Intentionality and Consciousness
In William Banks (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Consciousness. Elsevier (2009)
| Abstract | Intentionality is usually defined as the directedness of the mind toward something other than itself. My desire for a cold beer is directed at the cold beer in front of me. Much of consciousness is intentional, my conscious experiences are usually directed at something. However, conscious experiences typically have a phenomenal character: there is something it is like for me to see the deep blue of the Pacific Ocean and to feel the warm water lapping over my feet, and to smell the briny breeze. An important question to answer concerning the relationship between intentionality and consciousness is whether all conscious states are intentional? Another question concerns the explanatory priority of intentionality and phenomenal character: Can phenomenal character be explained in terms of intentionality? Or is it the case that intentionality should be understood in terms of phenomenology? Philosophers from the analytic, phenomenological, and naturalistic traditions have all made important contributions to our understanding of intentionality and consciousness. Some philosophers, such as Dretske, think that our phenomenology is intentionally structured. Others, such as Horgan and Tienson think that intentionality is fundamentally determined by our phenomenology. This looks like an impasse; however it may well be resolved by a combination of contemporary accounts of representation combined with an embodied phenomenology. | |||||||||
| Keywords | Intentionality Phenomenology Naturalism Consciousness | |||||||||
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John Barresi (2004). Intentionality, Consciousness and Intentional Relations: From Constitutive Phenomenology to Cognitive Science. In L. Embree (ed.), Gurwitsch's Relevance for Cognitive Science. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Norton Nelkin (1993). The Connection Between Intentionality and Consciousness. In Martin Davies & Glyn W. Humphreys (eds.), Consciousness: Psychological and Philosophical Essays. Blackwell.
Terence E. Horgan & John L. Tienson (2002). The Intentionality of Phenomenology and the Phenomenology of Intentionality. In David J. Chalmers (ed.), Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings. Oxford University Press.
Katalin Farkas (2008). Phenomenal Intentionality Without Compromise. The Monist 91 (2):273-93.
Uriah Kriegel (2010). Intentionality and Normativity. Philosophical Issues 20 (1):185-208.
David J. Chalmers (2004). The Representational Character of Experience. In Brian Leiter (ed.), The Future for Philosophy. Oxford University Press.
Uriah Kriegel (2011). Cognitive Phenomenology as the Basis of Unconscious Content. In T. Bayne & M. Montague (eds.), Cognitive Phenomenology. Oxford University Press.
Kenneth Williford (2005). The Intentionality of Consciousness and Consciousness of Intentionality. In G Forrai (ed.), Intentionality: Past and Future. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi.
Nicholas Georgalis (2003). The Fiction of Phenomenal Intentionality. Consciousness and Emotion 4 (2):243-256.
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