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Intentionality and the mind/body problem

J. N. Mohanty

pp. 283-300

Abstract

In this paper, I want to further develop a line of reasoning which I first sought to articulate in an earlier paper bearing a similar title1. The basic problem in that paper was: does the theory of intentionality commit us to a dualistic ontology? Is the defense of intentionality a defense of Cartesian dualism or of mentalism? The prevailing attitudes toward this and various allied issues are pretty sharply divided, but there is also a basic confusion owing to: (a) a narrower concept of intentionality with which one generally operates which may roughly he defined in terms of Franz Brentano's thesis along with Roderick Chisholm's criteria, superadded, and (b) a methodological belief that the critical problem is the dispensability or indispensability of intensional logic, as though the problem of intentionality is reducible to this issue, whereas in my view it should rather be the other way around. I sought to show that the intentionality thesis did not commit one to Cartesian dualism, that a certain form of pre-theoretical identity thesis is phenomenologically justified and also supported by the intentionality thesis ([14], pp. 133–154). This pre-theoretical identity was contrasted with the theoretical identity posited by objectifying thought of a philosophical theory. In this paper I want to pursue those reflections by emphasizing how a phenomenological conception of body helps us both to overcome the traditional mind body problem and even to trace the latter back to its genesis within the phenomena themselves.

Publication details

Published in:

Spicker Stuart (1978) Organism, medicine, and metaphysics: essays in honor of Hans Jonas on his 75th birthday, may 10, 1978. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 283-300

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-9783-7_16

Full citation:

Mohanty Jithendra Nath (1978) „Intentionality and the mind/body problem“, In: Spicker (ed.), Organism, medicine, and metaphysics, Dordrecht, Springer, 283–300.