Intentionalism Defended

Bibliographic Data

ID10695861
AuthorsAnthony Byrne (0000-0003-3652-1492, corresponding author), Alex Byrne
Year2001
Volume110
Issue2
Pages199
Publication date2001-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Philosophical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8108 • E-ISSN: 1558-1470
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2693675
OpenAlexW4249018138
LanguageEN
Citations received16

Traditionally, perceptual experiences—for example, the experience of seeing a cat—were thought to have two quite distinct components. When one sees a cat, one’s experience is “about ” the cat: this is the representational or intentional component of the experience. One’s experience also has phenomenal character: this is the sensational component of the experience. Although the intentional and sensational components at least typically go together, in principle they might come apart: the intentional component could be present without the sensational component or vice versa. Recently a number of philosophers have argued that this picture of perception is incorrect. According to them, the sensational component of a perceptual experience cannot vary independently of its intentional component: the phenomenal character of a perceptual experience is entirely determined by the experience’s propositional content—that is, by what it represents. Usually this is supposed to hold also of “bodily sensations”: experiences of pain, twinges, tickles, and the like. The phenomenal character of such experiences, it is claimed, is likewise entirely determined by their propositional contents. This view comes in a number of variants, and also goes under a number of names

Analytic philosophy · Contemporary philosophy · Epistemology · General interest · Free Will and Agency · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science