From information to intentionality

Abstract

Arabella believes that her cat, Glendower, wants to go out. Her belief has representational and semantic features. It is about Glendower; it represents him as wanting to go out, and it has truth conditions. Her belief also has causal and rationalizing powers. She opens the door because she believes Glendower wants to go out. If we think that Arabella and other believers are physical entities we are led to wonder how it is possible for a physical thing, whether it is composed of cells or micro chips, to have beliefs, desires and other propositional atti tudes. This is the problem of intentionality. It has proved to be a very difficult problem. The source of the difficulty is that intentional and semantic concepts, reference, truth conditions, meaning etc. make no appearance in biological or physical theory. Additionally, beliefs have a normative dimension. They are assessible as correct or incorrect, rational or irrational. But the descriptions which occur in physical theory apparently are nonnormative. How can states which not only can represent but also misrepresent be captured in physical theory? The challenge for a philosopher who holds that intentionality is part of the natural order is just this: To show how it can be that certain physical states are capable of representation and misrepresenta tion and then to show how such states enter into the causation of behavior.