Astroboy asked:

Can you explain the notion of "intentionality" as used by Daniel Dennett? I understand that it has to
do with the anthropomorphic traits we associate with a thinking think but I think I get lost at this point.

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Intentionality or the "Intentional Stance" is the approach we adopt in order to make sense of and
predict a system's or entity's behavior. According to Dennett an entity's having beliefs and desires
amounts to nothing more than the behaviour being explained from the intentional stance.

The intentional stance is one of three predictive strategies Dennett distinguishes between, the others
being the physical strategy and the design strategy. The intentional stance is a strategy of interpreting
the behaviour of an entity as ifit were a rational agent with beliefs and desires. From these
assumptions we can predict which actions it will perform.

The answer to the question, "Which things have beliefs and desires?" lies not in some independent
fact about the state of the world, but in the success of applying the intentional strategy. Talk about
beliefs and desires even for such objects as thermostats and bees is useful in helping us to predict
their behaviour (in this sense, Dennett's position is referred to as instrumentalist).

Dennett admits that this is deliberate anthropomorphism but given that Dennett thinks the intentional
strategy works and is useful, he says that this can be a good thing. And in defence of Dennett, he
does also say that the intentional stance is not best suited for all entities and the other predictive
strategies might be more successful.

Dennett also distinguishes between kinds of mind,so if you are a little put off at the thought of your
fridge-freezer having a mind then if what Dennett says about mind is correct then this is not really
conceding very much, just that it has the capacity to respond to its environment.

Dennett imagines a hierarchy, at the bottom of which are "Darwinian Minds" (thermostats and fridges
would probably fit in here). Next up the ladder are "Skinnerian Minds", entities that can adapt their
behaviour to changing environmental stimuli. "Popperian Minds" possess the ability to test
hypotheses about likely courses of action to see which will produce the required outcome. At the top
of the ladder are "Gregorian Minds" which are capable of self-consciousness (like humans).

If we stick with the intentional strategy in explaining behavior, there does not appear to be any vast
qualitative difference between these different creatures. And so long as all we are interested in is
predicting behaviour, this appearance is justified. But if we want to gain a deeper insight as to what
makes a particular entity do what it does we should adopt the design stance.

There are at least two main worries with the intentional strategy (leaving aside the other aspects of
Dennett's theory). One is that the intentional strategy works only on the assumption that the entities
can be viewed as fully rational and can be predicted. However, many creatures behave in a way that
does not appear rational and so we would not make very good predictions.

Secondly, what about creatures that are so different from us that we cannot understand them, and
cannot adopt the intentional stance in relation to their actions? Should we refuse to count them as
having beliefs and desires? Rather than anthropomorphism, Dennett is subject to the charge of
chauvinism.

Brian Tee
Dept of Philosophy
University of Sheffield.