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Troubles with Phenomenal Intentionality

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Abstract

As far as I can see, there are two basic ways of cashing out the claim that intentionality is ultimately phenomenal: (i) an indirect one, according to which the intentional content of an experiential intentional mental state is determined by the phenomenal character that state already possesses, so that intentionality is so determined only indirectly; (ii) a direct one, which centers on the very property of intentionality itself and can further be construed in two manners: either that very property is determined by the above phenomenal character, or it is a sui generis phenomenal property, thereby giving its own contribution to the overall phenomenal character of that state. Yet neither way sounds ultimately satisfying. For the indirect way may work only under the assumption that intentionality is monadic. Since the direct way explicitly endorses this assumption, the indirect way must give pride of place to it. Yet the direct way seems to be unsuccessful, in any of its forms. Thus, the phenomenal intentionality research program ought to give way to another research program concerning intentionality.

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Notes

  1. There is a wide discussion on whether intentionality of reference is a sufficient condition for intentionality of content. Although I believe along with Crane (2001) that this is not the case (Voltolini 2013), for the scope of this paper I assume that it is so.

  2. Although in different forms, such people are for the most part ready to endorse the Phenomenal Intentionality Research Program (PIRP). PIRP is articulated in six theses (Kriegel 2013a). Qua phenomenal, intentionality is: (1) phenomenally grounded, i.e., grounded in phenomenal character; (2) such that the phenomenal and the intentional are inseparable; (3) distinctive, i.e., qualified by properties of its own; (4) narrow, i.e., independent of anything outside the subject; (5) subjective, i.e., a property of representing something for someone; (6) basic, i.e., a source of all intentionality.

  3. Independently of whether Brentano is a forerunner of phenomenal intentionality (Kriegel 2018).

  4. No matter how this grounding relation is spelled out: typically, as an asymmetrical dependence relation.

  5. For Horgan and Tienson (2002), the supervenience relation goes both ways: intentional content supervenes on phenomenal character and vice versa. Nevertheless, since they appeal to phenomenal intentionality, they acknowledge a priority of the phenomenal over the intentional.

  6. For a denial, see Voltolini (2016a, b). For Georgalis (2003), the appeal to cognitive phenomenal character to determine phenomenal intentionality as a whole is erroneous. In (2009), Pitt strengthened his position by claiming that the intentional content of an experiential cognitive intentional mental state is its cognitive phenomenal character. Obviously, this strengthening trivialises the individuation claim.

  7. Horgan and Tienson (2002) stress that, in order for the supervenience of intentional content on phenomenal character to hold, that content must be narrow.

  8. This is the case independently of whether the intentional contents involved in such switches are nonconceptual, as I believe (along with the people cited in the text), and also of whether the phenomenal characters involved are sensuous, as I also believe [with Nanay (2016); contra Brewer (2007); Kriegel (2011)].

  9. At least if intentionality is an external (i.e., accidental) relation, not an internal (i.e., essential) relation with intentional content. In actual fact, the distinction between intentionality being an internal relation with a content and intentionality being the monadic property of having-a-content sounds like a distinction without a difference.

  10. Kriegel (2011) appeals to a dependence thesis; Mendelovici (2017) defends the identity thesis.

  11. Sometimes defenders of phenomenal intentionality toy with the idea that phenomenal intentionality is a property different from the intentionality property that tracking theories focus on (cf. e.g. Kriegel 2011, 2013b; Mendelovici 2017). Yet this amounts to changing the subject, rather than providing a different metaphysical analysis of the same property.

  12. Masrour seems to acknowledge this problem when he claims that, while perceptual experiences ground a certain kind of phenomenal intentionality, nonperceptual experiences ground another kind of phenomenal intentionality (2013: 117–118). However, this claim brings us back to the problem of multiplying intentionalities beyond necessity.

  13. Masrour (2013: 130–131) rejects the idea that phenomenal objectivity is phenomenally intertwined with feeling of presence so conceived. Yet it is hard to see how he can reject it. For he also claims that phenomenal objectivity is specific to perceptual experiences, since other nonperceptual experiences that are also intentional do not possess it. Indeed, one may naturally spell out this specificity by stressing that the overall phenomenal character of our perceptual experiences inextricably entails that the objects of such experiences are given to us both as mind-independent items and as present, i.e., as being out there. Cf. Crane and French (2015).

  14. Kriegel (2011: 127–129) disagrees. Yet he allows for aspectual nonexperiential intentional mental states.

  15. If acquaintance is conceived as an existence-entailing relation, it may be taken to obtain either if the intentional object exists, or as if it obtained if the intentional object does not exist. Cf. Kroon (2013).

  16. This kind of intransitive awareness may correspond to what Dorsch (2018: 4) labels experience-directed presence.

  17. This kind of transitive awareness may correspond to what Dorsch (2018: 3–4) labels object-directed presence.

  18. Granted, a friend of phenomenal intentionality might appeal to a different, nonsensory, sense of presentation that applies to nonperceptual experiences, provided that there is any (Dorsch 2018: 6). Let me put aside the fact that this sense would probably be one of other senses here considered. It remains that this move would bring us back to the problem seen in the previous Section of multiplying intentionalities beyond necessity.

  19. Either interpretation of “being aware of” plausibly captures what Searle originally maintained in saying (1983) that the ofness of awareness has nothing to do with the ofness of intentionality.

  20. One might even say that such a feeling allows one to distinguish between perceptual and imaginative presence, since mental images also have a presentational character (Kind 2018).

  21. For a similar doubt, cf. Frey (2013: 74).

  22. A notorious exception is Dennett (1990).

  23. For similar examples aimed at making the same point, cf. Grzankowski (2016: 320).

  24. In (2010), Kriegel admits that the two kinds of intentionality just differ in the form of their ascription: unlike phenomenal intentionality, ascription of psychological intentionality (the intentionality nonexperiential mental states possess) is normatively bound by Davidsonian principles of charity. Independently of its truth, this admission does not threaten the fact that metaphysically speaking, intentionality is the same property across all intentional mental states, as Kriegel acknowledges here.

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Acknowledgements

This paper has been originally presented at the New Direction Group Meetings, Peterhouse College, Cambridge, June 20, 2017, as well as at the workshop Intentionality and Consciousness, S. Raffaele University, Milan, May 15, 2019. I thank the participants for their stimulating questions. I also thank Fred Kroon and Elisabetta Sacchi for their comments to previous versions of the paper.

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    Alberto Voltolini

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Voltolini, A. Troubles with Phenomenal Intentionality. Erkenn 87, 237–256 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-019-00193-4

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