The Ontology of Intentionality

Regarding methodology, it is suggested that good philosophy is not usually done by axiomatic methods, which presume that self-evidently true statements are present at the start of theorizing. Rather, it is claimed that we need to start with vague explananda, which stand out by the virtue of being interesting for philosophers from many different 'camps', and perhaps even for thinkers from other fields. The criterion of what makes a good philosophical theory should then be how many of these explananda it can make sense of in a coherent way. Thus, the truth of the theory appears at the end of the theoretical investigation, and is not present at the beginning. The great advantage of this method is that it makes philosophical theorizing an essentially positive endeavour, in which many different researchers can cooperate constructively, rather than facing unhappy stalemates in which each side appeals to different yet supposedly self-evident intuitions. These ideas are then applied to a problem from the philosophy of mind, namely how intentionality - conceived as the connection between the human mind and its environment together with the possibility of error - can best be understood. To this aim four different adequate ontologies of intentionality are introduced. After then taking into consideration two additional data from the philosophy of mind - phenomenal experience and subjectivity - it is argued that Whitehead's ontology of experience is the 'best' ontology for the philosophy of mind, because it can offer the most adequate and most coherent explanation.

Auteur

Benjamin Andrae, geboren 1981, studierte Physik an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in München, wo er 2008 mit einem Diplom abschloss, sowie Philosophie an der Hochschule für Philosophie München, wo er 2007 ein Bakkalaureat und 2014 mit der vorliegenden Arbeit einen Dr.phil. erwarb. Sein akademisches Interesse gilt der Methodik und der Philosophie des Geistes, auch im Zusammenhang mit menschlicher Erkenntnis und menschlichem Handeln, immer begleitet von ontologischen Überlegungen. Weiterhin forscht er über die Frage nach der Beziehung von Physik und Philosophie, und sucht nach Möglichkeiten einer engen Zusammenarbeit beider Gebiete auf Augenhöhe. Benjamin Andrae, born in 1981, studied physics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, where he received a Diploma in 2008, and philosophy at the Munich School of Philosophy, where he received a Bakkalaureat in 2007 and a PhD in 2014. In his research, he is concerned with methodology and with the philosophy of mind, also in contexts of human knowledge and human agency and always accompanied by ontological considerations. Further, he is interested in the question of the relation between physics and philosophy, and searches for a coherent cooperation of these fields in which both sides are of equal standing.