This thesis is about consciousness and representation. More specifically, the big picture issue in the background throughout is the relationship between consciousness (or "phenomenology") and representation (or "intentionality") in the life of the mind. Phenomenology and intentionality are inarguably the two central topics in philosophy of mind of the last half-century. The question of phenomenology is, "how can there be something it feels like, from a subjective viewpoint, for a physical being to experience the world?" The question of intentionality is, "how can something physical, such as a brain state, be about, or represent, some other thing out in the world?" Not too long ago, the majority opinion was that these two questions addressed two essentially independent domains. However, in recent years the views of many philosophers have swung dramatically in the opposite direction. An important theme of analytic philosophy of mind in the last decade or two has been the exploration of the groundbreaking idea that these two domains might be fundamentally linked in previously unrecognized ways. Perhaps phenomenal properties are reducible to certain kinds of intentional properties. Perhaps the mind's non-derivative intentionality is grounded in phenomenology. Perhaps we should think of phenomenology and intentionality as "intertwined, all the way down to the ground" (Chalmers 2004, 32). This thesis addresses one crucial question within this larger framework: whether, and how, thoughts are phenomenally conscious. Thoughts are an important test case for theories about the relationship between phenomenology and intentionality, because they have long been considered paradigmatic intentional states, in contrast to perceptual and sensory experiences, which are paradigmatic phenomenal states. While there is something it is like, from the inside, for an individual to undergo a perceptual experience such as an olfactory experience of roasted coffee beans, by contrast entertaining a thought might seem to lack such a distinctive qualitative "feel". The thought is clearly intentional: it involves carrying informational content about objects and properties in the world. But is there also something it is like for a subject to experience thinking itself? To answer this question in the affirmative is to accept the existence of a phenomenology of thought, so-called "cognitive phenomenology" (CP). The literature on this topic so far has focused primarily on the question of whether CP exists. Here I will focus on the subtly different, and largely neglected, question of whether a kind of CP exists that is able to determine thought's intentional content. Many proponents of CP seem to be motivated by the hope that it can, since they believe that in the case of other conscious states, the phenomenology accounts for the intentionality. However, in what follows I argue that this ambitious project is doomed to fail, because CP is not suited to determine the intentional content of thought.

Until recently, research into dreaming followed the reductionist paradigm within a Freudian framework. This line of enquiry has failed to date to provide a meaningful relationship between neuropsychology and dreaming. As a result, theory development has halted, original therapeutic approaches outside the analytic tradition are scarce, and practitioners are disempowered when confronted with dream material. However, in recent years the concept of consciousness is back on the scientific agenda and the study of the subjective experience of dreaming is once again possible. Eight coinquirers employed Heron’s (1996) co-operative inquiry. We collaboratively explored our experience of dreaming holding seven meetings over six months. Paradoxically, we found that our experiences and understandings were similar and conflicting, mirroring the current debates in dream research. Our findings indicate strong links with waking consciousness, and that dreams are a source of entertainment, insight, problem solving and angst. Our study also highlighted that directing our awareness altered the nature of our dreams and our perceptions. Implications for Counselling Psychology theory, practice and research are discussed. It is argued that intentionality is a key concept and should be incorporated in Counselling Psychology research, theory and practice.

Este trabalho consiste em abordar o conceito de fetichismo da mercadoria, de Karl Marx, presente principalmente na obra O Capital. Ao fazer essa abordagem, a pesquisa encontrou aspectos de certa teoria da ação que estariam presentes na problemática do fetichismo. As relações entre a ação e a representação formam o eixo que permeia toda a pesquisa. Está dividida em três capítulos. No primeiro, se apresenta o fetichismo como um problema que relaciona de modo muito particular a ação e a representação. Para refletir sobre estes aspectos buscamos, nos capítulos seguintes, alguns pontos da teoria da ação de Aristóteles como a responsabilidade moral, a diferença entre práxis e poiêsis, a divisão entre o intelecto prático e o teórico e a figura do acrático. Tais conceitos são articulados de modo que o fetichismo pode ser visto como um problema de uma teoria da ação / This work addresses the concept of commodity fetishism, from Karl Marx\'s book The Capital. By doing this approach, this research has found certain aspects of the theory of action that would be present in the problematic of fetishism. The relationship between action and representation form the axis that permeates all research. It is divided into three chapters. At the first, it presents fetishism as a problem that relates most particularly the action and representation. To think about these aspects we look for, in the following chapters, some points of the action theory of Aristotle as a moral responsibility, the difference between praxis and poiesis, the division between the theoretical and the practical intellect and the figure of akratic. Such concepts are so articulated that fetishism can be seen as a problem of a theory of action

Thesis advisor: Liane Young / Thesis advisor: James Dungan / Moral psychologists disagree over whether descriptively different moral violations represent distinct cognitive domains or are in fact unified by common cognitive mechanisms. The Moral Foundations Theory (MFT; Haidt, 2007) offers five different domains of moral transgressions: Harm/Care, Fairness/Reciprocity, Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity. Both intentionality and omission bias (e.g. omissions such as letting someone die being judged less harshly than actions such as killing someone) have been shown to impact moral judgments; however, it remains unclear how these rules modulate judgments across moral transgressions of various types. Here, we investigate the role of intentionality and omission bias across different moral violations to determine if the divide between moral domains represent true cognitive, (as opposed to descriptive), differences. We utilized a 2 x 2 x 5 design to create stories across the 5 domains posited by MFT that were intentional/accidental cases of actions/omissions. Importantly, this study also looks at four distinct moral judgments of wrongness, responsibility, blameworthiness, and punishment to assess the role of these rules across judgments. We found that intent and action play different roles across judgments, particularly when comparing wrongness and punishment. Intent seems to matter more for wrongness, whereas action matters more for punishment. Further, these rules also differ across domains. We found that intent matters more for the individualizing foundations of harm and fairness (versus the binding foundations of ingroup, authority, and purity) in judgments of wrongness and punishment. The difference between action and omission is also more important for the individualizing foundations for punishment. These data suggest intentionality and omission bias manifest themselves uniquely across moral judgments and domains and provide evidence that there are meaningful differences between domains. / Thesis (BS) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: Psychology Honors Program. / Discipline: Psychology .

A exposição ao ambiente social humano ofereceu aos cães um nicho especial para desenvolver habilidades socio-comunicativas para cooperar com o ser humano. Tem sido exaustivamente estudada a habilidade dos cães de usar sinais comunicativos do ser humano. O presente estudo levanta uma questão sobre a produção de sinais pelos cães para se comunicar com o ser humano: Os cães são capazes de se comunicar usando sinais direcionados a algum item de interesse no ambiente e com intenção de manipular seus tutores de tal forma a recebê-lo? Como intencionalidade não é possível de mensurar, alguns critérios operacionais podem ser considerados como requisitos para qualificar um sinal comunicativo como funcionalmente referencial e intencional: o sinal deve ser usado socialmente (para ser, antes de mais nada, considerado um sinal comunicativo) e influenciado pela direção da atenção visual do receptor; além disso o emissor do sinal deve apresentar alternância de olhares entre o receptor e o objeto ou evento a ser comunicado e comportamentos de chamar a atenção, e, finalmente, o emissor deve persistir e elaborar a comunicação quando a primeira tentativa de manipular o receptor falhar. Cães foram submetidos a um estudo experimental em que eles podiam ver uma comida desejável mas precisavam da cooperação de seus tutores para recebêla. Manipulando a presença/ausência do tutor/comida, a posição da comida (em dois possíveis lugares), a direção da atenção visual do tutor e o comportamento do tutor quanto ao resultado do pedido (dar a comida, metade da comida ou uma comida indesejável) após um período em que os cães comunicavam a comida, pudemos investigar se esses critérios de referencialidade xv e intencionalidade eram válidos para os cães. Foram encontradas evidências de que os cães usam comportamentos, especialmente a alternância de olhares entre o tutor e comida, como sinais comunicativos de uma maneira funcionalmente referencial e intencional. O presente e exaustivo estudo confirma e atualiza estudos anteriores; ele também enfatiza que diferentes cenários podem levar a diferenças nos comportamentos referenciais e intencionais dos cães. Assim como em outros estudos sobre cognição social em animais, esse estudo não permite separar se os comportamentos adaptativos dos cães baseiam-se em mecanismos simples ou em uma teoria da mente do seu tutor; ainda assim, ele mostra nos cães propriedades dos comportamentos comunicativos similares aos dos pongídeos que vivem em cativeiro / The exposure to the humans social environment provided a special niche for dogs to develop socio-communicative skills to cooperate with human. It has been exhaustive studied the ability of dogs to use humans communicative signals. The current study arises a question about the production of signals by dogs to communicate with humans: are dogs able to communicate by using directional signals toward some desirable entity in the environment and with intention to manipulate their owners behavior in order to receive it? Since intentionality is not possible to be measured, some operational criteria can be considered as a requirement to qualify a communicative signal as functionally referential and intentional: the signal should be used socially (to be, first of all, considered as a communicative signal) and influenced by the recipients visual direction of attention; moreover the sender of the signal should display gaze alternations between the recipient and the object or event to be communicated and getting-attention behaviors, and, finally, the sender should persist and elaborate the communication when the first attempt to manipulate the recipient failed. Dogs were submitted to an experimental study in which they could see a desirable food but they need their owners cooperation in order to receive it. By manipulating the presence/absence of the owner/food, the position of the food (in two possible places), the owners visual direction of attention and the owners behavior regarding the outcome of the request (providing the food, half food or undesirable food) after a period that dogs communicated about the food, we could investigate whether these criteria of referentiality and intentionally were validated for dogs. It was found evidences that dogs use behaviors, especially gaze alternation between the xiii owner and the food, as communicative signals in a functionally referential and intentional way. The present exhaustive work confirms and upgrades previous results; it also highlights that different set ups can lead to some differences of referential and intentional communicative behaviors in dogs. As for other studies of social cognition in animals, it does not allow disentangling whether the dogs adaptive behaviors are based on simple mechanisms or on a theory of mind of their owners; still, it shows in dogs similar properties of communicative behaviors than in captive apes

A naturalização do caráter mercantil da saúde no Brasil possui estreita vinculação com sua história. Antes do Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS), a saúde não era um direito de todos, muito menos uma responsabilidade do Estado e estava restrita a uma parcela da população trabalhadora que pagava para garantir esse benefício. Desde o século passado já se priorizava a saúde privada em detrimento de uma oferta de serviços públicos que abrangesse todas as camadas sociais. Tal fato traduz o processo de reificação e mercantilização da saúde. Esse estudo teve como objetivo analisar os determinantes sócio-históricos mais gerais ligados à questão da saúde como mercadoria e seus reflexos sobre o SUS. A pesquisa foi desenvolvida com 27 participantes, nove secretários de saúde, nove usuários conselheiros municipais de saúde e nove usuários do SUS, distribuídos em nove municípios da Macrorregião Triângulo Sul do estado de Minas Gerais. Para coleta dos dados foram realizadas entrevistas individuais seguindo procedimentos de evocação, enunciação e averiguação. As gravações das entrevistas filmadas ou áudio-gravadas foram transcritas integralmente. A análise das entrevistas foi processada via identificação de conteúdos ex post facto para definição de categorias e unidades temáticas, relacionadas ao processo de reificação da saúde. Tais resultados foram analisados sob a perspectiva do materialismo histórico e dialético. Três categorias temáticas, uma para cada segmento dos entrevistados, agruparam alguns determinantes ligados ao objetivo do trabalho: A) Racionalidades do Sistema Único de Saúde (secretários de saúde), em que foram reunidos conteúdos referentes aos elementos de enfrentamento para a provisão do direito à saúde, apontando racionalidades e intencionalidades que orientam a atuação dos sujeitos no fazer saúde. B) Racionalidades do Controle Social (conselheiros de saúde), relacionada à identificação de processos psicossociais implicados na constituição da identidade com a política pública de saúde e com a memória da luta de classes. C) Relatos de vidas marcadas pela reificação (usuários do SUS), em que os conteúdos referem os conflitos sociais que causam dor, sofrimento e humilhação cotidiana para dezenas de milhões de brasileiros. A análise dos depoimentos nos permitiu identificar que o processo de reificação da saúde pode ser considerado determinante, tanto para a desestruturação do Sistema Único de Saúde, como para a perda da subjetividade e cidadania dos indivíduos. As atividades reificadas em saúde podem ser enfrentadas a partir da formulação de estratégias de organização com a comunidade, cuja síntese realizada com os usuários, permite identificar critérios de enfrentamento com base no cotidiano, dentro do processo saúde/doença / The naturalization of the mercantile character of health in Brazil has close ties with its history. Before the Unified Health System (SUS), health was not a right for everyone, let alone a state responsibility and was restricted to a portion of the working population that paid to ensure that benefit. Since the last century the private health is prioritized at the expense of a public service offering covering all social strata. This fact reflects the process of reification and commodification of health. This study aimed to analyze the broader socio-historical factors linked to the issue of health as a commodity and its impact on the SUS. The research was conducted with 27 participants, nine health secretaries, nine municipal health counselors users and nine SUS users, distributed in nine municipalities of the Macroregion South Triangle of Minas Gerais. For data collection were carried out individual interviews following evocation procedures, enunciation and verification. Recordings of filmed or audio-recorded interviews were transcribed in full. Data analysis was processed by the ex post facto content identification for the definition of categories and topics related to the process of reification of health. These results were analyzed from the perspective of historical and dialectical materialism. Three themes, one for each segment of respondents, grouped some determinants linked to the objective of the study: A) rationalities of the Unified Health System (health secretaries), in which contents have been gathered regarding the coping elements for the provision of the right to health, pointing rationality and intentions that guide the actions of individuals in making health. B) rationalities of social control (health counselors), related to identification of psychosocial processes involved in the formation of identity with the public health policy and with the memory of the class struggle. C) Reports of lives marked by reification (SUS users), in which the contents related social conflicts that cause pain, suffering and daily humiliation to tens of millions of Brazilians. The analysis of testimonies allowed us to identify that the health reification process can be considered decisive for both the disruption of the SUS, as for the loss of subjectivity and citizenship of individuals. The reified in health activities can be addressed from the formulation of organizational strategies with the community, whose synthesis performed with users, identifies coping criteria based on the daily life within the health/disease process.

A natureza humana é fascinante. Do ponto de vista educacional, o movimento humano nasce a partir de relações baseadas em compromisso. Entretanto, o compromisso educacional tem raízes em instituições dotadas de uma rigidez estrutural significativa em seus valores e práticas. Talvez essas raízes sejam parte da explicação quanto à falibilidade elevada destas instituições face às novas formas de se pensar o permanente fluxo humano. Este fluxo, por natureza indomável, atualmente se encontra potencializado pela adoção de artefatos digitais que dão às pessoas múltiplas possibilidades de individuação. Talvez seja um erro persistir na reprodução de modelos educacionais inflexíveis, onde não haja a possibilidade de exercício da liberdade intencional. Nesta tese, buscamos identificar possíveis relações intencionais latentes que regem os compromissos educacionais porventura existentes nos processos de ensino e aprendizagem baseados em e-Learning. Concebemos princípios de Trajetórias Conceituais de Aprendizagem Intencionais (TCAIs), através das quais se torna possível registrar ações e inferir graus de Intencionalidade Pedagógica Docente (IPD) e Intencionalidade de Aprendizagem Discente (IAD). Um Indicador do Grau de Intencionalidade (IGI) e outro, denominado Indicador do Grau de Convergência Discente (IGCD) foram propostos. Através da conjunção de ambos se torna possível avaliar o grau de proximidade entre a IPD e a IAD, estas que são inerentemente subjacentes às estruturas das Trajetória Conceitual de Aprendizagem (TCA) produzidas durante os processos de ensino e de aprendizagem. O IGI mensura o viés intencional de uma Trajetória Conceitual de Aprendizagem, enquanto o IGCD permite avaliar o grau de compromisso normativo do discente em relação à proposta educacional em fluxo. / Human nature is fascinating. We are endowed with intentional capabilities that keep us in constant flux, leaving behind us evident traces of our passage. From an educational point of view, the human movement comes from commitment-based relationships. However, the educational commitment is rooted in institutions with significant structural rigidities in its values and practices. Maybe these roots could be a part of the explanation for the high unreliability of these institutions faced with new ways of thinking about the permanent human flow. This flow, of untamed nature, is currently enhanced by the adoption of digital artifacts that give people multiple possibilities of individuation. It may be an error persist in those inflexible educational models, where there is no the possibility of exercising the intentional freedom. In this thesis, we seek to identify potential latent intentional relationships governing educational commitments that would may exist in the processes of teaching and learning based on e-Learning. We design principles for Intentional Conceptual Learning trajectories (ICLTs), through which it becomes possible to record actions and infer degrees of Teacher’s Pedagogical Intentionality (TPI) and Student's Learning Intentionality (SLI). An Intentionality Degree Indicator (IDI) and the other, called the Student’s Convergence Level Indicator (SCLI) was proposed. Through the conjunction of both is possible assess the degree of proximity between the TPI and the SLI, these that are inherently underpinning to ICLTs structures produced during the learning and teaching processes. The IDI measures the intentionality bias from Conceptual Learning trajectories, while SCLI allows evaluating normative commitment degree of the students for the educational proposal in flux.

A exposição ao ambiente social humano ofereceu aos cães um nicho especial para desenvolver habilidades socio-comunicativas para cooperar com o ser humano. Tem sido exaustivamente estudada a habilidade dos cães de usar sinais comunicativos do ser humano. O presente estudo levanta uma questão sobre a produção de sinais pelos cães para se comunicar com o ser humano: Os cães são capazes de se comunicar usando sinais direcionados a algum item de interesse no ambiente e com intenção de manipular seus tutores de tal forma a recebê-lo? Como intencionalidade não é possível de mensurar, alguns critérios operacionais podem ser considerados como requisitos para qualificar um sinal comunicativo como funcionalmente referencial e intencional: o sinal deve ser usado socialmente (para ser, antes de mais nada, considerado um sinal comunicativo) e influenciado pela direção da atenção visual do receptor; além disso o emissor do sinal deve apresentar alternância de olhares entre o receptor e o objeto ou evento a ser comunicado e comportamentos de chamar a atenção, e, finalmente, o emissor deve persistir e elaborar a comunicação quando a primeira tentativa de manipular o receptor falhar. Cães foram submetidos a um estudo experimental em que eles podiam ver uma comida desejável mas precisavam da cooperação de seus tutores para recebêla. Manipulando a presença/ausência do tutor/comida, a posição da comida (em dois possíveis lugares), a direção da atenção visual do tutor e o comportamento do tutor quanto ao resultado do pedido (dar a comida, metade da comida ou uma comida indesejável) após um período em que os cães comunicavam a comida, pudemos investigar se esses critérios de referencialidade xv e intencionalidade eram válidos para os cães. Foram encontradas evidências de que os cães usam comportamentos, especialmente a alternância de olhares entre o tutor e comida, como sinais comunicativos de uma maneira funcionalmente referencial e intencional. O presente e exaustivo estudo confirma e atualiza estudos anteriores; ele também enfatiza que diferentes cenários podem levar a diferenças nos comportamentos referenciais e intencionais dos cães. Assim como em outros estudos sobre cognição social em animais, esse estudo não permite separar se os comportamentos adaptativos dos cães baseiam-se em mecanismos simples ou em uma teoria da mente do seu tutor; ainda assim, ele mostra nos cães propriedades dos comportamentos comunicativos similares aos dos pongídeos que vivem em cativeiro / The exposure to the humans social environment provided a special niche for dogs to develop socio-communicative skills to cooperate with human. It has been exhaustive studied the ability of dogs to use humans communicative signals. The current study arises a question about the production of signals by dogs to communicate with humans: are dogs able to communicate by using directional signals toward some desirable entity in the environment and with intention to manipulate their owners behavior in order to receive it? Since intentionality is not possible to be measured, some operational criteria can be considered as a requirement to qualify a communicative signal as functionally referential and intentional: the signal should be used socially (to be, first of all, considered as a communicative signal) and influenced by the recipients visual direction of attention; moreover the sender of the signal should display gaze alternations between the recipient and the object or event to be communicated and getting-attention behaviors, and, finally, the sender should persist and elaborate the communication when the first attempt to manipulate the recipient failed. Dogs were submitted to an experimental study in which they could see a desirable food but they need their owners cooperation in order to receive it. By manipulating the presence/absence of the owner/food, the position of the food (in two possible places), the owners visual direction of attention and the owners behavior regarding the outcome of the request (providing the food, half food or undesirable food) after a period that dogs communicated about the food, we could investigate whether these criteria of referentiality and intentionally were validated for dogs. It was found evidences that dogs use behaviors, especially gaze alternation between the xiii owner and the food, as communicative signals in a functionally referential and intentional way. The present exhaustive work confirms and upgrades previous results; it also highlights that different set ups can lead to some differences of referential and intentional communicative behaviors in dogs. As for other studies of social cognition in animals, it does not allow disentangling whether the dogs adaptive behaviors are based on simple mechanisms or on a theory of mind of their owners; still, it shows in dogs similar properties of communicative behaviors than in captive apes

This study aims at exhibiting the strong correlation between the question of subjectivity and the question of being. If the question of subjectivity is to be formulated in terms of the relation between the inner realm of consciousness and the outer world, then the question will have an epistemological form and becomes the question of the objectivity of our knowledge. In the dissertation, however, it will be claimed with the German philosopher Martin Heidegger that the critical stand taken against the subject-object schema of the Cartesian epistemology must be of an ontological kind, and should criticize the substantial difference between the two realms of being. v In order to fulfill the aforementioned task, Dasein as the entity which is capable of asking the question of being will be claimed to be the ontological condition of possibility for something like subjectivity. By the help of the phenomenological concept of Dasein, we will claim that the most neutral and basic being-in-the-world of human beings is not cognizing or perceiving things, but caring for them. The last objective we hope to fulfill in this study is to show that the only question of philosophy for Heidegger, i.e., the question of being, can first become comprehensible when the philosopher&rsquo / s investigations of the modern philosophy have been well examined. It is our contention that, unless thedead-ends of the modern philosophy of subjectivity is apprehended well enough, the obligation of asking the question of being as such cannot be felt.

This project offers an articulation of rationality in terms of normativity—that what it means to be acting rationally, in thought or in deed, can be understood via a notion of being bound or obliged to certain behaviors given a prior structure that delimits what is rational to assert in a discourse or perform in a society. In the explicit articulation of the role of norms in limning rationality, this project also emphasizes the opportunity and obligation to self-critically assess the value of the metalinguistic and metapractical standards that license rational assertions and behaviors. After an introduction, section 2 examines the role of rational constraint in Kant’s account of representation, concluding that the transcendental story his philosophy leaves us with impels us to look for an immanent socio-linguistic account of the normativity that obliges us to think and behave in certain ways, rather than lodging the force of normativity in transcendentality. Section 3 then examines Robert Brandom’s inferential semantics by addressing prominent responses to Brandom’s program, making explicit two ways in which normativity operates in inferentialism—one at the level of objectlanguage in the articulation of the propositional commitments and entitlements that specify propositional content, the other at the level of the metalinguistic appraisal of the standards that drive object-language inferentialism. Section 4 turns to the theoretical status of normativity and its role in practical behavior, where it is argued that a notion of normativity can underpin a theory of intentional states. Examining positions on naturalism, the author proposes that a causal account of intentionality, made explicit by the prescriptive nature of the theory advanced, provides a naturalist view of normativity for which norms are in explanations of social states as laws are in explanations of physical states. Hence the obligation to self-critically reflect on and revise the norms that delimit ethical behavior in social systems is understood as commensurate with the obligation to self-critically reflect on and revise the norms that delimit warranted assertions in epistemic discourse. The conclusion offers some remarks on the prospects for rational revision in both a discipline’s discourse and a society’s standards of behavior.