PHILOS 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Fred Dretske, Gummy Bear, Intentionality
Philosophy 1
Intro to Philosophy
Summer 2019
Notes:
A Recipe for Thought by Dretske
● Philosophical Naturalism
○ According to Dretske, philosophical naturalism is the doctrine that any
explanation of a certain phenomenon should be given by a constructivist model of
understanding, an explanation consists of terms that one already understands
■ I can decompose this radio into parts and reassemble then into a radio but I
have no idea how individual parts work
■ I melted 100 gummy bears and made it into one huge gummy bear
■ I know not only how each part of this compass jointly operates, but I can
also make one with a simple needs and magnet
○ Philosophical naturalism holds that a philosophical theory should give accounts
that consist only of naturalistic terms
■ So what are naturalistic terms
■ A naturalistic term is often taken as a term that is either from scientific
literature or compatible with contemporary science
● Naturalistic Recipes for the Mind
○ According to Dretske, it is customary to think of naturalistic recipes for the mind
like starting with extensional ingredients and through a magic blending process,
producing an intentional product: a though, experience, or purpose
■ What are extensional ingredients
● Ex. Neurons, an action potential, neuro-chemical transmitters, etc.
■ How so ingredients produce intentional mental states like thoughts
● Ex. How does your brain produce a belief that I am sitting on a
chair
■ Can we naturalistically explain the "mind-producing" process
● Ex. Is a belief identical to a brain state
■ What are the problems of naturalism
● Naturalizing Intentionality
○ https://www.closertotruth.com/series/what-intentionality
○ Intentionality is the power of the mind to refer to something and not itself
■ Ex. When I am looking at a table, my visual perceptual state is about the
table
○ According to Dretske, this sort of intentional state can be ascribed to the states of
simple artifacts, such as a compass
■ Ex. When the needle of a compass points north, it mechanistic state is
about the north
○ Dretske argues that an intentional state can be easily naturalized because, for
instance, we can naturalistically explain how the needle of the compass points to
the north
