élan vital

I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and say brentano's theory of intentionality is only part fuckness. From his writings i've developed the idea that a person can't think about nothing. Thinking directly entails that the 'thinking' going on has a content, or is about something (whether real or imaginative). Even further, it's nonsense to claim that it is or is not possible for a person to think without the 'thinking' going on being about something becuz it seems, at least conceptually, that any instance of thinking without content would be unrecognizable to person thinking it becuz there would be no content for them to recognize it by.*

Whether brentano would agree that this interpretation of the 'core' of his theory is along the lines of what he meant idk.

The reason i say this interpretation is an interpretation of the 'core' of his theory is becuz, if i've read brentano's theory accurately, it seems as if brentano thinks the idea that 'thinking is always about something' is some kind of 'fundamental quality' of thinking (a quality which he calls "intentional inexistence"), and that this 'quality' (which is the inherent content-ness in thinking)** is only attributable to thinking, and even further, that we can use this 'quality' to ontologically distinguish mental phenomena from physical phenomena. Apparently brentano's followers are divided about whether he makes any explicit ontological argument tho.. buttttt idgaf becuz brentano's discussion about 'fundamental qualities' is the fuckness i mentioned at the start of this oration:P

I've taken 3 huge shits since i got home and my burps still smell like budweiser. FML


( (footnotes) )

When people communicate the sentences they use are usually phrased conceptually rather than concretely.

For example, when Pilot X describes how his co-pilot and himself fly their plane by "keeping the plane under control", the phrase "keeping the plane under control" describes a series of events. Notice though, the only word in the phrase which directly signifies an object is "plane". The rest of the words signify concepts. For now, we can ignore the word "the" since it modifies the word "plane" and nothing else; which leaves the words "keeping", "under" and "control" respectively. Thinking about each word individually doesn't signify the intended message the pilot was trying to convey at all. There is nothing concrete--no objects--located underneath "control"; the word "control" doesn't even signify an object in the first place. Only when you think about the phrase as a whole does the meaning become clear.

If we rewrote the pilot's original phrase ("keeping the plane under control") using words which directly signified all the objects the pilot was attempting to talk about, the result would be a lengthy paragraph. It's much easier, for the pilot and for us, to talk about events using words that signify concepts. Concepts are groups of words which describe objects in relation to other objects; descriptions which commonly include words that signify other concepts. For example, the word "democracy" signifies a concept; most descriptions of "democracy" use words that signify other concepts (e.g. describing "democracy" as a "form of government" uses the words "form" and "government", both of which are words that signify concepts). Unfortunately, hearing statements which use words that signify concepts without correctly identifying the objects those words are intended to signify is misinterpreting the meaning of the statement heard.

If a person misinterprets something you've said, unless one of you notices the misinterpretation has occurred, the person will continue to assume they correctly understood what you meant.



Sharks ate my homework.