Abstract

Here I outline an "embodied action" approach to Cognitive Science, whose central assumption is that human beings are essentially embodied, embedded in a world and situated in a social context. I present a naturalized account of intentionality from this perspective. ;I give a normative account of language-use, as the performance of speech acts as moves within shared norm-governed practices. I then show how the normative practice of giving reasons for actions licenses us to attribute intentional states to people as reasons for their actions, and licenses us to expect people to be committed to acting in certain ways, based on the intentional states that they recognize are appropriately attributed to them. ;I also argue against a reduction of intentional states to the neurological mechanisms. My view is that the intentionality is institutional, and is conferred on actions that count as moves within norm-governed practices. It is only derivatively on internal neurological states. This, like the intentionality that we attribute to linguistic expressions, is abstracted from the kinds of actions they enable the agent possessing them to perform, and derived from the norm-governed practices in which such actions have their life. ;I conclude with a naturalistic account of the norms and practices within which human actions count as having content . I do not give a naturalistic justification for these norms, but a naturalistic explanation for how normativity in general arises . I appeal to forces of natural selection operating on groups, and practices as shared and enforced ways of acting that enabled different practices and the groups that practice them, to survive and prosper. This feeds into the crucial step in explaining intentionality naturalistically: explaining how the ability to attribute intentional states to others evolved alongside, and made possible, human linguistic interactions. It also evolved alongside the ability to attribute to oneself the intentional states that others are licensed to attribute to you, and the disposition to live up to this "self-conception" as someone with those beliefs, goals, and desires