INTENTIONAL OBJECTS AND THE REPRESENTATION OF OTHER MINDS

Abstract

In this paper, I intend to achieve three principal objectives. One, I review the two theses on the notion of intentional objects, which I shall label dispensabilism and indispensabilism. The former denies that all intentional states have intentional objects, while the latter holds that there cannot be an intentional state without an intentional object. Two, the paper argues that both theses fail to provide a plausible account of intentional objects by misrepresenting the relation between intentional states and intentional objects. The paper proposes that while the dispensabilist thesis could hardly be sustained as it were, the indispensabilist thesis could be salvaged by conceiving intentional objects as theoretical objects whose existence helps to individuate intentional states in a fine-grained manner. Three, the paper draws the implication of this for the conceptual problem of other minds. The paper concludes by providing a discursive platform for reappraising theoretical attempts at resolving the conceptual problem of other minds.