Intentionality means the mind’s constant aboutness, not deliberate purpose

Evidence

Brentano proposed that we approach the mind in terms of its ‘intentions’ — a misleading word, which sounds like it means deliberate purposes. Instead it meant a general reaching or stretching, from the Latin root in-tend, meaning to stretch towards or into something. For Brentano, this reaching towards objects is what our minds do all the time. Our thoughts are invariably of or about something, he wrote: in love, something is loved, in hatred, something is hated, in judgement, something is affirmed or denied. Even when I imagine an object that isn’t there, my mental structure is still one of ‘about-ness’ or ‘of-ness’. If I dream that a white rabbit runs past me checking its pocket watch, I am dreaming of my fantastical dream-rabbit. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 152

Categorization

• DEFINE: Core definition of intentionality as aboutness, the key concept Husserl built his philosophy on.
• XREF: Connects to the earlier chapters of this book on Husserl, and to Sartre’s later reversal of intentionality toward a full consciousness. — connects to: Being conscious of one’s project does not entail knowing it — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1340; Intentionality grounds existentialist freedom by dissolving any fixed inner nature — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 157; A mind that is about nothing is not really a mind — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 154 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Intentionality means consciousness is always directed toward something beyond itself. #corroborates (0.92) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 1186
• A mind that is about nothing is not really a mind #corroborates (0.88) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 154
• The mind cannot naturally stay empty because aboutness is its default state #expands (0.85)
• Consciousness transcends toward the meaning of being, not being itself #expands (0.78) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 154