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    Intentionality does not pose insurmountable semantic prob... — Carmelics
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    Perspectives
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    Home/Philosophy of Language
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    Intentionality does not pose insurmountable semantic problems.

    Consciousness & MindPhilosophy of Language
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Sentences like 'Joe desires a unicorn' can be paraphrased as 'Joe desires-true of himself "possesses a unicorn"', eliminating the need for the intentional object to exist.
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    • 2.More generally, 'Joe believes-true S' or 'Joe desires-true S' where S is a sentence handles intentional contexts without requiring the existence of the object.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Paraphrasing 'Joe desires a unicorn' into sentential form presupposes a determinate propositional content, but de re intentional states resist reduction to any fixed sentence.
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    • 2.Kripke's puzzle about belief shows that substituting co-referential names within belief contexts produces contradictions no sentential paraphrase strategy can dissolve without further theoretical cost.
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    • 3.A paraphrase that eliminates intentional objects only succeeds if the agent's mental state already has fully determinate propositional structure, which Chisholm's irreducibility thesis contests.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Brentano's thesis that intentionality constitutes an irreducible mark of the mental entails that no purely extensional or physicalist semantic apparatus can fully capture directedness toward objects.
      ?

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    • 2.The 'believes-true S' schema inherits the inscrutability of reference problem: Quine's arguments show no fact of the matter determines which sentence S correctly captures the content of a belief state.
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    Topics

    Philosophy of LanguageConsciousness & Mind

    Related

    A paraphrase that eliminates intentional objects only succeeds if the agent's me...Brentano's thesis that intentionality constitutes an irreducible mark of the men...Kripke's puzzle about belief shows that substituting co-referential names within...More generally, 'Joe believes-true S' or 'Joe desires-true S' where S is a sente...
    +3 moreShow less
    Paraphrasing 'Joe desires a unicorn' into sentential form presupposes a determin...Sentences like 'Joe desires a unicorn' can be paraphrased as 'Joe desires-true o...The 'believes-true S' schema inherits the inscrutability of reference problem: Q...

    Similar

    Syntax alone is not sufficient for semantics.84%Syntax is not sufficient for, nor constitutive of, semantics.81%(Cons) is not disquotational79%Sense does not exist outside the proposition that expresses it.77%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: mind-identity
    View source passageHide passage
    Thinking very much in causal terms about beliefs and desires fits in very well not only with folk psychology but also with Humean ideas about the motives of action. Though this point of view has been criticised by some philosophers it does seem to be right, as can be seen if we consider a possible robot aeroplane designed to find its way from Melbourne to Sydney. The designer would have to include an electronic version of something like a map of south-eastern Australia. This would provide the ‘b
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit