A person believes that the Loch Ness Monster is hiding in a lake. According to the doctrine of intentionality, what can we conclude?
AThe belief is not a genuine mental state because its object does not exist.
BThe belief is about something even though that thing may not exist.
CThe belief only becomes intentional once the person acts on it.
DIntentionality applies only to beliefs about real, verifiable objects.
Intentionality — the 'aboutness' of mental states — does not require the object to exist. One can fear ghosts, desire perpetual motion, or believe in mythological creatures. This is one of Brentano's key points: intentional states can be directed at non-existent or merely possible objects, which makes them fundamentally different from physical relations.
Question 2 True / False
Intentionality, in the philosophical sense, refers to the deliberate planning of actions — having intentions to do things.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
This is the most common confusion about the term. Philosophical intentionality (Brentano's sense) is about the 'directedness' or 'aboutness' of mental states — the fact that beliefs, desires, perceptions, and memories are always about or directed at some content. It applies to purely passive states like perception and memory, not just to deliberate plans. An ordinary 'intention' (planning to act) is just one type of intentional state among many.
Question 3 Short Answer
Why does intentionality pose a special challenge for physicalism about the mind?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: Physicalism must explain how a purely physical brain state comes to be 'about' something — to have semantic content pointing beyond itself. Physical objects and processes do not intrinsically represent anything, so explaining how neurons acquire this 'aboutness' in naturalistic terms (causal connections, biological function) without invoking non-physical entities is the core challenge.
Rocks, thermostats, and neurons are physical, but they don't obviously 'mean' anything in the way mental states do. The challenge for physicalism is to naturalize intentionality — to show how representational content can arise from purely causal-physical processes. Theories like Dretske's informational semantics and Millikan's teleosemantics are attempts to do this, but each faces objections.