Tad Zawidzki

Of the many conceptual innovations in philosophy of cognitive science for which we have Daniel Dennett to thank, none is more central to his agenda, or more influential, than the " intentional stance " (IS) (1987). However, both Dennett's critics and admirers have largely failed to appreciate that the uses to which Dennett puts this idea are multifarious, and the connections between them complex. In various places, Dennett argues that IS can be used as (1) an analysis of our mature concepts of the mind and mental states, (2) an accurate model of quotidian interpretation, (3) an account of the nature of the mind and mental states, (4) the foundation for a naturalistic understanding of all mental phenomena, and (5) an important component of sound methodology in cognitive science. Although these roles are related, it is not clear that IS can play all of them. Dennett himself is ambivalent about this. While there is textual evidence that he envisions a central role for IS in all five explanatory projects, other passages suggest significant hedges to this agenda. So, one goal of this chapter is to provoke some clarification of this issue. But there is more at stake than mere exegetical tidiness. Many of the most persuasive critiques of IS rely on a conflation of these five explanatory projects. For example, it is often assumed that because IS fails as an analysis of our mature concepts of the mind and mental states, it cannot constitute an accurate model of quotidian interpretation or a plausible account of the nature of the mind and mental states. And, indeed, it is not obvious how IS can retain its utility to some of these explanatory projects without playing an appropriate role in all of them. For example, how could it constitute an accurate model of quotidian interpretation without also constituting an adequate analysis of our mature concepts of the mind and mental states? And how could it be any guide to the nature of the mind and mental states, without succeeding at both of these tasks? The main goal of this chapter is to answer these questions. In particular, I want to suggest that, although there are good reasons to hold that IS fails as an analysis of our mature concepts of the mind and mental states, this has no implications for its role in the other four projects. In fact, I argue below that it is precisely because IS fails at the conceptual/analytic task that it remains viable as a model of quotidian interpretation, an account of the nature of the mind and mental states, a strategy for naturalizing the mental, and an important component of sound methodology in cognitive science. In Section 1, I briefly characterize IS and how it might contribute to the five projects identified above. I also provide textual evidence that Dennett intends it to play important roles in all five projects. In Section 2, I discuss general motivations for favoring a univocal approach to these five projects, and then outline some possibilities that undermine these motivations. In particular, I suggest that our mature concepts of the mind and mental states might play little role in successful, quotidian, behavioral prediction, serving instead largely justificatory or forensic roles. Section 3 then surveys empirical evidence favoring this perspective. Next, Section 4 recounts well-known and persuasive reasons against using IS as an analysis of our mature concepts of the mind and mental states. However, in Section 5, I argue that these difficulties leave Dennett's overall project largely in tact: IS remains an invaluable tool in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, once its roles in the five projects are properly re-conceptualized.

Philosophers and psychologists have traditionally understood “theory of mind” as a human capacity for understanding and predicting human behavior based on the attribution of unobservable mental states, like beliefs and desires. The classical model views the human “mind reader” as a ...

I briefly review the three basic strategies for naturalizing intentionality discussed by Haugeland 4:383–427, 1990, and Hutto and Satne (2015), recounting their deficits. Then, I focus on Dennett’s version of what Haugeland calls the "second-base…neo-behaviorist" strategy. After briefly explaining Dennett’s proposal,
I defend it against four common objections: circularity, relativity, under-specified rationality, and failure to track robustly natural facts. I conclude by recounting the advantages of Dennettian neo-behaviorism over the neo-Cartesian and neo-pragmatist alternatives, as well as Hutto and Satne’s proposal that intentionality comes in two distinct kinds.

Keywords: Intentionality, Naturalization, Dennett, Neo-Cartesianism, Neo-pragmatism, Neo-behaviorism, Intentional stance, Natural selection, Haugeland, Hutto and
Satne

I briefly review the three basic strategies for naturalizing intentionality discussed by Haugeland (1990), and Hutto and Satne (this volume), recounting their deficits. Then, I focus on Dennett’s version of what Haugeland calls the “second-base … neo-behaviorist” strategy. After briefly explaining Dennett’s proposal, I defend it against four common objections: circularity, relativity, under-specified rationality, and failure to track robustly natural facts. I conclude by recounting the advantages of Dennettian neo-behaviorism over the neo-Cartesian and neo-pragmatist alternatives, as well as Hutto and Satne’s proposal that intentionality comes in two distinct kinds.

Key Words:

Intentionality, naturalization, Dennett, neo-Cartesianism, neo-pragmatism, neo-behaviorism, intentional stance, natural selection, Haugeland, Hutto and Satne

Typically, action-relevant, false beliefs do not persist. Human beings with false beliefs about how to secure food, social partners, and physical security do not succeed at these tasks as well as human beings with true beliefs about them. For this reason, mechanisms operating at phylogenetic, ontogenetic, and cultural scales weed out such false beliefs. However, there is voluminous empirical evidence, gathered over many decades, that many highly persistent self-conceptions are false. In this paper, I propose a solution to this apparent puzzle. Rather than evaluating self-directed beliefs for truth, I argue that we should evaluate them in the way we evaluate computer software. Software is not evaluated in terms of the degree to which it truly describes the workings of the computer that runs it. Instead, software is evaluated in terms of the costs and benefits of what it gets the computer that runs it to do. Similarly, I argue that we can understand the persistence of false self-conceptions only if we evaluate them in terms of the costs and benefits of what they get human beings to do, instead of how well they describe the workings of human cognition. This perspective is inspired by Dennett’s notion of “cognitive tools”, but it departs from Dennett in defending a socialized version of this notion. Rather than tools for improving individual cognition, self-conceptions are tools for interacting with others.