Over at On Philosophy they have an interesting post on Intentionality and Reality. The argument I want to get at is an anti-externalist argument. Basically there are two kinds of views of intentionality, the causal and non-causal. (Although I should add that the non-causal doesn't necessarily deny causality, it just doesn't demand it) Allow me to quote the relevant thought experiment that purportedly shows the unreality of non-causal intentionality.
. . .here is a simple experiment that you can do for see for yourself that non-casual intentionality is a hollow theory. A non-casual theory of intentionality would hold that our thoughts about something, say a soap bubble, participate in a relation between us and the soap bubble, and that it is this relation that gives them their meaning. So then blow a soap bubble and, before it disappears, place it behind a curtain, wait a few seconds, and then take it out. Sometimes it will have popped while it is behind the curtain and sometimes it will have remained intact. However no matter what actually happened your thoughts about the bubble weren’t affected (assuming you weren’t in direct contact with it). Your interactions with other people about the soap bubble, and your subjective awareness of your thoughts, are the same when the soap bubble stays intact and when it pops, given that you can’t see it. Thus there is no way to tell the difference between your thoughts in the case of the intact bubble and the case of the popped bubble. However surely the intentional relation must have undergone some change, since in some cases the object that it was direct it has completely ceased to exist. From this we can deduce that the intentional relation (defined in this way) cannot be a cause. (see here) However if it can’t be a cause then it makes no sense to say that it somehow affects or determines the contents of our thoughts, or allows one thought to be distinguished from another, since that would require casual power.
The problem is that the author is thinking of thoughts as something purely within the brain. But I don't think the strong externalist buys this in the least. Rather most of the interesting strong externalists think thoughts are partially external to the brain. (Thus the term externalist) The best way to consider this is to consider the mind an emergent phenomena but it is a holistic emergent phenomena. That is while a lot of the important stuff out of which the mind emerges is in the brain, the mind can't be limited to the brain. (As in say epiphenomenalism) Rather to take any mental description one can't necessarily translate this in to a description about the brain.
Relative to the thought experiment above, clearly the nature of the intention depends upon whether there is or isn't a bubble even though that bubble isn't part of the brain. No cause necessary (although clearly thoughts do involve causal relationships - just not the kind necessarily being spoken of here)
I think this view of emergence is an important thing to keep clear. There is an assumption, given its importance, that all mental talk ought ultimately be reduced to brain talk. But that just needn't be the case. (And in my opinion probably isn't)
The reasoning in the above "experiment" seems circular to me, but I'm not sure how. Perhaps it's because one can have neither a positive nor a negative awareness of the bubble when it's behind the curtain? I also think the use of the term "thought" is entirely too vague. What are your thoughts?
I think the problem is with thought. For his argument to work "thought" must simultaneously be both conceived of externalistly and internalistly.
To add, in the kind of externalism found in Heidegger this is all captured by Heidegger's thoughts about being and absence. This is expressed particularly well in On the Essence of Truth. That book on Heidegger and Hebrew thought I've been reading (well, when I have time - way behind) has a great page that summarizes this issue. I might put up a post with an excerpt later today.
One can quickly see that the argument above basically rests on the view that we can only discuss in terms of presence - the very point Heidegger feels grounds most philosophy and metaphysics and that starts with Plato. What Heidegger is after is phenomenology with absence. When he moves from phenomenology considered in an externalist framework (rather than the internalist scheme of Husserl) he then turns to a close consideration of what it is to think. Which clearly gets explicitly into these issues.
I object to your objection (see here)
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