Philosophy of cognitive and affective science Master seminar, CISA Winter semester 2013 Jérôme Dokic, EHESS-Institut Jean-Nicod [email protected]

PLAN 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Introduction I (Sept. 30) Introduction II (Oct. 14) Emotions and values (Oct. 28) Emotions and “mental time travel” (Nov. 11) Epistemic emotions and feelings (Nov. 25) Emotions and fiction (Dec. 9)

Part #1 Brentano’s legacy

PLAN 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Brentano’s thesis Intentionality and intensionality Is intentionality a relation? Are there non-intentional mental states? Are there physical intentional states?

1. Brentano’s thesis

The unity of mind: Rorty’s challenge • “The attempt to hitch pains and beliefs together seems ad hoc – they don’t seem to have anything in common except our refusal to call them ‘physical’.” (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, 1979) • What do pains and beliefs have in common? • Brentano’s thesis – intentionality! – answers Rorty’s challenge.

Franz Brentano (1838-1917)

Intentional inexistence • “Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction toward an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself, although they do not do so in the same way. In presentation, something is presented, in judgment something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on.” (Brentano, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, 1874)

The mark of the mental • “This intentional inexistence is characteristic exclusively of mental phenomena. No physical phenomenon exhibits anything like it. We can, therefore, define mental phenomena by saying that they are those phenomena which contain an object intentionally within themselves.” (Brentano, 1874)

20th century interpretation • Intentionality is aboutness. • Intentionality is the power of minds to represent objects, properties, states of affairs. • “Intentionality is that property of many mental states and events by which they are directed at or about or of objects and states of affairs in the world.” (Searle, Intentionality, 1983, p. 1)

Brentano’s thesis • It is in fact constituted by two sub-theses: 1. All mental psychological phenomena exhibit intentionality.

2. No physical phenomena exhibit intentionality.

Chisholm’s interpretation • “When Brentano said that these attitudes ‘intentionally contain an object in themselves’ he was referring to the fact that they can be truly said ‘to have objects’ even though the objects which they can be said to have do not in fact exist. Diogenes could have looked for an honest man even if there hadn’t been any honest men. The horse can desire to be fed though he won’t. James could believe there are tigers in India, and take something there to be a tiger, even if there aren’t any tigers in India. But physical – or non-psychological – phenomena, according to B’s thesis, cannot ‘intentionally contain objects in themselves.’ In order for Diogenes to sit in his tub, for example, there must be a tub for him to sit in.” (Chisholm, 1957)

Objects of thought • Suppose John thinks of a unicorn, and Peter thinks of Santa Claus. • Are John and Peter thinking at all? – Yes. • Are John and Peter thinking of nothing at all? – No, otherwise they would have the same thought. • Are there two different things John and Peter are thinking about? – Yes, according to Brentano (according to Chisholm).

Why is intentionality so called? • Brentano’s “intentionality” derives from Latin tendere and denotes the power of minds to mentally aim at a target, be about or represent objects, properties or states of affairs. 1. “intentionality”≠“intention”. Intentions are just one among many psychological states, but intentionality is a putative property of all psychological states. 2. “intentionality”≠ “intenSionality”. Intensionality is a logical feature of some sentences.

2. Intentionality and intensionality

Intensionality vs extensionality I • First criterion of extensionality (or referential transparency): substituability of co-referential expressions salva veritate (Leibniz). 1. Cicero was fat. 2. Cicero=Tully 3. Tully was fat.

• Examples of intensional (or referentially opaque) contexts: 1. 2. 3. 4.

“Cicero” is composed of 6 letters. * “Tully” is composed of 6 letters. Andrea believes that Cicero was fat. * Andrea believes that Tully was fat.

Intensionality vs extensionality II • Second criterion of extensionality: the rule of existential generalization. 1. Socrates dances 2. Something dances

Fa (x)Fx

• Intensional contexts: 1. Achilles believes that Zeus is sitting on the Olympus 2. * (x)(x=Zeus & Achilles believes that x is sitting on the Olympus) 3. Ulysses wants to ride a unicorn 4. * (x)(x=a unicorn and Ulysses wants to ride x)

Intentionality & intensionality • Intentionality is a puzzling property of putatively all mental states. • Intensionality is a sharply defined logical feature of sentences. • As part of the linguistic turn, in order to clarify some of the puzzling features of Brentano’s definition, Chisholm argued in Perceiving (1957) that the intensionality of a psychological report can play the role of a criterion of the intentionality of the reported phenomenon.

Chisholm’s linguistic version • “We may re-express Brentano’s thesis […] By reference to intentional sentences […] (1) we don’t need to use intentional sentences when we describe non-psychological phenomena […] But (2) when we wish to describe [psychological phenomena], then either (a) we must use sentences which are intentional or (b) we must use terms we don’t need to use when we describe non-psychological phenomena.” (Chisholm, 1957)

Chisholm on intentional sentences • xxxx

Chisholm’s criteria applied 1.

2.

3.

Neither “Diogenes looks for the Loch Ness Monster” nor “Diogenes does not look for the Loch Ness Monster” entails that the Loch Ness Monster exists. Thus, “Diogenes looks for the Loch Ness Monster” is intentional. Neither “John believes that there are tigers in India” nor “John does not believe that there are tigers in India” entails the truth or falsity of “There are tigers in India”. Thus, “John believes that there are tigers in India” is intentional. (i) “Eisenhower is the man who was to succeed Truman”, (ii) “In 1944 Chisholm knew that E. was the man in command”, (iii) “In 1944 Chisholm failed to know that the man who was to succeed Truman was the man in command”. Thus, sentence (ii) is intentional.

Intensionality as the mark of the mental? • Is intensionality really the mark (or criterion) of intentionality? • To say that X is a criterion of Y is to say that X is both a necessary and a sufficient condition of Y. • For example: being an unmarried person is a criterion for being a bachelor .

Is intensionality a necessary condition of intentionality? 1. Pierre saw Hesperus 2. Hesperus is Phosphorus 3. Pierre saw Phosphorus • In de re attributions (or reports) of visual perception or in non epistemic or simple (Dretske) sense of “seeing”, the truth of (3) follows from the truth of (1)-(2). If so, then (1) is extensional, not intensional. • If (1) reports an intentional state of seeing and (1) is extensional, then the intensionality of a report can’t be a necessary condition of intentionality.

Is intensionality a sufficient condition of intentionality? • To address the issue of whether intensionality of sentence is sufficient condition of the intentionality of reported phenomenon, we consider a sentence that displays intensionality but does not report intentional phenomenon, e.g. a natural scientific law: 1. It is a law that all Fs are Gs 2. All G’s happen to be H. 3. * It is a law that all Fs are H.

Intensionality without intentionality 1. 2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

The direction of every compass covaries with the location of the North Pole (universal generalization) The location of the North Pole = the place where all Polar bears live The direction of every compass covaries with the place where all Polar bears live It’s a physical law that the direction of every compass covaries with the location of the North Pole The location of the North Pole = the place where all Polar bears live. * It’s a physical law that the direction of every compass covaries with the place where all Polar bears live.

3. Is intentionality a relation?

Relations… • “What is characteristic of every mental activity is, as I believe I have shown, the reference to something as an object. In this respect, every mental activity seems to be something relational. […] In other relations both terms – both the fundament and the terminus – are real, but here only the first term – the fundament is real. […] If I take something relative […] something larger or smaller for example, then, if the larger thing exists, the smaller one exists too. […] Something like what is true of relations of similarity and difference holds true for relations of cause and effect. For there to be such a relation, both the thing that causes and the thing that is caused must exist. […]”

… and quasi-relations • “It is entirely different with mental reference. If someone thinks of something, the one who is thinking must certainly exist, but the object of his thinking need not exist at all. In fact, if he is denying something, the existence of the object is precisely what is excluded whenever his denial is correct. So the only thing which is required by mental reference is the person thinking. The terminus of the so-called relation does not need to exist in reality at all. For this reason, one could doubt whether we really are dealing with something relational here, and not, rather, with something somewhat similar to something relational in a certain respect, which might, therefore, better be called ‘quasi-relational.’” (Brentano, 1874)

Genuine relations • Brentano at least suggested the validity of the following inferences: 1. 2. 3. 4.

The ancient Greeks adored Zeus ?(x)(the ancient Greeks adored x) Contemporary detectives admire Sherlock Holmes ?(x)(contemporary detectives admire x)

• This suggested pattern of inference was taken seriously by Brentano’s student, Alexis Meinong.

Alexius Meinong (1853-1920)

The prejudice in favour of the actual • “Without doubt, metaphysics has to do with everything that exists. However, the totality of what exists, including what has existed and will exist, is infinitely small in comparison with the totality of the Objects of knowledge. This fact easily goes unnoticed, probably because the lively interest in reality which is part of our nature tends to favor that exaggeration which finds the non-real a mere nothing – or, more precisely, which finds the nonreal to be something for which science has no application.” (Meinong)

Subsisting, being, existing • “How little truth there is in such a view is most easily shown by ideal Objects which do indeed subsist (bestehen), but which do not by any means exist (existieren), and consequently cannot in any sense be real (wirklich)… However, pure mathematical knowledge is never concerned with anything which must, in the nature of the case, be actual. The form of being (Sein) with which mathematics as such is occupied is never existence (Existenz). In this respect, mathematics never transcends subsistence (Bestand): a straight line has no more existence than a right angle; a regular polygon, no more than a circle.” (Meinong)

Meinong’s jungle

real existence

material objects and events

mere subsistence

states of affairs, numbers

- contradictory

the golden mountain

+ contradictory

the round square

+ being

objects

- being

The chasm in philosophical logic • Are there things that do not exist? • Meinong: Yes, for example, centaurs, homeric gods, the greatest integer, the round square, Anna Karenin, etc. (cf. Russell, 1903). • Russell (1905): No, everything that is exists. • Quine (1953): No, to be is to be the value of a bound variable.

Quine on Meinong I • “Along with the annoying practice of restricting the term ‘existence’ to a mere species of what there is, there is Meinong’s bizarre deviation of an opposite kind. Gegenstände or objects, for him, comprised more even than what there was; an object might or might not be. His notion of object was, as Chisholm puts it, jenseits von Sein und Nichtsein.” (“Ontological Relvativity”)

Quine on Meinong II • « Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine has been nicknamed Plato’s beard; historically it has proved tough frequently dulling the edge of Occam’s razor… When we say of Pegasus that there is no such thing, we are saying… that Pegasus is not actual. Saying that Pegasus is not actual is on a par, logically, with saying that the Parthenon is not red… [Meinong] grants the nonexistence of Pegasus and then… insists that Pegasus is. Existence is one thing, he says, and subsistence is another.” (“On what there is”)

Quine on Meinong III • “[Meinong’s] overpopulated universe is in many ways unlovely. It offends the aesthetic sense of us who have a taste for desert landscapes, but this is not the worst of it. [Meinong’s] slum of possibles is a breeding ground for disorderly elements. Take, for instance, the possible fat man in that doorway; and again, the possible bald man in that doorway. Are they the same possible man, or two possible men? How do we decide? How many possible men are there in that doorway? Are there more possible thin ones than fat ones? How many of them are alike? Or would their being alike make them one? Are no two possible things alike? Is this the same as saying that it is impossible for two things to be alike? Or, finally, is the concept of identity simply inapplicable to unactualized possibles? But what sense can be found in talking of entities which cannot meaningfully be said to be identical with themselves and distinct from one another?” (“On what there is”)

Parsons’ reply to Quine • “Regarding ‘the possible fat man in the doorway’, there is no such thing, for there are many possible fat men in the doorway… Similar remarks apply to ‘the possible bald man in the doorway.’ So the question whether ‘they’ are the same possible man or not does not make sense; this has nothing to do with ‘their’ nonexistence, it is simply the fact that no specific objects have been singled out to ask the question about. Some possible fat men in the doorway are also possible bald men in the doorway, and some are not. How many possible men are there in the doorway?… There will be at least a countably infinite number of these. Are there more possible fat ones than thin ones? Probably not; there are an infinite number of each. But parity suggests that the cardinality will be the same for each… Are no two possible things alike? No two things are alike, possible or impossible.” (Parsons, 1980)

4. Are there non-intentional mental states?

Brentano’s sub-thesis 1 • Intentionalists accept B’s first sub-thesis that all psychological phenomena exhibit intentionality. • To be conscious is to be conscious of something or other (Husserl, Sartre). • Non-intentionalists object to B’s first thesis by asking: what do moods (e.g., depression), pains or orgasms represent? What are they about? • Cf. Heidegger’s distinction between Furcht and Angst.

Intentionality and consciousness • If intentionality is not the mark of the mental, what is? Consciousness? 1. Conscioussness is prior to intentionality in the order of explanation (Searle). Unconscious mental states must be available to consciousness. 2. Intentionality is prior to consciousness in the order of explanation (Dennett). Some creatures can have intentional states without being conscious.

States of affairs vs objects • Representing a state of affairs (or a fact) vs being directed to an object. 1. Some mental states have a propositional content. They are propositional attitudes (Russell): one believes, desires, hopes, etc., that p, where p is a truth-evaluable proposition. 2. Some mental states seem to have a non-propositional or objectual content: one loves or hates someone, one sees or believes in something.

• “S  that p” vs “S  x”.

Direction of fit • Some intentional states have a mind-to-world (thetic) direction of fit; others have a world-to-mind (telic) direction of fit (Elizabeth Anscombe, John Searle): – Belief is satisfied only if it fits the world, i.e., if it represents the world as it is. – Desire is satisfied only if the world fits its content, i.e., if the world is changed so that the content of desire is made true.

• Some intentional states, such as surprise or hope, do not seem to have a direction of fit; they are neither thetic nor telic.

Responsibility for fitting • “If my beliefs turn out to be wrong, it is my beliefs and not the world which is at fault, as is shown by the fact that I can correct the situation simply by changing my beliefs. It is the responsibility of the belief, so to speak, to match the world. […] But if I fail to carry out my intentions or if my desires are unfulfilled I cannot in that way correct the situation by simply changing the intention or desire. In these cases it is, so to speak, the fault of the world if it fails to match the intention or the desire.” (Searle, 1983, p. 8)

Three kinds of reductions 1.

2. 3.

Reduction of intentional states without direction of fit to complex states, whose proper parts have different directions of fit. Reduction of seemingly objectual intentional states to propositional intentional states. Reduction of all propositional attitudes to beliefs, desires, or a combination of both.

Taxonomy of mental states

+ propositional + intentional

propositional

mental states - intentional

moods, qualia

+ direction of fit

beliefs, desires

- direction of fit

surprise, hope

love, hate

5. Are there physical intentional states?

Brentano’s sub-thesis 2 • By subscribing to the general thesis that intentionality is the mark of the mental, Brentano accepted intentional realism, i.e., the thesis that intentional phenomena are real and can have both causes and effects. • But by subscribing to his second sub-thesis that no physical state exhibits intentionality, Brentano was led to embrace ontological dualism between mental and non-mental things.

An objection • “Linguistic symbols can also stand for objects and properties, and sentences of natural languages can also represent states of affairs and thereby exhibit Brentano’s intentionality.” • While intentional irrealists tend to accept this objection (e.g., Dennett), intentional realists (e.g., Grice, Searle, Fodor, Dretske) draw a distinction between the primitive (or original) intentionality of psychological states and the derived intentionality of anything else.

Primitive vs derived intentionality •

“Cognitions, perceptions, and actions are not the only phenomena that exhibit intentionality. A line in a song, or on a plaque, can say that Babe Ruth built Yankee Stadium and, if so, it has essentially the same content as my belief. Clearly, sentences, formulae and public symbols of all sorts can have intentional contents including a great deal of overlap with the possible contents of thoughts. Intentionality, however, is not all created equal. At least some outward symbols (for instance, a secret signal that you and I explicitly agree on) have their intentionality derivatively – that is, by inheriting it from something else that has that same content already (e.g. the stipulation in our agreement). And, indeed the latter might also have its content not only derivatively from something else again; but obviously that can't go on forever. Derivative intentionality, like an image in a photocopy, must derive eventually from something that is not similarly derivative; that is, at least some intentionality must be original (nonderivative). And clearly then, this original intentionalty is the real metaphysical problem; for the possibility of delegating content once there is some to delegate, is surely less puzzling than how there can be any in the first place.” (Haugeland, 1990)

Open questions • Is an advocate of intentional realism forced to accept ontological dualism? • Should an advocate of ontological physicalism endorse intentional irrealism? • Or instead is intentional realism compatible with ontological physicalism (as Fodor has argued)?

Quine’s dilemma • “One may accept the Brentano thesis as either showing the indispensability of intentional idioms and the importance of an autonomous science of intention, or as showing the baselessness of intentional idioms and the emptiness of a science of intention. My attitude, unlike Brentano’s, is the second.” (Word and Object, p. 221)

End of Part #1