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On Epistemological Status of Intentional Object

  • PHILOSOPHY·THOUGHT·CULTURE
  • 2006, (4), pp.109~134
  • Publisher : Research Institute for East-West Thought
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities

홍성훈 1

1장안대학교

ABSTRACT

Physicalism is the main stream of contemporary philosophy of mind. But there are also anti-physicalists. They refutes against physicalism as theory of mind, for it cannot explain qualia and the phenomenal aspects of mental states by means of only physicalistic terms. And Intentionality is one of the main reason of their anti-physicalistic attitude. Intentionality is the unique feature of mental states and characterized by directedness or aboutness. Intentional object is the object which mental states are about or directed at. The ontological status of Intentional object is mysterious. The object need not to exit but is not non-being. It is inexistent. Because this mysterious feature, disputations concerning intentional object are concentrated on its ontological status. But epistemological status of Intentional object should not be underestimated, for ontology is correlated with epistemology. So, the purpose of this article is to examine epistemological status of Intentional object. And, in this aricle, it is argued that there is no significant role of Intentional object in epistemology and its ontological status is overestimated. However, it is pointed out that the usefulness of Intentional object cannot be underestimated.

Citation status

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