What is Dennett’s argument for weak realism with respect to the intentional stance? What are Churchland’s arguments against the intentional stance (folk psychology). Who is right? I.e., can we get by just as well without the intentional stance? Dennett’s argument for weak realism revolves around the notion that taking the intentional stance can sometimes be completely unhelpful in terms of predicting the behaviour of a system, claiming that it would be better to use one of the other stances to do so. Therefore, Dennett claims that in these situations, the intentional stance is a metaphor at best, while in other situations it is completely unhelpful, as stated above. However, it is important to note that although the intentional stance
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He answers the questions by saying that a mental state is one in which one is conscious. He categorizes 4 different levels of mental states. The first being an uncoinscious state, where one is not thinking. The second is, in order to be conscious of x, one must either perceive x or think about x. In other words, I can see Dr. Macpherson lecturing, or I can close my eyes and think of him standing at the front and lecturing. The third is thatin order to be conscious of a mental state, one must think one is in that mental state. In other words, this is a second order thought, or as Rosenthal later calls it a higher order thought. This is simply a thought about a thought. Finally, the last is that a conscious mental state is one in which one is conscious of being in it, which takes us back to Rosenthal’s original answer to the question. More specifically in terms of higher order thoughts, they make us conscious of having the first order thought. For example, my car in the driveway is black. This would be a first order thought. However, my realization that I see that my car is infact black and is physically in the driveway is a second order thought. It could be said that the higher order thought is a type of confirmation of what is actually
He answers the questions by saying that a mental state is one in which one is conscious. He categorizes 4 different levels of mental states. The first being an uncoinscious state, where one is not thinking. The second is, in order to be conscious of x, one must either perceive x or think about x. In other words, I can see Dr. Macpherson lecturing, or I can close my eyes and think of him standing at the front and lecturing. The third is thatin order to be conscious of a mental state, one must think one is in that mental state. In other words, this is a second order thought, or as Rosenthal later calls it a higher order thought. This is simply a thought about a thought. Finally, the last is that a conscious mental state is one in which one is conscious of being in it, which takes us back to Rosenthal’s original answer to the question. More specifically in terms of higher order thoughts, they make us conscious of having the first order thought. For example, my car in the driveway is black. This would be a first order thought. However, my realization that I see that my car is infact black and is physically in the driveway is a second order thought. It could be said that the higher order thought is a type of confirmation of what is actually