Spoken communication is only one of many types of human interaction with the environment. The aim of this thesis is to propose a theory of spoken communication based on basic principles of cognition, which govern all our behaviour. To this end, two established theoretical positions are integrated: 1) the skilled intentionality framework (an enactive view of cognition) and 2) a discriminative approach to human communication. According to the resulting theory, communication is a skilful shaping of an interlocutor's envi- ronment which serves to fulfil the agent's positively biased expectations about her own situation. Language is presented as an assemblage of sociomaterial regularities that make this skilful behaviour possible. The suggested perspec- tive is radically action-oriented, in contrast with traditional representational, content-based approaches. The proposed view is then applied to two specific phenomena widely studied within speech sciences (namely categoricality of speech and turn taking) and is confronted with selected empirical findings. Possibilities of empirical testing of the suggested theory are discussed.

Les états mentaux peuvent essentiellement avoir deux types de propriétés : des propriétés intentionnelles, qui font en sorte que les états mentaux ont un contenu, et des propriétés phénoménales, qui font en sorte que les états mentaux sont consciemment vécus. L’instanciation de chacun de ces deux types de propriétés constitue respectivement ce qu’on appelle l’intentionnalité et la conscience phénoménale. Une question cruciale en philosophie de l’esprit contemporaine consiste à se demander quelle est la relation entre l’intentionnalité et la conscience phénoménale. Les théories de l’intentionnalité phénoménale, qui ont gagné en popularité dans les dernières années, soutiennent que l’intentionnalité dépend fondamentalement de la conscience phénoménale. Comme ces théories représentent aujourd’hui une des principales conceptions de l’intentionnalité disponibles, il est crucial d’évaluer leur plausibilité, ce que je me propose de faire dans le présent mémoire. Or, comme je tenterai de le montrer, les propriétés intentionnelles ne dépendent pas des propriétés phénoménales au sens où l’entendent les défenseurs des théories de l’intentionnalité phénoménale. En effet, les théories de l’intentionnalité phénoménale ne sont pas en mesure d’expliquer une des caractéristiques fondamentales de l’intentionnalité, à savoir le fait que les états intentionnels s’accompagnent de conditions de satisfaction, et si elles y parviennent ce n’est qu’en présupposant l’intentionnalité en attribuant des caractéristiques intentionnelles aux états phénoménaux. Ce résultat nous contraint à nous tourner vers une autre conception de la relation entre l’intentionnalité et la conscience phénoménale. / Mental states can essentially have two types of properties: intentional properties, in virtue of which mental states have content, and phenomenal properties, in virtue of which mental states are consciously experienced. The instantiation of each of these two types of properties constitutes respectively what is called intentionality and phenomenal consciousness. A crucial question in contemporary philosophy of mind is to ask what the relationship between intentionality and phenomenal consciousness is. The phenomenal intentionality theories, which have gained popularity in recent years, argue that intentionality is fundamentally dependent on phenomenal consciousness. Since these theories now represent one of the main conceptions of intentionality available, it is crucial to assess their plausibility, which I propose to do in this master’s thesis. As I will try to show, intentional properties do not depend on phenomenal properties as understood by the advocates of the phenomenal intentionality theories. Indeed, the phenomenal intentionality theories are not able to explain one of the fundamental characteristics of intentionality, namely the fact that intentional states are accompanied by conditions of satisfaction, and that if they succeed in doing so, it is only by presupposing intentionality by assigning intentional characteristics to phenomenal states. This result forces us to turn to another conception of the relationship between intentionality and phenomenal consciousness.

According to many philosophers and scientists, human sociality is explained by our unique capacity to ‘share’ the mental states of others and to form collective intentional states. Collective intentionality has been widely debated in the past two decades, focusing especially on the issue of its reducibility to individual intentionality and the place of collective intentions in the natural realm. It is not clear, however, to what extent these two issues are related, and what methodologies of investigation are appropriate in each case. In this thesis I set out a theory of the naturalization of collective intentionality that draws a line between naturalizability arguments and theories of collective intentionality naturalized. The former provide reasons for believing in the naturalness of collective intentional states based on our commonsense understanding of them; the latter offer responses to the ontological question about the existence and identity of collective as distinct from individual intentionality. This model is naturalistic because it holds that the only way to establish the place of mental entities in the order of things is through the theory and practice of science. After reviewing naturalizability arguments in philosophy, I consider an influential research program in the cognitive sciences. On the account that I present, the irreducibility of collective intentionality can be derived from a theory of human development in scientific psychology dealing with phenomena of sociality like communication, recently refined by Michael Tomasello.

The aim of the thesis is to explore Ludwig Wittgenstein’s and Wilfrid Sellars’s views on intentionality. In the first chapter I discuss the account of intentionality and meaning the early Wittgenstein developed in his Tractatus logico-philosophicus. I present his idea that sentences are pictures of states of affairs with which they share a ‘logical form’ and to which they stand in an internal ‘pictorial relationship’. I argue that Wittgenstein thought of this relationship as established by acts of thought consisting in the operation of mental signs corresponding to the signs of public languages. In the second and third chapters I discuss the later Wittgenstein’s criticism of ideas at the heart of the Tractarian account of intentionality, as well as his explanations of the phenomena that motivated it. In the second chapter I examine his rejection of the idea that thinking consists in the operation of mental signs and his criticism of the idea that meaning and understanding are mental processes accompanying the use of language. In the third chapter I turn to Wittgenstein’s criticism of the idea that representations stand in an internal ‘pictorial relation’ to objects in the natural order that are their meaning. I illuminate his later views by discussing Sellars’s non-relational account of meaning, in particular his claim that specifications of meaning do not relate expressions to items that are their meaning, but rather specify their rule-governed role in language. I conclude with a discussion of the later Wittgenstein’s account of the relationship between intentional phenomena and the objects at which they are directed. In the final fourth chapter I provide a detailed discussion of Sellars’s account of thinking. I conclude with some criticisms of Sellars’s views.

In the intersection of technology, curriculum and intentions, a specific issue of interest is found in the gap between teachers’ intentions and implementations of curriculum. Instead of approaching curriculum and technology as something fait accompli, teachers are considered crucial in the re-discovery of what and how to teach. The thesis depicts the mind-set of teachers and their beliefs in relation to computing curriculum. Three perspectives are covered in the thesis. Based on original documents and interviews with curriculum developers, the enactment of the computing/programming curriculum during the 1970s and 1980s is explored (Paper 1). This historical perspective is supplemented with a perspective from the present day where current teaching practice is explored through teachers’ statements (seminars with associated questionnaires) regarding their beliefs about teaching and learning programming(Paper 2). Finally with a view from a theoretical perspective, teachers’perception of instruction is discussed in relation to a theoretical framework where their intentions in relation to theoretical and practical aspects of knowledge are revealed (Papers 3 &amp; 4). The initial incitement to offer computing education during the 1970s was discovered in the recruitment of a broader group of students within the Natural Science Programme and the perception that it would contribute to the development of students’ ability to think logically and learn problem solving skills. Data concerning teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning programming unravels an instructional dependence among today’s teachers where students’ logical and analytical abilities (even before the courses start) are considered crucial to students’ learning, while teachers question the importance of their pedagogy. The thesis also discover two types of instruction; a large group putting emphasis on the syntax of programming languages, and a smaller group putting emphasis on the students’ experiences of learning concepts of computer science (not necessarily to do with syntax). In summary the thesis depicts an instructional tradition based on teachers’ beliefs where the historical development of the subject sets the framework for the teaching. Directly and indirectly the historical development and related traditions govern what programming teachers in upper secondary school will/are able to present to their students. From deploying two theoretical approaches, phenomenography and logic of events, upon teacher’s cases it is shown that the intended object of learning (iOoL) is shaped by the teacher’s intentions (e.g., balancing the importance oftheory and practice, using different learning strategies, encouraging learning by trial-and-error and fostering collaboration between students for a deeper understanding). The teachers also present a diverse picture regarding what theoretical knowledge students will reach for. / <p>QC 20150227</p>

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

The present study reconstructs psychological, linguistic and ontological aspects of Mullā Ṣadrā’s philosophy in the light of Brentano’s theory of intentionality. Brentano used intentionality as a psychological term to denote the ‘mental’ as opposed to the ‘natural’. Later, with Meinong, intentionality took an ontological commitment to assenting that ‘there are things that do not exist’. The chapters that discuss Ṣadrā’s philosophy reflect the two aspects with an investigation for the production process of intentional objects and an investigation of the status of these objects in ontology. The main aim of the research is to give an internalist and monist account for the nature of intentionality demonstrating an alternative approach to the concepts of existence and the soul. Ontologically, there is only one reality (existence) and nothing is left outside it. Accordingly, intentional objects are mental beings that are at a lower level of existence (wujūd ẓillī). The principles behind the monist ontology are: first, the gradational ontology (tashkīk) that all things are determined beings (mutamayyiz) and they are manifestations of a single reality at different levels of intensity (mutashakkik), and, second, the simplicity principle (basīṭ al-ḥaqīqa) in which existence is a simple reality that comprehends all beings whilst being the principle of multiplicity at the same time. Accordingly intentional objects are a level of existence, and share same reality. Epistemologically, all knowledge processes including external senses are regarded as internal processes in which the causal effect of the extra-mental object is reduced to being an accidental preparatory tool and faculties for the soul. Perception is always completed with the touch of imagination and the real object of perception is internally created. The soul is not the receiver of forms, but is the active agent. Moreover, the soul undergoes substantial change as the objects are being produced. The soul is then not a container of forms. It is rather the case that the forms themselves construct the soul. The last point is that knowledge is a mode of existence. This mode of being (knowledge) indeed is the very existence of the human soul. In this explanation, the soul is neither material nor immaterial per se: the soul starts her journey as a material substance and becomes more delicate and immaterial through her journey. The soul’s journey is made possible with the preparatory role of the processes of perception. Intentionality is soul’s action of creating mental forms. The products are identical to soul since soul and knowledge are identical. Consequently, intentional objects are dependent on the soul in their presence and creation.

[pt] A fenomenologia husserliana, com o intuito de oferecer um fundamento filosófico para o conhecimento em geral, procura evitar, ao mesmo tempo, tanto o psicologismo quanto o logicismo. Embora a investigação fenomenológica pretenda esclarecer a relação cognoscitiva a partir da clarificação lógica do sentido, no entanto, seu propósito não trata a atividade filosófica como uma analítica da linguagem, mas infere que a Filosofia deve ter, propriamente, método, questões e objetos independentes de quaisquer outros saberes racionais. De acordo com a perspectiva fenomenológica, a superação do psicologismo não se refere somente à afirmação de que o acesso à objetividade dependa do reconhecimento da esfera ideal como sendo independente da sensibilidade. Husserl entendeu que o problema era que a base de argumentação cognitiva mantinha seu foco, até então no objeto transcendente, do mesmo modo, e analogamente, que a apreensão intuitiva desse objeto só podia ser efetuada pelo sujeito empírico. O fato de a objetividade pertencer a uma esfera independente, em referência aos aspectos sensíveis, torna imprescindível uma teoria da subjetividade pura, para que seja possível, de modo correto, efetuar a correspondência significativa que a relação de conhecimento exige. Se a experiência sensível do eu (sujeito psicológico) não for neutralizada, não é possível justificar coerentemente o ato noético em relação à objetividade e, por conseguinte, não pode haver fundamentação, precisamente porque o conhecer não se encontra livre do contato com a transcendência. / [en] Husserlian Phenomenology as the aim to offer philosophical foundation for the general knowledge, seeks to avoid, at the same time, both psychologism and logicism. Although the Phenomenological inquiry intends to clear the cognoscitive relationship from logic clarification of sense, however, its purpose does not deal with the philosophical activity as an analytical one from linguistics, but it infers that philosophy must properly own its method, questions and objects, independently from any other rational knowledge/wisdoms. As to the Phenomenological view, the overcoming of psychologism is not related only to the affirmation that the access to the objectivity relies on the recognizing of the ideal sphere as being independent from sensibility. Husserl understood that the problem was that the basis for cognitive arguing had so far maintained its focus, on the transcendent object in the same way, and analogically that the intuitive apprehension from this object could only be made by the empirical subject. The fact that the objectivity belongs to an independent sphere, in reference to sensible aspects a theory of pure subjectivity becomes indispensable, in order to be possible, in a correct way, to make the significant correspondence that knowledge relation requires. If the I that experiences sensibly is not neutralized, it is not possible to coherently justify the noetic apprehension of objectivity as pure possibility and hence there may not be foundational, precisely because the knower is not found free from contact with transcendence.

O presente trabalho pretende ser uma elucidação dos problemas que estão na origem da transição de uma fenomenologia da percepção à ontologia do ser sensível. Para tanto, concentramo-nos sobre os primeiros livros de Merleau-Ponty, delineando como se forma ali o projeto que irá ocupar a obra inteira, a saber, o de conciliar a inerência da subjetividade ao mundo e a capacidade intencional de fazê-lo aparecer em sua transcendência. Mostramos como a crítica à assimetria transcendental da correlação intencional husserliana conduz Merleau-Ponty a entendê-la não mais como aquela que se estabelece entre a consciência e o objeto, mas sim entre o corpo próprio e o mundo percebido, correlação na qual não mais apenas se anuncia a relatividade do objeto à subjetividade, mas uma dimensão de pertencimento desta última ao mundo sensível. Analisamos a partir de então os instrumentos conceituais, largamente debitários da fenomenologia husserliana da passividade, que entram em cena para dar conta desse projeto: a compreensão do mundo como estrutura de horizonte, a descoberta das sensações como portadoras de uma intencionalidade original, a da temporalidade como instância na qual fenomenalização do ser e enraizamento subjetivo nele devem poder coincidir. Mostramos, todavia, que a realização do projeto se encontra comprometida, nas primeiras obras, pela manutenção do postulado classicamente fenomenológico segundo o qual deve existir uma diferença irredutível entre a consciência e o aparecer como condição para que subsista, do lado objetivo da correlação, a transcendência do aparecente em relação ao aparecer. A dificuldade das primeiras obras para dar conta de uma relação de diferença que é também a de uma identidade entre a consciência e o aparecer se traduz nas aporias da encarnação e do cogito tácito, e implica que não consigam pensar a unidade de inerência e transcendência. A esse respeito, mostramos que a doutrina da temporalidade apenas amaina a dificuldade e não a resolve, na medida em que pressuporá um olho fora do tempo para o qual o tempo se temporaliza. Por fim, evidenciamos como o conceito de reversibilidade na última fase da obra torna- se compreensível como resposta a esse problema evidenciado nos primeiros livros. / This work aims at elucidating the problems underlying Merleau-Pontys transition from a phenomenology of perception to an ontology of sensible being. By means of an analysis of his first books, we try to apprehend the sense of the philosophical task he will pursue throughout his career, namely to reconcile the inherence of subjectivity in the world and its intentional ability to make it appear in its transcendence. We show that Merleau-Pontys critique of Husserls transcendental idealism leads him to interpret intentional correlation not as one established between consciousness and object, but as one established between lived body and perceived world. This correlation no longer sustains exclusively the thesis of the objects dependence on transcendental subjectivity, but also implicates a dimension of subjectivitys belonging to the sensible world and hence to some form of objectivity. We then analyze the conceptual tools, widely taken from Husserl\'s phenomenology of passivity, that come into play to account for this project: the world as horizon structure, the sensations as bearing an original form of intentionality, temporality as the instance in which beings phenomenalisation and subjectivitys rooting in it should be reconciled. However, we try to demonstrate that Merleau-Pontys project is not fully achieved in his first works. This is mainly due to the phenomenological principle according to which there must be some sort of difference between consciousness and appearance in order for the thing that appears to maintain its intentional transcendence in relation to phenomena. In his first books, Merleau-Ponty is incapable of accounting for this difference between consciousness and appearance as being also some sort of identity between them. This renders the notions of lived boy and incarnation conceptually instable, and ultimately implies an antinomy between inherence and transcendence. In that sense, we show that the doctrine of temporality only lessens the difficulty without actually solving it. In conclusion, we sketch how the concept of reversibility in Meleau-Pontys later works only becomes fully understandable as a response to the difficulties revealed in his earlier books.

The current study investigated the interpretation of an agent's actions under the influence of external forces. Participants viewed a series of videos of an agent making a varying series of decisions and forced behaviors and were asked to predict future behavior. Firstly, we found evidence that suggests that perceivers make inferences about an agent that once they have shown a preference toward an object, they will persist with those initial desires, despite, external forces leading them to a different object. Secondly, we found evidence that suggests that submitting to a coerced choice will be perceived as reflecting a conflicting combination of pragmatic behavioral choice (due to concession to external forces) and maintenance of original desires, or, simply put, perceivers infer multiple underlying intentions in others. / by Brian Vail. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2012. Mode of access: World Wide Web.