Part II - SEARCHING FOR INTENTIONS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
Part II presents several chapters illustrating the ubiquity of intentions in people's meaningful experiences of language and artwork. I focus on some complexities associated with defining intentions and intentional actions, and argue that people have a strong, natural disposition to attribute intentionality to human action and language. I suggest that intentions need not be viewed only as private mental acts that precede human action, but can profitably be understood as emergent properties of social interactions and thus are not necessarily located in individual minds. It is also important to distinguish between intentions at different levels of unconscious and conscious experience. I describe contemporary research demonstrating the interrelatedness of intentions and ideas about communication and meaning. Moreover, determining the precise role that intentions have in meaningful experience requires acknowledging the diversity of ways that people understand language and artwork.
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- Intentions in the Experience of Meaning , pp. 19 - 20Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999