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Intentionality :: Propositional attitudes :: The intentional stance

• Kristin Andrews (2000). Our understanding of other minds: Theory of mind and the intentional stance.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/2000/00000007/00000007/1030
  
• William Bechtel (1985). Realism, instrumentalism, and the intentional stance.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.leaonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1207/s15516709cog0904_5
  http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/CSJarchive/1985v09/i04/p0473p0497/MAIN.PDF
  
• David Beisecker (2002). Dennett and the Quest for real meaning: In defense of a myth.   (More)
• Daniel Dennett (1971). Intentional systems.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X(19710225)68:4<87:IS>2.0.CO;2-8
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X(19710225)68:4<87:IS>2.0.CO;2-8
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2025382.pdf
  
• Daniel Dennett (1991). Real patterns.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: Are there really beliefs? Or are we learning (from neuroscience and psychology, presumably) that, strictly speaking, beliefs are figments of our imagination, items in a superceded ontology? Philosophers generally regard such ontological questions as admitting just two possible answers: either beliefs exist or they don't. There is no such state as quasi-existence; there are no stable doctrines of semi-realism. Beliefs must either be vindicated along with the viruses or banished along with the banshees. A bracing conviction prevails, then, to the effect that when it comes to beliefs (and other mental items) one must be either a realist or an eliminative materialist
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X(199101)88:1<27:RP>2.0.CO;2-2
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X(199101)88:1<27:RP>2.0.CO;2-2
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2027085.pdf
  
• Daniel Dennett (1990). The interpretation of texts, people and other artifacts.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I want to explore four different exercises of interpretation: (1) the interpretation of texts (or hermeneutics), (2) the interpretation of people (otherwise known as "attribution" psychology, or cognitive or intentional psychology), (3) the interpretation of other artifacts (which I shall call artifact hermeneutics), (4) the interpretation of organism design in evolutionary biology--the controversial interpretive activity known as adaptationism
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/documents/disk0/00/00/02/59/
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000259/
  http://cogprints.org/259/00/intrptxt.htm
  http://citebase.eprints.org/cgi-bin/citations?archiveID=oai:cogprints.soton.ac.uk:259
  http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000259/00/intrptxt.htm
  http://cogprints.org/259/0/intrptxt.htm
  http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8205(199023)50<177:TIOTPA>2.0.CO;2-I
  http://www.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8205(199023)50<177:TIOTPA>2.0.CO;2-I
  http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2108038.pdf
  
• Jerry Fodor & Ernest Lepore (1993). Is intentional ascription intrinsically normative?   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: In a short article called “Mid-Term Examination: Compare and Contrast” that epitomizes and concludes his book _The Intentional Stance,_ D. C. Dennett (1987) provides a sketch of what he views as an emerging Interpretivist consensus in the philosophy of mind. The gist is that Brentano’s thesis is true (the intentional is irreducible to the physical) and that it follows from the truth of Brentano’s thesis that: strictly speaking, ontologically speaking, there are no such things as beliefs, desires, or other intentional phenomena. But the intentional idioms are “practically indispensable,” and we should see what we can do to make sense of their employment in what Quine called an “essentially dramatic” idiom…. Not just brute facts , then but an element of interpretation…must be recognized in any use of the intentional vocabulary. (Dennett, 1987, p. 342)¹² In this context, “making sense of” the prevalence of the intentional idiom is not explaining why it should be indispensable if there are no beliefs or desires for it to refer to. Nor is it specifying the truth conditions of intentional attribution inevitably involves “an element of interpretation.” The discussion that follows treats these two papers together
• Reese Heitner (2000). Is design relative or real? Dennett on intentional relativism and physical realism.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract:   Dennett''s intended rapprochement between physical realism and intentional relativism fails because it is premised upon conflicting arguments governing the status of design. Indeed, Dennett''s remarks on design serve to highlight tensions buried deep within his theory. For inasmuch as Dennett succeeds in objectifying attributions of design, attributions of intentionality readily follow suit, leading to a form of intentional realism. But inasmuch as Dennett is successful in relativizing attributions of design, scientific realism at large is subject to renewed anti-realistic criticism. Dennettian-inspired considerations of adaptationism substantiate the former move towards intentional realism, while considerations of the relativity of artifactual design encourage the latter move towards physical relativism. The ambivalence intrinsic to Dennett''s ``mild realism'''' can be viewed as a function of these two conflicting positions on design, for Dennett can no more avoid objectifying intentionality when he is realistic about design than he can avoid relativizing physical causality when relativistic about design
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=596716.596870
  http://www.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=258826&PDF=1
  http://www.springerlink.com/index/N044802161230121.pdf
  http://www.springerlink.com/content/n044802161230121/fulltext.pdf
  http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/klu/mind/2000/00000010/00000002/00258826
  
• Ruth Millikan (2000). Reading mother nature's mind.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: I try to focus our differences by examining the relation between what Dennett has termed "the intentional stance" and "the design stance." Dennett takes the intentional stance to be more basic than the design stance. Ultimately it is through the eyes of the intentional stance that both human and natural design are interpreted, hence there is always a degree of interpretive freedom in reading the mind, the purposes, both of Nature and of her children. The reason, or at least a reason, is that intentional interpretation is holistic, hence indeterminate, for the kinds of reasons given by Davidson and Quine. In contrast, I take the design stance to be more basic than the intentional stance. Intentional attributions express our best guesses about the locations of effects of certain kinds of natural design. And although there is often indeterminacy, ambiguity, or vagueness concerning what it is that natural selection (or learning) has selected for, these indeterminacies and vaguenesses are local, not holistic. There is reason to suppose that the better portion of Nature's purposes and the intentional states of her children are determinate in content within quite closely defined limits. I propose to defend this position as well as I can, so as to call from Dennett his own views on precisely where our paths separate (if they really do)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.philosophy.uconn.edu/department/millikan/dennett2.pdf
  http://www.ucc.uconn.edu/~wwwphil/dennett2.pdf
  
• Ajit Narayanan (1996). The intentional stance and the imitation game.   (More)
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/120780.html
  
• Huw Price (1995). Psychology in perspective.   (Abstract & more)
  Abstract: [email: huw@extro.su.oz.au] If recent literature is to be our guide, the main place of philosophy in the study of the mind would seem to be to determine the place of psychology in the study of the world. One distinctive kind of answer to this question begins by noting the central role of intentionality in psychology, and goes on to argue that this sets psychology apart from the natural sciences. Sometimes to be thus set apart is to be exiled, or rejected, but more often it is a protective move, intended to show that psychology is properly insulated from the reductionist demands of natural science. I am interested here in the general issue as to how this move to insulate intentional psychology should best be characterised-how to make sense of the idea that there can be a legitimate enterprise of this kind. I shall concentrate on what is perhaps the best known version of such a view, that of Daniel Dennett. I think that my conclusions apply to other versions as well, but Dennett provides a particularly accessible example
  Additional links for this entry:
  http://www.usyd.edu.au/time/price//preprints/psych.html
  http://www.usyd.edu.au/time/price/preprints/psych.rtf
  

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