William, Ed, John B, and Simon, (01)
Intentionality is like an elephant. Everybody latches onto some
part of it and gives a different description. But all those issues
fall into place when you ask one simple question: "Why?" (02)
For any action that any human or animal does, just ask why.
In every case, the answer is the intention. (03)
WF
> Even in the philosophy of science [in Chicago], which was then
> heavily Karl Popper oriented, intentionality was a topic, and
> part of the 'death knell for positivism". I understood positivism
> to be the foundation for the silliness of behaviorism in psychology. (04)
Yes, I was criticizing the positivists. Philosophers seldom call
themselves positivists today, but many still call themselves
nominalists -- and many of their views are similar. I say more
about those issues in http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/worlds.pdf (05)
EJB
> the enterprise modeling world has done a lot of work on capturing
> intention, none of which is notably rigorous. (06)
That qualification is true of about 80% of the work on any kind of
ontology. For a large part of the other 20%, it's not clear whether
the rigor is relevant to solving any problem that needs to be solved. (07)
JB
> I'm still digesting what Brentano had in mind. Further, Dennett
> and others have also weighed in with their own interpretations. (08)
Suggestion: When you read whatever they propose as the intention,
check whether it answers the question "Why?" (09)
SS
> The best practice for intentionality is probably to take an Intentional
> Stance - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_stance (010)
That leads to the following statement by Daniel Dennett:
> Here is how it works: first you decide to treat the object whose behavior
> is to be predicted as a rational agent; then you figure out what beliefs
> that agent ought to have, given its place in the world and its purpose.
> Then you figure out what desires it ought to have, on the same
> considerations, and finally you predict that this rational agent will
> act to further its goals in the light of its beliefs. A little practical
> reasoning from the chosen set of beliefs and desires will in most instances
> yield a decision about what the agent ought to do; that is what you predict
> the agent will do.
>
> —Daniel Dennett, The Intentional Stance, p. 17 (011)
I don't disagree with Dennett. But I would note that you would get
the same results just by asking "Why?" Whenever you get a partial
answer, keep asking "Why?" (012)
In Peirce's terms, intention is an example of Thirdness. The question
why asks for the third member of a triad: X does Y for the reason Z. (013)
John (014)
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