Volume 8, 1982
Stephen F. Barker
Pages 95-109
Intensionality and Intentionality
This paper proposes interpretations of the vexed notions of intensionality and intentionality and then investigates their resulting interrelations.
The notion of intentionality comes from Brentano, in connection with his view that it can help us understand the mental. Setting aside Husserl’s basic definition of intentionality as not quite in line with Brentano’s explanatory purpose, this paper proposes that intentionality be defined in terms of inexistence and indeterminacy.
It results that Brentano’s thesis (that all and only mental phenomena are intentional) will not be strictly true. However, intentional descriptions will always be intensional, though not all intensional descriptions will be intentional.