An Assessment of a Part of Dennett’s Intentional Systems Theory

• Autor(a) principal: Lazzeri, Filipe
• Data de Publicação: 2012
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Psicologia (Universidade de Brasília. Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/revistaptp/article/view/17569
• topic: Filosofia; Epistemologia da Psicologia; Termos intencionais; Dennett; Ryle; Seleção pelas consequências; Behaviorismo; Intentional terms; Dennett; Ryle; Selection by consequences; Behaviorism

Dennett (1981/1987b) characterizes his approach as to how intentional terms (those for the so called propositional attitudes) work as a “holistic logical behaviorism,” or a holistic version of some of Ryle’s (1949) conceptual remarks. This paper examines possible contributions and disadvantages of Dennett’s approach, as well as the consequences of this proposal in relation to the employment of intentional terms in psychology. It is argued that Dennett’s approach does not turn out to be more accurate than his predecessor’s, since the mentalistic dimension it adds to the latter is erroneous. Accordingly, Dennett’s contributions and related proposal should be understood without the implications of this dimension. A non-mentalistic alternative, based upon Skinner’s selectionist model, for eventually adopting intentional terms in psychology is briefly discussed.