Evidence Item - v0.6
Intentionality ('aboutness') of mental states
E-INTENTIONALITY-ABOUTNESS
Visual overview: Intentionality and aboutness visual overview
Classification
- Evidence ID
- E-INTENTIONALITY-ABOUTNESS
- Corpus/version
- v0.6
- Stage
- stage2
- Category
- Consciousness & Mind
- Major category
- Philosophy
- Sub-category
- Mind / Consciousness
- BF status
- ready
- Scoring label
- Scored row with active Bayes factors
Navigation
Primary Datum
Datum: mental states have intentionality, meaning they are about things.
Scoring / Hypothesis Pressure
| Hypothesis | log10BF | Min | Max | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
H-EMERGENTISM | 0 | -0.04 | 0.05 | Emergentist accounts can treat intentionality as a higher-level property, so the item is near neutral for this seat. |
H-GOD | 0.03 | -0.01 | 0.08 | Theism can ground intentionality in divine mind, but the bridge is indirect and should remain modest. |
H-IDEALISM | 0.07 | 0 | 0.14 | Aboutness is more expected if mind or meaning is fundamental, but naturalistic accounts of content remain live. |
H-NATURALISM | -0.03 | -0.08 | 0.03 | Intentionality mildly pressures reductive or deflationary naturalism, while teleosemantics and inferential-role accounts limit the debit. |
H-PHYSICALISM-REDUCTIVE | -0.05 | -0.11 | 0.02 | Reducing semantic aboutness to physical relations is a specific challenge for reductive physicalism. |
Dependency / Cap Metadata
- dependency_cluster_id
- consciousness_mind
- dependency_cluster_role
- sibling_support
- dependency_cluster
- consciousness_mind
- dependency_role
- sibling_support
- cap_profile
- moderate_semi_independent
- evidence_function
- context_child
- directness
- supporting
Counter-Pressure
- title
- Brain explanations are real; reduction is the extra claim.
- text
- Intentionality ('aboutness') of mental states may give naturalism real local pressure by showing how much mind depends on brain. The Christian answer should welcome that. But dependence is not identity, and correlation is not a full account of first-person life, truth, moral responsibility, and love.
- path
- Let neuroscience explain the machinery. Then ask whether the machinery explains the person. A Christian can say humans are embodied souls or ensouled bodies without pretending thought floats free from the brain. The hard question is whether matter alone can carry meaning.
Apologetic Note
- label
- Apologetic leverage
- title
- People are harder to explain than brain scans are to describe.
- key point
- Intentionality ('aboutness') of mental states matters because neuroscience can describe brain activity without fully explaining what it is like to be a person who knows truth, loves, chooses, feels guilt, prays, and asks what life means.
- conversation move
- Welcome the science. Then use a simple distinction: explaining the instrument is not the same as explaining the music. Brain processes matter, but the person doing the thinking is still the deeper mystery.
- caveat
- Do not deny the brain. Christianity says persons are embodied. The point is that persons look like more than chemistry talking to itself.
Caveats / Notes
- Cap notes
- This row belongs to the consciousness and mind family. Its force should remain inspectable while overlap with sibling mind/reason rows is governed in cap diagnostics.
- Cap profile note
- Semi-independent convergence rows are capped, but not treated as exact duplicates.
- Scoring note
- Modernized from legacy Stage-1 refs and reduced overbroad theistic weight. Intentionality is a modest mind-first datum, not direct theology.
Citations
- Searle, J. (1983). Intentionality.
- Fodor, J. (1990). A Theory of Content and Other Essays.
Recommended Citation
The Signal Evidence Dataset, "Intentionality ('aboutness') of mental states," Evidence ID: E-INTENTIONALITY-ABOUTNESS, Version 0.6. Accessed [access date]. https://logos-signal.org/evidence/E-INTENTIONALITY-ABOUTNESS/
Machine-Readable Source
This page is generated from the public evidence mirror without recalculating or changing scores.