?

This lecture offers an introduction to the topic of intentionality, critically examines whether it is the mark of the mental, and considers its relationship to the linguistic phenomenon of intensionality.

Suggested reading:

Brentano, Franz, 'The Distinction between Mental and Physical Phenomena', in his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1973), pp. 77-100.
Crane, Tim, Elements of Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), ch. 1 'Mind'.

2. Intentional objects

Most intentional states have intentional objects which they are about? If so, what is the nature of those objects? This lecture explores why that question has proved so troubling and considers possible response to it.

Suggested reading:

Quine, W.V.O., 'On What There Is', Review of Metaphysics, 2, no. 5 (1948): 21-38.
Crane, Tim, 'What Is the Problem of Non-Existence?' Philosophia, 40, no. 3 (2012): 417-34.

3. Naturalizing intentionality: causal approaches

Can intentionality be reduced to something more familiar or ‘natural’? In this lecture we explore accounts that seek to understand intentionality in terms of a causal relation, and the difficulties that gives rise.

Suggested reading:

*Cummins, Robert, Meaning and Mental Representation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988). Ch 6-8
Dretske, Fred. 'A recipe for Thought'. In the CHALMERS anthology on the reading list.
Dennett, Daniel, 'Intentional Systems', The Journal of Philosophy, 68, no. 4 (1971): 87-106.
Dretske, Fred, Explaining Behavior: Reasons in a World of Causes (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), chs. 3-5.

Lecture notes available here as word document and here as PDF.

4. Naturalizing intentionality: teleological theories

Continuing on from the discussion last week, in this session we consider teleosemantic approaches to naturalizing intentionality.

Suggested reading:

Millikan, Ruth Garrett, 'Biosemantics', The Journal of Philosophy, 86, no. 6 (1989): 281-97.
Dretske, Fred, Explaining Behavior: Reasons in a World of Causes (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988), chs. 3-5.

5. Internalism and externalism #1

In this lecture we consider internalism and externalism about linguistic and mental content.

Suggested reading:

Burge, Tyler, 'Individualism and the Mental', Studies in Metaphysics, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 4 (1979): 73-121.
Putnam, Hilary, 'The Meaning of 'Meaning'', in his Philosophical Papers. Vol. 2, Mind, Language and Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975)
Farkas, Katalin, 'What Is Externalism?' Philosophical Studies, 112, no. 3 (2003): 187-208.

6 Externalism and internalism #2

This session focuses on two problems for extenralism about mental content: its apparent inconsistency with the claim that we enjoy privileged access to our own minds, and its difficulty meshing with certain explanatory commitments of folk and computational theories of mind.

Suggested reading:

Fodor, Jerry, 'Propositional Attitudes', The Monist, 61 (1978): 501-24.
Fodor, Jerry, Psychosemantics (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), ch. 2 'Individualism and supervenience'
Block, Ned, 'Advertisement for a Semantics for Psychology', Studies in the Philosophy of Mind, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 10 (1987): 615-78.