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Intentionality and Physical Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Margaret A. Boden
Margaret A. Boden*
Affiliation:
The University of Sussex
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Abstract

Intentionality is characteristic of many psychological phenomena. It is commonly held by philosophers that intentionality cannot be ascribed to purely physical systems. This view does not merely deny that psychological language can be reduced to physiological language. It also claims that the appropriateness of some psychological explanation excludes the possibility of any underlying physiological or causal account adequate to explain intentional behavior. This is a thesis which I do not accept. I shall argue that physical systems of a specific sort will show the characteristic features of intentionality. Psychological subjects are, under an alternative description, purely physical systems of a certain sort. The intentional description and the physical description are logically distinct, and are not intertranslatable. Nevertheless, the features of intentionality may be explained by a purely causal account, in the sense that they may be shown to be totally dependent upon physical processes.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , June 1970 , pp. 200 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © 1970 The Philosophy of Science Association

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