Minds (08/29/22) Flashcards
What is intentionality?
aboutness, directedness about something
” the feature some mental states have of being directed at something - of being about or of or something”
ex: belief, hope, desire, perceptual experiences
* note they can be both successful and unsuccessful
What is consciousness?
something it is like
“the feature of there being ‘something it is like’ for the subject to have a given mental state; the state has a qualitative or subjective feel for the subject”
ex: eating creme brulee- something it is like to taste it. has subjective character because I can describe it, but you will not know how it is like until you actually do it
ex: imagery
- background beliefs and desires have intentionality but not consciousness: “St louis is west of NY” is a belief, but there is nothing that is “like” for you to believe it
What is privileged access?
“the idea of first person authority implies something much more modest” roughly, if I am convinced that I believe or want to feel something and I am in error, then the burden of proof is on others to establish this”
ex:
how would you know Prof Millar has a headache? need to infer from body motions and speech
in order for me to know if I have a headache, I don’t need to infer or observe. I just immediately feel the pain and know what is going on with my mind
What is perception?
immediate point of contact between me and everything around me.
The mind is not merely aware of what’s inside of themselves, but also aware of itself (what’s going on in world + in my mind)
How do we access self knowledge?
we have direct access to our mental states
Explain how intentionality can be both unsuccessful and successful
Unsuccessful perceptual experience could be an illusion, hallucination, or just simply not occur (like a hope for something)
some mental states possessing intentionality are about something that does not exist
ex:
“S believes that snow is white” - belief is attitude, snow is white is proposition (something being expressed)
What is Brentano’s thesis?
“intentionality is a characteristic exclusively of mental phenomena. No non-mental physical phenomenon manifests anything like it. = intentionality is the mark of the mental”
What are the two claims of Brentano’s thesis?
- intentionality is necessary for being mental: no state or event is a mental state or event unless it possesses intentionality
- intentionality is sufficient for being mental: every state or event that possess intentionality is a mental state or event
why did most philosophers think that pains “are not about anything?”
pains are purely subjective qualities: their existence consists in the existence of a subjective state that tells us nothing about the external world
what is the “perceptual account of bodily sensations?”
being aware of your bodily perceptions. Consciousness of knowing what is happening in our body allows us to perceive
what does crane think are principle considerations in favor of the view of perceptual account of bodily sensations?
when you experience pain, you are not perceiving it in your head, but attribute the pain to the point of your body experiencing the pain - therefore it is not mental
Do pain experiences possess the crucial features of intentional states (ie they might be unsuccessful and their objects might not exist)
Yes - It is unsuccessful because they feel pain in their limb, but they do not have a limb, making this an unsuccessful intentional state
Objections to crane’s case for his view that every pain experience possesses intentionality
Anesthesia
