Phenomenal Intentionality and Derived Intentionality A Commentary on David Pitt's The Quality of Thought

Abstract

David Pitt's The Quality of Thought defends a hardcore version of phenomenal intentionalism, the view that at least the most basic kind of intentionality is nothing over and above phenomenal consciousness. The book is focused on the case of thought, advancing the view, roughly, that thoughts' contents are identical to their phenomenal characters. But the view is meant to apply more broadly to all intentional states: for Pitt, the content of any intentional state is identical to its phenomenal character. One of the most pressing challenges facing phenomenal intentionalism is that of accounting for allegedly intentional unconscious mental states. In response to this challenge, many phenomenal intentionalists develop a two-tiered picture of intentionality, maintaining that the most basic kind of intentionality, original intentionality, is nothing over and above phenomenal consciousness but that mental states can have another, less basic, kind of intentionality, derived intentionality, which is derived in some way from actual or possible originally intentional states. Pitt rejects this derivativist picture and maintains a hard-line position on which non-phenomenal states cannot have any kind of intentionality. In this symposium contribution, I consider Pitt's arguments against derivativist pictures of intentionality, arguing that the derivativist has a ready response. I suggest that even if derived intentionality belongs to a different natural kind than original intentionality, it plays an important role in the mind.