Intentional stance

The intentional stance is a term coined by philosopher Daniel Dennett for the level of abstraction in which we view the behavior of an entity in terms of mental properties. It is part of a theory of mental content proposed by Dennett, which provides the underpinnings of his later works on free will, consciousness, folk psychology, and evolution.Here is how it works: first you decide to treat the object whose behavior is to be predicted as a rational agent; then you figure out what beliefs that agent ought to have, given its place in the world and its purpose. Then you figure out what desires it ought to have, on the same considerations, and finally you predict that this rational agent will act to further its goals in the light of its beliefs. A little practical reasoning from the chosen set of beliefs and desires will in most instances yield a decision about what the agent ought to do; that is what you predict the agent will do. The intentional stance is a term coined by philosopher Daniel Dennett for the level of abstraction in which we view the behavior of an entity in terms of mental properties. It is part of a theory of mental content proposed by Dennett, which provides the underpinnings of his later works on free will, consciousness, folk psychology, and evolution. Dennett (1971, p. 87) states that he took the concept of 'intentionality' from the work of the German philosopher Franz Brentano. When clarifying the distinction between mental phenomena (viz., mental activity) and physical phenomena, Brentano (p. 97) argued that, in contrast with physical phenomena, the 'distinguishing characteristic of all mental phenomena' was 'the reference to something as an object' – a characteristic he called 'intentional inexistence'. Dennett constantly speaks of the 'aboutness' of intentionality; for example: 'the aboutness of the pencil marks composing a shopping list is derived from the intentions of the person whose list it is' (Dennett, 1995, p. 240). John Searle (1999, pp. 85) stresses that 'competence' in predicting/explaining human behaviour involves being able to both recognize others as 'intentional' beings, and interpret others' minds as having 'intentional states' (e.g., beliefs and desires): According to Dennett (1987, pp. 48–49), folk psychology provides a systematic, 'reason-giving explanation' for a particular action, and an account of the historical origins of that action, based on deeply embedded assumptions about the agent; namely that: This approach is also consistent with the earlier work of Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel, whose joint study revealed that, when subjects were presented with an animated display of 2-dimensional shapes, they were inclined to ascribe intentions to the shapes. Further, Dennett (1987, p. 52) argues that, based on our fixed personal views of what all humans ought to believe, desire and do, we predict (or explain) the beliefs, desires and actions of others 'by calculating in a normative system'; and, driven by the reasonable assumption that all humans are rational beings – who do have specific beliefs and desires and do act on the basis of those beliefs and desires in order to get what they want – these predictions/explanations are based on four simple rules: The core idea is that, when understanding, explaining, and/or predicting the behavior of an object, we can choose to view it at varying levels of abstraction. The more concrete the level, the more accurate in principle our predictions are; the more abstract, the greater the computational power we gain by zooming out and skipping over the irrelevant details. Dennett defines three levels of abstraction, attained by adopting one of three entirely different 'stances', or intellectual strategies: the physical stance; the design stance; and the intentional stance: