Thesis (M.S.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Psychology." Includes bibliographical references (p. 26-27).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

My basic concern in this thesis is to examine the details behind Dennett's attempt to reconcile the notions of mechanism and responsibility. In the main this involves an examination of how he tries to secure a compatibilism between mechanistic and intentional explanations by developing a systematised conception of intentional explanation. I begin by briefly discussing the various notions needed for understanding what is at stake in the area and where the orthodoxy on the matter lies. As such the first three sections of the work are not focussed on Dennett's work itself and playa stage-setting role for the deeper work to follow. These notions include the likes of the rationale behind attributing moral responsibility, agency and action, mechanism and mechanistic explanation, and intentional explanation. I suggest that the basic intuition regarding mechanism and responsibility is such that the two are seen to be incompatible with each other. The main reason for this lies in an intuition that mechanism undermines intentional explanation and so renders the notion of action largely empty. Action, I show, is at the heart of our attribution of responsibility and is dependent on intentional explanation. Having presented these issues, I turn to the details of Dennett's 'intentional systems theory'. I argue that Dennett attempts to avoid the intuition that mechanism is incompatible with responsibility by developing a specialised account of intentional explanation. Dennett calls it the intentional stance. r highlight the two important features of this intentional stance, namely rationality and intentionality. r show that Dennett's position on rationality and intentionality is such that it does allow him to secure an explanatory compatibilism between mechanism and his sort of intentional explanation. I argue, however, that his sort of intentional explanation does not fulfil our requirements for ascribing agency or moral responsibility. This is accomplished in part by developing alternative conceptions of the two notions. Out of this I develop a different sort of intentional stance, which I call the folk stance. I show finaIly that Dennett's compatibilist move is incapable of being applied to the folkstance from which we do in fact make attributions of responsibility, and so conclude thatDennett fails to make the case for reconciling mechanism and responsibility.

<p>This thesis presents a study of children’s speech. The children have Down syndrome (DS). Often the speech of children with DS is hard for other people to understand. The aim of the study is to try a new way of describing these children’s speech. My perspective reflects an ambition to conceive the children as active, speaking subjects.</p><p>In phenomenology human beings are regarded as always being intentional. The phenomenological perspective on intentionality views articulation as intentional, even though we normally experience it as “automatic”. This seemed to be a fertile perspective for this study, where the central focus is on the intentionality in the speech, i.e. the relation between the speaker and his or her speech while speaking. I have drawn mainly on Merleau-Ponty’s views on speech.</p><p>The speech of four children 6–7 years old was studied. The children were videotaped together with an adult in a specific situation (while naming pictures of familiar objects). The children’s speech was transcribed phonetically and some of the words were subjected to acoustic analysis. The main features of the situation were noted down. By means of the acoustic analysis, it was possible to study particular words in minute detail. These words were interpreted in relation to the context in which each utterance was made.</p><p>The four children all differ individually in their speaking strategies. The children’s speaking strategies may be described as flexible or rigid, diversified or undiversified. Within the child’s total expression there is a part which, in my opinion, the child could reach and develop. In my study, I introduce the terms the accessible speech or the accessible expression for that part of the child’s expression. By the terms the visible speech or the visible expression, I have tried to capture the part of the expression which I conceive that the child is capable of approaching as an object.</p><p>The terms accessibility and visibility involve the notion of intentionality; the speech is accessible or visible to someone. The children show us what is within reach for them. I believe that a good starting point for supporting the children’s speech development is the point where they reveal accessible and/or visible speech.</p>

In Mind and World John McDowell argues that our attempts to understand how it is that our thoughts are rationally answerable to the world are in vain. Whether one takes Cognitive Science, Evolutionary Psychology or Phenomenology to be capable of answering this question, such attempts are, he claims, merely a consequence of failing to see that they are already gripped by a picture of the world which precludes the possibility of such answers. In particular, he suggests that if we render Nature as that which is circumscribed by the intelligibility of the natural sciences, we leave no room for rationality conceived of in terms of the spontaneity and freedom that Kant associated with it. While McDowell claims to be a `quietist' who is not putting forward his own theory of mind, he is, at the very least, suggesting a theory of nature, one which he dubs `liberal' insofar as it suggests that we widen the scope of nature so that it can be hospitable to the normative features of thought. This thesis will propose a theory of mind which attempts to show how the causal, normative, and phenomenological can be seen as continuous features of the natural world. It demonstrates that a careful appraisal of causal or scientific accounts of intentionality can be made compatible with McDowell's commitment to the normativity of thought. By revealing that a biological account of the mind, suitably expanded to include an account of history as a Dynamic Ecological Milieu, generates biological interrogatives for the human organism, we can show that the normative manifests as an emergent property of the nomological. This allows second nature to retain its sui generis status while being continuous with the causal descriptions of first nature. This thesis will also draw from the Phenomenological tradition, as a means of critiquing McDowell's account of “the Myth of the Given" and his rejection of pre-conceptual content. In particular, it will follow Charles Taylor and Hubert Dreyfus in affirming that we should view experience, not in terms of that which provides epistemic foundations, but as the domain of pre-reflective embodiment. This is essential to showing how the biological sciences can inform us about the causal background which makes embodied coping so unreflectively natural. Furthermore, phenomenology has provided a means of engaging with the biological sciences in a non-reductive way, as is evidenced by Maurice Merleau-Ponty's The Structure of Behavior and the more recent neurophenomenological tradition which is largely inspired by his work. Finally, by drawing on these resources, the desideratum of this thesis is a scientifically informed understanding of what McDowell calls “second nature" and “the space of reasons" in terms of what I have called “biological interrogatives" and the “phenomenology of epistemic agency".

This studio-based project explores a method of working that assigns agency to paint and process within the medium of painting. Underpinning this exploration is the notion that process driven making could potentially pose as a per formative event. Choreographed yet contingent, the practice investigates the relationship between the potentiality inherent within media and the extent to which this is affected by temporal/ external factors in the determining of outcome. A dialogue between the intentional and the contingent is initiated through a systematic approach that involves manipulation of the constituent elements of paint and the implementation of procedure and protocols as a means to activate conditions of possibility. Central to the research concerns are issues surrounding the ability of media to articulate itself, determine its own temporality and of process and content to operate conterminously. The images produced evidence this investigation as both enquiry and consequence.

This thesis presents a study of children’s speech. The children have Down syndrome (DS). Often the speech of children with DS is hard for other people to understand. The aim of the study is to try a new way of describing these children’s speech. My perspective reflects an ambition to conceive the children as active, speaking subjects. In phenomenology human beings are regarded as always being intentional. The phenomenological perspective on intentionality views articulation as intentional, even though we normally experience it as “automatic”. This seemed to be a fertile perspective for this study, where the central focus is on the intentionality in the speech, i.e. the relation between the speaker and his or her speech while speaking. I have drawn mainly on Merleau-Ponty’s views on speech. The speech of four children 6–7 years old was studied. The children were videotaped together with an adult in a specific situation (while naming pictures of familiar objects). The children’s speech was transcribed phonetically and some of the words were subjected to acoustic analysis. The main features of the situation were noted down. By means of the acoustic analysis, it was possible to study particular words in minute detail. These words were interpreted in relation to the context in which each utterance was made. The four children all differ individually in their speaking strategies. The children’s speaking strategies may be described as flexible or rigid, diversified or undiversified. Within the child’s total expression there is a part which, in my opinion, the child could reach and develop. In my study, I introduce the terms the accessible speech or the accessible expression for that part of the child’s expression. By the terms the visible speech or the visible expression, I have tried to capture the part of the expression which I conceive that the child is capable of approaching as an object. The terms accessibility and visibility involve the notion of intentionality; the speech is accessible or visible to someone. The children show us what is within reach for them. I believe that a good starting point for supporting the children’s speech development is the point where they reveal accessible and/or visible speech.

This paper addresses the question of whether Artificial Intelligence can have intentionality. This question is part of a larger discussion of whether or not Artificial Intelligence can ever be 'conscious'. Ultimately, I come to the conclusion that while we can see how intentionality can be transferred, it has yet to be shown that intentionality can be created within Artificial Intelligence. To begin, I define intentionality. I then discuss the Turing Test (Alan Turing, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" and the Chinese Room (John R. Searle, "Minds, Brains, and Programs"). I conclude by expressing my own opinions and where I believe Artificial Intelligence will be in the near future.

Thesis (doctoral)--Lund, 1981. / Thesis t.p. laid in. Includes bibliographical references (p. 186-191) and index.

My dissertation develops and defends a broadly Kantian account of perceptual experience. I call this account structuralism. Put briefly, the account holds that perceptual experience has a structure that is the manifestation of its priori content. I defend this account by showing that it provides a unified framework for understanding perceptual intentionality.I develop and defend structuralism by defending three theses. The first thesis is phenomenological. According to this thesis, perceptual experience has proprietary perceptual phenomenal intentionality only if it has a unity structure. I explicate the idea of the unity structure of experience in the process of defending this thesis. The second thesis is epistemic. Put roughly, this thesis holds that perceptual experience provides reasons for perceptual beliefs only if it has a priori content. I develop an account of the a priori content of perceptual experience in the process of defending this thesis. The third thesis unifies the phenomenological and the epistemic theses. According to this thesis, the dynamical unity structure of perceptual experience is the phenomenological manifestation of its a priori content. These three these, in conjunction with some plausible ideas provide a systematic account of perceptual intentionality.