Intentionality (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) In philosophy, intentionality is the power of minds and mental states to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs To say of an individual’s mental states that they have intentionality is to say that they are mental representations or that they have contents
Intentionality - Wikipedia Intentionality is the mental ability to refer to or represent something [1] Sometimes regarded as the mark of the mental, it is found in mental states like perceptions, beliefs or desires For example, the perception of a tree has intentionality because it represents a tree to the perceiver
Intentionality (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Summer 2026 Edition) ‘Intentionality’ is a philosopher’s word: ever since the idea, if not the word itself, was introduced into philosophy by Franz Brentano in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, it has been used to refer to the puzzles of representation, all of which lie at the interface between the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language
Intentionality | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy This feature of thoughts and words, whereby they pick out, refer to, or are about things, is intentionality In a word, intentionality is aboutness Many mental states exhibit intentionality If I believe that the weather is rainy today, this belief of mine is about today’s weather—that it is rainy
Philosophy of mind - Intentionality, Consciousness, Dualism | Britannica One particularly troublesome property of these attitudes is “ intentionality ”: they are “about things ” For example, the belief that cows are mammals is a belief about cows, and the belief that archangels are divine is a belief about archangels
THEORY OF INTENTIONALITY * Although ‘intentionality’ is a technical term in philosophy, it stands for something familiar to us all: a characteristic feature of our mental states and experiences, especially evident in what we commonly call being “conscious” or “aware”
Intention - Wikipedia Intentions, like many other mental states, possess intentionality: they represent possible states of affairs Theories of intention try to capture the characteristic features of intentions