Izvorni znanstveni članak
Connection Principle, Searle, and Unconscious Intentionality
Tomislav Janović
Davor Pećnjak
Sažetak
The present article is a critical assessment of the “Connection Principle” (Searle, 1992, 1995) – the principle according to which the two key properties of mental states, intentionality and phenomenality (consciousness), are necessarily co-instantiated. A theory of mind endorsing some version of this principle assumes that all intentional (and therefore mental) states are either conscious or otherwise potentially conscious. The Connection Principle, being a subject of much controversy in the past 15 years, has divided the community of philosophers of mind in two, as it were, irreconcilable camps. What poses a special challenge to both friends and foes of the Connection Principle – albeit for different reasons – is a plausible explanation of intentional character of unconscious mental states. We want to point to and comment on certain weaknesses of Searle’s attempt to solve this problem – an attempt drawing on the idea that unconscious
mental states “retain” its “aspectual shape” while unconscious. Eventually, we will venture to show why the notion of aspectual shape cannot play the explanatory role assigned to it by Searle, and why a more restrictive and a more consistent criterion for ascribing intentionality to unconscious states is needed. This new criterion should be sensible to our folk-psychological intuition suggesting that there are dispositional states that play an indispensable causal role in
our mental economy and, as such, build a genuine subset of all nconscious, i.e., purely neurophysiological states of our mind/brain.
Ključne riječi
Connection Principle; Searle; intentionality; phenomenal consciousness; aspectual shape; unconscious; potentially conscious; neurophysiological states; mind/brain
Hrčak ID:
12382
URI
Datum izdavanja:
25.5.2007.
Posjeta: 3.219 *