Intentionality in Ancient Philosophy

First published Mon Sep 22, 2003; substantive revision Mon Nov 5, 2007
Philosophical inquiry into intentionality that feature of beliefs, desires, and other mental
states, in virtue of which they are of or about something begins long before recent debates
about mental content or even the work of phenomenologists towards the beginning of the
twentieth century. According to the received view, widespread in the literature, it can be
traced back past figures such as Edmund Husserl and Franz Brentano to late medieval
discussions in the Latin West; and from these, in turn, to earlier Arabic philosophy. But at
this point, the trail is supposed to peter out. Nothing in Greek or Roman philosophy,
allegedly, corresponds.
But in fact this narrative rests on questionable assumptions. Once the investigation is
properly framed, it is clear that philosophical interest in intentionality can be traced back to
the very origins of ancient philosophy. Intentionality is treated as involving serious problems
already in the early- to mid-fifth century B.C.E., arguably first by Parmenides of Elea, but
indisputably by sophists such as Gorgias and Protagoras. Plato thematizes the difficulties and
discusses them at length in several dialogues. In later philosophers, we find various
theoretical solutions, including appeals to internal representations (Aristotle), to nonexistent
objects of thought (early Stoics), and to propositions and other semantic entities (later
Stoics). The terminology of intentionality itself can be traced back, through Augustine, to the
Stoic theory of vision.
1. The history of the term
2. The history of the problem
3. Before Plato
4. Plato
5. Aristotle
6. After Aristotle: The Stoics
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1. The history of the term

The received view traces back to an article by the phenomenologist Herbert Spiegelberg,
originally published in 1933 (for a translation of a revised version, see Spiegelberg 1976). It
turns entirely on philosophical terminology: it only considers texts that use the term
intention (Latin intentio) or its cognates, in a specific technical sense, that of a mental
act's being directed at or referring tosomething, in contrast with a usage that applies
exclusively to practical contexts, where an agent intends or strives to do something.
Spiegelberg claims that before the high scholastic period, uses of the Latin intentio were
exclusively practical and therefore have no bearing on the problem of the intentionality of
mental states, as such. The closest antecedents, he claims, are the Arabic ma'na and
ma'qul, which were translated into Latin in the high scholastic period by intentio.
This account, even when considered simply a history of the terminology, is seriously
mistaken. Late scholastic discussions often cite Augustine, in particular Book XI of his On
the Trinity, in which intentio plays a central role. And while Augustine does identify this
with will (uoluntas) and even love (amor) thus suggesting a purely practical application
of the term he does not have such concerns primarily in mind. On the contrary, his use of
intentio belongs to his analysis ofcognition, starting with vision and continuing on with
memory, thought, and self-knowledge. He argues that analyses of perception (such as
Aristotles) that only refer to the perceptual object and the sense-faculty are inadequate. They
leave out a third element, which he identifies with some basic form of striving or will, that
directs the sense to the object and keeps it fixed on it. It is precisely because of this trio of
factors that he believes psychology can be useful to Trinitarian theology. Since humans, and
in particular the inner man, are made in God's image, a human must also replicate Gods
triune structure. In particular, the role intentio plays in cognition will be parallel to that of
the Holy Spirit, mediating between the Father and the Son. It mediates between the object
and the cognitive faculty. Augustine thus plays a crucial role in the later history of what
Spiegelberg called extra-practical intentionality, independently of the contributions of
Arabic philosophy.
Augustine, moreover, is adapting and developing earlier Greek views. In Book XII of
his Literal Commentary on Genesis, he offers an extensive analysis of vision that relies
heavily on Stoic theory. According to both, visual experience depends on the extension
of pneuma (spirit, breath) for Augustine, something immaterial, but for the Stoics a
gaseous body through passages such as the optic nerve to the eye, where it either reaches
out through the pupil to the object (Augustine) or tenses the intervening air into a cone with
its base at the object (the Stoics). Vision takes place when the object and the eye or the sense
of sight are connected by this means. The word that the Stoic Chrysippus uses for this
extending of the visual cone to the object is the Greek enteinein (noun entasis), cognate

with Latin intendo, intentio (Diogenes Laertius VII 157). So if we were looking not only
for a continuous transmission of terminology, but even more specifically for cognates of
intentio, we could trace it back at least to the third century B.C.E., if not to still earlier
extromission theories of vision.
Other expressions and figures of speech familiar to us in modern treatments of intentionality
can be found in ancient discussions, even though we cannot trace a continuous connection
from them to our own usage. Throughout antiquity, for example, we find the antithesis of
presence in absence (parn apn) used to describe the way a mental state can make
something present to us that is nevertheless absent from our current surroundings or even
from reality altogether. Aristotle mentions it explicitly as an aporia or difficulty that must be
resolved (On Memory and Recollection1, 450a25 ff.). Certain Stoics speak of certain objects
as immanent, as literally present, in thought (what they call ennomata), while later
thinkers use the phrase existing in mere thoughts alone (en psilais epinoiais monais) to
characterize merely intentional objects. Even the metaphor of directedness of aiming the
mind at something (intendere animum in), like an arrow can be found in ancient texts. In
Platos Cratylus (420b-c), Socrates suggests that the word belief (doxa) derives
etymologically from bow (toxon): it goes toward each thing and how it is in reality.
Socrates then extends this to deliberative states. (Plan (boul), for example, derives from
shot (bol).) The metaphor is repeated again in the Theaetetus (194a). One who believes
falsely is like a bad archer who shoots and misses his target and goes wrong.
2. The history of the problem

But a mere study of terminology, even when done correctly, tracks the wrong items. Over the
course of their history, technical terms are often used to express very different concepts:
consider the terms substance, matter, or even concept. Conversely, a single concept is
often expressed by different terms, some of which may not be technical ones at all a
situation especially likely at the beginning of inquiry into the subject. So even when
terminology is used as evidence, more must be brought into consideration. Philosophical
interest should focus on the concept of intentionality itself or, better still, the divergent
conceptions of intentionality that philosophers have had, and their resulting disagreements.
These differences afford us the greatest perspective on our own presuppositions and
preoccupations. The best way to approach this is by looking at the history of the problem of
intentionality: the difficulty, that is, of providing a philosophically adequate account of the
nature of intentionality, in light of its various peculiarities (whatever terms may have been
used to refer to it). Such an approach not only allows room for different theories of
intentionality, but also includes attempts to dissolve the problem, either by dismissing the
phenomenon entirely or by denying that there is any genuine difficulty involved.
The problem of intentionality is the problem of explaining what it is in general for mental
states to have content, as well as the particular conditions responsible for specific variations

in content. The difficulty of providing such an account lies partially in explaining why
mental states often appear to violate certain familiar entailment patterns (whether or not these
violations are criterial of intentionality). The content of our mental states, for example, often
does not correspond with what is in the world. What we imagine may not exist, our beliefs
can be false, our desires vain and unfulfilled. To put it more paradoxically, a mental state
may be about something, even if there isnt any such thing in the world which it is about.
This is one of a number of peculiarities that prove difficult to account for, and which are
sometimes thought to pose a particular stumbling block for naturalistic approaches to the
mind. As Wittgenstein once quipped, you cant hang a man unless he is there; but you can
look for him even if he is not, and even if he does not exist at all (Philosophical
Investigations 1.133, 462). There are other peculiarities as well, concerning our ability to
focus selectively on certain aspects of objects, without having others in mind. I cannot greet
a person, for instance, without greeting a person of some particular height; but I can think of
a person, without thinking of a person of any particular height. Worse, I can entertain
different attitudes at the same time to the same object, depending on the aspect under which I
consider it. Thus, I might believe that the Morning Star is a star and that Venus is not, despite
the fact that Venus is the Morning Star; yet we cannot, precisely because they are the same
object, land a space probe on one without thereby landing it on the other. These and other
difficulties form a loose family of phenomena that give rise to the problem of intentionality.
Different solutions may regard these phenomena differently, perhaps isolating some while
excluding others, or even eliminating some of these phenomena outright as data to be
accounted for. What is important for the history is a philosophers sensitivity to the alleged
difficulty, whatever solution he chooses to adopt.
3. Before Plato

The first attention paid to intentionality in Greek philosophy is arguably in the early 5th
century B.C.E., in Parmenides poem (later referred to as On Nature), where it is already
taken to be problematic. Indeed, his poem rejects several of the hallmarks of intentionality
just mentioned as impossible or even incoherent, as part of its startling revelation about what
we can actually think or say. The narrator of the poem is instructed by a goddess that you
cannot grasp or express what is not it cannot be accomplished (fr. 2), for thinking
cannot be found apart from what is, upon which its expression depends (fr. 8, lines 35-6)
and what can be said and thought must be what is (fr. 6). The phrases what is and what is
not in Greek philosophy are notoriously difficult for us to construe. But if, as many
interpreters maintain (see Owen 1960; Furth 1968), it should be construed here either in
terms of (a) what does or does not exist, or (b) what is or is not the case, or perhaps (c) some
fusion of these two, then the goddess is denying the possibility of thinking or speaking about
nonexistent objects, or nonfactual states-of-affairs, or both. If one is to think or express
anything at all, there must be something that one is thinking or expressing. But what is not,
by hypothesis, is not there to be thought of (cf. fr. 3), since either it does not exist or is not in

fact the case; and if there is nothing there to be thought of, then in that case we cannot be
thinking of anything either. Parallel problems are supposed to arise in the case of speech, for
statements concerning a nonexistent (Pegasus is a winged horse) or for false statements.
Concerns with non-existent objects or non-factual states of affairs are not explicit in
Parmenides' poem, however, and this leaves room for other construals of what is not (such
as the view that it always allows completion or specification as what is not F, for some
value of F, so that what is not raises concerns about negative predication instead, especially
in explanatory and cosmological contexts). But whatever Parmenides actually meant, it is
clear that his subsequent reception turns precisely on the problem sketched above,
concerning what does not exist and what is not the case. Proscriptions similar to Parmenides
are numerous in the remainder of the 5th century, though offered by philosophers with quite
different motivations and agendas, including Protagoras, Gorgias, the author of pseudoHippocratic treatise On the Art, Anaxagoras, Metrodorus of Chios, Euthydemus, Cratylus,
and Antisthenes. In many of these cases, the denial is explicitly formulated as a rejection of
the possibility of falsehood, of thinking or speaking of what is not the case.
The sophists Protagoras and Gorgias are of particular interest. According to Plato, Protagoras
held that one cannot believe what is not and that whatever one experiences is true
(Theaetetus 167a). This fits snugly with Protagoras widely attested doctrine that (each)
human being is the measure of all things, which, on any interpretation, excludes the
possibility of error. But Protagoras endorsement reveals an interesting subtlety in the
Parmenidean thesis that what is not cannot be thought about or more positively, the thesis
that if something is had in mind, it must be. The goddess in Parmenides poem uses this
thesis in a negative fashion, moving from the assumption that certain things are not to the
paradoxical conclusion that we cannot actually think about them either. But one might
equally use it, as Protagoras appears to, in a positive fashion, to move from the assumption
that we can in fact think of such things to the conclusion that they must in fact be, i.e., exist
or obtain, after all. In itself, the Parmenidean thesis only makes a conditional claim, and it
seems open, prima facie, to employ either modus tollens or modus ponens. Depending on
whether one retains commonplace assumptions about what we can think or about what there
is in the world, the Parmenidean thesis can lead either to a bloated ontology or a very
restricted psychology.
Gorgias challenges the thesis itself in his On Not Being. The treatise (reported in the pseudoAristotelian On Melissus, Xenophanes, and Gorgias and in Sextus Empiricus Adversus
Mathematicos VII 65 ff.) takes aim at Eleatic assumptions, and especially those of
Parmenides, by arguing first that there isnt anything; secondly, even if there is something, it
cannot be known; and finally, even if it can be known, one could not inform anyone else of
this. The second part is of particular interest, since Gorgias offers a reductio ad absurdum of
the Parmenidean thesis, especially when deployed in a positive way. Given that we can
obviously have in mind, for example, that a chariot-team is racing on the sea in fact, just

by reading this, we put it in mind it should follow from the Parmenidean thesis that
there is a chariot-team racing on the sea; but (paceProtagoras) plainly there is not; therefore,
we must reject this tight linkage between thought and reality. Gorgias goes on to argue for a
sceptical conclusion, on the grounds that we have no basis for discerning which mental states
correspond to reality and which do not, and so cannot know anything at all. But the thrust of
his criticism is that our ordinary intuitions about what we do in fact think about and what
does in fact exist together undermine the Parmenidean thesis.
The motivation behind the Parmenidean thesis appears to be the intuition that thought (or
indeed any other mental state) consists in a direct relation to what is thought about. For given
that a relation cannot obtain unless all its relata exist or obtain, it will follow that we cannot
ever think of what is not of what does not exist or obtain. To the extent that this simple
relational model has a grip on us, we will be drawn to either Parmenidean or Protagorean
conclusions. In fact, we can reformulate these assumptions as an inconsistent triad (using
thought schematically for mental states more generally, and allowing for the ambiguity
between exists and obtains):
A. Thought consists in a direct relation to what is thought about.
B. No relation can obtain unless all its relata exist/obtain.
C. Sometimes we can think about what does not exist/obtain.
Each of these three views possesses a certain intuitive appeal. But taken together, they are
formally inconsistent, and so at least one has to be given up. This does not entirely force our
hand, however, since any two of the three are mutually consistent. As we have seen, some
5th century thinkers (including Parmenides himself, on some interpretations) chose to accept
(A) and (B), and reject (C). Yet if this seems too costly, as it does to most people, we have to
reject one of the other two propositions instead. The obvious candidate for rejection is (A)
that is, the direct relational model itself. One might either (i) reject a relational analysis
altogether or (ii) accept a relational analysis, but hold that it involves a relation to
something other than what the mental state is about. Much of the subsequent discussion in
ancient philosophy can be seen as an attempt to pursue the last strategy, (ii), by finding a
suitable intermediary: certain Platonists appeal to Forms, for example, while Aristotle
appeals to changes within our body that serve as internal representations; later Stoics appeal
to abstract semantic objects like propositions; Epicurus appeals to parts of the surfaces of
bodies. But one might also retain the direct relational model unchanged, by abandoning (B)
instead, as the early Stoics did. Whenever one thinks, they agree, there is something which
one thinks about; but it neednt be something that exists or obtains. There are things, that is,
which do not exist or obtain, which can serve as intentional objects.
4. Plato

Throughout his dialogues, Plato emphasizes the relational character of various mental states:
sight, hearing, touch and perception generally, memory, belief, knowledge, concepts, speech,
love (Tht.152c,160ab, 163e, 188d-189b; Rep. V, 476e, 478b; Parm. 132b-c; Soph. 262e,
263c; Symp. 199d). Each of these states, Socrates or the other main speakers interlocutors
agree, is always of something rather than nothing it is impossible to have a state of this
sort which is not of anything at all. In the Charmides, Socrates gets Critias to agree to
something stronger, namely, that many of these states seeing, hearing, and other forms of
perception, desire, intention, love, fear, and belief must have an object other than
themselves, even if they are sometimes self-directed; and he suggests that it would be odd if
knowledge were not like this as well (167c-168a). But in this regard, mental states do not
differ from other relatives, as he himself emphasizes. On several occasions Socrates
explicitly brings nonintentional cases in order to explain his point, such as parents, children
and siblings, and doubles and halves. In a few of these cases, however, Socrates goes on to
ask whether these states must be of something that is rather than something that is not, a
clarification that would be pointless for nonintentional relatives. Although the speakers agree
in each of these cases that these states must be of something that is, the problem of
intentionality looms here, by his merely raising the possibility that some states might on
occasion be of what is not, in particular of what is not the case or what does not exist. This
possibility is explicitly embraced in the Philebus: just as believing is still belief even if it is
not directed towards anything that was, is, or will be, so too pleasure is still pleasure, fear
fear, anger anger and so on, even if they are directed towards something that never was, is, or
will be (40c-e).
More importantly, there are the several passages where Socrates discusses falsehood in belief
and speech at length, as a familiar and important problem that needs resolution. In
the Cratylus, Socrates says that a great many people, both in the past and in the present, have
held that it is completely impossible to speak falsely, on the grounds that it is impossible to
say something without saying something that is; Cratylus concludes that in such cases,
instead of speaking falsely and saying something that is not, the speaker would simply be
making noise, no more meaningful than the banging of a pot (429d-430a). A similar puzzle is
posed in the Euthydemus, first by the brothers Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, a visiting tag
team of Sophists who are displaying their eristic prowess (283e-284e). It is later reprised by
Socrates, who attributes it explicitly to Protagoras followers and even earlier thinkers, and
it is explicitly extended to false belief as well (286c-d). These versions of the puzzle frame it
in terms of whether one can speak (or think) of what is not: one cannot speak without there
being something that one is saying, and it is impossible both for there to be such a thing and
for it not to be. But that is what speaking falsely would entail, since speaking falsely just is to
say something that is not. Plato never puts the relational character of speaking (and
believing) in question or the requirement that the relata must always exist or obtain. In the
inconsistent triad we considered above, it is the third proposition, Sometimes we can think
about what does not exist/obtain, which is consistently rejected in these contexts. Against

this move, Socrates objects that it is self-undermining (Euthyd. 287e-288a). But he does not
offer a further diagnosis of the problem here.
The puzzle about false belief recurs in the Theaetetus at a crucial juncture in the dialogues
main argument. Socrates and Theaetetus have rejected the proposal that knowledge is
perception, and with it the underlying Protagorean view that whatever appears to be the case
is the case. Theaetetus new proposal, that knowledge is true belief, offers no advance,
however, unless false belief is a genuine possibility, contrary to the sophistic puzzles; and
while Socrates says he has often worried about this, he claims that he is unable to say what
false belief is and how it comes about (187b-e). He then develops the worry in much more
elaborate ways than before. There is a fuller version of the puzzle than we have seen so far,
which equates believing something that is not with not believing anything at all (188d-189b).
But Socrates also raises a quite different psychological worry. It presupposes that false belief
essentially has a certain structure, namely, of mistaking one thing for another, and asks what
our cognitive access is to each: do we know each of these, or only one, or neither (188a-c)?
Socrates makes this underlying structure explicit when he goes on to analyze false belief as a
kind of other-believing, where we say in thought that something is one thing instead of
another (189c-190e). This analysis avoids the earlier difficulty, since both items are things
that are, and it locates error in our having latched on to the wrong item. This description is
illuminating from a third-person point of view, since it exposes precisely why the belief is
mistaken. But for the very same reason the description is unacceptable from a first-person
point of view, for the subject who is taken in: no one, Socrates insists, would ever say to
themselves that Socrates is Theaetetus or that one thing is another thing distinct from it
(190a-c). And in fact Plato seems to be committed to the notion that thinking involves saying
something to oneself, both here (189e-190a) and later in the Sophist (263e-264a). (An
analogous view is implicit in the image from Philebus38e-39a of an internal scribe writing
out our beliefs in our soul.) The treatment of other-believing in the Theaetetus thus
presupposes that both terms must be somehow present to thought for this sort of substitution
to occur (190d). The possibility that one might have only one of them in the mind, through
perception or in some other way, and somehow apply it to the wrong thing in the world is not
considered (though it is something that Plato allows in the case of incorrect names
at Cratylus430a-431b, where he speaks of pointing or otherwise exhibiting the thing while
applying the name to it).
At this point in the Theaetetus, Socrates proposes a model for how false belief can occur,
based on an analogy with a block of wax into which signet rings can be impressed and leave
a sealing; in a similar way, our thoughts and perceptions make an impression on our memory,
leaving behind traces which are signs or representations of the original objects thought about
or perceived (191c-d; 194c-d). These traces can then be deployed in combination with fresh
perceptions of objects, with which they may or may not accord, to produce beliefs. When one
of these traces does not fit an incoming perception, like a shoe put on the wrong foot, the
combination is incorrect and the resulting belief false (193c-194b). The model satisfies both

constraints introduced by the earlier puzzles: it provides cases of falsehood where we are
related exclusively to things that are, and where both items are in some way present to
thought. But as Socrates develops the suggestion, it is made to rely crucially on our having
different kinds of cognitive access to the two items combined in the belief (memory traces,
on the one hand, and perceptions, on the other: 195c-d). As such, it does not serve to explain
cases where perception is not involved, as when someone incorrectly believes that the sum of
5 and 7 is 11 (195e-196a). This is enough to vitiate the characterization Socrates and
Theaetetus have given of false belief. But there should no longer be an issue about whether
false beliefs are possible, the challenge posed by the original puzzles, only about whether we
have been given a fully comprehensive account. Socrates tries to salvage the theory by
proposing another model, where having different thoughts is compared to grabbing at birds
in an aviary (197c-200d). Here again the constraints introduced by the earlier puzzles are
met, but the account does not seem any more promising as a general theory of false belief. It
is soon given up after being subjected to a number of objections, and Socrates returns to the
dialogue's main concern with knowledge.
The Theaetetus does not have much to say about intentionality more broadly, in particular
about the intentionality of the perceptions and thoughts that are combined in belief the
dialogues attention to these issues is limited, understandably, by the exigencies of the main
argument. Perception had earlier been dismissed as not being in a position even to attain truth
(186e), much less being capable of falsehood; but little is said about how perceptual content
should be understood. The final section of the dialogue briefly raises an important problem
about the intentionality of thought, however, which is entirely distinct from the problems
involving falsehood or nonexistence. If one has a true belief about something, but not
knowledge, and in particular does not grasp how that thing differs from all other things,
Socrates worries how the belief manages to be about the very thing it is in fact about. How,
he asks, can thoughts of general characteristics, that are shared equally by other things,
make me think of Theaetetus rather than of Theodorus, or of the most distant Mysian, as the
saying goes? (209b) This is an especially clear statement (and in all likelihood the first) of
what Chisholm would later call the problem of objective reference. And his reaqding of
the Theaetetus may well be what lies behind Wittgensteins own statement of the puzzle:
What makes my representation of him a representation of him? Not the similarity of the
image. (Phil. Invest., II.177, iii)
Plato offers a solution to the puzzles about falsehood in the Sophist. It goes unchallenged in
the text and presumably was regarded by him as definitive. (It need not be a recent discovery
on Platos part, as is often assumed; he need not have been stumped by these puzzles while
writing the earlier passages: see Burnyeat 2002.) When the Eleatic visitor introduces the
puzzles about false belief and speaking falsely, he points out the danger of contradicting
oneself, citing Parmenides proscriptions against speaking of what is not (236e-237c). But he
also insists that we must find a way of reconstruing such claims, if we are to show that
falsehood is possible (240d-241b) without committing patricide against Father Parmenides

(241d). The subsequent solution turns on recognizing a complexity in the structure of

statements, between a subject, which is named in the statement, and what is said about it, as
expressed by the predicate (261d-262d). The conditions for a statements truth are no longer
conceived as a type of naming; on the contrary, the statement presupposes that something is
successfully named, and it goes on further to say something about it, which may be either
true or false. Something analogous will hold for belief, the visitor says, as belief is taken here
to be a kind of internal assertion made by the soul (263d-264b). Several features of this
solution, though, are already prefigured in the Theaetetus, as we have seen: both the
requirement that thought and speech be related only to what is, and the insight that the
complexity of statements and beliefs allows for error to occur in the mismatch of the parts or
the misapplication of one to the other. But it is only in the Sophist that this mismatch is
explicitly characterized in terms of the difference between things that are, rather than simply
being about what is not. A false statement asserts what is not the case regarding the
subject, by stating that the subject is other than it in fact is (263a-d). The analysis in
the Sophist appears incomplete as it stands, though, since it only applies to subject-predicate
sentences, where the subject succeeds in referring to something (262e, 263c): it is unclear
how he would handle other types of statements, much less negative existentials. It also gives
no account of naming or nonpropositional attitudes. But, again, if we consider only the
original challenge posed by Parmenides and the Sophists, namely, to show that falsehood is
possible, then Plato has clearly succeeded.
5. Aristotle

Medieval theories of intentionality not to mention more recent philosophers influenced by

these theories, such as Brentano (1874) draw their inspiration from Aristotles theory of
sensation and understanding, in particular his doctrine that in cognition the form of the
sensible or intelligible object is received without the matter (On the Soul II 12; cf. III 4 and
8) and the doctrine that the object, or more precisely its activity as an object of cognition, is
one and the same as the activity of cognition and is present in the cognizing subject (III 2).
But although sensation and understanding are both intentional states, and Aristotles analyses
of them are central to his psychological theory as a whole, these passages in fact reveal little
direct evidence of a conception of intentionality. Each doctrine applies much more widely
than to just intentional states: the impression of signet ring in wax is offered as an example of
a forms being received without the matter (to which later commentators add images in
mirrors), while the identity of active and passive factors applies to any agent-patient
interaction in general. Each doctrine also fails to apply to paradigmatic cases of intentional
states, like dreams or future hopes. Neither doctrine, therefore, provides either a necessary or
a sufficient condition for intentionality. They are rather general causal doctrines that apply to
a special class of intentional states, like sensation and understanding, where the intentional
state is about what brings it about that is, it is about its own cause something that is not
true of intentional states in general.

Aristotle himself is aware of the special character of these particular states. In fact, he
criticizes his predecessors for failing to account for intentional states whose objects are not
their causes. In the second chapter of his essay On Memory and Recollection, he rejects the
idea that thought extends, like a ray, to its object, because we think in the same way even
when they do not exist: in such cases a ray will not work, since there will not be anything
for it to extend to. He goes further in his polemic On Ideas, when he rejects Platonic theories
that take our thoughts to be of Forms, which always exist, whether or not the individuals that
fall under them do. Such theories do succeed in avoiding the previous criticism. But they do
not work, Aristotle believes, for the full range of thoughts we actually have, since we can
think of particular individuals who no longer exist, like Socrates, and mythical creatures that
do not exist in any way at all, like the hippocentaur. In such cases, there is no Form of the
right sort that can serve as the object of thought. Aristotle seems confident that his own
theory has the resources to deal with both sets of counterexamples. He believes there are
changes in our bodies that represent or model the objects in question, and by undergoing
these changes we are able to have thoughts with the relevant contents, whether or not the
corresponding objects exist in the world at large.
Aristotle describes such changes as phantasmata, a term often translated as images. But
while such representations are involved in imagistic experiences, such as visualization and
dreams, they are also capable of bearing content in the absence of such experience. Aristotle
deploys phantasmata throughout his psychology, in cognitive states, like thought and
memory, as well as in desires, passions, and action. The underlying capacity, which he calls
phantasia, is formally introduced in On the Soul III 3 in response once again to the problem
of intentionality. According to Aristotle, his predecessors are unable to explain how error
could ever take place. On their view, all cognition is about what brings it about, such that
like is known by like, and this, he believes, precludes the possibility of error. To the extent
that he explains sensation and understanding along similar lines, Aristotle will be vulnerable
to the same criticism. And in line with this, he actually regards both states (at least in their
most basic forms) as incapable of falsehood. But unlike his predecessors, Aristotle does not
think that all mental states are to be explained on this model. As he immediately goes on to
argue, phantasia is a distinct kind of mental state that cannot be reduced to sensation,
understanding, belief, or even a combination of belief and perception. It consists in
perceptual traces, which are capable of affecting the central organ in the same way that
perceptual stimulations do and so capable of producing similar experiences even in the
absence of the corresponding external objects. It is this, he claims, that makes falsehood
possible and so explains the actions and reactions of animals.
Thought, Aristotle insists, always requires a phantasma. But the content of even the simplest
concepts goes beyond that contained in any such quasi-perceptual representations (On the
Soul III 7, 8; On Memory 1). At a minimum, in thought we are able to ignore many of the
features of such representations, just as we can use a diagram of a triangle for mathematical
purposes without being concerned with its particular dimensions (On Memory 1). But we are

also capable of using one concept to form the opposite concept and of applying one concept
to another to result in a compound propositional thought capable of truth or falsehood (On
the Soul III 6; Metaphysics IX 10). The abstract content that results from such operations
allows us to use symbols to speak and understand one another (On Interpretation 1).
6. After Aristotle: The Stoics

The early Stoics seem committed to preserving the intuition that whenever we are in a mental
state, there is something which our mental state is of or about. But they reject the
Parmenidean requirement that this must be something which is, that is, something which
exists or obtains. On the contrary, they claim, there are in the nature of things some things
that have being and some that do not, since it includes anything that comes to mind, such
as centaurs, giants or anything else made up by a false thought. Accordingly, these Stoics
regard Something as the highest genus, rather than What is, what has
being (Seneca Letter LVIII). When we are appeared to (phantasia), but there isnt anything
existent which is appearing to us, what appears is only an apparition (phantasma). But it is
nonetheless something and so can serve as the object of our mental state.
One kind of nonexistent intentional object is of particular interest. In addressing the problem
of universals, the first two heads of the school Zeno and Cleanthes argue that there are
no such things as Platos Forms. When we form conceptions (ennoiai) of genera and species,
such conceptions are of concepts (ennomata), which are apparitions that are quite literally
in thought (en + noma) but only there. The precise nature of concepts is controversial,
however. According to one source (Stobaeus, Ecl. 1.136.21 ff.), concepts are not
something, and so not something qualified in a certain way, but only as if they were
something and as if they were qualified; they are only apparitions (phantasmata). Most
interpretations accordingly take Stoic concepts to be not-somethings: fictions or figments
that are so beyond the pale, metaphysically speaking, that they do not even count as
something. But so understood, the Stoic view is puzzling at best. If they are not something,
they cannot be anything, on pain of contradiction. That is why the Stoics think
that Something is the highest genus: everything is something. But if there are no such things,
what is gained by replacing Platonic Forms with Stoic concepts, by replacing one fiction
with another? Why not just declare Platonic Forms to be a useful fiction, and avoid
introducing another?
The Stoics do think they have gained something by this move. They appeal to concepts
crucially in characterizing the methods of definition and division, which are central to Stoic
dialectic. In fact, far from constituting a null set, different concepts are distinguished from
one another, as they would have to be for there to be a system of diverse genera and species.
The Stoics thus quantify over concepts: there is a distinct concept, in fact, for each number.
In referring to concepts as apparitions (phantasmata), the Stoics are not eliminating them,
but recognizing them as theobjects our mind is directed to whenever something general

comes to mind or appears (phantasia). For whatever appears to us is something, according to

the Stoics, even if it is not something that is, something that exists or obtains. The natural
move for the Stoics, then, would be to say that while Platonic Forms arent anything at all
there are no such things concepts are something. There are such things as concepts; they
just arent anything that is, that exists. A parallel text in Diogenes Laertius can be read in just
this way: although a concept is not anything that exists and so does not possess qualities, it is
nevertheless as if it were something that exists and as if it possessed qualities, like the
impression of a horse when none is present (Diogenes Laertius VII 61). What I imagine is
something and indeed something horse-like, but it is not a real horse or anything existent.
Concepts will also be incomplete or indeterminate. It will not be true to say that the generic
man is Greek, for example, or to say that he is not Greek (even in an as if sort of way),
since some, but not all, humans are Greek (Sextus Empiricus, Adv. math. VII 246). A generic
object will be as if it were F if, and only if, all the individuals falling under it are F. This
need not violate the Principle of the Excluded Middle: it would still be true of the generic
man that he is either Greek or not Greek, since it is true that all humans are either Greek or
not Greek. But it would violate the Principle of Bivalence, since it will be neither true nor
false, for example, to say that the generic man is Greek.
The third head of the school, Chrysippus, avoids these problems by appealing instead to that
which can be expressed or meant (lekta, lit. sayables), certain abstract objects that are
signified by our words. Like place, void, and time, for the Stoics, they can neither act nor be
acted upon, and as such cannot be bodies, which are the only beings that they recognize.
Instead, sayables can be classified, with place, void, and time, as incorporeals. And they
will still be something since there is something in each case that our words signify. These
somethings, the Stoics say, subsist(huphestanai) rather than are, or have being (einai). Rather
than serving as the objects of certain mental states, they are the contents that mental states
quite generally bear, which can be articulated in language (Sextus Empiricus Adv. math. VIII
11-12, 70, 409; Diogenes Laertius VII 63). There are significations corresponding to
predicates, as well as to sentences of all kinds: both simple and molecular propositions
(aximata), but also questions, commands, oaths, suggestions, prayers, and so on (Sextus
Empiricus Adv. math. VIII 71-3; Diogenes Laertius VII 66-8). For Chrysippus, moreover, a
definition, like man is a rational mortal animal, should not be construed as being about a
generic object (even in an as if sort of way). Rather it has the same meaning as the
universal generalization, if something is a man, then that thing is a rational mortal animal
(Sextus Empiricus Adv. math. XI 8-11). But such a proposition commits us to nothing more
than the relevant individuals it applies to (if indeed there are any) and to the significations
expressed by its predicates. And significations, unlike generic objects, are not indeterminate.
Unlike the generic man, it is simply false to claim that what is expressed by the predicate is
a man is itself a man. They need not, therefore, pose a threat to the Principle of Bivalence.

So while Chrysippus is committed, like his predecessors, to nonexistent objects, they are not
at all like generic objects: they are the contents, rather than the objects, of mental states; they
do not in general possess the qualities they express, even in an as if sort of way; and while
they do not have any being, they nevertheless subsist, like the other incorporeals the Stoics
recognize (place, void, and time).
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