> On Oct 3, 2014, at 2:28 PM, Gary Fuhrman <g...@gnusystems.ca> wrote: > > I wasn't referring to intentionality in the sense of "aboutness", or to the > scholastic ideas of first and second intentions; I guess it's tautologically > true that informational signs must involve intentions in that sense. I’ve > often wondered about the relation between those more technical usages and the > more common usage for the broad spectrum of intentionality that humans share > with other animals, which is what I had in mind, but it would probably be > distracting to raise that issue in this contex
Just to be clear what I was emphasizing was more emphasizing Peirce’s choice of terms with compulsion. That is not anything like a traditional notion of intent. So Peirce appropriates the medieval notions of first and second intents but combines it with his criticism of Descartes’ notions of belief and doubt. Belief and doubt are not volitional and thus assertion becomes a type of compulsion. This shakes up the entire notion of intentionality and makes a major break with most of Analytic philosophy. But most obviously the assumptions behind most forms of speech act theory. The second point, while not as distant from conscious mind, is the idea that the compulsion continues when out of mind “and will act whenever the occasion arises.” Now this is closer to consciousness in that this acting occurs “whenever those particular hecceities and that first intention are called to mind.” However this seems more indirect. It’s not a conscious thought or interpretation the way analytic philosophy tends to treat interpretation. Rather it is a “permanent conditional force or law.” It’s the copula (or Being) but it is this force that brings the icons and indices to mind in a particular way. Now all of this involves mind the way we normally think of it. I can’t think of an example of this that isn’t mind. But clearly it can be unconscious mind. I’d think it could be animal minds as well since while they may not have language they do have iconic and indexical signs. (This avoids an other weakness of analytic philosophical conceptions I should add) I think this point Peirce is making is what in the phenomenological tradition is called the “as relation.” That is I don’t merely see objects. I see them as certain types of entities. And I can’t not see them as such. I am always already in this process. While again I think the way this is expressed is often unhelpful, it seems to be the idea that this “as” relationship or force of the copula means that when I bring a subject to mind the icons and indices are also brought to mind. Further they are joined by the force of the copula into a dicisign relationship. Put an other way to see the blue sky above is always to see it as sky and as blue and this is not volitional. It thus doesn’t appear to be a normal intentional relationship. (Recognizing that within the Husserlian tradition intents get a bit more complex than within the analytic tradition - so I want to be careful not to be too broad)
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