Consciousness and Intentionality of Action
ABSTRACT: One much discussed issue in contemporary philosophy is the relation between consciousness and intentionality. Philosophers debate whether consciousness and intentionality are somehow ‘connected’; whether we have reason to be more optimistic about an ‘objective,’ ‘scientific’ or ‘third person’ ‘account’ of intentionality than about an analogous account of consciousness. This paper is intended as a limited contribution to that debate. I shall be concerned only with the intentionality of action. Not everything which is true of intentionality of action is true of intentionality of other phenomena, such as beliefs. I shall discuss the question, ‘What is the intentionality of action?’ More specifically, I shall discuss one partial answer to this question: that a necessary condition of an agent performing a certain intentional action is that the agent is conscious of performing that action. This answer is fairly unpopular in contemporary philosophy. In this paper, I shall try to say something about the ground for the rather wide-spread philosophical resistance to the answer, and I shall also outline the kind of considerations that I think are required to judge whether a wedge can or cannot be driven between consciousness and intentionality of action.
One much discussed issue in contemporary philosophy is the relation between consciousness and intentionality. Philosophers debate whether consciousness and intentionality are somehow "connected" (see Searle, chap. 7); whether the one or the other is the "theoretically fundamental" one (see Dennett); and whether we have reason to be more optimistic about an "objective" or "scientific," or "third-person" "account" of intentionality ...
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In this paper, we will discuss both Gilbert Harman’s and J. David Velleman’s theories of intentions. The central dispute between their two theories of intention is that Harman holds that intention entails belief, while Velleman holds that intention consists of belief. Velleman constructs a model of intention in which intention consists of belief in order to explain the apparent spontaneity of an agent’s self-knowledge. Harman, on the other hand, rejects the thesis that intention consists of belief because of an example involving an insomniac. My goal in this paper is to show how Velleman’s theory of intention can avoid the problem posed by the case of the insomniac. The conclusion will then be that Velleman’s theory is more plausible than Harman’s, because it is able to successfully explain more about our commonsense observations of agents, namely, how an agent’s self-knowledge is spontaneous.
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A methodology that I believe has some chance of providing us with a better understanding of the nature of consciousness – or of how it could be that consciousness does not exist, if the eliminativists are right – is one in which we study our conception or picture of consciousness. Specifically, I am referring to our conception or picture of phenomenal consciousness – what one has in mind who, e.g., "gets" the mind-body problem, understands the inverted spectrum or absent qualia examples, or Nagel’s phrase that it is like something to be conscious, and so on. Such individuals, arguably, are thinking about consciousness in a more or less similar way, exploiting a similar conception or picture, similar conceptual structures. Studying such a conception should be, to a reasonable degree at least, just like studying any other conception in cognitive science. And, as with other conceptions, the effort can be a multidisciplinary one, one to which philosophers can contribute. As I said, I think following this route might lead to progress in our understanding of consciousness itself; but even if it does not, characterizing our conception of phenomenal consciousness has importance at least as a piece of psychology. In any event, it is how I am inclined to pursue the study of consciousness these days. This talk describes a small study within that broader project.
"Dretske remarks that there are ‘two important differences between introspective knowledge and other forms of displaced perception’ (p. 60). What are these differences? Are they enough to call into question his view of introspective knowledge as displaced perception?"
Though not a fixed, philosophical movement, phenomenology acts in contrast to the Cartesian method which sees objects as acting and reacting with one another. Phenomenologists utilize five basic assumptions in their studies: objective research is not possible; analyzing human behavior can help understand their consciousness; people can be examined in the ways they reflect the society in which they live; conscious experience is prefered to data; and phenomenology should be more so focused on discovery than anything else. From this field comes the idea of intentionality, the topic often discussed in modern artificial intelligence (AI). Intentionality is the idea that consciousness is always consciousness of something, or that consciousness is always about some object. This phenomenological idea contrasts a traditional theory of consciousness which states that consciousness cannot be fully studied as reality is only grasped in perceptions, not in anything concrete. Similarly to cognitive psychological approaches, the most mainstream methods utilized by phenomenologists have subjects describe phenomena as the phenomena are perceived. While the field’s father, Husserl, believed consciousness to be the essence of the mind, others within the field, such as Martin Heidegger, thought consciousness is not the primary aspect of one’s existence, and so the mind is more of an effect of a being among stimuli. This shift from the philosophical-psychological study to philosophical-ontological study altered the future of the field and allowed for the rise of ideas such as the unconscious
When subprime mortgages began to flourish, the term housing bubble came into existence. The term relates to the time in which houses sharply increased in value, and consumers often borrowed at less than the lowest rates. People believed that the price of their homes would rise and they could then refinance for lower payments. The problem with that mentality is many people didn’t just refinance for lower payments, they also refinanced for personal spending. Inflation of home prices meant homeowners suddenly had more equity and were able to spend the money as they chose.
A Raisin in the Sun is written by a famous African- American play write, Lorraine Hansberry, in 1959. It was a first play written by a black woman and directed by a black man, Lloyd Richards, on Broadway in New York. The story of A Raisin in the Sun is based on Lorraine Hansberry’s own early life experiences, from which she and her whole family had to suffer, in Chicago. Hansberry’s father, Carol Hansberry, also fought a legal battle against a racial restrictive covenant that attempted to stop African- American families from moving in to white neighborhoods. He also made the history by moving his family to the white section of Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood in 1938. The struggle of Lorraine Hansberry’s family inspired her to write the play. The title of the play comes from Langston Hughes’s poem which compares a dream deferred too long to a raisin rotting in the sun. A Raisin in the Sun deals with the fact that family’s and individual’s dreams and inspirations for a better life are not confined to their race, but can be identified with by people with all back grounds.
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The scientific approach seeks the immediate cause of an event to what led to what. Scientist assume this as determinism, the idea that everything happens has a cause or determent that one could observe or measure. This view is an assumption, not an established fact but the success of scientific research attests to its value. Does it apply to human behavior? After all we are part of the physical world and our brains are made of chemicals. According to the determinist assumptions, everything we do has causes. This view seems to conflict with the impression all of us have that “I” am the one who makes the decisions about my actions like what to eat or what to buy; I am in doubt right up to the last second. The decision could have gone either way which I wasn’t controlled by anything and no one could have predicted what I would do. The belief that behaviors is caused by a person's independent decision is known as free will.