ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I focus on a classical Indian debate about the nature of intentionality, about how conscious mental states come to carry information about mind-independent particulars and their properties. The Nyāya philosopher, Vācaspati Miśra (9th century CE), opposes what I call decompositionalism about aboutness. For decompositionalists, the relation of aboutness between a conscious experience or thought and the mind-independent particular it carries information about obtains in virtue of two kinds of conditions: internal conditions like an internal picture in one's head and external conditions like the resemblance between the internal picture and the relevant mind-independent particular. The Buddhist indirect realists—the Sautrāntika philosophers—defend decompositionalism. Vācaspati argues that decompositionalism paves the way for idealism, but idealism is incoherent. So, we should reject decompositionalism.
