Antirepresentacionalismo Jmroy

The Southern Journal of Philosophy
Volume 53, Spindel Supplement

2015
ANTI-CARTESIANISM AND ANTI-BRENTANISM: THE

PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST
INTENTIONALISM
Jean-Michel Roy
Despite its internal divisions and the uncertainty surrounding many of its
foundations, there is a growing consensus that the on-going search for an alternative
model of the mind finds a minimal theoretical identity in the pursuit of an antiCartesian conception of mental phenomena. Nevertheless, this anti-Cartesianism
remains more or less explicitly committed to the neo-Brentanian idea that intentionality is an essential feature of the mentalan idea that has prevailed since the
advent of modern cognitive science in the 1950s. An issue of compatibility is thereby
raised, as neo-Brentanism arguably sides with cognitive Cartesianism. The main
goal of the paper is to put into full light one specific aspect of this largely unperceived problem of compatibility by arguing that the neo-Brentanian property of
intentionality is an essentially representational one that runs counter to the salient
anti-representationalism of anti-Cartesianism. And, that this representational essence
confronts the search for alternative models of the mind of an anti-Cartesian kind
with the following theoretical issue: To what extent is it possible to devise a nonBrentanian property of intentionality, particularly one that is fully dissociated from
the property of representation? This issue is shown to be much deeper and more difficult than it looks once the nature of representation is properly apprehended; it
seems to be still waiting for an answer in the current search for an alternative model
of the mind, if only because it has not yet be set in fully adequate terms.
ABSTRACT:
1. ANTI-CARTESIANISM AND NEO-BRENTANISM: THE

PROBLEM OF COMPATIBILITY
The search for alternative models of the mind has been going on for some
time now, but it remains arguably inconclusive. The assessment of what it
has achieved so far very much depends, however, on the way it is to be

Jean-Michel Roy has a main affiliation with Ecole
Normale Superieure of Lyon (Lyon) as
Professor of Philosophy, France, and a secondary affiliation with East China Normal University where he is a recurrent visiting Professor in the Philosophy Department.
The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Volume 53, Spindel Supplement (2015), 90125.
ISSN 0038-4283, online ISSN 2041-6962. DOI: 10.1111/sjp.12125
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THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM
91
understood, and serious uncertainty remains in this regard. As a matter of

fact, the notion itself of a search for alternative models of the mind stands
in need of clarification on at least two basic and related points: What
attempts to provide an understanding of the mind does it really refer to?
And, to what view of the mind, exactly, are such attempts supposed to offer
alternatives?
One natural answer to these two questions is to assimilate this search with
the series of efforts to elaborate an alternative to the cognitivist conception of
the mind that lay at the core of the cognitive revolution and, accordingly,
to locate its starting point in the emergence of the multifarious criticisms of
cognitivism that followed. This answer is, however, disputable on several
counts. One reason is that some alternatives to the cognitivist model of the
mind, such as the connexionist one, have been present from the inception of
the cognitive revolution and are usually not included in the field of reference
of the notion, which is standardly understood with a more restricted temporal extension. Another reason is that the cognitivist model is clearly viewed in
this search as a recent incarnation of a more general Cartesian view of the
mind that constitutes its real critical target. This, however, suggests that the
search should then be understood as comprising at least all the early 20th
century attempts to overcome the Cartesian tradition in the area of mind
theorizingsuch as those of Dewey, Wittgenstein, Ryle, and Hiedeggera
proposal sinning even more by temporal overextension with respect to the
way the expression is standardly used. Early 20th century anti-Cartesianism
is seen at best as an ancestor to the current search, not as one of its
protagonists.
A solution to these difficulties consists in understanding the search as
including only the series of efforts to denounce and remedy the insufficiencies of the neurocognitive re-orientation that the cognitivist enterprise, born
in the 1950s, took at the turn of the 1990s under the inspiration of theorists
such as Patricia and Paul Churchland, Steve Kosslyn, and Michael Gazzaniga.1 One must also see, accordingly, the key theoretical issue lying at its
core as the following one: how much, and how, should cognitive science go
beyond the neurocognitive model of the mind? Interpreted in this more
limited way, the search for alternative models of the mind is not disconnected from the rejection of cognitivism and of cognitive Cartesianism, but
only represents a specific and recent stage in it. As a matter of fact, one lietmotifs in this search is the accusation that the break with cognitivism, and
more generally with cognitive Cartesianism, incarnated by the neurocognitive turn lacks radicality.
1
See Roy 2001.
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JEAN-MICHEL ROY
Though more restricted with this perspective, the search for alternative
models of the mind still covers a rather bewildering variety of attempts to
transform the principles of cognitive explanation. Enactive, extended,
embedded, situated, embodied, dynamical, evolutionary, phenomenological,
constructivist, pragmatist, etc., alternative models of the mind are, in fact, an
embarrassment of richesan embarrassment raising a twofold important
critical issue. The first issue is an interpretive one that consists in clarifying
the specific content of each model and its relations of similarity, difference,
and compatibility with the others; the second is an evaluative one that consists in arbitrating between the models. As a matter of fact, several attempts
have already been made in this direction.2 And although these attempts provide different views of the situation, an interesting point of consensus emerges
from them: namely, the idea that the search for models of the mind alternative to the neurocognitive one finds a minimal theoretical unity in the fact
that it is fundamentally one for a non-Cartesian conception of the mind.3
This minimal consensus is sufficient to raise an important issue regarding the
soundness of its general perspective.
The issue arises from the additional fact that this basic anti-Cartesianism
arguably goes hand in hand with a persisting neo-Brentanism, inherited
from the early cognitivist steps of cognitive science. Indeed, the prevailing
version of cognitivism committed cognitive science not only to a mentalist
form of explanation, that is to say to one endorsing the explanatory relevance
of mental properties, but also to a certain form of Brentanos thesis, according to which intentionality is one of the marks of the mental, as well as a naturalizable mark. This explicitly neo-Brentanian claim, pervasive among the
first generation of philosophical analysts of cognitive science, seems to have
been essentially preserved, although perhaps in a more discrete way,
throughout the several waves of criticism cognitive science went through,
including in the specific one under examination, which hardly offers any
rejection of neo-Brentanism and even contains some strong reaffirmations of
it. The difficulty, however, is whether this lingering neo-Brentanism is compatible with anti-Cartesianism. Consequently, the issue is whether cognitive
science can consistently search for an alternative to the neurocognitive model
of the mind reached in the early 1990s that is both anti-Cartesian and neoBrentanian. This issue of compatibility has largely gone unnoticed. It is, however, of crucial importance for the receivability of the current search for,
what Rowlands aptly labelled a new science of the mind.4
2
3
4
See, in particular, Wheeler 2005 and Rowlands 2010.

See Roy 2011.
See Rowlands 2010.
93
But why might there be an issue of compatibility in the first place? The
answer, in a nutshell, is that neo-Brentanism has all the appearances of a
Cartesian kind of conception of the mind. Of course, this assertion needs
justification, ideally based on a rigorous definition of cognitive Cartesianism such as those proposed in the literature. In order to justify it, however, it is enough to make the minimal assumption that neo-Brentanism
shares at least one important theoretical feature with Cartesianism. A reasonable claim in this regard is to assume what I propose to call the thesis
of the representational essence of the neo-Brentanian property of intentionality and will
formulate as follows: neo-Brentanism shares with cognitive Cartesianism
the essential feature of representationalism through the introduction of an
essential link between the properties of intentionality and representation.
Further, it is enough to make the additional and even less controversial
assumption that anti-representationalism is a key feature of cognitive antiCartesianism to legitimize the suspicion that it looks inconsistent to search
for an alternative to the neurocognitive model of the mind that is both
antirepresentationalist and neo-Brentanian. This assumption, then, legitimizes the issue of compatibility under a limited form that I propose to
call, in turn, the problem of anti-representationalist neo-Brentanian intentionalism
and will examine in the following pages.
Put in its full form, this problem divides into three essential questions. The
first one expresses its purely theoretical dimension and can be phrased as follows: (Q1) Can any model of the mind, in principle, combine the antirepresentationalism of anti-Cartesianism with the intentionalism of neoBrentanism, given the essential link existing between the neo-Brentanian
notion of intentionality and the notion of representation? The other two
express the interpretive and the evaluative sides of its critical dimension,
respectively, and can be put in the following terms: (Q2) In its search for an
alternative to the neurocognitive model of the mind, does cognitive science
actually try to combine these two elements, and, if so, how exactly? (Q3)
How successful are such attempts?
In a strategy of divide and conquer, the ambition is here limited to dealing
with the first one of these three questions, proceeding in two successive steps.
The first step consists in providing a negative answer, through a defense of
the thesis of the representational essence of neo-Brentanian intentionality;
the second step explores some of the implications of this incompatibilist
answer. Indeed, it is arguable that one important and immediate consequence is to confront any search for an alternative to the neurocognitive
model of the mind with a crucial dilemma: give up either on radical antirepresentationalism or on neo-Brentanism. One particularly interesting way
out of this dilemma consists in devising a non-Brentanian intentionalism.
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This way out is, nevertheless, quite challenging, as it requires addressing the
following additional and quite difficult theoretical question: Is it possible,
and if so how, to relax the deep connection established by neo-Brentanism
between the property of intentionality and that of representation? The investigation of this question leads directly to the critical dimension of the problem of anti-representationalist intentionalism (Q2 and Q3 above), because
the best strategy in order to come to terms with this theoretical difficulty
seems to be to examine whether any of the alternatives to the neurocognitive
model of the mind currently under development contains an acceptable solution to it.
2. THE NEO-BRENTANIAN PROPERTY OF INTENTIONALITY
The key to the problem of compatibility lies essentially in the validity of the
claim that the neo-Brentanian property of intentionality entertains an intrinsic link with the property of representation, as this claim is the most disputable of all the ones on which it stands. In order to determine whether and in
what sense it is acceptable, it is, however, no less essential to examine firstly
how each of these two properties is to be properly understood.
The view of intentionality pervasive in the contemporary literature makes
it essentially a distinctive property of mental states mainly characterized in
terms of aboutness, understood as the fact of being about somethingusually different from the state itself except in the special case of reflective intentionalityand, hence, a form of relational property. The notion of
aboutness is itself mostly left unanalyzed, when not explicitly declared undefinable, although it is frequently parapharased with the help of a set of recurring notions such as contentfulness (an intentional state is a state with a
content), directedness (an intentional state is a state directed at something),
reference (an intentional state is a state referring to something), attitude (an
intentional state is an attitudinal state), or satisfiablity (an intentional state is
a state with conditions of satisfaction). The notion of something hardly benefits from more analytic efforts but is, under the frequent labels of intentional
object or content borrowed from the intentionalist tradition, intuitively
assimilated with a quite general ontological category of objective entity. So,
the property of intentionality remains on the whole, in the contemporary literature, rather poorly defined in the intentional idiom itself. This is a problematic situation in many respects that cannot but reflect a theoretical
embarrassment. As a matter of fact, as John Haugeland correctly remarked,
Intentionality is hard to get a glove on.5
5
Haugeland 1990, p. 383.
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The contemprary property of intentionality, for the most part, is explicitly

referred back to Brentanos 1874 Psychology from an Empircal Standpoint,6 and is
intended as a neo-Brentanian property differing from the original view on
two main points: it is seen neither as the unique mark of the mental, nor as
one incompatible with a naturalist perspective. Despite such differences, this
Brentanian rooting recommends going back to Brentanos view itself in order
to shed more light on the conception of intentionality at work in the search
for alternative models of the mind. What was Brentanos basic insight when
he decided to give a new life to this scholastic notion?
The central source of Brentanos introduction of the notion is a remarkably ambiguous text: Every psychical phenomenon, Brentano writes, is
characterized by what the scholastics of the middle ages called the intentional
(also the mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though
not wholly unambiguously, relation to a content, direction towards an object
(which is not to be understood as a reality), or immanent objectivity. Each
contains something in itself as an object, though not each in the same way.7
What this text essentially states is a hypothesis about the structure of mental states, which can be summarized as the claim that a mental state is characterized by a directional relation to an object. However, four different
determinations can be distinguished in this definition, raising an interrogation as to which of them corresponds to the essential feature of intentionality.
Is it: (a) the fact that the object to which there is a relation is an immanent
one, and as such something contained in the state (i.e., a content)? Or (b), the
fact that the transcendant correlate of this immanent object is dispensable?
Or (c), the directional character of the relation to the object, whatever this
really means? Or, finally, (d) the very fact that the relation is one to something as an object, or what might be called a relation of objectivation, in the
sense of a relation in which the relatum is made into an object by contrast to
relations in which it is a mere thing?
Some of these ambiguities have not gone unnoticed among readers of the
Brentano thesis, and they lie at the source of the protracted debate of interpretation it has generated. Spiegelberg has, for instance, opted for the first
possibility,8 and Roderick Chisholm for the second one.9 I personally wish to
advocate the view10 that, in 1874, all four determinations contribute to the
essence of intentionality in Brentanos eyes, although the most fundamental
6
See Brentano 1874.

Brentano 1874, Book II chap 1, 5, p. 67 (translation amended).
See Spiegelberg 1970.
9
See Chisholm 1952.
10
A slightly reformulated version of the one previously elaborated in Roy 2010, Chapter
IV, Les the`ses de Brentano.
7
8
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JEAN-MICHEL ROY
one is the feature of objectivation. According to this interpretation, Brentanos driving intuition in re-introducing the notion of intentionality is that the
key distinctive character of mental states is that they make a world of objects,
as opposed to a world of things, emerge and, consequently, make the subject/object opposition possible. Only creatures endowed with mentality
relate to the world as subjects to objects, and this relation of objectivation is
also one of directedness, to an object which is immanent and has a dispensable transcendant correlate. As already suggested, it is not clear, however,
what the feature of directedness means or what it adds to the notion of objectivation itself. It nevertheless definitely points toward an idea of characterization on the part of the subject pole of the intentional relation. Accordingly, I
propose to integrate it with the feature of objectivation and to further define
the core of Brentanian objectivation as the fact of not only being related to
something as an object, but more specifically of characterizing something as
an object. In this view, Brentanian intentionality is fundamentally the
capacity to characterize the world as an objective entity, and only creatures
endowed with mentality possess this capacity. In a way, it is a view rather
close to the fairly standard notion that Brentanian intentionality ultimately
reduces to that of objective reference, an opinion to be found even in Speigelbergs and Chisholms interpretations in relation to their analyses of the
evolution of Brentanos thesis. Nevertheless, it differs from the standard view
by giving to the notion of objective reference the much more radical, and
somehow constitutive, sense of being the source of objectivity as such.
Several facts speak in favor of such an interpretation. The first one is the
insistence of Brentano himself on the importance of the feature (d) of objectivation. It is the only one he mentions when he summarizes his views in 9 of
Chapter V of the 1874 book and writes: We have found, as a distinctive feature of all psychical phenomena, the intentional presence, the relation to
something qua object [under the title of object]. No physical phenomenon
offers something of the kind.11 The second reason is that it corresponds to
the way Brentanos thesis was understood by some of his most distinguished
readers and advocates, notably by Bertrand Russell, who until 1918 was an
explicit, although little known and nonorthodox, adopter of the thesis.12
Indeed, this adoption consisted fundamentally in assimilating his notion of
acquaintance, for him the building block of all cognitive mental phenomena,
with Brentanos notion of intentionality. Acquaintance was for Russell precisely the relation through which the fundamental fact of the dualism of
11
12
Brentano 1874, p. 74 (translation amended).

See Roy 2010, Chapter VII, for further details.
97
subject and object13 as such gets established,14 and whose converse is the
relation of presentation.15 Through this assimilation, he thus unambiguously
manifested that he understood Brentanian intentionality as a relation of
objectivation of type (d), but one that rejects the notion of immanent object
or content and retains solely that of transcendant object. Finally, the evolution of Brentano provides further justification, since Brentano himself later
gave up the notion of immanent object and only retained that of transcendant object, making determinations (a) and (b) in the end irrelevant and demonstrating retrospectively that determinations (c) and (d) were the key ones.
If objectivation as defined above lies at its core, the Brentanian notion of
intentionality is more complex and involves a distinction between the character of objectivation itself and its various modalities, as well as one between a
primary and a secondary, or reflexive, objectivation. Having no immediate
bearing on the issue under scrutiny, these complexities of Brentanos analysis
will nevertheless be left aside here.
3. THE NATURE OF REPRESENTATION: THE STAND IN
CONCEPTION
Turning to the property of representation, one is faced with a parallel feeling
of elusiveness as well as of an underlying theoretical difficulty in the contemporary cognitive literaturea feeling rather well captured by Rick Grush,
who observes: As crucial as this notion is, and as much theoretical attention
and industry has been devoted to it, it remains a frustrating enigma.16
Elusive as it remains, a clearly identifiable general conception of its nature,
that I propose to call the stand in conception, nevertheless prevails, in my
opinion, in both the neurocognitive model of the mind and its antecedents
and in the search for alternative ones. According to this conception, a representation is basically something that stands in for something else. Its pervasiveness
can be illustrated by numerous references, some of them more explicit than
others. Given the importance of this point, extensive quotation is in order.
William Bechtel writes, for instance:
The term representation is used in a variety of ways in cognitive science, making
it challenging to assess the different claims scientists make about representations . . .
it is useful to begin with by distinguishing two aspects of representations, the function of a representation as standing in for something else, and the format employed in
the representation. . . . A major strategy in cognitive science has been to explain
13
14
15
16
Russell 1918, p. 153.

Russell 1913, p. 35.
Russell 1918, p. 152.
Grush, 1997, p. 349.
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how an organism is successful in negotiating its environment by construing some of

its internal states or processes as carrying information about, or standing in for, those
aspects of its body and external states or events that it takes account of in negotiating its environment.17
Similarly, John Haugeland offers the following definition:

if the relevant features are reliably present and manifest to the system . . . whenever
the adjustments must be made, then they need not be represented. Thus plants
that track the sun with their leaves need not represent it or its position, because the
tracking can be guided directly by the sun itself. But if the relevant features are not
always present, then they can, at least in some cases, be represented; that is, something else can stand in for them, with the power to guide behavior in their stead.
That which stands in for something else in this way is a representation; that which it
stands in for is its content; and its standing in for that content is representing it.18
Tim van Gelder is also particularly worth quoting in this regard: . . . any
reasonable characterization [of the notion of representation is] based around
the core idea of some state of a system which, by virtue of some general representational scheme, stands in for some further state of affairs, thereby enabling the system to behave appropriately with respect to that state of
affairs.19 Finally, Rick Grush asserts on his side: Representations are entities which stand for something else or better they are entities which are used
to stand for something else.20
In virtue of this definition, a representation is thus something acting as a
substitute for something else, an entity that is present in replacement of something else. This view corresponds quite strictly to the most traditional definition
of the symbol as an aliquid quod stat pro aliquo and deserves, accordingly, to be
considered as a symbolic conception of representation. In this perspective,
then, a mental representation is nothing else than a symbol of a mental kind,
whatever this specifically mental dimension really comes down to. There is little doubt that partisans of the pervasive representational theory of the mind
share such a perspective, as their occasional swtiching from the notion of representation to that of symbol, well illustrated by Fodor21 confirms.
Beyond this basic characterization in terms of symbols, the stand in conception is typically further developed with the help of a set of recurrent notions,
including those of reference, information, function, and satisfiability. The resulting standard conception of representation is that of an information bearing element
17
18
19
20
21
Bechtel 1998, p.3.

Haugeland 1998, p. 172.
van Gelder 1995, p. 351.
Grush 1997, p. 349.
See, for instance, Fodor 1987.
99
functioning as an information provider about something else than itself that constitutes
both its referent and its satisfier. This definition is not fundamentally wrong, but it
lacks precision, rigor, and clarity in several respects, and, thereby, it incurs the
risk of confusing a specific kind of representation with the genus itself. This, in
turn, affects the solutions that can be brought to a host of crucial issues hinging
on the understanding of the nature of representation that range from its eliminability to its naturalizability, as well as, precisely, to its relation with the property of intentionality. It is not the least of paradoxes of contemporary cognitive
literature that is neglects the problem of the nature of representation in favor of
other such issues, although their solution depends crucially on the way this
problem is solved. Consequently, what is needed is a full blown theory of the
nature of representation that carefully lays out its most essential and basic features and rigorously identifies its key paramaters of specification. Only on the
basis of such a theory can its relations with the notion of intentionality be
adequately grasped.
4. AN ALTERNATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE NATURE OF
REPRESENTATION
My ambition here is not to provide such a theory, but the grounds of an
alternative view of the principles on which to erect one, with a sufficient
degree of development for establishing the thesis of the representational
essence of the neo-Brentanian property of intentionality and, therefore, the
reality of the problem of anti-representationalist neo-Brentanian intentionalism. This alternative view is centered on the following three essential claims:
18) the faculty of representation is best understood at its most basic level as a
faculty of specification, i.e., a capacity to specify things in the sense of attributing them determinations; 28) among the possible forms such a specification
might assume, a key distinction must be introduced between a direct and an
indirect one; 38) the direct one is the most basic. The strategy to be followed
for establishing these three claims consists first in reformulating the stand in
conception, and then arguing why and how one must go beyond it in order
to appropriatley capture the essential nature of representation.
4.1. Reformulating the Stand In Conception
Contrary to what Nelson Goodman seems to think,22 but in agreement with
Husserl,23 cases of external representations are not degraded forms of
22
23
Goodman 1976, p.5.

See Husserl 19001901.
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representing. They even constitute the best candidates for correctly understanding the stand in conception, because they are the ones that best fit it.
What do we mean when we claim, for instance, that an ambassador represents a government? Taking the historical case of the first U.S. ambassador
to France as an example, it is clear that we mean that Benjamin Franklin is
not a member of that government, but a representative of it, in the sense of
an element that stands in a certain relation of representing with another one
playing the function of represented element, in opposition to that of representing element. The first key question, therefore, is to characterize this relation itself.
Three essential aspects must arguably be distinguished in it.
It is in the first place a relation of substitution, which corresponds to the
standing in feature of the stand in conception. Indeed, qua representing element, Benjamin Franklin is what interacts with the French government in
lieu of the U.S. government. He is what stands in front of that government
when it addresses the U.S. government. He replaces it, acting as a sort of
ersatz of it.
However, he is not a mere substitute of it, because a mere substitute just
takes the place of another element and somehow puts it out of the game. On
the contrary, by interacting with Franklin, France is in fact dealing with the
U.S. government itself. It is dealing with it through Franklin, that is to say,
indirectly instead of directly. Accordingly, Franklin is not only a substitute of
the U.S. governement, but a substitute for the U.S. government. He stands in
France for the U.S. government. This second relation, corresponding to the
for element of the stand in conception, also corresponds fairly well to a certain notion of reference, intuitively understood as the fact of one thing bringing
in another.
Finally, it appears difficult that something could stand in for something
else without standing as such to some other thing and, therefore, without
being apprehended as such by that thing. If there were nobody to whom the
ambassador were taken as a substitute of his government, he would not really
qualify as an ambassador, at best as a merely potential one. Consequently, it
looks necessary to introduce in the analysis a complementary relation of
apprehension, as well as a complementary element acting as the subject of that
relation of apprehension that will be labelled the apprehending entity. So, a representation is to be defined as an entity that, on the one hand, substitutes for
and refers to some other entity and, on the other hand, is apprehended as
such by yet another one.
The represented element, which is taken here in the broadest possible
sense of whatever is the related term of the representing relation and, accordingly, as equivalent to what is now more usually designated with the overly
ambiguous expression of content of a representation, has received more
101
attention than this representing relation itself. Numerous and often quite
sophisticated distinctions have been introduced in the course of the history of
the multifarious analyses of the nature of representation. Although they lack
consistency across theories, three of them are of particular importance and
can be presented as follows.
First, the notion of represented refers to the element of which there is a representation, that is to say, the element that exists independently of the relation
of representation but happens to enter into it in the specific position of
related term. Like, for example, the group of people constituting the U.S.
government who happens to enter, among many other kinds of relation that
it entertains, into a relation of diplomatic representation, in the position of
what Franklin is a substitute of and refers to. It is best to label this element
the represented entity. Even though it implies in some sense the existence of this
entity, this first distinction is free of any specific commitment as to its ontological status in the sense that it leaves all doors open to the full spectrum of
possible ontological positions, from hard realism to irrealism, and thereby to
a variety of corresponding forms of representationalism ranging from realist
to irrealist ones.
Second, there is the represented as represented or as such, that is to say, as
related term intrinsically linked to the relation of representation. In this second sense, the represented designates what is represented in a representation
even if there is nothing of which it is a representation, as in the widely discussed cases of representations without objects at the turn of the twentieth
century. For example, what Franklin would represent as a U.S. ambassador,
even if the U.S. were, in fact, a sheer fiction because the independence from
the Great Britain had not been acheived. To emphasize its intrinsic connection with the representing relation, it is best designated as the term of the
representing relation or the representational term. This second distinction certainly is the most debated one in the literature on the nature of representation, because it raises numerous and quite difficult issues. One such issue
concerns its ontological independence: How much should it be conceived as
an entity of its own, separate from the represented entity? If it is not, how
can it survive the disappearance of the represented entity and not turn a representation without an object into a nonrepresentation? If it is, what kind of
entity is it really, and how does it relate to the represented entity? Possible
answers to these questions correspond to as many possible specifications of
the notion of representation, in addition to those opened by the degree of
reality to be granted to the represented entityquite a number of which
have been to some extent explored in the past.
Third, what is represented might correspond more particularly to the specific aspect under which the representational term figures in the
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representational relation, that is, the specific determinations with which it is

represented. In other words, the way it is described. This third dimension of
the represented is familiar because of its equivalent with the notion of sense
in the analysis of linguistic meaning. As a matter of fact, some analyses do
not hesitate to extend to it this term sense, such as the Husserlian theory
and its famous concept of Noematic Sinn. It is also what the expression of content introduced in the Brentanian tradition by Twardowski24 and Hofler25
was specifically designed to capture. Both the expression of sense and the
expression of content nevertheless raise difficulties: the first because it favors
an all too problematic tendency to analyze mental properties on the model
of linguistic ones, and the second because of the generic use that the term
content has now acquired, making it designate the represented in its
entirety. For these reasons, it seems more appropriate to label this third
dimension of the represented the descriptive element. This further distinction has
traditionally brought additional complications to the issues elicited by the
admission of the representational term, raising, in particular, the question
whether it should be considered as a separate entity and, if so, how it relates
to the other constituents of the represented.
This overall analysis of the basic nature of representation can be summarized with the different case of a photographic representation, like the famous
Life magazine photography of Marilyn Monroe lifting her skirt and reveiling
her legs. In this instance, the representing element is the material dimension
of the photograph, i.e., the Life magazine printed page. The represented
entity is the individual Marylin Monroe, who happens to get involved in this
specific relation of representation, but is also involved in many other ones.
The representational term is the individual Marilyn Monroe as represented
by the Life magazine page, who would still qualify as what this page represents even if Marilyn were a sheer fiction. The descriptive element corresponds to the specific way Marilyn Monroe appears on this picture, that is,
with a certain posture, a certain dress. In addition, the printed page clearly
acts as a visual substitute of the individual Marilyn Monroe: it appears in the
magazine in order to replace the actual Marilyn, that is, what I am supposed
to see when I open this magazine instead of seeing her. It is not a mere substitute of her, however, as I am also supposed, when I look at it, to have a
certain form of visual experience of Marilyn and, hence, to be referred to
her. It somehow brings her in. Finally, the apprehension element lies in the
fact that I visually perceive the printed page in a certain way; this is in contrast with a visual experience that does not identify it as a picture and reduces
24
25
See Twardowski 1894.

See Hofler 1890.
103
it to a patchwork of meaningless shapes and grey hues. Moreover, it is arguable that this relation of apprehension is here again necessary, not only for
recognizing what it is, but for making it what it is.
It should be noted that in this analysis of external representation along the
lines of a refomulated stand in conception, the apprehending relation is,
nevertheless, made less a constituent of the representation than an indispensable complement to it. Even though it must be apprehended as such, what
really makes a representation what it is, is the fact that it is the referring substitute of something else. As a matter of fact, if one can assert that the French
government apprehends the ambassador as a representative of the U.S. government, it is incorrect to say that the French government represents (to
itself) the U.S. government by means of its ambassador. It might be objected,
however, that this limitation is due to the specific kind of external representation taken into consideration and cannot be generalized. In the case of the
picture of Marilyn Monroe, it is legitimate to say not only that whoever sees
the printed page correctly apprehends it as a photographic representation of
Marilyn Monroe, but also visually represents Marilyn Monroe to himself.
Shouldnt the relation of apprehension be consequently integrated into the
definition of the representation relation itself, instead of being seen as a mere
add-on to it, even if of a necessary kind? I favor a negative answer, but the
question is a difficult one. For the sake of simplification I will leave it aside
here, as nothing essential for the demonstration at stake hinges on this
decision.
How exactly, then, to extend this reformulation of the stand in conception
of representation extracted from the case of external representations to that
of internal representations? It is necessary to first clarify how the frontier
between the external and the internal should itself be drawn. The most natural proposal, in this regard, is to make it coincide with the limits of what has
been labelled the apprehending element. That is, a representation counts as
an external one when the representing element is external to the element
that apprehends it as such, and internal when the representing element is
internal to the element that apprehends it as such. In other words, an internal representation is an element Y internal to an element X such that Y is
apprehended by X as standing in for an element Z, where standing in means
being a substitute of, as well as referring to Z. The key to understanding the
internalization of the above reformulation of the stand in conception is thus
to understand how the representing element itself can be internalized. There
seem to be two main ways of doing this.
The first one consists in finding an equivalent to what we might call the
material entity that plays the role of representing element in the case of an
external representation such as a photograph. In the perspective of cognitive
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naturalism that has dominated the cognitive science enterprise from its
inception, some form of brain configuration, or brain and body configuration, is the obvious candidate. A solution well illustrated by Fodors version
of the representational theory of the mind, that fits neatly into the proposed
reformulation. Indeed, Fodor explicitly assimilates a mental representation
to a mental symbol M occurring in a cognitive system and standing in two
causal relations26: one with the rest of the system and corresponding at a certain level with the relation of apprehension, and one of aboutness with an
element in the environment and corresponding to the substitution and reference relation. In a natural cognitive system, this mental symbol M is realized
or implemented by some neuronal firing pattern, or even some specific neural configuration, just like the photograph of Marilyn Monroe is realized in
various material structures from which it can also be abstracted.
There is, however, a different way of internalizing the representing element, which played a major role in the representationalist tradition. It does
not simply assimilate the representing element to an internal equivalent of
the material realizer of the external representation, but, rather, somehow displaces it with respect to the architecture of external representation. Indeed,
what is treated as the representing element is one of the first two elements
distinguished in the represented in the case of the external representation,
namely the representational term or the descriptive element, and they are
said to represent what was labelled the represented entity. When switching
from the photograph of Marilyn Monroe to a mental image of her, what is
representing is the sort of duplication of her that we elaborate when imagining and have in front of the mental eye, and not the material structure of
this duplicated Marilyn, be it made of some specific mental stuff or of neurobiological matter. This alternative form of internalization is made quite clear
by the way Bertrand Russell, in his first period, summarizes it in order to put
it into question. He talks about it as the theory that between subject and
object there is a third entity, the content, which is mental, and is that thought
or state of mind by means of which the subject apprehends the object.27 He
also correctly makes clear the link uniting this view formulated in the Brentanian vocabulary of content, obviously borrowed from Alexius Meinong who
was his entry door into Brentanism,28 and the traditional theory of ideas,
described in turn as the view . . . that there is some mental existent which
may be called the idea of something outside the mind of the person who
26
See, in particular, Fodor 1987b.

Russell 1913, p. 5.
28
Meinong, who was also responsible for the introduction of the notion of content as he
co-authored Hoflers Logic, clearly saw it as a tertium quid that acts as a mediator in the intentional relation, as a sort of intentional relay.
27
105
has the idea . . . [and that] ideas become a veil between us and outside things
. . . .29 The framework is clearly that of the stand in conception with content
playing the role of what substitutes for and refers to an object. And this
understanding of internal representation undoubtedly continues to dominate
the interpretation of cognitive representationalism, at least on the side of its
detractors. In the same vein, Alva Noe speaks for instance of a view that sees
representation as an internal-world model,30 Mark Rowlands of a view
that sees it as an internal reproduction,31 and Rodney Brooks as a
model.32
4.2. Going Beyond the Stand In Conception (1): Dissociating Substitution from
Reference
What preceeds is no more than a skech of the basic principles of a reformulation of the stand in conception, calling for a full theoretical elaboration and
for a detailed critical confrontation with the main theories of the nature of
representation that have been offered. It is sufficient, however, to put into
light one fundamental error in it. This error consists in confusing what is no
more than a specific type of representation, namely the indirect or symbolic
one where something is represented by means of an intermediary, with the
representational genus itself. The source of this confusion lies in the lack of
distinction between the relation of substitution and that of reference, as if
they were one and the same, or at least indissociable from each other. That
is to say, as if it were impossible to refer to something without being a substitute of that thing. The way some representatives of the stand in conception
express themselves is quite revealing in this respect. William Bechtel talks, for
instance, of carrying information about, and so standing in for it,33 while
Van Gelder uses the expression of symbolic representation.34 In a similar
vein, Nelson Goodman writes that the plain fact is that a picture, to represent an object, must be a symbol for it, stand for it, refer to it.35
However, once a clear distinction is introduced between the fact of being
the substitute of something and the fact of referring to something, it appears
that that there is no reason why something could not refer without acting as
a substitute. Further, there is also no reason to deny that something that
refers in a nonsymbolic or indirect way is representing. Moreover, because of
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
Russell 1918, p. 156.

Noe, 2004, pp. 2223.
Rowlands 2010, p. 33.
Brooks 1991, passim.
Bechtel 1998, p. 296.
van Gelder 1996, p. 351.
Goodman 1976, p. 5.
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its simplicity, it is also naturally suggested that nonsymbolic reference even

constitutes the most basic and general constitutive feature of representation,
and that representing symbolically is no more than one possible specification
of this basic feature obtained by adding the relation of substitution to that of
reference. According to this alternative characterization, and when considered at its most general level, a representation is thus an entity Y that refers
to an entity Z directly, in the sense that Y does not act in addition as a substitute of Z. No modification in the analysis of the represented is required.
However, the complementary relation of apprehension is no longer necessary
at this level, as it is arguably required by the substitutional component of the
representing relation. Although, one might still defend a more specific version of the view that sees reference as involving some kind of relation
between the representing element and a subject or a user, in the spirit of
familiar user theories of representation. The definition is intended to remain
neutral on the necessity of this relation, which is different from the one
required by the property of substitution and that is to be eliminated with that
property itself.
Accordingly, it is indeed possible to treat the verbs to represent and to
refer as synonymous, but not the verbs to refer and to stand for. This
last one should be reserved for the symbolic type of representation. A terminological distinction already present in the literature can usefully be invoked
for clarifying and fixing the transformation advocated here in the analysis of
the nature of representation. A number of authors, from some heirs of Brentano to a few contemporary theorists, have indeed proposed distinguishing
between a presentation and a representation. Leaving aside for the moment
the specific content they give to this distinction, although it is not unrelated
with the one advocated here, it could be said that the alternative claim put
forward is that a representation is at its most basic level a presentation, and
that a representation properly speaking is nothing else than a more complex
and specific type of presentation, characterized by its indirectness or substitutional character. However recommendable this claim is, such a terminological modification seems to go against too long of an established tradition to be
really useful. Accordingly, it seems preferable to keep talking in terms of representation, and to resort when necessary to an opposition between a presentationaland genericrepresentation and a symbolicand specific
representation.
4.3. Going Beyond the Stand In Conception (2): Representation As Specification
By relegating the stand in conception to the status of specific definition,
this alternative view also puts reference at the very heart of the general
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nature of representation and, consequently, calls for an inquiry into the

essential characteristics of reference itself in order to make further progress
in the elucidation of this nature. This requirement does not make the task
any easier, since reference can be seen as one of the most basic notions of
the whole philosophical tradition but also as one whose content, probably
because it is so fundamental, has been left mostly unclarified, making it a
sort of philosophical blackspot. In recent times, views about its determination at the language level or its naturalization at the mental level have
certainly been put forward, but these views say very little, if anything at
all, about what reference is meant to be in the referential idiom itself. A
crucial and difficult task to be completed in order to shed full light on the
nature of representation is therefore to provide an answer to the following
question: What do we mean exactly when we say that something refers to
something else?
For all its vagueness, the rough and intuitive definition that has been used
so far, to the effect that it consists for the first thing to somehow bring in or
make present the second one, puts us on the right track toward the principles
of a more precise and technical definition. For the definition points to the
idea that the notion of reference should be defined on the basis of that of
specification, in the sense of a capacity of specifying or of attributing determinations, that is, as something that specifies something else as an object.
With the consequence that the notion of specification is what captures, in
fact, the most general feature of the nature of representation, and also that
reference or what might also be called objective specification is only one particular, although central, form of it. This twofold claim will be clarified and
established in reverse order by going back to the examination of what is
actually needed when a representation is postulated. Or, more exactly, when
it looks illegitimate to postulate one, as such negative cases are in fact more
revealing than positive ones.
Let us revert, for instance, to the classical situation of the causal explanation of the transmission of movement between two billiard balls that played
such a central role since it received Humes honors. The observed data
consisting in the simple fact that a first ball rolls towards another one, establishes contact with it, and the second one then sets itself into motioncan be
accounted for in a variety of ways, such as the four following: 1) the first ball
is driven by an internal force, and the impact transmits this force to the second one; 2) the first ball is driven by an internal force, and it so happens that,
at the precise moment of contact with the second ball, this second ball is
drawn up by an external force of stronger magnitude and exerted in the very
same direction; 3) the first ball is driven by an internal force, and it so happens that, at the precise moment of contact with the second ball, this second
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ball jumps forward as a result of a sudden upsurge of an internal force

exerted in the very same direction; or 4) the second ball knows that the first
one is moving towards itself and therefore decides to run away from it at the
very moment when it gets in contact with it.
Although all equally account for the specific data to be explained, there
is a clear heterogeneity between the first three and the last one. The first
group is integrated by explanations of a purely mechanical kind, in the
sense of explanations that only resort to forces and movements.The fourth
one, on the contrary, gives explanatory relevance to such notions as knowing and deciding that can be seen as representational ones in the sense of
presupposing the notion of representation. It can accordingly be rephrased
as follows: the second ball entertains a representation of the first one as
moving toward itself on a collision course and takes this representation as
a causal determinant of its physical movements. It is important to emphasize that nothing hinges on the validity of this representational reformulation of the notions of knowing and deciding; should one dispute it, it is
then enough to take the explanation couched in representational terms as
the original one. The difference, however, is not solely one of content but
also of acceptability. The representational explanation is clearly unacceptable in this case, in a way and to a degree that none of the others is. The
main reasons for this are no less clear. It violates a principle of simplicity:
much less complex explanations are available. It also goes against the
principle of ontological economy and thus falls victim to Occams razor.
Finally, it also sins by anthropomorphism, uselessly treating the second
billard ball on the model of a human cognitive system and offering an
account of a natural phenomenon that belongs to what Auguste Comte
liked to call the theological age of humanity.
But what exactly is the essential idea that we should thus save by eliminating the explanation of the sequence of movements of the billards balls
in representational terms? It is undisputedly the twofold one that the second ball is endowed with a capacity to apprehend outside things in a certain way, that is to say, to elaborate a characterization of its environment,
to attribute a number of determinations to it, or, to put it in other words
still, to provide a certain specification of this environment and then use
this specification as a determinant of its behavior. The first of these two
elements is no less certainly the most crucial one, as a billard ball with the
capacity to specify its environment but not that of using this specification
as a determinant of its behavior would certainly count as a billard ball
endowed with the capacity to represent. To put it in a nutshell, what the
refusal to grant representations to the billard ball puts into light is that
the world of representation emerges as soon as the very basic notion of
109
what there is according to or for something emerges, as opposed to what

there is in itself. From this perspective, an explanation of the billard balls
movement is fundamentally representational inasmuch as it accepts the
relevance of the idea that something in the second ball characterizes its
environment as one in which the first ball is on a collision course toward
itself.
Claiming that representing ultimately comes down to specifying, and
consequently that something is a representation inasmuch as it functions as
what might be called a specifier, is not unrelated to its standard characterization as information provider. But this view makes it something more
elementarysince not all specifying qualifies as an informingand as a
result, something also that is not intrinsically epistemic. Furthermore, it
makes it something more elementary than referring, for the property of
reference can indeed be defined as a particular, even if central, form of
specification, namely as an objective one in the sense of a characterization
of something as an objective entity, whatever this ultimately means. It
seems indeed reasonable to think that not all representation, so understood, deserves to be considered as a representation of an object. The
well-known dotted pictures from which slowly emerges the perception of a
dalmatian dog provides, for instance, a good case where one can be seen
as switching from a nonobjective representation to an objective one. And
in such a perspective, the representational term and the descriptive element of a representation are not two different kinds of properties of a representation but, rather, two different aspects of one and the same
characteristic of specification: the sense corresponds to the way in which
something is specified, beyond being specified as an objective entity.
The double claim that a representation is fundamentally a presentation
and that a presentation is fundamentally a specification results in an
extremely minimalist form of representationalism, not in the standard
sense of the notion of representational minimalismthat corresponds to a
position limiting the recourse to the property of representation, but in
the sense of a theory of the nature of representation that puts very minimal requirements on qualifying as something representational. The consequence is that representationalism runs much deeper than is usually
assumed in the debates about the possibility of devising an antirepresentational alternative model of the mind, and that radically breaking
away with it definitely needs more than rejecting the postulation of elements that stand in for something, Another of its consequences is that reference is not as crucial to representation as the stand in conception tends
to have us believe. From this perspective, reference is only essential to a
specific type, however encompassing and central, of representations.
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However, reference is thereby made on the contrary an essentially representational notion.

4.4. Converging Contemporary Views
Even though it differs from them, this minimalist representationalism is not
without its echoes of some contemporary views. Despite the fact that he sides
with the stand in conception, the insistence with which Mark Rowlands
emphasizes that a representation is primarily something that makes claims
about the world36 is, for instance, clearly consonant with its second component, namely the thesis that representation is essentially specification. The
recently developed radical enactivism of Daniel Hutto and Eric Myin is even
clearer in this respect. For in their effort to get rid of any remnant of the
notion of representational content in accounting for basic cognition, they are
led to identify it in the very same terms used above: To qualify as representational, an inner state . . . must, so to speak, have the function of saying or
indicating that things stand thus and so. . . .37
Similarly, the presentational component of the definition finds counterparts in authors like John Searle or Rick Grusch, who argue to a different
extent for a distinction between representation as such and representation as
presentation. In fact, Searle starts by defining representation at its most general level in a way that is extremely close to the specification view.38 Indeed,
a representation is in his eyes anything that both has conditions of satisfaction
and is associated with what he explicitly calls a determination of these conditions, in the sense of a certain specification of their nature under a certain
aspect, and that he labels a representative content. This general characterization is free from any reference to a stand in element, as not even the representative content is analyzed as playing the role of an intermediary with
respect to the conditions of satisfaction. Furthermore, Searle introduces on
this basis a distinction between representations, so understood, that are presentations, such as visual perception, and those that are not, such as beliefs
and desires. But if the distinction has to do with an opposition between a
direct and an indirect apprehension of the conditions of satisfaction, it is not
the one that opposes a nonsymbolic to a symbolic form of representation
according to the above analyses. It corresponds, rather, to the Husserlian distinction between a form of representation that specifies its object as present
effectively, in itself, to one that does not. There is, however, in Searle a further distinction between presentation and representation that conforms
36
37
38
Rowlands 2010, passim.

Hutto 2013, p. 62.
See Searle 1983.
111
squarely with these analyses. In the particular area of visual perception,

Searle introduces a further difference between a nonrepresentative theory of
visual perception, that understands perception as a presentation in the sense
not only of a representation that delivers its object as directly present itself
but of one whose structure also involves no stand in element, and a representative theory view of perception that does not introduce such a stand in element. However, this opposition between nonsymbolic and symbolic
presentative kinds of representation only plays a secondary role.
Grushs version of the distinction also arguably presents some important
analogy with the one advocated here, since the distinguishing feature of a representation seems to lie, in his opinion, in the fact that it is an entity [used] as
an off-line stand-in39 apprehended as a model of something else, while a
presentation is something simply used as an information carrier about something else without standing in as a model for it. Nevertheless, an important difference between the two analyses, beyond the fact that Grush bases his own on
the standard notion of information carrying, is that he sees a representation as
carrying less information than a presentation, while no intrinsic difference is
made between a symbolic and indirect way of specifying and a direct one.
5. THE REPRESENTATIONAL ESSENCE OF NEO-BRENTANIAN
INTENTIONALITY
On the basis of these developments, the issue of the validity of the thesis of
the representational essence of the neo-Brentanian property of intentionality
can now be confronted on more precise grounds. Is it possible to claim that
this property entertains an essential connection with that of representation
and, in addition, that this essential connection makes neo-Brentanian intentionalism incompatible with anti-representationalism?
The answer is pretty straightforward. If correct, the previous analyses
command indeed an understanding of neo-Brentanian intentionality as an
intrinsically representational property, although in the presentational sense
of the notion of representation, in other words, as an intrinsically presentational property. And the reason is simply that they reveal neo-Brentanian
intentionality to be a specific and central form of representation, in virtue of
the fact that the notion of objectivation that lies at its core is identical to that
of reference understood as an objective form of specification. NeoBrentanian intentionality is essentially representational because it is essentially a specification of an objective kind.
39
See Grush 1997.
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This analysis might be considered insufficient, however, because by resulting in the sheer identification of the notion of intentionality with that of reference, it deprives the former of any specificity, in contradiction with the deep
intuition driving its introduction by Brentano and its preservation by most
contemporary cognitive theorists. However, it is in fact preferable for a number of reasons to enrich the analysis of representation as specification with
the introduction of a further distinction between reference tout court and
objective reference. This distinction is based on the difference between specifying something simply as an entity and specifying something as an object
(whatever, once again, this comes down to). The objection raised can thereby
be easily circumvented, as the identification must consequently be amended
and intentionality be made identical with objective reference only.
However, if the thesis, so understood, of the representational essence
of Brentanian intentionality is correct, then the problem of antirepresentationalist neo-Brentanian intentionalism is also undisputably genuine. For accepting the relevance of the neo-Brentanian property of intentionality is accepting that of a specific form of the property of representation.
Neo-Brentanian intentionalism is not dissociable from representationalism
correctly apprehended.
The theoretical considerations supporting this twofold conclusion can be
aided by historical ones, for there is certainly nothing new in the thesis of the
representational essence of the property of neo-Brentanian intentionality. In
the first place, it corresponds on the contrary to the dominant interpretation
of Brentanos thesis in cognitivist and even neurocognitive times, when
basically all theorists, friends or foes of the thesisincluding people with
theoretical orientations as varied as Daniel Dennett, Paul and Patrica
Churchland, John Searle and Jerry Fodoranalyzed it in representational
terms and made it a central tenet of cognitive representationalism. Furthermore, this interpretation is largely in continuity with the one it had received
antecedently, and it finds undeniable roots in the Brentanian schoool itself,
and particularly in Brentano.
Indeed, on the one hand, Brentano clearly held a form of the thesis of
the representational essence of intentionality by making representation the
most basic intentional modality on which the other two that he accepted,
judgment and feeling, are based. As a result, every mental state, as stated
in a famous formula of the 1874 book that Husserl later put at the center
of his critique of Brentanism in Part IV of his Logical Investigations, either is
a representation or is based upon a representation. As a matter of fact,
intentionality is only one of several marks of the mental explored in the
1874 book, and representation is one of these marks. Brentano did not
reject its relevance in the least, but he considered intentionality to be a
113
better one. Furthermore, the representationalist structure of Brentanian

intentionality is astonishingly close to the presentational one advocated in
the above theoretical developments. For what is the essential feature of
the representational modality of intentionality according to Brentano? The
terseness of the answer he provides to this question is not proportional to
its importance. He says enough, however, to show that he leans definitely
on the side of a sort of presentationalism. Representing is defined by
Brentano as the sheer fact of presenting an object as such. We talk of
representation, he writes for instance, any time an object is shown to
us.40 Although it is not specified, the notion of showing used here lends
itself to an interpretation in terms of manifestation and, hence, of a direct
relation with an object and not an indirect one.41
It can therefore be concluded that he not only held a thesis of the representational essence of intentionality, but under a form very similar to the one
developed here. One important difference is surely that representation was
for him a modality of intentionality and not simply a structural feature of it.
But this difference is a surface one, since the representational modality is one
that lies at the heart of every other modality. A more significant difference
that still distinguishes the two analyses, however, is the fact that for Brentano
all representation was an objective one, or, in other words, that there was no
nonintentional representation.
The case of Alexius Meinong, a major element of the Brentanian legacy
given its influence on the analytical current lying predominantly at the root
of the cognitive science enterprise, also a telling, although it is too complex
to be dealt with in detail. First and foremost, Meinong made representation, no less than Brentano did, the most basic form of intentionality. Moreover, he introduced an explicit distinction between representation and
presentation. But presentation was for him only a constituent of the representational kind of intentionality, even if a determinant one, since it was the
one with the objectivating role. However, the introduction of this presentational element in the analysis of the basic representational modality of
intentionality did not prevent him from also giving it a symbolic structure
through the introduction of the additional distinction between content and
object that, in his case, arguably makes the first one something standing in
40
Brentano 1874, p. 158.

Additional considerations regarding the difficult question of the status of the intentional
object in his theory and based on Brentanos correspondence with his former students (in particular his famous letter to Anton Marty of March 15 1905 [see Brentano 1930]) converge,
in my opinion, on the same conclusion. It is to be noted that the English version of the 1874
book translates Vorstellung to presentation. Although an erroneous choice in strict terms of translation, it is probably a correct one theoretically speaking.
41
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for the second one.42 So, if Meinongs intentionality is no less representational than Brentano, it is so in the symbolic sense rather than the presentational sense.
6. IMPLICATIONS: THE PROBLEM OF NON-BRENTANIAN
INTENTIONALISM
The reality of the problem of anti-representationalist neo-Brentanian intentionalism confronts alternative theories of the mind that pretend to combine the
two incompatible claims lying at its core with an obvious dilemma: either to
renounce anti-representationalism or to forego neo-Brentanian intentionalism.
It is to be noted that only anti-representationalism stricto sensu, or radical
anti-representationalism, is at stake in the first branch of this dilemmathat
is to say, the view that no theoretical relevance whatsoever should be granted
to a property of representation in the theory of the mind. For the option is
still left open to grant some relevance to this property in the proportion
granted to the property of neo-Brentanian intentionality, giving rise to a
moderate form of representationalism that corresponds to what is currently
often designated as a minimal one. This moderation can alternatively be
exercised not with respect to the extension of the property of representation,
but to the forms of representation required by the acceptance of intentionalism, opting, for instance, for a purely nonsymbolic representationalism if this
is what is needed for preserving neo-Brentanian intentionality.
Similar caution is in order concerning the second branch of the dilemma.
Renouncing neo-Brentanian intentionalism means refusing to grant any theoretical relevance to a neo-Brentanian property of intentionality and,
accordingly, to opt for its elimination. But this anti-intentionalism or intentional eliminativism can be understood in a radical or in a moderate way as
well. The radical perspective is tantamount to rejecting intentionalism altogether under the assumption that there is no other possible property of intentionality than the neo-Brentanian one. Refusing such an assumption, the
moderate perspective accepts that the relevance of a non-neo-Brentanian
property of intentionality remains a theoretical possibility to be explored
and, consequently, that having to renounce neo-Brentanian intentionalism
does not mean yet having to renounce intentionalism at large.
In contradistinction to the solutions consisting either in renouncing radical
anti-representationalism or opting for intentional eliminativism, which
both bite the bullet of the incompatibilist implications of the thesis of the representational essence of neo-Brentanian intentionality, this moderate perspective
42
See note 26.
115
offers a different way out of the dilemma, which consists in questioning the
limits of these implications without questioning their reality. This perspective
also offers, thereby, the stimulating hope of overcoming what looks like an irreductible opposition. Accordingly, it deserves particular attention.
There are two possible ways of conceiving this compatibilist solution. It can
be firstly understood as locating the error of neo-Brentanian intentionalism
not in its representationalist analysis of objectivation, but in its very assimilation of intentionality with such a property. Accordingly, a non-neo-Brentanian
approach to the property of intentionality will be one that refuses such an
assimilation and as a consequence severs its ties with the property of representation. It is thus entirely based on the assumption that it is indeed possible to
eliminate from the notion of intentionality that of relating to something as an
object, and to do so in a way that also eliminates all connections with the idea
of specification as previously explained. The first aspect of this double assumption seems, however, to be particularly challenging and stretches theoretical
imagination beyond limits. The idea of objectivation appears to be so deeply
ingrained in that of intentionality that one can indeed reasonably wonder:
What could intentionality be if not, one way or the other, objectivation? In the
end, terminology is free, and it is certainly possible to extend the term to anything we want. But the intentionalism resulting from such an extension would
obviously run the risk of being entirely artificial and, appearances notwithstanding, no different in fact from intentional eliminativism. And no better
either. For it is a real question to determine how far a theory of cognition can
go without calling upon the idea of objectivation.
According to the second interpretation, the search for a non-Brentanian
conception of intentionality should not dispute its assimilation with objectivation, but its understanding of objectivation itself, seen as the root of its commitment to representationalism. The key to escaping the dilemma is to find a
way of elaborating a non-representational analysis of objectivation. This is
an undoubtedly more promising approach, although a quite challenging one
from a theoretical point of view. To what extent, indeed, is it really possible
to dissociate the notion of objectivation from that of representation understood in its full extent and radicality, that is to say, as specification? Such is
certainly the most central and deepest issue raised by any attempt to devise a
non-neo-Brentanian kind of intentionalism.
And here again there are two ways of understanding the issue and,
therefore, of searching for a solution to it. One possibility is that some
error affects the neo-Brentanian analysis of objectivation and that this error
has as a consequence the additional and different error of giving in to representationalism. The difficulty in this perspective is to identify this error and
to correct it in a way that blocks its representationalist consequences. But
116
JEAN-MICHEL ROY
representationalism remains somehow external to the neo-Brentanian conception of objectivation. The alternative is to see it, on the contrary, as built
in this conception itself, making neo-Brentanian objectivation an intrinsically
representational property. This is what the thesis of the representational
essence of neo-Brentanian intentionality claims. What it asserts is that neoBrentanian intentionality is revealed to be essentially representational
because it assimilates intentionality with objectivation, and because, in turn,
objectivation is revealed to be a particular form of representation understood
as specification. According to neo-Brentanism, a mental state is intentional
not only insofar as it relates to something as an object, but to the extent also
that it specifies, and hence characterizes or interprets, something as sucha
feature that can be located in the elusive component of directedness of Brentanos original definition as the idea that being directed toward something as
an object seems to introduce into it a sort of attitudinal element. In this perspective, the difficulty is to determine to what extent and how the idea of
relating to something as an object can be dissociated from that of specifying
something as an object. In other words, to what extent and how the idea of
objectivation can be dissociated from that of directedness, at least in the
sense of directedness that can be attributed to Brentano.
When understood in this way, searching for a non-neo-Brentanian property of intentionality as an instrument for making anti-representationalism
compatible with intentionalism looks like a less exotic undertaking than it
seemed to be at first glance. But the depth of the requirement should not be
missed. To meet it, it is not enough to simply go for an embodied, extended,
enactive . . . form of specification. For such options remain within the purview of a representationalist model of the mind correctly apprehended. Similarly, it is not enough either to simply devise a notion of intentionality that
breaks away with the idea of specification. What is necessary is to devise one
that keeps the full theoretical relevance of the property of intentionality for a
theory of the mind. As a matter of fact, it is fairly probable that the idea of
relating to something as an object can be captured to a certain extent in
behavioral terms, as corresponding, for instance, to a specific pattern of
behavior. But how much of an intentional model of the mind can be developed with such a definition of intentionality? Here is the real question.
7. FORAYS INTO A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF
ALTERNATIVE MODELS OF THE MIND
7.1. Defining a critical strategy
A safe and fruitful strategy, in order to come to terms with the specific issue
that has now emerged as the heart of the theoretical dimension of the
117
problem of anti-representationalist neo-Brentanian intentionalism, is to start

by examining whether the on-going search for alternative models of the
mind already contains explicit or implicit solutions to it and how acceptable
these are. This strategy consists in nothing else, in fact, than turning to questions Q1 and Q2 which characterize the critical dimension of this problem
(see above in Section 1).
It is important to note that the thesis of the representational essence of
neo-Brentanian intentionality comes with a prediction regarding the answers
that these questions can in principle receive. This prediction is that if one of
the alternative models of the mind under development advocates a radically
anti-representationalist form of neo-Brentanian intentionalism, then it must
fall into one of the following theoretical categories:
1. It really advocates a neo-Brentanian and radically antirepresentationalist kind of intentionalism, but is contradiction ridden
and then not acceptable;
2. It really advocates a neo-Brentanian kind of intentionalism, but proves
to be in fact not radically anti-representationalist, and is then
acceptable;
3. It really advocates a radically anti-representationalist kind of model of
the mind, but proves to be eliminativist about intentionalism, and is
then acceptable;
4. It really advocates a radically anti-representationalist kind of intentionalism, but of a non-neo-Brentanian and, hence, not essentially representational type, and is then acceptable.
In terms of this prediction, the strategy can be described as one of adopting a
limited approach to the critical dimension of the problem that focuses on the
identification of possible representatives of the fourth one of these categories
among protagonists of the current search for alternative models of the mind.
In spite of offering a possible shortcut for solving the core theoretical issue,
this critical strategy raises a methodological difficulty: where to look for such
representatives in priority? A reasonable answer is to privilege alternative
models of the mind with explicit claims pointing, in varying degrees, in the
direction of an anti-representationalist form of intentionalism. These models
can, in turn, be distributed into four descriptive categories of decreasing priority. First are the models that explicitly advocate a non-neo-Brentanian
form of intentionalism and might even ground their anti-Brentanism in antirepresentationalism. Second are the models that advocate a form of antirepresentationalist intentionalism without being explicitly directed against
118
JEAN-MICHEL ROY
neo-Brentanian intentionalism. A third convenient category includes those

that defend intentionalism at large without adopting any particularly manifest position about representationalism. And fourth are those that, on the
contrary, defend anti-representationalism at large without adopting any particular manifest position about intentionalism.
A full application of this research strategy is obviously beyond the scope of
the present study. But its fruitfulness can be illustrated with a preliminary
investigation of two particularly revealing cases.
7.2. Rowlands Neo-Neo-Intentionalism
Among present day alternative models of the mind, the new science of the
mind proposed by M. Rowlands is probably unique in the emphasis it puts
on the issue of intentionalism, which it considers as the most basic one about
the foundations of cognitive science. Indeed, in the 2010 synthesis of his
views published under this title, Rowlands pleads in a rather standard way
for a form of anti-Cartesian explanation of cognition, labelled the amalgamated mind thesis and that combines a version of vehicle externalism with a
version of cognitive embodiment. But his most crucial claim is that this amalgamated mind thesis is entirely rooted in the intentional character of cognition. In others words, his key point is that the explanation of cognition must
go anti-Cartesian because it must be intentional. In Rowlandsopinion, the
error of the science of cognition born with the cognitive revolution is not that
it resuscitated intentionalism, but that it gave to its neo-intentionalism an
unduly neo-Cartesian orientation, which must be discarded on the basis of
an alternative conception of intentionality. An alternative conception that
has the amalgamated mind . . . as an obvious . . . consequence43 and is not
unheard of, but has not been sufficiently taken into consideration in the past.
Rowlands provides, accordingly, a perfect example of an attempt to preserve intentionalism within the search for an alternative cognitive science of a
non-Cartesian kind. To this end, moreover, he explicitly intends to substitute
the neo-intentionalism that prevailed up to and through the neurocognitive
turn with what might be termed a neo-neo-intentionalism. This renewed
intentionalism offers, therefore, a serious chance of being one that might break
away from the representationalist characterization of intentionality as an
objective form of specification. All the more so since Rowlands also develops,
like most other partisans of cognitive anti-Cartesianism, a strong critique of
the relevance of the property of representation to cognitive explanation. A
pressing question is therefore raised: Does Rowlands alternative conception of
43
Rowlands 2010, p. 189.
119
the nature of intentionality manage to break away from such a representationalist characterization? And if so, how and with what success?
The answer is negative and without much possibility for appeal, for his
alternative conception turns out to be even more committed to the idea of
objective specification than the neo-Brentanian one. Rowlands neo-neointentionalism is in reality a neo-neo-Brentanian intentionalism; it is a neoBrentanian one whose Brentanian nature is thrown into full light.
The preliminary description of the phenomenon of intentionality that it
takes as a starting point is rather telling in this regard: intentionality is primarily assimilated with a directedness toward objects in the purest Brentanian tradition, with the notion of directedness occasionally paraphrased in
terms of reference and aboutness. Furthermore, the next step of the inquiry
consists in reviving a standard model of its nature, which is no less rooted
in that tradition and finds its direct origin in Meinong. It analyzes intentionality into a mental act, an intentional object, a transcendant one, and a content whose role is to describe and thereby determine the intentional object.
The innovative feature that the alternative conception Rowlands claims to
introduce in this model, which turns out to be a fairly conservative one, consists in giving an additional function to the content beyond its descriptive
one, namely the transcendantal role44 of making directedness towards
objects possible. For a content, in Rowlands eyes, is something that not only
specifies what the intentional object is, but more fundamentally makes it
emerge as such, and this in a constitutive rather than a causal sense.45
Which is to say, the intentional object is established as intentional object
through the description of it that the content provides. But this idea is in fact
nothing else than a declination of the idea that intentionality is at its core
objectivation. As a matter of fact, Rowlands writes: As transcendental, experiences [i.e., contents in this context] are not objects of awareness but that in
virtue of which objects . . . are revealed to a subject precisely as objects of that
subjects experience.46 The innovative feature of his alternative conception
is therefore only one additional step into a fully explicit Brentanian conception of intentionality as objectivation, even though Rowlands prefers to capture it in terms of disclosure: The essence of intentionality, he also writes,
is disclosing activity.47 And, this disclosing activity is not only one by virtue
of which the subject relates to the world as an object, but one also that
bestows on it this objective status, which treats or interprets it as such.
44
45
46
47
Rowlands
Rowlands
Rowlands
Rowlands
2010, p. 185.
2010, p.194.
2010, p.169.
2010, p. 195.
120
JEAN-MICHEL ROY
Rowlands identification of intentionality with disclosure is not only an

explicitation of the long running assimilation of intentionality with objectivation, but also with objectivation understood as objective specification.
His real departure from this traditional and prevailing conception is to be
found, rather, in the modalities through which he sees this disclosing activity to
be exerted. Athough he remains faithful to the naturalist reinterpretation of
Brentanos thesis, Rowlands thinks that the implementation basis of this objective specification involves not only the neural processes of the brain, but also
the activity of the body and the manipulation of external structures. Furthermore, as already indicated, his key point in this respect is that when its nature
as objective specification is thrown into full light, such an extension of the
scope of the natural realizers of intentionality is revealed to be a necessity.
By subscribing to a form of intentionalism that turns out to be an amalgamated version of a neo-Brentanian one well understood, Rowlands is nevertheless also fundamentally subscribing to representationalism. Should his
theory be put, as a result, into the category of contradiction-ridden alternative models of the mind? Or instead into the category of models with merely
the appearance of radical anti-representationalism? Neither of them, in fact,
because the anti-representationalism he advocates is a limited one and is so
on three different counts. It is firstly limited in the sense that it does not reject
entirely the relevance of the property of representation, but only argues for
its dispensability in many cases where it was thought to be necessary. It is
limited secondly in the sense of being mainly directed against internal representations and not external ones. Finally, it is also limited in the sense of
being based on a stand in conception of representation, even though it
rightly emphasizes the specification dimension of representations by characterizing them primarily as entities that say something about the world. As a
result of these limitations, and of the third one in particular, Rowlands can
legitimately make room in his theory, at some level of analysis, for the idea
that some mental states are intentional without being representational. The
opposition between representational and non-representational intentionality
is essentially for him one between a disclosure performed by means of an
information-bearing structure and one not performed by means of such a
structure. But, by virtue of the understanding of intentionality as objective
specification that he implicitly shares, this non-representational intentionality
remains, at a deeper level of analysis, representational in a different and
more basic sense of the term, namely that of objective specification. And,
without contradiction, stand in representation is a species of objective specification. However, Rowlands neo-neo intentionalism fails thereby to show us
how the notion of objectivation can be appropriately dissociated from that of
specification. If anything, he reasserts the strength of their association.
121
7.4. The Anti-Representationalism of Radical Enactivism

Among contemporary alternative models of the mind, the closest thing to an
authentically non-representationalist intentionalism is not to be found in
neo-neo-intentionalist ones of a different vein, as most of them seemingly
share the same limitations as Rowlands,48 but, rather, in certain forms of
radical anti-representationalism associated with enactivism, in particular
with the kind of enactive approach defended by Daniel Hutto and Eric Myin
in their already quoted Radicalizing Enactivism.
As clearly suggested by the very title of the book, these authors see their
theory of the foundations of cognitive science as belonging to the enactive
perspective opened by the Embodied Mind of Franciso Varela, Eleanor Rosh,
and Evan Thompson,49 but as offering a more radical version of it than the
one with which it was inaugurated, that they label autopoietic enactivism,
and as more radical as well than the alternative formulation it was provided
by Alva Noe and Kevin ORegan under the name of sensorimotor theory. In
their eyes, enactivism at large is essentially an anti-representationalist view of
cognitive explanation, whose main claim is that the most basic aspects of cognition must be accounted for in terms of an activity not of forging and
manipulating representations located in the brain, but of an interaction of
the whole organism with its environment to be analyzed with the sole conceptual tools of dynamic systems theory. Such a claim that comes down, in
their opinion, to rejecting the classical assumption that the property of (representational) content belongs to the essence of cognition, which they see as
defining what they dub intellectualism in the area of cognition.50 Further,
what makes radical enactivism radical in their eyes is nothing more than the
rigor with which it deploys this fundamental and double-sided claim,51 rectifying the deviant compromissions with intellectualism that the other versions,
including the founding one, indulge in.52
Although limited to basic cognition, this uncompromising elimination of
the property of representation is all the more relevant to the present inquiry
since it rests on an understanding of that property that, as previously underlined, is in full accordance with the one articulated here. Indeed, Hutto and
48
Although, unfortunately, I cannot do justice to it, this criticism applies in my opinion to
the theory of operative intentionality laid out by Shaun Gallagher and Katsunori Miyahara,
which constitutes another particularly significant development of a neo-neo-intentionalism in
the context of the search for alternative models of the mind, as it is intended as an explicit
attempt to devise a concept of intentionality that is consistent with the alternative concept of
mind suggested by the enactive and extended approaches (see Gallagher et al. 2012).
49
See Varela et al. 1993.
50
Hutto 2013, p. 9.
51
Hutto 2013, p. 11.
52
Hutto 2013, p. 24, 34.
122
JEAN-MICHEL ROY
Myin formulate their rejection of representationalism in simple and basic

terms that fully recognize the fact of attributing determinations or specifying
as the most crucial feature of representing, even though they also offer a
detailed criticism of the various contemporary reconstructions of representationalism based on the notion of informational content. They write, for
instance, that the nonrepresentational character of organismic activity lies in
the fact that this activity does not depend upon individuals retrieving of
informational content from the world . . . in order to attribute properties to
the world.53 An essential characteristic that what they call maximally minimal representationalism captures most adequately when it claims with Tyler
Burge that perceptual experience represents if and only if it takes some portion of the world to be a certain way [,] if it attributes properties to the
world.54 And, that is nevertheless not disconnected from the standard one
of possessing conditions of satisfaction, still considered by radical enactivism
as the most general and minimal requirement on the existence of content,55 and seemingly implied by it. An implication that can take different
forms, in particular that of possessing truth conditions or, more simply, accuracy conditions.56
Even more interesting, however, is the fact that this antirepresentationalism, primarily and correctly put in terms of rejection of the
property of specification, is complemented with an explicit acceptance of the
relevance of the property of intentionality in the explanation of basic cognition
itself. Thoughout their book, Hutto and Myin assert again and again that,
despite being nonrepresentational and content free,57 organismic activity is
intentionally directed, that organisms exhibit determinate kinds of intentional directedness towards aspects of the environment, and that these basic
forms of directedness do not require to be analyzed in semantic, contentful
or representational terms.58 In other words, their radical enactivism
embodies an unambiguous pretention to offer an intentionalism based on an
authentically nonrepresentational understanding of the property of intentionality. The whole question is therefore to clarify what this nonrepresentationalist property of intentionality really amounts to, and to what extent in
particular it preserves an essential link with the notion of objectivation. But,
the truth is that the situation is far from being clear in this respect.
53
54
55
56
57
58
Hutto
Hutto
Hutto
Hutto
Hutto
Hutto
2013, p. 5.
2013, p. 102.
2013, p. 102.
2013, p. 103.
2013, p.13.
2013, p.78.
123
It should first be emphasized that it seems safe from re-introducing

through the back door the characteristics of specification that it officially
rejects by being essentially characterized as a certain form of behavioral
response. Experiencing organisms, Hutto and Myin write, respond to
[certain worldly] offerings in distinctive sensorimotor ways that exhibit a
certain minimal kind of directedness.59 But in what does this directedness
of behavior consist, if it cannot be in inherently say[ing] anything about
that how things stand in the world? If it corresponds to a nonrepresentationalist account of the property of objectivation, it should in fact reduce to
a form of behavior that consists in responding to certain offerings of the
world as objects, in contrast to responding to certain offerings of the world
as simple things. That the notion of directedness should mean objectivation
for Hutto and Myin is supported by the fact that they claim, in addition,
that this notion is derived from the doctrine of teleofunctionalism. It is, so
to speak, what is left of teleofunctionalism when it is dissociated from its
representational component. Although it is not so clear what such a substraction of representationalism from teleofunctionalism really means, it
clearly points in the right direction, since, as a theory of representation, teleofunctionalism is a theory of objectivation. But if this is indeed what the
notion of intentional directedness means for Hutto and Myin, the concrete
characteristic of such respondings must be specified. In what does responding behaviorally to something as an object correspond exactly behaviorally
speaking? The theory remains silent on this point. Furthermore, it is not
even clear that the directedness of behavior should be interpreted in this
way, as Hutto and Myin remain almost perfectly silent as well on how it
should be understood. And, some of their phrasings even point in the direction of another interpretation, according to which it corresponds to nothing
more than the fact, for organisms, of being primarily and by virtue of their
own nature responsive to certain elements of their environment. In this
case, their nonrepresentationalist property of intentionality reduces to a sort
of property of natural attunement and thus loses its connection with that of
objectivation, suggesting, thereby, skepticism as to the possibility of obtaining a property of objectivation of a nonrepresentational kind.
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Hutto 2013, p.19.
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Betti, A. 2013. Judgement and truth in early analytic philosophy and phenomenology.
In Judgement and truth in early analytic philosophy and phenomenology, ed. M. Textor. London: Palgrave.
Brentano, F. C. 1874/2009. Psychology from an empirical standpoint. New York: Routledge
& Kegan Paul.
Brentano, F. 1930/1966. The true and the evident. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Brooks, R. 1991. Intelligence without representation. Artificial Intelligence 47: 6790.
Chisholm, R. M. 1952. Intentionality and the theory of signs. Philosophical Studies 3: 5662.
Fodor, J. A. 1987. Mental representation: An introduction. In Scientific inquiry in philosophical perspective, ed. N. Rescher. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
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Goodman, N. 1976. Languages of art: An approach to a theory of symbols. Indianapolis, IN:
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The Southern Journal of Philosophy

Volume 53, Spindel Supplement

ANTI-CARTESIANISM AND ANTI-BRENTANISM: THE

1. ANTI-CARTESIANISM AND NEO-BRENTANISM: THE

THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM

understood, and serious uncertainty remains in this regard. As a matter of

See Roy 2001.

See, in particular, Wheeler 2005 and Rowlands 2010.

THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM

Haugeland 1990, p. 383.

THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM

The contemprary property of intentionality, for the most part, is explicitly

See Brentano 1874.

Brentano 1874, p. 74 (translation amended).

THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM

Russell 1918, p. 153.

how an organism is successful in negotiating its environment by construing some of

Similarly, John Haugeland offers the following definition:

Bechtel 1998, p.3.

THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM

Goodman 1976, p.5.

THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM

representational relation, that is, the specific determinations with which it is

See Twardowski 1894.

THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM

See, in particular, Fodor 1987b.

THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM

Russell 1918, p. 156.

its simplicity, it is also naturally suggested that nonsymbolic reference even

THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM

nature of representation and, consequently, calls for an inquiry into the

ball jumps forward as a result of a sudden upsurge of an internal force

THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM

what there is according to or for something emerges, as opposed to what

However, reference is thereby made on the contrary an essentially representational notion.

Rowlands 2010, passim.

THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM

squarely with these analyses. In the particular area of visual perception,

See Grush 1997.

THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM

better one. Furthermore, the representationalist structure of Brentanian

Brentano 1874, p. 158.

See note 26.

THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM

THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM

problem of anti-representationalist neo-Brentanian intentionalism, is to start

neo-Brentanian intentionalism. A third convenient category includes those

Rowlands 2010, p. 189.

THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM

Rowlands identification of intentionality with disclosure is not only an

THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM

7.4. The Anti-Representationalism of Radical Enactivism

Myin formulate their rejection of representationalism in simple and basic

THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM

It should first be emphasized that it seems safe from re-introducing

Hutto 2013, p.19.

THE PROBLEM OF ANTI-REPRESENTATIONALIST INTENTIONALISM

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