Intentionality and the Mind/Body Problem

Abstract

In this paper, I want to further develop a line of reasoning which I first sought to articulate in an earlier paper bearing a similar title1. The basic problem in that paper was: does the theory of intentionality commit us to a dualistic ontology? Is the defence of intentionality a defence of Cartesian dualism or of mentalism? The prevailing attitudes towards this and various allied issues are pretty sharply divided, but there is also a basic confusion owing to: (a) a narrower concept of intentionality with which one generally operates which may roughly be defined in terms of Franz Brentano’s thesis along with Roderick Chisholm’s criteria superadded, and (b) a methodological belief that the critical problem is the dispensability or indispensability of intensional logic, as though the problem of intentionality is reducible to this issue, whereas in my view it should rather be the other way around. I sought to show that the intentionality thesis did not commit one to Cartesian dualism, that a certain form of pre-theoretical identity thesis is phenomenologically justified and also supported by the intentionality thesis. This pre-theoretical identity was contrasted with the theoretical identity posited by objectifying thought of a philosophical theory.KeywordsCultural ObjectExpressive BehaviorAnimal OrganismTranscendental PhilosophyIntensional LogicThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.