Buckner on Intentionality

I decided to insert a brief critique of London Ed into one of the intentionality chapters of my book in progress. Here it is:

One mistake to avoid is the conflation of object-directedness with object-dependence. D. E. Buckner speaks of an “. . . illusion that has captured the imagination of philosophers for at least a hundred years: intentionality, sometimes called object-dependence, a supposed unmediated relationship between thought and reality . . . .” (Reference and Identity in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Scriptures: The Same God? Rowman and Littlefield, 2020, p. 195) Apart from his eliminativism about intentionality, Buckner is doubly mistaken in his characterization of it. No one except Buckner has, to my knowledge, characterized intentionality in general from Brentano on down as object-dependence, but it is standard, especially among analytic philosophers, to characterize it in terms of object-directedness. As George Molnar puts it,

The fundamental feature of an intentional state or property is that it is directed to something beyond itself . . . All mental states and processes have an internal reference to an object. The identity of the intentional state is defined in terms of this intentional object. . . . Since intentionality constitutes the identity of mental phenomena, it follows that the nexus between the mental state or process in question and its intentional object is non-contingent. (Powers: A Study in Metaphysics, Oxford, 2003, p. 62, second and third emphases added.)

Molnar goes on to make the usual points that the intentional object may or may not exist and that intentional objects are property-indeterminate (Ibid.) Given this intentionality 'boilerplate,' it should be clear that object-directedness and object-dependence are distinct notions that pull in opposite directions. Given that the nexus of act and intentional object is non-contingent, the identity of the act and its directedness does not depend on an external object. An object-directed thought need not be object-dependent in the sense of requiring an external thing for its identity. If I am thinking of Lucifer, I have a definite object in mind, an object to which my thought is directed. But of course, having an object in mind is no guarantee of its existence 'outside' the mind. The Lucifer-thought is what it is whether or not its intentional object is real. The thought does not depend on a real object for its identity or its directedness. The directedness of the thought is intrinsic to it and not supplied by a relation to a thing in the external world. This is why Brentano denies that intentionality is a relation, strictly speaking, but only something relation-like. Relations, standardly understood, require for their obtaining the real existence of all of their relata; many of our acts of thinking, however, are directed at objects that do not exist, and this without prejudice to the identity of these acts. This is not to deny that there may be some object-dependent thoughts, where an object is a real thing in nature. Perhaps it is the case that (some) meanings “ain't in the head” (H. Putnam) but are in the external world in roughly the way the meaning of the demonstrative 'this' is exhausted by the real thing to which it refers on a particular occasion of its use; intentionality theory, however, in both the phenomenological and analytic traditions has had from the outset a decidedly internalist bias, where internalism is the view that the individuation of mental items depends entirely on factors internal to the subject and not on any factors external to the subject as on externalism. This should come as no surprise since phenomenology is philosophy from the first-person point of view.

Buckner's first mistake is to interpret intentionality along the lines of an externalist model when this model makes hash of what the main thinkers have maintained, including Brentano, Husserl and Chisholm. His second mistake is his claim that the intentional nexus is unmediated or direct, a conceit belied by Husserl's doctrine of the noema.

Comments

[oz]

Brentano: “Jedes [psychische Phänomen] enthält etwas als Objekt in sich, obwohl nicht jedes in gleicher Weise.” “Every [mental phenomenon] contains something as object within itself”

Then the existence of the phenomenon depends on its containing that object. Or are you saying that the same phenomenon could not contain such an object? But isn’t this what Brentano denies? He says 'every' (strictly jedes – each).

“If I am thinking of Lucifer, I have a definite object in mind, an object to which my thought is directed”. So the Lucifer-thought, in order to be a Lucifer-thought, depends on having that object to which it is directed?

I rest my case. Mental phenomena are object-dependent in the sense that they must have an object, also the identity of the phenomenon depends on the identity of the object. The identity of Lucifer-thought, for example, depends on its having Lucifer (and not God, or Napoleon) as object.

I think you are reading ‘object-dependent thought’ as thought which contains an existing object. I do not understand it in that way.

[oz]

PS and isn't the identity condition I refer to above precisely what Molnar is saying? He says "The identity of the intentional state is defined in terms of this intentional object".

Correct. That is what object-dependency is: thought must contain an object, and the identity of the thought depends on the identity of the object.

[oz]

BV: “Given that the nexus of act and intentional object is non-contingent, the identity of the act and its directedness does not depend on an external object. An object-directed thought need not be object-dependent in the sense of requiring an external thing for its identity.”

Isn’t Lucifer an external thing, even though there is no such being as Lucifer? For you and I, and many others, can think about Lucifer. Milton even wrote about Lucifer! What exactly do you mean by ‘external’?

Sorry, many questions.

[BV]

You are back-pedaling. Here is what you wrote: >>intentionality, sometimes called object-dependence, a supposed unmediated relationship between thought and reality . . . .<<

You are missing the main point, namely, that the intentional object may or may not exist without prejudice to the directedness of the intentional state. You also falsely state or imply that intentionality is a relationship or relation. That is denied by Brentano and everyone else. And since intentionality is not a relation, it need not be a "relationship between thought and reality." My thoughts about the Fountain of Youth are just as intentional as my thoughts about the Trevi Fountain in Rome. And the bit about unmediated is wrong. Given that Venus exists in reality, my thoughts and perceptions of the planet are mediated by different intentional objects.

You are reading a radical externalism into modern intentionality theory.

[OZ]

“You also falsely state or imply that intentionality is a relationship or relation. That is denied by Brentano and everyone else.”

Everyone else? Could I have a guest post on this subject please?

[BV]

I welcome a guest post from you. "Everyone else" is an exaggeration. I take it back. Almost everyone -- but it also depends on how we understand relations. I'll bet money you have not read Reinhardt Grossmann on intentionality.

[OZ]

Well I have read him in the sense that I have read this https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2011/02/reinhardt-grossmann-against-modes-of-being.html and indeed commented on a later post in the same vein.

So hand over the money! No crypto currency please.

[OZtrich]

I see we have had differences on this very same issue for at least 11 years.

https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2010/12/what-is-intentionality.html