Intentionality gives nature continuity with mind without collapsing difference

Evidence

On the intentionality criterion, mindlike qualities are spread throughout nature, and are necessary to its understanding, but there is a high level of differentiation between different sorts of mindlike qualities, and between different sorts of beings which have them. Intentionality is an umbrella under which shelter more specific criteria of mind such as sentience, choice, consciousness and goal-directedness (teleology). Thus intentionality provides a way to realise continuity without assimilation, to represent the staggering and exuberant complexity and heterogeneity of nature. It provides a complex of distinctions, a web of difference against an overall ground of continuity, and a way to reject any absolute, cosmic division or break between the human and natural spheres based on the possession of mind. — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 500

Categorization

• XREF: Directly extends the ch21-adjacent distinction between the Cartesian on/off mind concept and process theory’s ‘simple spectrum’; this is Plumwood’s third option (intentionality) over the two already flagged earlier for ch21. — connects to: Process philosophy claims mind and nature share one substance of events — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 480; Mind’s spread into nature implies weak, not strong, panpsychism — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 495; Intentionality means the mind’s constant aboutness, not deliberate purpose — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 152 (+4 more)
• DEFINE: Frame gives intentionality as umbrella concept sheltering sentience, choice, consciousness, teleology — central vocabulary for the ecofeminist/dualism critique.

Broader Connections

• Intentionality means consciousness is always directed toward something beyond itself. #corroborates (0.82) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 1186
• Intentionality means the mind’s constant aboutness, not deliberate purpose #corroborates (0.80) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 152
• Intentionality grounds existentialist freedom by dissolving any fixed inner nature #expands (0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 157
• Knowledge requires mental reflection on existence rather than passive sensory impressions #expands (0.72) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 693