Alessandro Salice, Ed., Intentionality. Historical and Systematic Perspectives. With a foreword by John R. Searle [Book Review]

This volume presents thirteen essays on intentionality, with a strong focus on historical issues—nine articles deal with the concepts of intentionality in Spinoza, Leibniz, Bolzano, Brentano, Marty, Husserl, and Pfänder—but also taking into consideration some contemporary issues about intentionality, especially from the perspective of externalism and on the question of collective intentionality. The wide variety of topics, historical periods, and perspectives presented in this volume bears witness to the fact that intentionality is widely acknowledged as a central phenomenon in philosophy of mind, despite the fact that there has thus far been no consensus on the methodology of investigation of this phenomenon—neither in the historical development of the concept, nor in its contemporary use. This may be one reason why the editor refuses to take a stand on how the concept historically developed and on the role played by this concept in contemporary issues. As the editor contends, the his ..