The Nature of Intentions

Dissertation, University of Calgary (Canada) (1995)
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Abstract

In this dissertation I attempt to understand what intentions are. Chapter 1 examines the traditional view of intentions developed by Aristotle , which characterizes intentions as arising from conscious episodes of practical reasoning. I argue against the tradition by showing that intentions needn't arise consciously nor through anything like episodes of practical reasoning. I then move to ontological concerns by arguing against several anti-reductionist arguments recently advanced by Bratman and Mele. Not only are these arguments seen to fail, but I argue that the reductionist position is malleable enough to accommodate almost any plausible conception of intentions. I then move on to criticize recent arguments for the traditionalist claim that children and nonhuman animals cannot have intentions because they lack the necessary kinds or combinations of desires and beliefs. ;Chapter 2 begins to develop a better conception of intentions by presenting a metaphysical model developed by C. B. Martin, which postulates dispositions and manifestations as the primitive concepts for understanding causal properties in general and, in particular, the intentionality of mental states. I then focus on Martin's discussions of systemic representational use, especially uses of imagery, for these features provide a natural grounding for the ways in which agents and other organisms acquire dispositions to evaluate their dispositions for various kinds of behaviour. ;Chapter 3 criticizes some prominent recent attempts by action theorists to apply the disposition-manifestation distinction to mental states. I argue that these current applications of the distinction are fraught with difficulties, and that we are better off to avoid desires and beliefs by defining intentions directly in terms of dispositions and manifestations. ;Chapter 4 attempts to specify the kinds of dispositions and manifestations necessary and sufficient for behavioural intentions. Here I focus particularly on the evaluative capacities that arise in early-childhood and which constitute the most salient capacities that distinguish individuals who have intentions from those who do not. These evaluative capacities are different in sophistication, but not in kind, from those evident in many lower animal species. I also distinguish my conception of intentions from the traditional view by arguing that intentions can and should arise and be effective nonconsciously, even causing behaviour without the agent's awareness. Finally I argue that my account of intentions does not require us to postulate volitions

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