[lit-ideas] Re: The meaning of life

Of course, I'm cheating a bit on the notions of intentionality and aboutness. These are in their modern form derived from Franz Brentano, but they're ultimately derived from (and involve choosing sides between) the Medieval notions of realism and idealism.
Brentano's original notion of an intentional object entailed that such objects were themselves 'mental' objects: a thought of a peacock is about a further mental object parading on something like Descartes' inner stage; this mental bird cannot—or very, very likely cannot—have all of the properties of of an 'external world' peacock; so the intentionality of certain mental states does not entail anything about the world outside our minds.
He later, though, came to think that it did; and whether he presented good reasons for thinking so or not, my notion of 'aboutness' is one in which thoughts and emotional states do reach all the way to things outside the mind. This isn't to say all do. One can think about one's own emotional states; but these second order objects (one's being in love) have as their objects the Princess in the tower, or Glenlivet, or who or whatever. A preemptive remark: I think that numbers exist 'outside' the mind.
Daniel Dennett has written some interesting things about intentionality, but I'll pass by them in silence, something I should have done with the earlier topic, no doubt. 

Robert Paul


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