🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec11.055845.1886@psych.toronto.edu> christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) writes:
>In article <1992Dec11.022041.23380@cs.su.oz.au> danny@cs.su.oz.au (Danny) writes:
>>But imagine a 6 year old who
>>has never seen anyone bleed, has never been taught any biology - is his
>>assumption that his parents have intentionality any less "reasonable" than
>>anyone elses?
>
>Assuming knowledge is something akin to "justified true belief", the
>6-years-old's knowledge is, I would think, less justified than yours
>or mine.  That doesn't mean, however, that s/he doesn't believe it.
>S/he's probably had little in the ay of evidence disconfirming the
>hypothesis that his/her parents are intentional. Actually, children

I would dispute this...  I don't see that a neurobiologist's belief in
human intentionality is any more justified than anyone elses.  She may
in fact be less adept at interpreting/understanding human emotions and
feelings.  But what you say about a six year old having had less
experience seems more plausible - one's adoption of the intentional stance
is surely more reasonable the longer one has used it and found it to work.

In short I still don't see what biology has to do with intentionality.  
I know Searle THINKS the latter is somehow dependent on the former, but 
he doesn't seem to be able to give any coherent definition either of 
what intentionality is or of how it depends on biology.  Appeal to 
mysterious "causal properties of biological systems" is more than a 
little unhelpful!

Danny.