ABSTRACT
In the preceding two chapters we have been discussing characteristics of our intentional states which raise particular difficulties for the contemporary project of reducing such intentional idioms to non-intentional functional ones. In Chapter 3 we concentrated on the anchorage of intentional kinds in normative, rationalizing patterns of explanation which, in Davidson’s words, seem “to have no echo in physical theory”.1 In Chapter 4 we concentrated on the issue of the semantic content of our intentional states. Such content seems to be constituted out of the relationships in which we stand to states of affairs in our environment and moreover to our situatedness within certain social practices in ways that seem to elude capture in internalist or externalist functionalist terms. From both chapters it became clear that what we invoked our intentional states to explain were facts quite distinct from, though having implications for, bodily movements. What we invoke our intentional states to explain are intentional engagements in our world and expressive interactions with it. There seems no chance of finding projectible classifications in non-intentional terms for such explananda. In this chapter we will explore approaches to the question of what is involved in having intentional states and the nature of intentional explanations which seek to avoid the difficulties that beset reductive functionalism.
