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Reply to Morick on Intentionality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

W. G. Lycan
W. G. Lycan*
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
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Extract

A number of philosophers have defended the view that mental or psychological verbs share a certain distinctive logical feature, though there is disagreement as to exactly what feature it is. Harold Morick has recently accused several of these philosophers (including Brentano, Chisholm and me) of having “ignored or misinterpreted” verbs of a certain kind, in their search for this characteristic trait of mental verbs (normally called “intentionality“).

The verbs he is talking about are those that represent some of a person's activities, which are physical activities but which that person must allegedly be conscious in order to perform. Since a “basic sentence” containing such a verb typically entails the existence of its object's referent, Morick contends, the verb in question fails io count as “intentional” either on Brentano's definition, on Chisholm's, or on mine (each of these three definitions requires that a basic sentence containing an intentional verb not entail the existence of its object's putative referent.). Thus, Brentano, Chisholm and I have failed to make good our claim that all mental or psychological verbs are intentional.

Type
Reply
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , June 1975 , pp. 697 - 699
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1975

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References

1. Morick, H. “On the Indispensability of Intentionality,” Canadian journal of Philosophy, II (1972-3), 127–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Brentano, Franz Psychologle vom empirlschen Standpunkt (Vienna, 1874)Google Scholar; Chisholm, Roderick “Sentences about Believing,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. LVI (1955-1956)Google Scholar, and elsewhere; Lycan, W. “On ‘Intentionality’ and the Psychological,” American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 6 (1969).Google Scholar

3. A basic sentence, on Morick's usage, is a simple declarative sentence “of the grammatical form subject-verb-object,” whose verb “is an indicative-mood, active-voice occurrence verb,” and whose subject and object “are proper nouns or definite descriptive phrases” (p. 129).

4. I think we must concede that intimidation, cheating, and even hanging could in some farfetched circumstances be exclusively conscious, non-physical activities on someone's part: one might intimidate and cheat one's victim by telepathy, and then hang him by telekinesis. But of course this does not entail Morick's claim that one must be conscious in order to perform such activities; nor does it increase my inclination to admit that Morick's verbs are mental or psychological in the central sense in which “believe,” “hope” and their ilk are.

5. See pp, 131–133. Among the eliminative materialists Morick mentions are Feyerabend, (“Materialism and the Mind-Body Problem,” reprinted in J, O'Connor (ed,) Modern Materialism (Harcourt, Brace and World, 1969)Google Scholar, Quine, Word and Object (M.I.T. Press, 1960), pp. 264–266)Google Scholar, and Rorty, (“Mind-Body Identity, Privacy, and Categories,” Review of Metaphysics, Vol. XIX (1965-1966)).Google Scholar