The technical definition of intentionality is something like:
the property of mental states (e.g. thoughts, beliefs, desires, hopes) which consists in their being directed towards some object or state of affairs.
That might sound complicated, but it just means intentionality is the aboutness of certain mental states. For example:
- If you believe aliens exist, your belief is about aliens
- If you are thinking about a frog, that thought is about a frog
- If you desire a cup of coffee, that desire is about coffee
- If you hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow, your hope is about tomorrow’s weather.
All of these mental states point beyond themselves to something else – an object, a person, an animal, a situation, or a possible state of affairs. They are directed towards a subject or an object. They are about something. That’s what it means for a mental state to have the property of intentionality.
| The thing | Intentionality |
|---|---|
| The pavement – it’s not about anything, it’s just a bit of concrete or whatever | A thought about the pavement |
| A frog – it’s just there, it’s not about anything | A (false) belief that frogs are mammals – the belief is about frogs |
| A unicorn (even if it doesn’t actually exist) | A thought about a unicorn |
It’s important to emphasise that only some mental states have intentionality. For example, beliefs, desires, hopes and fears are intentional because they are directed towards objects or states of affairs.
However, raw sensations like pain, an itch, or the redness of a visual experience are not directed at anything in that way – they simply occur. The redness of your perception of a ripe tomato, say, isn’t ‘about’ anything – it’s just a redness. This is why, in this post, qualia were described as non-intentional.
Philosophical implications
What’s interesting about intentionality is it seems completely unlike everything else we find in the ordinary physical world. It seems completely at odds with our best, objective, scientific descriptions of reality.
In physics, things simply exist and interact. A rock isn’t about anything – it’s just there. A wave isn’t about anything – it’s just water sloshing about. The pavement isn’t about anything – it’s just a concrete path at the side of the road or whatever.
Even neurons firing in your brain isn’t, in itself, about anything – it’s just a physical event occurring in accordance with the laws of nature. If a thought is caused by neurons firing, a purely physical description of these neurons firing could never contain the ‘aboutness’. We can describe the electrical and chemical properties of the neurons firing in detail, but those descriptions can seemingly never include any reference or meaning.
So, like qualia, the existence of intentionality can be said to challenge physicalism (the view that everything, including the mind, is purely physical) and support dualism (the view that mental stuff is separate from physical). For more on this, see how intentionality can be used to defend the elimination of folk psychology against eliminative materialism.
The philosophy textbook written in plain English!