Repository | Journal | Volume | Articles

There has been much discussed over the course of the last century in the philosophy of mind and action theory about what exactly the role of intention or intentionality is in an agent’s worldly encounter. Initially introspection provided the most robust account available, but it ran into problems with intersubjective verifiability. Behaviorist and strict mind-brain identity theory also encounter difficulties that can be roughly categorized as arising from problems of intersubjectivity. What philosophical accounts remain are analytic functionalist and phenomenological approaches to intentionality; each of which lack the material base that physicalist approaches require. To this end, John Searle has for all intents and purposes set the terms for the debate, with his 1983 book simply titled Intentionality (Searle 1983). More recently, science—and in particular neuroscience—has made effective inroads in addressing issues pertaining to intention. In general there has been no systematic...

DOI: 10.1007/s10746-012-9217-1

Full citation: