Consciousness And Intentionality Models And Modalities Of Attribution

Consciousness and Intentionality: Models and Modalities of Attribution

Philosophy of mind has been one of the most active fields in philosophy for the past three decades. One of the most significant factors in the development of this discipline has been the emergence of cognitive science and the interest philosophers have taken in the empirical study of mind. Another equally important factor has been the "naturalistic tum" brought about by W. V. Quine. His proposal that normative epistemology be replaced by empirical psychology marked a radical departure from the Fregean "anti psychologism" and "apriorism" that had characterized much of the analytic tradition in philosophy. But while Quine's program of naturalization called the attention of philosophers to empirical psychology, his conception of psychology was inspired by an austere behaviorism which shunned the mentalism of intentional psychology in the Brentanian and phenomenological tradition. Thus, while agreeing with Brentano that the "intentional idiom" could not be reduced to that of the natural sciences, Quine argued that it is of a piece with the indeterminacy of translation. Most contributors of this col lection share the cognitivist stance and believe that the mind needs to be explained rather than eliminated. Three main questions are actually confronting current philosophers of mind, each addressed by one or another of the contributors to the present collection.

Consciousness and Intentionality: Models and Modalities of Attribution

The papers collected here had their origin in a conference held in Montreal, 1-3 June 1995. The conference drew together researchers of all persuasions, from Europe and North America, to discuss the philosophy of mind. The volume is divided into four sections, each section being prefaced by a specific introduction. The first section deals mainly with the problem of consciousness in relation to intentionality. The second section's main topic is the problem of `qualia', a notion closely related to phenomenal consciousness, approached in the context of perception. The last two sections raise several problems related to what has been called `folk psychology'. Readership: Philosophers interested in philosophy of mind, psychologists, cognitive scientists.

Consciousness and Intentionality