Philosophy
5
LECTURE: The problem of intentionality
What intentionality is
Intentionality is the directedness, “aboutness,” or representational content of thoughts and other representations. Think of the difference between a word like “desk” and a random squiggle like:
The word has intentionality insofar as it is directed toward, aims or points beyond itself to what it represents, namely a certain kind of object. It is about that object. The random squiggle, by contrast, is not about anything. It does not aim or point beyond itself to anything. Whereas “desk” is meaningful, the squiggle is meaningless.
As John Searle points out, intentionality can be of three kinds: intrinsic, derived, or as-if. The kind that the word “desk” has is derived intentionality. Considered just by themselves, the string of shapes that makes up the word has no more built-in meaning or intentionality than the random squiggle does. It’s just an accident of the history of the English language that that string of shapes counts as a word and the squiggle does not. Its intentionality derives from our custom or convention of using it to convey our concept of a desk.
By contrast, our concept itself has built-in or intrinsic intentionality. We have to decide to use the string of symbols “desk” in a certain way in order for it to count as representing or being about desks. But no one has to decide to use our concept of a desk in a certain way in order for it to represent or be about desks. The concept just does, of its very nature or intrinsically, represent desks.
Something can be said to have as-if intentionality if we find it useful to speak of it as if it had intentionality even though it doesn’t literally have it. For example, if I say “The water wants to flow to the bottom of the hill,” I am speaking about the water as if it had a desire that was about getting to the bottom of the hill. But of course, water doesn’t really desire anything, because it is just mindless stuff. Speaking about it that way is just a useful fiction.
When discussing intentionality, contemporary philosophers tend to focus on the idea that it involves one thing representing or standing for another. And representation, as Tim Crane points out in The Mechanical Mind, is a puzzling notion. It is especially difficult to see how representation can be explained in materialist terms.
The basic problem is this. Physical things – whether written words, sounds, pictures, symbols, or whatever – seem to function as representations only when a mind uses them to function as representations. They seem to have only derived intentionality and not intrinsic intentionality. And this seems to be as true of the brain as of anything else. Brains, like every other physical thing, seem to be made up of nothing more than meaningless particles, bits of matter that by themselves have no more intentionality or meaning than the random squiggle above.
But minds have intrinsic or built-in intentionality. Indeed, the mind is the source from which physical things with only derivative intentionality borrow it from. So, if the mind has intrinsic intentionality and physical things do not, then it seems to follow that the mind is not a physical thing. Materialists would disagree, of course, but the point is that they need to come up with some theory to explain how the brain could have intrinsic intentionality when other physical things do not. We’ll look at such theories later on.
A meaningless lump of flesh? Or does it have intrinsic intentionality?
Pictorial representation
First, though, in order better to understand how puzzling intentionality is, it will be useful to consider some explanations that at first glance might seem obviously true, but on closer inspection turn out to be clearly wrong. Start with the question of how a picture can represent something. You might think that the obvious answer is that a picture represents a thing because it resembles or looks like it. Call this the:
Resemblance theory of pictorial representation: P represents X if and only if P resembles X
This might seem obviously right. But thinking about it more carefully reveals several problems.
It represents me because it resembles me
1. Resemblance isn’t sufficient for representation
The first problem is that the fact that P resembles X is not in fact sufficient or enough to guarantee that P really does represent X. There are several ways to see this. First, everything “resembles” lots of other things in some respect or other, but without representing those other things. For example, a bowl of spaghetti in some ways resembles a bowl of worms, or a pile of tangled electrical cords, or a ball of yarn. But it doesn’t represent those things. It would represent them only if we decided to use it to represent one or more of them. Until we do that, it doesn’t represent anything even though it resembles lots of things.
Second, resemblance is a symmetrical relationship. A photograph of me resembles me, and I resemble the photograph. But representation is not a symmetrical relationship. Though the photograph is a representation of me, I am not a representation of the photograph.
Third, resemblance is also a reflexive relationship. Everything resembles itself. But representation is not a reflexive relationship. Most representations do not represent themselves. (Some do. For example, the sentence “The sentence you are now reading has nine words” is about itself. But the sentence “The cat is on the mat” is not about itself.)
2. Resemblance isn’t necessary for representation
You might think that even if resemblance isn’t sufficient or enough for representation, it is at least necessary. It must be part of the story, even if not the whole story. But it turns out that that isn’t true either. For example, words represent things, but most words don’t resemble the things they represent. (Some do. For example, the word “Meow” sounds like the sound it represents. But the word “cat” doesn’t resemble a cat, the word “desk” doesn’t resemble a desk, etc.) Furthermore, an abstract or surrealist work of art can represent something without resembling it.
Mondrian’s painting can represent New York without resembling it
3. Even a picture clearly resembling something requires interpretation
Consider the following images:
The first is the famous “duck/rabbit” image. You could interpret it as a duck looking to the left, or as a rabbit looking to the right. But nothing in the image itself will tell you which of these things it represents. Adding something to the image wouldn’t help, because anything you add is itself susceptible of alternative interpretations. For example, if you wrote the word “Rabbit” under the image, that wouldn’t by itself determine that it represents a rabbit. It might be interpreted instead as a duck that you’ve given the nickname “Rabbit.”
The second image, taken from Crane’s book, might be interpreted as a man walking up a hill, but it could also be interpreted as a man sliding down a hill backwards. Again, nothing in the image itself will tell you. Hence, resemblance is not what is doing the main work in determining what a picture represents even when resemblance is a factor.
4. Many ideas are impossible to represent pictorially
Consider the absence of a thing, such as the absence of rain, or the absence of a certain person at a party, or the non-existence of gremlins. How could those things be represented pictorially? Obviously you couldn’t do so by drawing the rain or the person or the gremlin into the scene you are representing, because the whole point is that they are not there in the scene you are representing.
Ha ha, try to draw me not existing!
Or consider trying to represent the way a house, say, looks at a specific point in time, such as 12 pm. How could you represent that pictorially? By drawing a digital clock next to the house with “12:00” on its face? But why would that represent the house at 12 pm, as opposed (say) to the house at 3 pm but with a broken clock next to it? Or what if you wanted to represent a house at 12 pm without a clock next to it?
Or consider conditionals (if-then statements), conjunctions (both-and statements), and disjunctions (either-or statements). Suppose you wanted to represent the idea “If it rains, then there will be traffic.” Would you represent it by first drawing a picture of rain, and then drawing a picture of traffic? But why does that represent the conditional “If it rains, then there will be traffic,” as opposed to the conjunction “It is raining and there is traffic” or the disjunction “Either it is raining or there is traffic”? No picture by itself can represent the differences between these ideas.
The convention theory
So, the resemblance theory, though it might seem obviously true at first glance, turns out to be pretty obviously false at second glance. From everything said so far, you might think that the right answer must therefore be that all representation is really just a matter of custom or convention. That might seem especially true of words. That suggests another theory:
Convention theory of linguistic representation: Words represent the things they do because they are conventionally used to represent them
Obviously this is part of the story, since we’ve already noted that words get their meanings from our custom or convention of using them in such-and-such ways. But a little thought reveals that it can’t be the whole story.
Where they make meanings
Consider first that when by convention we introduce a new word into the language, we use other words in order to do so. For example, if we say: “Let’s introduce the word ‘desk’ to refer to a piece of furniture that you can sit at and do paperwork, etc.,” we already have to have those other words (“furniture,” “sit,” “let’s,” etc.) in place in order to introduce the new one. And when those already existing words were themselves first introduced, that’s because there were already yet other words in the language that could be used in the act of introducing them. So, we seem to have a vicious regress or a vicious circle. Not all meaning can arise from convention or custom, because the very act of forming conventions or customs presuppose that some meanings are already in place.
Moreover, even if we could somehow trace all this back to some very first set of words, those words would in turn have derived their meanings from the meanings of our thoughts and concepts. And the meanings of thoughts and concepts can’t entirely be a matter of custom or convention, because the practice of forming customs or conventions presupposes creatures with thoughts and concepts.
Hopefully all of this makes it clearer just why intentionality is mysterious. Next we’ll take a look at some of the ways that materialists have tried to deal with it.
Here are some optional YouTube videos on the subject:
Introduction to Intentionality: The Problem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4HYTwzmVrQ
John Searle on intentionality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46qvb_HKIvg
Thomas Polger on Naturalizing Intentionality, Part 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzyQ-MxXcs8