Phenomenal Intentionality as the Basis of Mental Content
Brian Loar
The mental or psychological content of a thought is a matter of how it conceives things;
that is what we hope to grasp, at least approximately and in part, when we try to understand
another person. We want to know not merely what her thoughts represent as it were
impersonally, but also how they represent things to her. A person's thoughts represent things to
her -- conceive things -- in many ways: perceptually, memory-wise, descriptively, by naming, by
analogy, by intuitive sorting, theoretically, abstractly, implicitly and explicitly. These various
manners of conceiving have something in common: they have intentional properties, and they
have them essentially. The conceiving cannot be pulled away from the intentional properties, in
our ordinary reflexive understanding of them. But this creates a problem. It is not unnatural to
suppose that conceivings are in the head. So if the intentional properties of conceivings are
essential to them, intentionality must be in the head as well. The problem is that there are fairly
compelling externalist reasons to the opposite conclusion. Yet it seems to me that there must be
something right about the internalist thesis and the intuition that backs it, something quite basic
to our understanding of the mental. This is what I will try to make coherent.
Mental content has often been supposed to be what "oblique" that-clauses capture. That
would lead directly to a considerable difficulty in the idea of internal intentionality. For thatclauses capture references, and the references of our outward-directed thoughts are -- according
to the most believable theories1 -- determined by external relations. There is a quick way to deal
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with this difficulty, and I hereby adopt it. Mental content is in fact individuated independently of
that-clauses. This seems to me to follow from the semantic behavior of that-clauses together
with a basic constraint on mental content or ways of conceiving -- what is often called "Frege's
constraint". Something counts as a judgment's content only if we cannot make sense of a
person's judging both it and its negation -- unless she in some way compartmentalizes those
judgments. You can make sense of a person's judging that Paderewski plays well and at the same
time judging that Paderewski does not play well even though the two beliefs have the same
reference and draw on the same public name. Nothing semantic distinguishes the ordinary
meanings of those that-clauses except the negation. Given Frege's constraint, this means that
mental content is individuated more fine-grainedly than the interpersonally shared "oblique"
content of certain that-clauses. I rather think the phenomenon is all-pervasive, that for virtually
any that-clause a similar underspecification of content can be shown.2 A closely related point is
this. Consider any perceptually nuanced conception of mine. I can invent a neologism to express
that conception, and use it in self-ascribing that-clauses. But the that-clauses are then secondary:
what matters is my reflexive grasp of the perceptual concept, its psychological content. Thatclauses as they are standardly used apparently capture too little information, even on oblique
interpretations, and that information is not of the right sort: that-clauses are more about socially
shared concepts and their referents than about the various perceptually-based and other ways in
which thoughts conceive their referents. They are not especially psychologically informative.
If mental content is accessible and is not literally expressed by that-clauses, how does it
get conveyed? Typically in the gaps between the words. Suppose you say that Guido thinks that
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the woman over there resembles Greta Garbo, and you say this while he has the woman in full
view. I understand you to mean that Guido's thought picks her out visually. That visual mode of
presentation is a constituent of (what I mean by) the mental content of his thought. That we
might invent a word to capture just that highly specific visual mode of presentation, and insert it
in a that-clause, is not interesting -- nor is it even particularly interesting that we can say 'the
person he is looking at'. Guido's thought involves, among other factors, a visual mode of
presentation, and we conceive it independently of what is mentioned in that-clauses. But this is
neutral between internalist and externalist views of mental content. For it is compatible with
"neo-Fregeanism"3, the idea that e.g. perceptual modes of presentation are to be individuated
object-dependently and property-dependently. The present point, though, is simply to put space
between mental content and that-clauses. Our conceptions of mental content have a life of their
own apart from that-clauses -- there are for example perceptually based demonstrative concepts,
as we intuitively understand when we think about Guido.4 Conceptions of mental content in the
analytic tradition have tended to be phenomenologically impoverished, largely because of the
emphasis on language and reference. And when we turn to the phenomenology, as I will try to
show, we do get a grip on internal intentionality.
A compelling intuition about mental life sees it as a stream of conscious thoughts,
feelings and perceptions. This is not all or even perhaps the larger part of the mind. But it is
central to our founding conception of the mental. When we conceive these various conscious
states, moreover, we conceive them as intentional. The stream of conscious thoughts, memories
and perceptions seems to have a life of its own that is constituted independently of its external
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environment. This is intuitively supported by an obvious thought experiment. Apparently I can
imagine what it is like to be an isolated brain that is a physical duplicate of my own brain. What
I imagine includes not just that brain's non-intentional phenomenal states, its flutters and pains,
but also states and events that correspond to my own outward directed thoughts and perceptions.
I imagine my isolated twin's states and events as subjectively representing things in the same
manner as those thoughts and perceptions of mine. The intuition supports the view that my own
mental stream's intentional features -- even those of its outward-directed thoughts -- are
constituted independently of my actual situation in the world. (Note well that we have said
'intentional features' and not 'references'.) This is not to say that the seeming imagining of the
isolated brain's intentional states proves there is such a thing as internal intentionality. But it
surely makes one wonder if we can make sense of the idea, make a case for its coherence.
The reader will reasonably want to know what is meant by 'intentional' if not 'referential'.
Let me say for the time being that the internal intentionality of perceptions and thoughts consists
in their apparent directedness, in their purporting subjectively to refer in various complex ways.
This is, according to what follows, an ineliminably phenomenal feature that is shared by my and
my isolated twin's states as I imagine them.
Why care if a phenomenological conception of internal intentionality can be made sense
of? It is there for the noticing; and we have a wrong philosophical view of our intuitive
conception of the mind if we persuade ourselves in the abstract that internal intentionality cannot
be there. Does this matter to commonsense psychological explanation? Yes of course. There
have been strenuous efforts to explain how causal and social relations to distal objects can be
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essential to psychological explanations of behavior; and the resulting theories are, in my view,
more than a little strained. A consequence of making sense of internal intentionality is to
vindicate a classical internalist view of commonsense psychological explanation, or at least to
make it coherent. Still the main question is more basic than the explanation of behavior. It
concerns whether mental properties as they are in themselves have merely contingent
connections with behavior and environment. That is hardly a small matter if we are interested in
what we are: we have inner mental lives.
The intuitive idea that the intentionality of outward directed thoughts can be internally
determined has run into serious trouble; for a certain externalist conception of intentionality has
considerable intuitive force. Tyler Burge, as much as any other philosopher, has made a
powerful case for externalism about mental content.5 This he has done by arguing that -- to put it
in a way more abstract than his -- the semantic resources of the analytic tradition, whereby
intentionality consists in the truth-conditions and satisfaction-conditions of thoughts, cannot
support internalism about intentionality. I agree with this. But I draw a different conclusion:
what matters to intentional internalism does not depend on those classical truth-conditional
factors. Something theoretically novel (though familiar in experience) needs acknowledging.
My homage to Burge in this volume will be expressed by my being driven to extremes.6
While the internalist intuition appears to me correct, the core of current externalist theory
also appears correct. So the core of externalist theory must be compatible with intentionality's
being an internally constituted feature of mental states. Externalists are right about the reference
and truth-conditions of thoughts. But despite vivid appearances to the contrary, intentionality
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does not presuppose reference and it is not externally determined. That is the idea I will try to
make sense of.
1. Externalism about intentionality
Externalists about intentional mental content regard the opposing position as conceptually
incoherent7. Here is the externalist reasoning, as I try to put it straightforwardly to myself. (It is
worth noticing that this externalist line of reasoning does not presuppose that mental content is as
that-clauses capture it. The earlier point in denying this was not to confute externalism directly
but to open up mental content as it were to phenomenological access.) The externalist's first
premise is that thoughts can be intentional or "directed", can "purport to refer", only by
presupposing actual references. The externalist may grant that a thought can purport to refer to
something external even if it does not succeed in referring, even if there is so to speak nothing
there. Even so it must represent what it purports to refer to as such and such, as having some
property F. And so it must succeed in referring to that property. The second premise is that such
reference is constituted by externally determined -- causal, social etc -- relations. If the premisses
were both correct, no sense could be made of the isolated brain's having the same intentional
states as me; intentional mental content could not be internally determined.
Almost everyone agrees that any singular concept may fail to refer and still have the
intentional content it would have if it had succeeded. This holds in the most obvious way of
ordinary definite descriptions. 'The oldest dolphin in Andorra' purports to refer, and for all I
know it fails. It also holds of perceptual-demonstrative concepts: I may exercise a visual-
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demonstrative concept -- 'that horrifying animal' -- and yet be hallucinating. Despite their failing
to refer both concepts intuitively have full intentional content: each purports to point, quite
specifically, to an object, even though the world does not put an object in its way. But the
presupposition thesis is satisfied because, on the face of it, the intentionality of singular concepts
depends on what those general concepts refer to: 'dolphin' and 'animal' refer to kinds or
properties, and according to the externalist this constitutes, at least in part, the singular concept's
intentionality. The externalist may of course allow that a property-concept can itself fail to refer,
even while fully purporting to pick out a property. But this must be grounded in further concepts
that actually refer and that hence stand in externally determined relations to externally constituted
properties. Another way to put the externalist's (often implicit) point about intentionality:
thoughts cannot purport to refer unless they impose success-conditions, or satisfactionconditions; and these depend, however indirectly, on reference to objective properties.
Externalism about intentionality assumes, on this account, that intentionality presupposes
reference.
The externalist's second premise is that referring to and connoting external properties
consist in externally determined relations between concepts and properties, at least for concepts
that purport to be outward directed. Externalist positions about reference may diverge: some
regard all basic reference relations as non-socially-mediated causal relations to things, and others,
Tyler Burge famously, as including social relations to the usage of others. I accept Burge's view
to this extent: we cannot realistically deny the role of social relations in the mediation of much
ordinary reference. How much farther we should go is not clear. Suppose one's concept 'animal'
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derives its reference socially, from biologists' conceptions. It is not clear whether their more
basic concepts might ultimately be determined purely personally by non-social perceptual and
conceptual-role relations. But this issue is beside the present point.
In agreeing with externalism about reference I accept this: basic property-references and
property-connotations are constituted by relations that, at least in part, are externally determined,
whether socially or not. In the standard debate, this concedes substantial ground to externalism
about intentional content. But it does not imply it; for it does not imply that intentionality
presupposes reference.
On the externalist view of mental content, another brain's perceptual states and thoughts
can be intentionally equivalent to my externally directed perceptual states and thoughts only if we
share at least some of my actual external references. The equivalence would require an overlap
in property-reference. If the isolated brain's perceptual states and other concepts do not pick out
some of the same properties as my externally directed perceptual states and thoughts, then none
of its mental states can have the same intentional content as my outward-directed mental states.
This is the externalist premise to which we must reply, for we agree that property-reference
consists in externally determined relations.
To sum up the externalist line of reasoning: (i) mental content is intentional; (ii)
intentionality presupposes reference; (iii) reference, for outward-directed thoughts, consists in
externally determined relations (especially to kinds and properties); (iv) my outwardly directed
thoughts therefore do not have internally determined mental content or intentionality -- that is,
the mental content of my outward-directed concepts cannot be shared with an isolated brain. I
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must emphasize the distinction between externalism about reference and externalism about
intentional mental content: I accept the former and deny the latter.
2. Conceptual roles and mental content
What we seek is a conception of mental content that is available commonsensically and
that is internally determined. This could seem to be easily delivered by an established idea,
namely, that we implicitly individuate thoughts in terms of their conceptual roles. A thought's
conceptual role consists in its inferential and probabilistic connections with other thoughts,
desires etc., and with perceptions. Conceptual role theory standardly avoids appeal to
intentionality. That can seem to be a considerable advantage, for it permits an attractive clarity:
the horizontal and vertical aspects of mental content are factored out, i.e. internal-explanatory
conceptual role and external-referential intentionality. Externalism about intentionality is
acknowledged, but internalism about mental explanation is nevertheless defended.
Now I am quite sure that conceptual role is central in individuating thought-contents.
How a thought conceives things must consist in part in its conceptual commitments. That is
essential to what I will propose. But conceptual role on its own seems to me inadequate to
explain our ordinary understanding. Conceptual roles are too blank to constitute internal mental
content as we conceive it. Thinking is something lively -- there is something that it is like to
engage in it. So phenomenological reflection on thinking hardly conceives its properties in
purely dispositional terms. But perhaps we might add phenomenal states to conceptual roles -and would this not give us the internal liveliness? We might then think of perceptual states and
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other phenomenal states as among the realizers of conceptual roles, or somehow intimately
connected with such realizers. The liveliness of thinking in general would stem from perceptual
states, linguistic states, various forms of imagery, with conceptualizing supplied by their
connections within an interlocking network of conceptual roles. And who knows what innate
conceptual structures there might also be into which perceptual states could nicely fit.8
While the picture thus vaguely put is doubtless on the right track, it does not seem to me
to promise an internalist conception of mental content. For we apparently lack appropriate nonintentional conceptions of perceptual states. We can hardly peel the phenomenal aspects of
vision away from its intentionality; we just do not have non-intentional conceptions of "visual
fields" or the like. Or try as I might I cannot muster such conceptions. Visual perception is
phenomenologically focussed on objects, spaces, and their properties; there are no pure visual etc
sensations that might add non-intentional life to conceptual roles. If the externalist is right about
intentionality, a phenomenal elaboration of a conceptual role theory will not yield ordinary,
intuitive, conceptions of internal mental content.
The externalist might in any event complain that the project would be futile even if we
had purely phenomenal and non-intentional conceptions of perceptual states. Internal goings on
would not on their own constitute a mental life: for they would, phenomenologically, not look
out to external space. It would be in McDowell's dramatic phrase "all darkness within".
I can envisage a spirited defense by the conceptual role theorist. Both of the foregoing
objections ignore the availability of a deflationary notion of intentionality, that is, of reference
and truth conditions. It may well be that we cannot conceive visual qualia non-intentionally. But
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this could have the following explanation.
"We cannot conceive ordinary visual experience unconceptualized -- that is, unless it is
minimally conceptualized by object-concepts, spatial-concepts etc. This
conceptualization may be understood in terms of something like conceptual role or
conceptual structures as long as we also grant the conceptual role theorist what he is
classically entitled to, namely, a 'disquotational' or deflationary notion of reference.9 To
conceive a way of conceptualizing visual experience simulationally will then employ
object-conceptions etc. And when we reflect on them we can hardly avoid, as it were,
disquoting. They are our concepts and we can hardly think of them in non-simulational
objective terms."
This is tantamount to proposing a deflationary internalist theory of intentionality, which it may be
argued quite adequately accounts for the phenomenology. Let us have a look at such a theory.
3. An internalist theory of intentionality rejected
What we might call the standard internalist conception of intentional mental content
denies that the reference of basic concepts is constituted by externally determined relations (the
second externalist premise). At the same time, it does not question that intentionality
presupposes reference (the first externalist premise.) On this standard internalism, certain basic
concepts express or pick out properties and relations independently of causal relations between
the mind and those properties. This might for example be held of our concepts of shape and
spatial relations, i.e. that they express spatial properties and relations without externally
determined referential mediation.10 And a similar view may be taken of concepts of categorial
properties such as causation and physical-objecthood. Now externalists are dismissive, and there
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are two rather different objections. The first is the thought that the externalist thoughtexperiments of Kripke, Putnam and Burge11 show that reference is environmentally and hence
externally determined. The second objection is more basic, and harder to get a grip on: such
internalists are accused of holding implicitly a magical theory of reference (as Putnam called it),
that the mind somehow grasps externally constituted properties independently of natural relations
to those properties. Let us see how a reasonable internalist about reference might respond to
each objection.
As a preliminary we classify concepts according to the apparent role that wide contexts
play in determining their references. By 'reference' I mean not only the reference of singular
terms and predicates, but also the truth-conditional contributions of logical connectives, and
more generally of all concepts. So we have:
A. Wide concepts, whose reference is determined by externally determined relations to
external contexts. These include singular indexicals and demonstratives, and kind terms such as
'water', 'tiger', 'arthritis'. Whether a concept belongs to this type is decided by thought
experiments that shift contexts between earth and twin-Earth, between arthritic twins, and the
like.
B. Narrow concepts, for which reference is context-independent, that is, independent of
contexts that transcend 'internal conceptual role' and the like. Paradigms are the logical
connectives. If a connective has the conceptual role of 'and' or 'all' it eo ipso expresses
conjunction or the universal quantifier. There are no twin-Earth reference-shifts for logical
connectives. Presumably mathematical and modal concepts belong here as well. (It will be
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convenient, if somewhat inelegant, to include in group B indexicals that pick out internal states:
'this sensation', 'this thought'; for their referring arguably does not consist in externally
determined relations.)
C. Debatable cases, predicates that do not uncontroversially or determinately belong to
class A or to class B. These are the concepts already mentioned: 'cause', 'physical object', spatial
concepts, and perhaps others. As I have found among philosophers in conversation, intuitions
about such concepts are far more open than they are about 'water' and the like.
A conservative internalist strategy -- which I will describe but not endorse -- proceeds as
follows. Assign concepts in class C to class B. If for example a concept has the internal mental
role (conceptual,imagistic) of our spatial concept 'between', then count it as by that very fact
referring to spatial betweenness, regardless of context. On this proposal even isolated brains can
think about space. Next, count such concepts as descriptive primitives. Then count kind- and
property-concepts in class A as abbreviations for descriptions whose logical and non-logical
primitives are the B and C concepts. Perhaps with a few additions, logical, categorial, causal,
spatial, and sensory concepts would then give us a basic working stock of primitives. This is a
familiar description-theoretic internalist idea. Next, take 'water' to mean something like 'the so
and so stuff that causally grounds our use of "water"'. The reference of the concept 'water' then
varies with the reference of 'our'. Reference-shifts and reference-constancies of familiar sorts are
accommodated.12 If the description-theorist runs into circularity problems with terms of class A - explaining 'parent' via 'child', 'Cicero' via 'Cataline' etc, there are generalized descriptive
techniques for dealing with that.
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This assumes that we legitimately assign concepts of class C to class B and not to class A.
But might there not be analogues of twin-earth thought-experiments for those basic concepts?
Can isolated brains conceive of spatial relations? The internalist I have in mind says that we are
conflating cases that can easily be kept apart. The Kripke, Putnam, Burge thought experiments
tell us something substantial concerning our intuitions about concepts in group A, but those
intuitions need not extend to concepts of group C: the internal properties of our spatial
experience determines which spatial properties and relations our thoughts are about.13
It would be wrong to charge our conservative internalist with magic. Perhaps some
unreflective philosophers, and some dualists, do have a magical conception of reference,
implicitly taking the mind somehow to reach out and grasp, nonnaturally, externally constituted
properties. But there is a less dramatic way to deny that reference is essentially causally-socially
determined. No magic underlies the intuition that 'and' stands for conjunction without mediation
by a causal or other contingent natural relation. That standing-for relation can be explained
prosaically. Adopt a deflationary conception of the reference of 'and' and of all expressions in
class B. All there is to the reference of 'and' is captured in this schema: 'P and Q' is true iff P and
Q. Suppose a connective of another's language has the same conceptual role as a connective of
our language. Then assign to their connective the deflationary truth-conditional interpretation of
ours.14 This (as it were projectivist) way of putting things is equivalent to the (non-projectivist)
idea that, for group B concepts, conceptual role determines reference, i.e. contribution to truthconditions, without the mediation of further contingent relations. Our notion of reference, we
might suppose, simply takes the reference of such logical concepts to be thus minimally
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determined. The internalist theory of reference then, as I am characterizing it, takes concepts of
class B (including C) to refer in a minimal or deflationary sense.
So denying externalism about basic predicate reference does not thereby commit
internalists to magic. For in a plain sense internal conceptual role determines reference for
concepts of class B cum C without mediation. What does 'determines' mean here? There is a
conventionalist element in deflationary theories; on them, reference is not substantively
determined. It is as if we conventionally assign certain references to certain basic conceptual
roles15. A projective-deflationist theory of reference captures that conventional assignment
without its appearing arbitrary.
This account seems to work well enough for 'or' and 'all'. Does it work for spatial
concepts? Keep in mind that magic is beside the point. The question yet remains whether
reference to spatial properties is like reference to truth-functions or like reference to water. I do
not find it so plausible to count isolated brains as capable of concepts that pick out spatial
relations, and here is why. My own spatial concepts appear to have a crucially demonstrative
element, pointing visually and tactually to certain relations and properties, at least vaguely. I of
course cannot define 'straight line' by pointing. But this does not mean that what determines
spatial reference is not in part demonstrative. By pointing to the sorts of relation and properties
that are to count as curviness, betweenness etc, spatial perception apparently gives worldly
content to otherwise purely abstract concepts. Without such diffuse pointing in visual and tactile
experience, spatial concepts would, it seems to me, be empty. The internalist about reference may
say: but brains in vats have visual and tactual experiences, and purport thereby to refer
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demonstratively. Quite so. But the perceptual factors of spatial concepts imply something about
how their reference is determined: if those concepts are in part both visual and demonstrative,
then their references will have to be determined in part in the manner of visual demonstrative
concepts. If spatial concepts depend on concepts of the form 'a relation of that general sort',
where 'that' points visually, then the reference of 'that' depends on seeing, and seeing is an
externally determined relation.16 It follows that spatial concepts are wide concepts: they belong
to class A, where all outwardly directed perceptual-demonstrative concepts belong. But if spatial
concepts are not in class B then the internalist about reference really has no hope. No
description-theoretic explaining away of the apparent external determination of reference for
concepts of class A will be viable.
4. Phenomenal intentionality
How are phenomenal aspects of perceptual states related to their intentional properties?
Several views are current. At one extreme there are pure qualia views. The qualitative aspects
of (say) visual experience are in themselves non-intentional; those sensational aspects of visual
experience are intrinsically as non-representational as the blotched paint on a stucco wall. This is
familiar from certain ways of construing color perception: the surface property of redness causes
experiential red*-ness. Externalists comfortable with qualia might then regard perception as
structured thus: a given visual experience has the property of red*-ness, and that property,
although not itself intrinsically intentional, is be a component of a perceptual representation
whose intentionality lies in a causal relation to redness.17
16
At another extreme, phenomenal aspects of experience are held to be an illusion.
Representationism18 holds that the only phenomenal qualities we can discern are the properties
perceptions represent their (purported) objects as having: there is only redness and no red*-ness.
Externalist representationism holds that visual representation is a matter of externally determined
(e.g. causal) reference relations. The view is apparently widely held, and, interestingly enough,
often on phenomenological grounds.19 These two very different externalist views of the relation
between phenomenal qualities and intentionality provide useful contrasts with the internalist
view of phenomenal intentionality that I find intuitive. On the one hand I rather think that we
have a coherent conception of the felt aspects of perceptual experience; on the other hand I do
not think these aspects are "purely" qualitative, that is, in themselves non-intentional.
Let us begin with the latter point, for it is an important source of the representationist's
intuition. The idea of non-intentional visual qualia appears (to me) unmotivated. We cannot
phenomenologically separate the pure visual experience from its purporting to pick out objects
and their properties. It may seem that this makes sense for certain after-images, phosphenes, and
the like; even that strikes me as dubious, but I will not discuss it here. What seems to me
obvious is that ordinary visual experience admits of no phenomenological bracketing of
intentional properties: we simply cannot attend to the pure "visual field" and its non-intentional
components. In some sense ordinary visual experience comes phenomenologically interpreted.
But this does not imply representationism -- although it seems often supposed to do so. It is
compatible with, and in my view best explained by, a certain internalist view of intentionality
that relies on the idea of phenomenal aspects of experience, in a broad sense. Let me first sketch
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the basic idea and then consider the representationist's denial of qualitative aspects of experience.
What I will call phenomenal intentionality is a phenomenologically accessible feature of
virtually all perceptual experience and of perceptually based concepts, e.g. visual demonstrative
concepts. The following will I hope convey the gist. Suppose some indistinguishable lemons are
one after the other brought to my visual attention. The lighting, the position of my eyes and so
on, are held constant. I am asked to think something about each lemon in turn, say "that's
yellow". Afterwards I am told that some of the apparent lemons were hallucinations (that is what
the wires were for.) I am asked whether, despite this, my successive visual demonstrative
thoughts all visually presented their objects in the same way. Surely a natural reply is yes, in a
rather intuitive sense.
This presents itself as sameness in an intentional feature. For those demonstrative
concepts (both the ones that succeed in referring and the ones that do not) all purport to pick out
some object visually. You cannot capture this common feature by generalizing over objects:
"there is some object that the demonstrative concept visually presents". And surely the content
of those thoughts is not itself existentially quantified: "I am seeing some lemon or other and it is
yellow." The thoughts in question are demonstrative and they are not self-consciously reflexive.
An apt way to put those concepts' common feature seems to be this: those visual demonstrative
concepts, and the perceptions that underlie them, are all singularly visually directed. This is a
non-relational phenomenal feature, by which I mean something rather strong: we are aware of
internally determined phenomenal features of visual experience, of their manifold felt aspects,
and among those features -- though not separable in imagination -- is the directedness just
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mentioned.
The feature presumably belongs primarily to a visual perception, and derivatively to a
visual demonstrative concept that incorporates the perception. I will speak loosely of its being a
feature sometimes of the perception and sometimes of the concept. Why call it intentional? I do
this in the hope of engaging archaic intuitions. A natural way to capture the phenomenon is this:
"the visual perception purports to refer", "it is directed", "it points". When we considered
whether conceptual-role properties, individuated "syntactically", leave out something importantly
representational about thoughts, we could surely have noted the relevance of phenomenal
directedness. Does the idea of phenomenal directedness commit me to there being some mark -a little arrow -- in the visual field? Well the visual field would have to be packed with arrows,
since virtually every one of its parts is directed on some bit of the passing scene.20 When I say
that directedness is 'phenomenal' I mean merely that I can identify it in experience. I apparently
can tell that hallucinatory experiences have a "purporting to refer" property that is also present
when visual experiences pick out real objects in the normal way.
Even if singular directedness is an internally constituted property of perceptual concepts,
it does not on its own vindicate an internalist view of perceptual intentionality. For the
externalist will surely object that a visual perception that fails of reference will nevertheless
purport to refer to its (non-existent) reference as having some property F. We earlier noted that
this requires (in the simplest case) reference to the property F, which is in general externally
determined. So even if a singular demonstrative has a phenomenal directedness that is
independent of the demonstrative's reference, internalism about intentionality is hardly thereby
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made coherent. The point is clearly correct.
The present idea though is not that the singular phenomenal directedness of a visual
demonstrative concept is sufficient for internalism about that concept's intentionality. But it is a
key step in constructing the notion of internal intentionality. The apparent intentional properties
of a singular visual demonstrative concept are not exhausted by the references of its constituent
kind-terms (its "as F" contents.) The latter do not account for the intentionality of the visual
demonstrative as a whole, for that apparently is an intentional property over and above the
referential properties of the constituent qualifying concepts. So there is an intentional property,
(singular) directedness, that does not consist in (singular) reference and is not explained merely
by the reference of kind terms. Perhaps it will be said that this directedness is just a matter of
conceptual role. That can be said, but it hardly neutralizes the phenomenology. Who knows
whether what appears as directedness consists in some underlying factor that might aptly be
called conceptual role? We apparently do not conceive it in terms of its place in some system of
conceptual roles. We have a phenomenological take on it, and that is what I call attention to.
Once phenomenal directedness is admitted, it is difficult not to admit also, as we will see below,
something analogous for a crucial group of kind-concepts. I will argue that this is all we need as
a satisfactory basis for internally constituted intentionality for thought in general.
5. The how and the what of intentionality: mere intentional objects considered.
As I see it, phenomenal intentionality is a matter of how one's perceptions and thoughts
represent things if they succeed, rather than of what is thereby represented. The
20
representationist says the latter. It may be replied that the 'how'-'what' distinction is bogus. For
to say how a visual perception purports to present something is to say what it presents it as.
Even if no appropriate physical object is there, my perception presents something as a snake.
And that presupposes reference to a property, at least the property of being a physical object of a
certain approximate size and shape. Right. But this misses my point. As we noted above,
directedness is needed in addition to predication to explain the how of an empty visual
demonstrative concept. The non-relational intentionality of predicative concepts is yet to be
discussed. But for now let us be content to say that the directedness of a visual perception is an
aspect of how the perception (and the demonstrative concept that incorporates it) presents things.
It is not a matter of the perception's presenting something as F, but rather of its style or manner
or mode of presentation.
But the representationist has a reply. Representationists typically count a perception that
fails to refer as yet having an intentional object -- a mere intentional object so to speak. This
suits the 'what' conception of intentionality: the intentional properties of even an empty thought
or perception would consist in what it represents (as being such and such), namely, its intentional
object.21 But this is a peculiar way for the representationist to put things. The representationist
is a referentialist. In the lemon hallucination the only references to be noted are properties, i.e.
the references of the perceptual demonstrative's as it were predicative factors. There is no further
reference: the perception purports to refer and fails. And failing to refer is not a form of
reference, however apt talk of "representation" may appear. Speaking of mere intentional objects
is all right in its way; but it should not mislead one into claiming to have characterized
21
phenomenal intentionality in purely referential terms. An intentional "how a perception presentsthings" cannot easily be avoided.
To pursue the point, here is a simple fact: in the veridical case there are not two
intentional objects, the mere intentional object and the real object. What the hallucinatory
perception has in common with the veridical perception is then not a "mere intentional object".
The two perceptions have something intentional in common, and it is that common feature which
concerns me. The representationist may say that while they do not share having a mere
intentional object, they do however share the property of having an intentional object. But it is
hard to take this seriously. The veridical perception has an intentional object in a transparently
relational sense: it refers. It could only be a fanciful Meinongianism that construes having a mere
intentional object relationally. But suppose we went Meinongian. It is still far-fetched to
suppose that we then end up with something that the veridical and hallucinatory perceptions have
in common, for "having an intentional object" would have to stand for two very different
relations. The simple fact is this. What the two cases have in common is something
phenomenological. We could call it 'having-an-intentional-object', with the hyphens marking a
non-relational reading. But it is less misleading to use an overtly non-relational form, e.g.
'directedness'. And this clearly concerns the manner in which a perception or visual
demonstrative concept presents-things rather than what is represented. Why call directedness
"intentional" if it is non-relational, if it is about the how rather than the what of perception?
What else to call it? It seems to be the primitive basis of our intuitions of the phenomenal
"aboutness" of perception.
22
The determined referentialist may pursue a different strategy. For there is still the
language of "as if", the language of appearances. We can describe the lemon hallucination by
saying that it is as if I am seeing a lemon, or "it appears to me that I am seeing a lemon".
If one holds an externalist view of reference one will also hold an externalist view of such
appearances: for the function of a that-clause (as in "appears that") is to capture the references of
the state or property thereby ascribed. If appearance-properties are then captured in that form,
intentional qualia will turn out to involve relations to external objects and properties, and so
cannot be regarded as entirely internal properties.
Now this rather overlooks the representationist's commitment to phenomenology.
Recall how Smart attempted to capture the experience of a yellowish-orange after-image:
something is going on in me which is like what is going on in me when I am seeing an orange.
The problem with this analysis of sensory experience is that it is phenomenologically blank: it
does not imply that there is anything in particular that it is like to experience a yellowish-orange
afterimage. The language of appearance is, unlike Smart's locution, at least mental in its
implications. But to say that it appears that ..., or that it is as if ..., is not to say how it
phenomenally appears. And the point of the lemon case was that there is something
phenomenologically in common among the various visual experiences, and that it included
something that is phenomenologically intentional. Mere talk of appearance may point to that
extrinsically, but it does not capture what it is like. This does not mean that "appears" has no
phenomenological role. For one can say to oneself "it appears thus" and point in memory or
imagination or present experience to a phenomenal type. But that of course does not help the
23
externalist.
6. Is there phenomenal paint?
According to Gilbert Harman22, when you turn your attention to your perceptual
experiences, all you can discern phenomenologically are properties of the (apparent) object of the
experience, that is, shape, color and so on. This is in strong contrast with how pictures appear:
we can attend to the paint in a picture, but, according to Harman, there is no phenomenal paint of
which we are introspectively aware. Phenomenal paint fails to appear not only in unreflective
experience but even on phenomenological reflection. Of course he does not deny that some
perceptual experiences can lack real objects and yet have a fully phenomenal presence. But he is
content to appeal to mere intentional objects, intentional objects that do not exist. An
experience's qualities in such a case consist in the properties it attributes to the object that isn't
there. The structure remains the same: we are aware not of the experience's phenomenal qualities
(for there are no such properties) but of the properties of the apparent object of experience.
Now the argument of the last section, concerning the need for a non-relational
commonality between veridical and non-veridical perceptions, does not apparently touch
Harman's point. For it does not imply that the phenomenology delivers any highly specific
qualitative aspects of experience, as opposed to highly specific properties of the apparent objects
of experience. Perceptual experience is phenomenally transparent: we seem to be directly aware
of properties of objects rather than properties of experience itself. And it may seem that carping
about mere intentional objects will not neutralize that observation. So the question I wish now to
24
raise is this, is there phenomenal paint? The concept of directedness purports to be of a
phenomenal property in the sense of a property of experience rather than a property of an
apparent object of experience. At the same time, the directedness of perception is not separable
in imagination from the more specific phenomenal aspects of perception. It seems then that if
there is phenomenal directedness there must be phenomenal paint.
Is there not a phenomenal difference between visual and tactual perceptions of shapes, a
difference in the felt qualities or qualia of vision and touch, which is to say, a difference between
visual and tactual paint? Consider the obvious phenomenological differences between seeing
and touching a quarter. The representationist's reply, as I understand it, is this. What we are
inclined to think of as specifically visual and tactual differences in how we perceive a quarter are
in fact differences in its perceived qualities over and above its shape and size, differences
between its color and luminosity, and its texture and solidity. So we are not forced by the
phenomenal differences between sight and touch to admit differences in qualitative aspects of
experience, i.e. differences in how experiences represent rather than what they apparently
represent.
Bill Lycan, whose position is strongly representationist, has developed an interesting
strategy for defusing apparent cases in which the representational content of two perceptions is
shared while their phenomenal manner of presentation differs. The idea is to take the alleged
difference in qualitative manners of presentation to be in fact differences in apparent properties
of intentional objects. Lycan's account requires finding multiple levels of intentional objects in
problematic experiences. I will describe an experience and consider how Lycan's strategy avoids
25
qualia in accounting for it. Keep one eye open and use your fingers to stretch it in different
directions. You see some apples in a bowl say, in blurry distortion. Surely the perception does
not represent the apples as themselves blurry. Rather, the proponent of qualia will say, the
perception blurrily represents the apples. The blur is a qualitative aspect of the visual experience.
Lycan says not so: there could be a scene that is objectively "blurry" in that way, and that (nonexistent) scene is a sort of secondary intentional object of the blurry visual experience. There are
two levels of intentional objects here: the ordinary apples in the bowl, and the (non-existent)
objectively blurry-apples-in-a-bowl.
Now I am willing to grant that there could be an objective scene that looks to the normal
eye just like that.23 But it seems to me that Lycan's is a forced and ultimately wrong account of
visual blur. The blur is an aspect of how the perception represents its objects, certain normal
apples; it is not in its normal role a perceived property of some abnormal apples. The question is
whether that can be argued more or less conclusively in its own terms, or whether a larger
argument for visual qualia is needed in order to give the qualitative account of visual blur and the
like its proper force. The latter is in fact what I am inclined to think. But let me first present an
analogy from ordinary depiction to nudge intuitions in the right direction. For there is an
intuitive distinction between what is depicted in a picture and how it is depicted, where by the
'how' I do not mean the surface of the picture but something intentional.
7. Aesthetic interlude: the how and the what of pictures
26
Consider representational paintings that are not photographically realist, e.g. one of
Picasso's portraits of Marie-Therese Walter. It represents its subject distortedly, if quite
gracefully. Marie Therese is captured with rounded swooping lines and bright colors, and
fragmentedly -- her head, say, has one half in profile and the other half full-face. Doubtless there
could be a real three dimensional scene that looks just like this picture. But we do not see the
Picasso portrait as representing a Martian: it seems unmotivated to say that it represents Marie
Therese by way of representing a Martian. The picture does not, at least as I am inclined to see
it, represent any object as having that distorted shape. Rather it gets you to see its object in a
distorted way (and part of the visual pleasure lies in deciphering the picture, following here and
there and back again how it represents its object.) The distortedness is not a matter of intentional
content but of intentional style, not a matter of what is represented but of how it is represented.
There are Picasso pictures that do seem to represent a distorted object -- a figure on a
beach, made out of bony pieces, like a surrealist sculpture of a seated bather. Two points about
these pictures are it seems to me instructive. First, if the picture is of a bony sculpture, then that
sculpture is itself represented in a realistic way, and that is itself a manner of representation, an
intentional style -- one that we usually do not attend to, for it is, until noticed, diaphanous. The
diaphanousness of a realistic portrait should not blind us to pictorial realism's being an
intentional style. Second, the realistically depicted surrealist sculpture itself represents
something distortedly; and the sculpture does not represent a further surreal or distorted object,
etc. It represents a woman, surreally. You cannot get rid of the manner, the how. I am not
speaking of the physical paint, but of something perceptual, an intentional way in which -- as we
27
visually engage it -- the picture presents its objects. (The Picasso picture is even more interesting
than I have made it. We can move back and forth between the picture's realistically presenting a
bony surrealist sculpture, and its surrealistically depicting a woman on a beach.)
The same holds for visual representations. It is difficult to see how you can get rid of the
how, or the manner, of perceptual representation. That manner is as accessible as the how of
pictures; and it is intentional. This seems to me to be a coherent view of blurriness and the like.
The question is now whether we can turn that coherence into something stronger.
8. Inverted spectra and inverted worlds
Harman's and Lycan's representationism is externalist. Those aspects of visual
experiences of which we are phenomenologically aware are their ordinary referential properties;
they involve externally determined relations to external objects and properties. There is a
familiar, quite elementary reason for rejecting this view, which I find persuasive. We can
coherently, and easily, conceive of subjectively different color-experiences that are of the same
objective properties of objects. (The idea of inverted spectra is one way of conceiving this.) We
can also conceive of a single color experience that is, in different circumstances, of different
objective properties. This is persuasively shown by Block's "inverted earth", a color version of
twin-earth.24 The arguments of representationists against these possibilities do not, I think,
depend on phenomenological intuition so much as on externalist theory. The phenomenology of
imagination -- and that is after all our current field of play -- seems squarely on the side of the
qualia-exponent. And all the subjectivist apparently needs here is that the phenomenology is
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coherent, which it appears to be. We must add this: these color qualia are not pure qualia for
they are phenomenally intentional: they phenomenally represent (what we conceive of as) objectsurfaces as having certain properties. How to interpret this remains to be explained, as it will be
below; but its making sense seems clear to me from the basic thought-experiments. There are
color-qualia, and they are intrinsically intentional.
9. Isolated brains.
Externalists, as we have seen, often have no trouble regarding visual demonstrative
concepts that fail of reference (in a hallucination say: 'that hand reaching out from the wall') as
having genuine intentional content.25 But according to these externalists, that intentional content
is essentially anchored in the properties that the perception represents the (merely intentional)
object as having. Putting colors aside, these properties will include physical-object-types, spatial
relations and so on. (The visual hallucination represents the hand as an object with protruding
appendages thrusting in my direction.) According to the externalist, my perceptual state
represents a merely intentional object as spatially located only if that perceptual state stands to
certain externally constituted properties in externally determined reference-relations.
Evidently standard inverted spectra and inverted earth thought experiments do not count
against this point. For they hold constant the basic physical properties that visual perceptions
represent. So not surprisingly, we require a more radical conceptual possibility than those if we
are to establish intentional internalism. It must show this, that we can hold constant
phenomenologically accessible intentional visual qualia while varying all the properties that they
29
represent things as having.
Brains in vats to the rescue. One of the interesting facts about the current debate about
representationism is how tame the thought experiments are. If the game is phenomenology, then
we really ought to exploit all possibilities that are phenomenologically conceivable and prima
facie coherent. So, once again: I could have a mental twin whose brain is a molecule for
molecule duplicate of me; and I can conceive that twin as having the same visual experiences
that I have, even though its brain is isolated from all the normal causal relations to the world that
give my visual experiences their actual references. The point is that when I imagine how the
brain's visual experiences represent their (merely intentional) objects, I apparently imagine those
experiences as in some sense intentional, despite its difference from me in all its references. Is
this coherent? Discussions of representationism and qualia avoid this thought experiment, it
seems to me, because defenders of qualia think they don't need it. This is because they are
concerned with qualia and not intentionality; they want merely to show that color qualia make
sense. Even if visual qualia are phenomenally intentional this will not in itself support a purely
internalist conception of visual experience.
What is wrong with the idea that my twin-in-a-vat can have visual experiences
intentionally equivalent to mine? There seems no phenomenological incoherence in the idea.
There has been thought to be a conceptual incoherence however. For if the brain's visual
experiences are intentionally the same as mine, then according to the referentialist about
intentionality they must share references with mine, which according to externalism about
reference is impossible. But of course the argument is fragile, for it ignores the coherence of
30
non-referential or phenomenal conceptions of intentionality. When I imagine the brain's visual
states and at the same time conceive of them as having no references in common with mine, what
am I conceiving? Here we return to the how vs the what. What I hold constant in imagining the
brain's visual experiences is how it conceives-things. That is, I can coherently imagine a
complete sharing of my experience's phenomenological details conjoined with a complete
unsharing of its references, at least with regard to my outward-directed states.
So we need an analogue of the phenomenal directedness of singular perceptual
demonstratives for the other representational factors in perception, i.e. the factors that represent
external properties and relations. Suppose we can extend the idea of directedness to those
aspects of visual experience that purport to represent spatial properties etc. Then my twin's
visual experiences and mine share that directedness; but mine refer to spatial properties
(metaphysically rather than phenomenally spatial so to say) while his do not. If all this can be
made out, we are aware of directed qualia, qualia that internally purport to refer not only to
objects but to basic properties. My twin and I conceive things thoroughly in the same intentional
manner. This is what we hold constant across twin-brains, i.e. highly specific forms of propertydirectedness. There are no shared properties of intentional objects.
To return to the promised relevance of conceptual roles, we hold constant not only
intentionalized phenomenal experience but also conceptual roles. Internal intentionality is to be
located primitively in perceptually based concepts. It will be derivatively located in nonperceptual concepts via their conceptual connections with perceptual concepts. The subjective
intentional properties of non-perceptual concepts are always of matter of, as it were, looking
31
sideways via their connections with perceptual concepts. The earlier complaint about the
intuitive deficiencies of our conceptions of narrow conceptual roles -- as purely syntactic, as not
capturing how thoughts subjectively represent the world -- is I think answered on this picture.
10. Recognitional concepts
The idea can be extended to demonstrative concepts that purport to pick out, perceptually,
kinds and properties rather than individuals, what we can call recognitional concepts. They are
an important if somewhat elusive variety of kind-concept or property-concept. They appear to
me to have an intuitively evident sort of internal intentionality, which may be thought of, by
analogy with 'object-independent', as 'kind-independent' or 'property-independent' intentionality.
As we have seen, committed externalists about intentional content concede that individual
demonstrative concepts have an object-independent conceptual or psychological integrity. But
they will draw the line at property-concepts, kind-concepts, relation-concepts, insisting that their
psychological or intentional individuation must incorporate the kinds, properties or relations for
which they stand.26 I am quite committed to externalism about the reference of these propertyconcepts: that a given recognitional concept refers to a given kind is of course a matter of some
external, e.g. causal, relation between the thinker and the kind. What I wish to deny is that either
the external relation or the kind itself is part of the intentional individuation of the recognitional
concept.
Recognitional concepts are personal, and they are perspectival. Their reference is
determined by non-socially-mediated actual and dispositional relations between the thinker and
32
the kind. And these concepts are individuated, in part, by the perspective from which they are
conceived -- for example a perceptual perspective. So a visual demonstrative kind-concept
concept may pick out a kind by virtue of past perceptions of its instances and a disposition to
pick out further instances from its defining visual perspective. It is important to be clear about
the following point. Visual recognitional concepts are not descriptions of the form 'the kind to
which this thing, and that thing etc. belong', that is, not descriptions that embed singular visual
demonstrative concepts. Suppose I have a solid recognitional conception of a species of elm,
without knowing its name. I need have in mind no particular elms, nor any group of them: my
conception is of them in general, but from a certain perspective, from which I can take one of
them in at a glance, say, while being able to see its bark and its branches. So we are not
proposing a descriptive account of the kind-independent intentionality of recognitional concepts.
How then shall we intuitively conceive the directedness of a recognitional concept -- its
purporting to pick out a certain kind of tree? Think of exercising the concept in imagination
without applying it perceptually. For example, one wonders whether there are trees of that kind
in Philadelphia; here one points in imaginative memory to a kind. What is useful about these
cases, where the concept is not applied directly in perception, is that it makes it easy to isolate the
purported reference to a kind ("that kind of tree") from corresponding purported references to
individuals ("that tree".)
The question is whether we have here an object-independent intentional property. It
won't surprise you that it seems clear to me that we have. Conceiving of a given visual kinddemonstrative's failing of reference is not hard: one can be wrong in thinking that, from a certain
33
perceptual perspective, one has picked out, or is able to pick out, a kind. But one's recognitional
concept may nevertheless have been as coherent as any, and perceptually focussed as if on a kind.
So the analogy with the lemon-hallucination seems fair. We also would like to establish a
further analogy with the lemon case, that is, that recognitional type-demonstratives hold constant
across reference change. And so I have to inflict on you a familiar waving of intuitions, but with
a new emphasis.
Imagine, then, some worlds like ours, as superficially similar as you like, but populated
with different underlying kinds. Could that same recognitional concept -- the visually embedded
concept that kind -- occur in all those worlds even though it picks out different kinds in each?
This strikes me as straightforwardly evident. And, as in the lemon case, what intuitively we hold
constant across these worlds -- certain conceptual and experiential factors -- are not easily
equated with some combination of functional or syntactic and purely sensational properties. A
kind of intentional directedness is again present, associated with the kind-demonstrative. It is
analogous to the directedness of singular demonstratives -- and doubtless derives from it -despite the difference between singular demonstrative pointing and pointing to a kind via a
recognitional capacity. So it seems quite easy to conceive of a recognitional concept kindindependently and yet intentionally, as purporting to refer, pattern recognitionally, to a kind.
Let us be clear about what the point has been so far. It is not that we finally have shown
that recognitional concepts have purely internally determined intentional properties. That cannot
be so, for we haven't yet dealt with those further general concepts that are presupposed by say an
ordinary visual recognitional concept (of elms, say), especially the spatial concepts that are
34
entwined with visual experiences, as well as the general concept of three-dimensional objects
persisting through motion and change. What rather it seems to me we have shown is that
recognitional concepts have kind-independent intentionality in this sense: even though a
recognitional kind-demonstrative fails to pick out a kind, it nevertheless has (and now we speak
phenomenologically) an overall intentional content that is organized around the concept's visual
kind-directedness, that is, its purporting as a whole to pick out, visually, a kind, property etc.
A recognitional concept purports to refer in two ways. a) It purports to refer by way of an
imaginative capacity. This can only be conceived intentionally, for one has little grip on purely
sensory visual imagination. This imaginative capacity somehow involves as it were schematic
singular visual demonstratives. The generality of the directedness of a recognitional concept, and
the schematic form of imagined occurrences of individual visual demonstratives, are somehow
closely connected. b) It purports to refer by way of a disposition to respond to singular
demonstrative visual experiences, where, as before, these are conceived intentionally and objectindependently.
11. General concepts of physical objects and spatial relations
Now we turn to spatial and other concepts, which we argued belong among wide (class
A) concepts, whose reference is externally determined; these concepts include certain general
concepts of approximate spatial relations, shapes and the like, and a certain conception of a threedimensional object as it persists over time. If we can extend to these concepts something
analogous to the treatment of recognitional concepts, we will have rather a strong reason to think
35
that concepts whose references are externally determined can in general be individuated by
internal intentional properties. Class C concepts will moreover play a crucial structural role in
explaining the internal intentionality of the huge remaining class of wide terms and predicates.
Certain basic physical and spatial concepts do not have and do not need sociallydeferential roles. Of course "isosceles" may well, for many of us, have as socially deferential a
role as "arthritis". But having the concept of an isosceles triangle would not be possible unless
we independently had recognitional -- visual and tactual -- conceptions of more basic spatial
relations. That at least is how it strikes me. Of course our recognitional concepts are not very
precise; we hardly acquire the concept of a (perfect) right angle from perception alone. And yet
concepts of more or less angular and curvy boundaries, of spatial betweenness, of relative
distance -- that is, the raw material of further precision in spatial concepts -- are plausibly
regarded as recognitional concepts. To say that they are recognitional concepts is not to deny
them structural interrelations. It's not a topic we can pursue here, but there seems to me no
fundamental difficulty in the idea of structural interrelations among recognitional concepts.
Quality spaces, after all, are structured. We also appear to have a recognitional concept of
physical object in general. This does not mean that we have an image of a physical object in
general; but there is nevertheless a perceptual ability to group together three dimensional objects
of all shapes and sizes. To say 'perceptual' leaves it open that some recognitional concepts are
transmodal, that is, apply on the basis of both visual and tactual information. But I take
transmodal concepts themselves to be perceptual concepts and not (as it were) pure categorial
concepts, that is, not amodal.
36
Do these general recognitional concepts have the kind-independent phenomenal
directedness we claimed for less general recognitional concepts? Here I must again appeal to the
fully intentional mental life of my twin-in-a-vat. All externalists abandon me at this point,
however indulgently they have followed so far. I hope though that now we have not merely an
intuition, but something approaching a principled account of it. Given externalism about the
reference of these concepts, none of that twin-brain's concepts pick out physical-objecthood or
spatial properties. The internalist claim is that my brain-twin's concepts are exactly similar
intentionally to my recognitional concepts of the various spatial properties and relations. For
they conceive the properties and relations to which they purport to refer in precisely the same
way as my concepts do, via the same highly specific visual and tactual experiences and guided by
the directedness of 'that property', 'that relation', and so on. The twin-brain has a fully
phenomenally intentional visual field. Given that the special directedness of recognitional
concepts, including spatial and basic-object concepts, derives from the singular directedness of
perceptual experience, it makes perfectly good sense to regard the intentionality of the brain's
general (i.e. non-singular) concepts to be identical with mine. We need not decide whether the
twin-brain's spatial concepts refer to some non-standard properties and relations -- e.g. properties
of the visual system itself, or fail of reference entirely. It is not clear that this is an interesting
question. But if we can make sense of intentional properties that persist through shifting kindreferences and the failure of kind-reference, then I cannot see why that should not also apply to
spatial recognitional concepts.
You may object. "The sense we made of intentional directedness in connection with less
37
general recognitional concepts depends on qualifying concepts that themselves are somehow
intentional. That was intuitively crucial in supporting the intuition that the recognitional
conception of elms had its own kind-independent intentionality." Well, yes. But that does not
mean that we then depended upon the intentional properties of those basical qualifying concepts
being externally determined. It appears to me that is quite coherent to ascribe object-independent
directedness to recognitional concepts all at once, including basic spatial etc. concepts.
12. The paint that points
Before turning to non-perceptual concepts and the question of their intentionality,
let us look back to the representationist-qualiphile dispute. I have agreed with the
representationist that visual experience is intrinsically intentional but denied that this requires
externalist treatment. I have also argued that the notion of 'mere intentional object', which the
representationist requires if he is to be true to the phenomenology, is dubiously compatible with
externalism about intentionality. Moreover, I argued that what appear to be coherent
phenomenological intuitions support the qualiphile's thesis that we have intuitive conceptions of
the qualitative aspects of experience, although we have no way of separating the qualia from the
intentionality. But this is all right, given that the phenomenological intentionality of perception
is to be explained via "directedness", which is itself a phenomenal notion. Now if by "paint" one
means something that we can conceive independently of its intentionality -- like the paint on a
canvas -- then, at least in vision, there is no (pervasive) paint. But if "paint" means qualitative
aspects of experience that are separable from referential properties, then there is such a thing as
38
phenomenal paint. And it points.
13. Personal systematic concepts
Presumably there are concepts that are neither recognitional concepts nor socially
deferential concepts nor logical concepts. Calling them "theoretical" makes familiar sense from
philosophy of language, but it is perhaps somewhat overblown, and what I mean is not all that
grand. So let me call them personal systematic concepts. To begin with, here's what I mean by
"personal". Suppose that Fiona thinks that one way of becoming a mother is adopting a child and
caring for it. When we tell her that 'mother' means a biological relation, she replies,
determinedly, "When I say 'mother' it means what I mean and not what someone else means."
What construal shall we give of Fiona's undeferential concept? We might try a description, or a
cluster of descriptions. But that would, at best, be a matter of local convenience, and not a
strategy for cashing out her personal theoretical concepts en masse. The reason is circularity. It
is doubtful that we could explain those concepts using ordinary descriptions or descriptionclusters that appeal only to recognitional and logical concepts. We have to invoke other concepts
that are in the same boat, concepts such as "female", "child", "raising", and so on. Getting its
content from having a role in a network of conceptual connections with similar concepts is what
makes Fiona's concept systematic, or if you prefer "theoretical".
Now consider her personal systematic concepts as a whole. They are bound to be
multifariously linked with recognitional concepts, including the general concepts of physical
object and spatial relations. Recognitional concepts that pick out children, that pick out the
39
subjective psychological state of attention, that pick out attentive behavior, that pick out feelings,
that pick out kinds of physical activity will also play essential roles in giving content to Fiona's
systematic concepts.
We come to the question: how are we to conceive of the internally determined
intentionality of personal systematic concepts? What I want to suggest is that their intentional
properties are dispositional. We do not take in the intentional properties of a systematic concept
all at once. We do so rather by finding our way about among a systematic concept's lateral
interconceptual connections. You may ask how the conceptual role of a concept can amount to
an intentional property. We are used to thinking of conceptual role as "syntactic" role (as is often
said). But what we uncover is hardly just the concept's syntactic or functional or inferential
connections. For one constantly engages, at every turn, perceptual recognitional conceptions that
have their own independent directedness. The phenomenological world-directedness of a
personal theoretical concept, I want to propose here, derives from its intimate conceptual
connections with perceptual intentionality.
So the idea that every concept can be revealed in an introspective glance, or even in an
introspective stare, is not essential to the defense of internal, phenomenological, intentionality.
This is not simply to assert that the conceptual roles of concepts are crucial to their individuation;
that does seem to me beyond doubt. The point is not so much about individuation as about
intentionality. The intuitive world-directedness of a concept -- that phenomenological property -need not consist in its having its own perceptual focus, as do perceptual demonstratives. Its
intentionality may come rather from the accessibility of conceptual repositionings and sidelong
40
glances.
14. Socially deferential concepts
Socially deferential concepts include most of the proper names in one's repertory, and the
extensive group of kind-terms to which Burge has called attention. Socially deferential concepts
are of course not perceptually based in the manner of recognitional concepts, for recognitional
abilities do not fix their reference. And so perceptual focus does not give us an intentional
property of such concepts as a whole. Socially deferential concepts have about them something
more discursive and linguistic: they involve conceptions of other speakers and of the shared
language.
What I propose is that socially deferential concepts belong among the personal systematic
concepts. This is perhaps perplexing: how can socially deferential concepts be personal
concepts? There are two ways in which a concept can be said to be personal. The first concerns
how its reference is determined, that is whether it is socially deferential or not.
The second -- as used in the phrase 'personal systematic concept'-- concerns how the concept is
individuated, which is to say by the systematic role that the concept has in one's own thoughts.
And when I say that the socially deferential concepts belong among the personal concepts, I
mean simply that those concepts -- including their internal intentional properties
-- are determined in that way. At the same time, their reference is determined socially. The link
between the two is this: that a concept of mine is socially deferential depends entirely on its
systematic role in my thoughts. If it has the socially deferential role in my thoughts, then its
41
reference is determined socially. If not, then its reference is determined otherwise, perhaps in the
manner of a recognitional concept, or in the manner of personal systematic concepts that are not
social.
As a last note on social deference, we might observe that my twin in a vat of course also
has socially deferential concepts, but only in the sense that he has concepts that are equivalent in
their internal intentionality to my socially deferential concepts. Might they have reference?
Well if they have reference, it is not via the expected routes; my twin in a vat has no concepts
that refer via the usage of other people. Perhaps its concepts refer to some states of its own? I
doubt that our concept of reference applies here; better to say that, like most of the rest of my
twin in a vat's concepts, his "socially deferential" concepts fail of reference.
15. Directedness and reference
How are internal intentionality and reference connected? Intentional directedness is an
object-independent property, and it does not involve relations to objects. Reference comprises
various causal and other relations to objects, and it is absurd to think of those reference relations
as somehow instantiated without objects.
My answer may not be fully digestible without more explaining and consequent
ruminating, but here goes. Directedness is an object-independent property. But it is intimately
involved with what is often called the diaphanousness of perception. Directedness is
diaphanousness without an actual object. Earlier I pointed to the inadequacies of "mere
intentional objects" in furthering the representationist project. But that leaves intact the
42
usefulness of intentional objects in phenomenological description; and, in a phenomenological
vein, we might say that directedness is diaphanousness towards intentional objects, whether
"mere" or real. Now imagine having one of the lemon-experiences without knowing whether it is
veridical. You are strongly tempted to say "that object". Your perceptual-processing presses
mightily on your belief-inclinations, so strongly that you seem both to commit yourself, by using
a demonstrative, and to take it back at the same time: "that object may or may not exist". The
phenomenology gives you the feel of a sort of ontologically neutral object that could have the
property of existing or not-existing; and directedness is phenomenologically very like a relation
to that neutral object, which could turn out to be real. Suppose you then discover that it is real.
At this point the question arises of the object's actual non-phenomenological relation to your
perception. It turns out that a certain optical-causal relation holds in all such cases. The ghostly
internal relation gets embodied in something non-mental and out there.
The point of this fanciful description is to explain the relationship between directedness
and reference. But the explanation of course is phenomenological-psychological; it is from a
combined first-person/third-person perspective that directedness is intimately connected with
reference.27
16. Concluding remarks
The lemon demonstratives had this property in common: they purport-to-pick-out-anobject. This was said in a phenomenological vein. We are, it seems to me, as entitled to speak of
phenomenological intentionality as we are of the felt qualities of a sensation. And the Cartesian
43
intuition that is rejected by externalists about content is after all primarily a phenomenological
intuition. We might reject that intuition by rejecting phenomenological or subjective conceptions
in the philosophy of mind. But the only way to reject phenomenological intentionality selectively
is to show that there is after all no such apparent phenomenon, or that the idea is incoherent. It is
hard to see that externalist arguments are of the right sort to show that it is incoherent.
If there is no reason to deny phenomenal directedness and no reason to regard this
phenomenal feature as object-dependent, then there is no warrant for the externalist idea that
internalism about mental content somehow leaves mental content blind, or that then "it is all
darkness within". In fact it is odd of the externalist to see his theory as providing interior
illumination. The metaphor seems to flow in the opposite direction: if the only intentional
content is externally determined then it is all darkness within. Still the thought naturally arises,
how could something in the brain account for intentional directedness? But just this question
arises about phenomenal features in general, and here I am content to put it aside.
44
References
Ned Block 1990. "Inverted Earth". Philosophical Perspectives, 4 pp 53-79
Ned Block 1996. "Mental Paint and Mental Latex", Philosophical Issues 7, pp 1-17
Tyler Burge 1979. "Individualism and the Mental". Midwest Studies in Philosophy IV 73121
Tyler Burge 1982. "Other Bodies". In A. Woodfield (ed.), Thought and Object.
Oxford University Press.
Tyler Burge 1986. "Cartesian Error and the Objectivity of Perception". Grimm and
Merrill (eds), Contents of Thoughts, University of Arizona.
Michael Devitt 1990. "Meanings Just Ain't in the Head". In George Boolos, ed., Meaning
and Method, Cambridge
Gareth Evans 1982. The Varieties of Reference, Oxford University Press
Hartry Field 1994. "Deflationist Theories of Meaning and Content" Mind July 94 .
Gilbert Harman 1990. "The Intrinsic Quality of Experience", Philosophical Perspectives 4
pp 31-52
Gilbert Harman 1996. "Explaining Objective Color in Terms of Subjective Reactions",
Philosophical Issues 7, pp 1-17
Christopher Hill 1991. Sensations, Cambridge University Press
Saul Kripke 1972. "Naming and Necessity", in Davidson and Harman, 1972, Semantics of
Natural Language, 253-355
Brian Loar 1986a. "Social Content and Psychological Content", in Grimm and Merril (eds),
Contents of Thought, University of Arizona Press
Brian Loar 1986b. "A New Kind of Content", in Grimm and Merrill op cit.
Brian Loar 1987. "Subjective Intentionality", Philosophical Topics, Spring 1987, 89-124.
Brian Loar 1995. "Reference from the First-Person Perspective" Philosophical Issues 1995
45
William Lycan (1996). "Layered Perceptual Representation", Philosophical Issues 7 pp 81100
John McDowell 1986. "Singular Thought and the Extent of Inner Space", ed McDowell and
Pettit, Subject, Thought and Context, Oxford University Press
Colin McGinn 1989. Mental Content, Blackwell
Hilary Putnam 1975. 'The Meaning of 'Meaning'", in Mind, Language and Reality,
Cambridge University Press.
Francois Recanati 1993. Direct Reference. Blackwell.
Georges Rey 1997. Contemporary Philosophy of Mind. Blackwell.
Stephen Schiffer 1977. “Naming and Knowing”, Midwest Studies in Philosophy II: 28-41
Stephen Schiffer 1992. "Belief Ascription". Journal of Philosophy 89, 499-521.
Sydney Shoemaker 1994. "Phenomenal Character". Nous 28 pp 21-38
Elizabeth Spelke, 1995. "Object Perception". In Goldman, Readings in Philosophy and
Cognitive Science, MIT/Bradford.
Michael Tye 1996. Ten Problems of Consciousness. MIT, Bradford Books.
46
Classic texts are Kripke 1972, Putnam 1975, Burge 1979, Burge 1982
2. As Kent Bach puts it: "every case is a Paderewski case." Loar (1986a; 1986b; 1987)
3. Cf Evans 1982; McDowell 1986.
4 Your ascription of Guido's belief does not even implicitly convey an exact conception of his highly
specific visual conception; we rarely have an exact conception of another's mode of presentation. What is
conveyed rather is a type of mode of presentation to which Guido's precise visual concept belongs. It is the
specific modes of presentation that individuate beliefs; but we typically merely gesture in their direction.
The theory that types of modes of presentation are implied contextually in the gaps between the worlds in
that-clauses (so to speak) was first introduced by Stephen Schiffer [1977]. He has subsequently argued
against his own theory [Schiffer 1992], but I am not persuaded.
5. See, for example, Burge 1979; Burge 1982; Burge 1986.
6 I engaged some of Tyler Burge's arguments in an earlier paper. [Loar 1986]. There I made four proposals.
i) Burge's arguments depend on the supposition that the psychological content of the predicative aspects
of thoughts is identical with what obliquely interpreted that-clauses capture. ii) That-clauses do not capture
psychological content -- any that-clause can apply by virtue of different psychological contents.
iii) Thoughts with the same psychological contents will in different contexts require different that-clauses to
express them. iv) Psychological content can be understood in terms of "realization conditions".
It has for a long time seemed to me that the fourth proposal is incorrect, because it relies on semantic
resources (basically possible worlds) equivalent to those mentioned in the text as referential. As will
become clear below, any such proposal is vulnerable to further externalist argument about reference
-- putting aside issues about that-clauses. Another paper of mine, [Loar 1987] proposed a notion of
subjective intentionality that is non-referential and hence different different from that of "realization
conditions". My current account of "subjective" intentionality is different again from the 1987 account,
which was not "phenomenal" in the same way.
7. That is, the externalists who pose the most serious threats to the internalist
conception of intentionality. One can notionally conceive of an externalist
position that holds that internalism is coherently conceivable but that, as a matter
of fact, intentionality consists in externally determined properties.
8. See Spelke 1995
9. Field 1994.
10. It is not uncommon for philosophers simply to conflate concepts and
properties.
47
11. Kripke 1972, Putnam 1975, Burge 1979.
12. It is not to the point to note the infelicity of substituting a metalinguistic
description for occurrences of 'water' in that-clauses. For as noted above, the
current topic is not that-clause ascriptions, but the modes of presentation that can
make true such ascriptions without being explicitly captured by them. (Doubtless
the metalinguistic ascription is semantically inequivalent to the unmetalinguistic
original.)
13. Cf McGinn's "weak externalism". McGinn 1989.
14. Field 1994.
15. This is quite close to the theory I proposed in Loar 1981. There it was
expressed without appeal to deflationism in the home case. Conceptual roles for
primitive concepts determined truth-conditional contributions. The spirit of this
part of that theory was certainly conventionalist.
16. This is not to deny that spatial concepts may depend on transmodal perceptual concepts. "Transmodal"
does not imply "non-perceptual". The transmodal spatial conceptual capacities of blind people will get their
content, presumably, from tactile, auditory, and proprioceptive perceptual states. To the extent that we
sighted people can understand the mental contents of blind people, to that extend presumably we conceive
of tactile, proprioceptive etc modes of presentation.
17. Some proponents of this view regard the purely qualitative aspects of
sensation as experienced only obliquely or even as inferred. See Hill 1991;
Shoemaker 1994.
18. To use Ned Block's name for the position.
.
19. Harman 1990. Lycan 1996.
20. The visual experience supports a complex intentional structure. If you shift
attention to another aspect of the visual experience, that reveals a distinct
intentional directedness. Evidently there is a compact and quite complex set of
such intentional directednesses within most visual experiences.
21 Harman 1990.
48
22. Harman op cit.
23. I also grant that there could be an external arrangement of lights that look,
undistorted, just like phosphenes, pace Block 1996.
24. Block 1990
25. Burge 1986, and Recanati 1993, as against Evans 1982, and McDowell 1986.
26. See Burge 1986; and Recanati 1993
27. See Loar 1995.
49
1 Classic texts are Kripke 1972, Putnam 1975, Burge 1979, Burge 1982
2.. As Kent Bach puts it: "every case is a Paderewski case." Loar (1986a; 1986b; 1986)
3.. Cf Evans 1982; McDowell 1986
4.. Your ascription of Guido's belief does not even implicitly convey an exact conception of his highly
specific visual conception; we rarely have an exact conception of another's mode of presentation. What is
conveyed rather is a type of mode of presentation to which Guido's precise visual concept belongs. It is the
specific modes of presentation that individuate beliefs; but we typically merely gesture in their direction.
The theory that types of modes of presentation are implied contextually in the gaps between the worlds in
that-clauses (so to speak) was first introduced by Stephen Schiffer [1977]. He has subsequently argued
against his own theory [Schiffer 1992], but I am not persuaded.
5...See for example Burge 1979, Burge 1982, Burge 1986
6.. I engaged some of Tyler Burge's arguments in an earlier paper. [Loar 1986]. There I made four proposals.
i) Burge's arguments depend on the supposition that the psychological content of the predicative aspects
of thoughts is identical with what obliquely interpreted that-clauses capture. ii) That-clauses do not capture
psychological content -- any that-clause can apply by virtue of different psychological contents.
iii) Thoughts with the same psychological contents will in different contexts require different that-clauses to
express them. iv) Psychological content can be understood in terms of "realization conditions".
It has for a long time seemed to me that the fourth proposal is incorrect, because it relies on semantic
resources (basically possible worlds) equivalent to those mentioned in the text as referential. As will
become clear below, any such proposal is vulnerable to further externalist argument about reference
-- putting aside issues about that-clauses. Another paper of mine, [Loar 1987] proposed a notion of
subjective intentionality that is non-referential and hence different different from that of "realization
conditions". My current account of "subjective" intentionality is different again from the 1987 account,
which was not "phenomenal" in the same way.
7 That is, the externalists who pose the most serious threats to the internalist
conception of intentionality. One can notionally conceive of an externalist
position that holds that internalism is coherently conceivable but that, as a matter
of fact, intentionality consists in externally determined properties.
8.. . See Spelke 1995
50
9.. Field 1994.
14..
10.. It is not uncommon for philosophers simply to conflate concepts and
properties.
11... Kripke 1972, Putnam 1975, Burge 1979.
12.. It is not to the point to note the infelicity of substituting a metalinguistic
description for occurrences of 'water' in that-clauses. For as noted above, the
current topic is not that-clause ascriptions, but the modes of presentation that can
make true such ascriptions without being explicitly captured by them. (Doubtless
the metalinguistic ascription is semantically inequivalent to the unmetalinguistic
original.)
13.. Cf McGinn's "weak externalism". McGinn 1989.
Field 1994
15.. This is quite close to the theory I proposed in Loar 1981. There it was
expressed without appeal to deflationism in the home case. Conceptual roles for
primitive concepts determined truth-conditional contributions. The spirit of this
part of that theory was certainly conventionalist.
16.. This is not to deny that spatial concepts may depend on transmodal perceptual concepts. "Transmodal"
does not imply "non-perceptual". The transmodal spatial conceptual capacities of blind people will get their
content, presumably, from tactile, auditory, and proprioceptive perceptual states. To the extent that we
sighted people can understand the mental contents of blind people, to that extend presumably we conceive
of tactile, proprioceptive etc modes of presentation.
17.. Some proponents of this view regard the purely qualitative aspects of sensation as
experienced only obliquely or even as inferred. See Hill 1991; Shoemaker 1994.
18..To use Ned Block's name for the position.
19.. Harman 1990. Lycan 1996.
20.. The visual experience supports a complex intentional structure. If you shift
51
attention to another aspect of the visual experience, that reveals a distinct
intentional directedness. Evidently there is a compact and quite complex set of
such intentional directednesses within most visual experiences.
21
Harman 1990.
22.. Harman op cit.
23.. I also grant that there could be an external arrangement of lights that look,
undistorted, just like phosphenes, pace Block 1996.
24.. Block 1990
25.. Burge 1986, and Recanati 1993, as against Evans 1982, and McDowell 1986.
26.. See Burge 1986; and Recanati 1993
27.. See Loar 1995.
52