THE STANDING OF INTENTIONALITY

On one reading of the commonsense notion of agency, agents' behaviour is influenced causally by their intentional attitudes — their beliefs, desires, intentions, fears, and hopes. The attitudes, on this reading, affect behaviour according to their intentional content. Clara's believing that Hesperus twinkles is distinct from her believing that Phosphorus twinkles. The difference would be reflected in the divergent roles these beliefs would have in Clara's psychological economy and, ultimately, in what Clara might say and do. This notion of agency is central, not only in our informal, everyday thinking about ourselves and our fellows; it underlies as well our best efforts to understand intelligent behaviour systematically: Psychology and the social sciences take agency for granted.

What others take for granted, philosophers ponder. Often these ponderings are all but unintelligible to those whose domain is under scrutiny. So it is with commentaries on the intentional attitudes. Although psychologists and social scientists undoubtedly worry from time to time about the status of such things, these worries are, for the most part, very different from those occupying philosophers. The matter raises deep questions about the place of philosophy vis á vis other disciplines, questions about which I have nothing original to say.