How individual are intentional states really?

Abstract

On the doctrine of individualism in the philosophy of mind, all mental properties are intrinsic properties. There are, on the one hand, good intuitive epistemic and metaphysical reasons for individualism. On the other hand there is Tyler Burge's well known arthritis thought experiment which shows that a paradigmatical group of mental phenomena, the intentional attitudes, aren't intrinsic features of a person. Jerry Fodor has made a proposal to reconcile Burge's argument with individualism by regarding intentional attitudes as directed towards sentences of a separate language of thought, which is innate and more fundamental than our common public language. Unfortunately, there are insurmountable problems conjoint with this idea. But it may still be worthwhile to follow Fodor's account halfway, i.e. to accept that intentional attitudes rely on a person's language of thought, yet to concentrate on her real, occurent thought, and to give centre stage to the natural language she uses for her everyday reflections and deliberations. The article closes with a sketch of what such a theory of intentional attitudes might look like and particularly how far it could cope with the arguments for individualism, although it construes intentional attitudes not as intrinsic but as extrinsic features of a person.