Intentionality

(1) Intentionality John Haugeland, in “What is Mind Design”, says that intentionality is meant to describe that everything mental has intentionality, and that nothing else does unless it is derived from something else that is mental. In particular, intentionality is about aboutness. By this I mean that some things are about other things. For example, if I say that, ‘People are crazy’, the statement I just made is about people. More example of aboutness are; a map of the University of Arizona is ‘about’ the University of Arizona, a picture of my son is ‘about’ my son, the belief that there is a God is ‘about’ God, and so on. Even this class is about intentionality. Conversely, intentionality can be tricky in the fact that people, the University of Arizona, my son and God are not about anything without the context that lends aboutness to them. I’m sure that some arguments that God is ‘about’ a lot, but there is a distinction that needs to made between aboutness and meaning. The meaning of God is ‘about’ a higher power, a way of life, compassion and many other beliefs. But meaning and intentionality are two different things, just like a blank wall has no intentionality, but the meaning of a blank wall could have several different connotations. Now that we have a clear understanding of intentionality, we can discuss more in detail what original intentionality and derived intentionality mean. Using the same schema described earlier we can separate the intentionality into original and derived. A map of the University of Arizona and a picture of my son can be said to be derived intentionality because their aboutness is derived from what somebody meant for them to be about or they get their intentionality from what we think about them. Where as ‘People are crazy’, and a belief that there is a God is original intentionality because these are our thoughts and beliefs, they don’t rely on any convention, they are just intrinsically about things. This leads us to why