Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 The Problem of Consciousness
- 2 How to Study Consciousness Scientifically
- 3 Consciousness
- 4 Animal Minds
- 5 Intentionality and Its Place in Nature
- 6 Collective Intentions and Actions
- 7 The Explanation of Cognition
- 8 Intentionalistic Explanations in the Social Sciences
- 9 Individual Intentionality and Social Phenomena in the Theory of Speech Acts
- 10 How Performatives Work
- 11 Conversation
- 12 Analytic Philosophy and Mental Phenomena
- 13 Indeterminacy, Empiricism, and the First Person
- 14 Skepticism About Rules and Intentionality
- Name Index
- Subject Index
4 - Animal Minds
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 The Problem of Consciousness
- 2 How to Study Consciousness Scientifically
- 3 Consciousness
- 4 Animal Minds
- 5 Intentionality and Its Place in Nature
- 6 Collective Intentions and Actions
- 7 The Explanation of Cognition
- 8 Intentionalistic Explanations in the Social Sciences
- 9 Individual Intentionality and Social Phenomena in the Theory of Speech Acts
- 10 How Performatives Work
- 11 Conversation
- 12 Analytic Philosophy and Mental Phenomena
- 13 Indeterminacy, Empiricism, and the First Person
- 14 Skepticism About Rules and Intentionality
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Summary
Many species of animals have consciousness, intentionality, and thought processes. By “consciousness” I mean those subjective states of sentience and awareness that we have during our waking life (and at a lower level of intensity in our dreams); by “intentionality” I mean that feature of the mind by which it is directed at or about objects and states of affairs in the world; and by “thought processes” I mean those temporal sequences of intentional states that are systematically related to each other, where the relationship is constrained by some rational principles. Examples of conscious states are such things as feeling a pain or hearing a sound. Examples of intentional states are such things as wanting to eat food or believing that someone is approaching. Examples of thought processes are such things as figuring how to get a banana that is out of reach or monitoring the behavior of prey who is on the move and is trying to escape. Though these three phenomena – consciousness, intentionality, and thought processes – overlap, they are not identical. Some conscious states are intentional, some not. Some intentional states are conscious, many are not. For example, my current thought that it is unlikely to rain is conscious, my belief when I am asleep that Bill Clinton is president of the United States is unconscious. All thought processes, as I have defined them, are intentional; but not every intentional state occurs as part of a thought process. For example, a pang of undirected anxiety, though conscious, is not intentional. A sudden desire for a cold beer is both conscious and intentional.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Consciousness and Language , pp. 61 - 76Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002
- 1
- Cited by