Explanation
Intentionality is the directedness of mental states towards something: one believes, fears, remembers, or hopes for something even when the intended object does not exist. The philosophical concept is broader than intention as a plan of action. Perception, belief, and desire have different modes of directedness and different conditions of success. Linguistic reports make this structure visible but should not be identified too quickly with the mental state itself. The conceptual movement begins with an experience, asks what it is about and under what aspect, and tests how content, object, and reality may come apart.
Movement of thought
1. A mental state is first examined not only by its feeling but by its relation to an object. 2. Analysis asks whether it presents something as true, desirable, threatening, remembered, or perceived. 3. Content and real object are separated because thought can concern fictional, mistaken, or absent things. 4. A counter-test distinguishes philosophical directedness from conscious intention, attention, and causal reaction. 5. The state emerges as a perspectival relation whose success and truth require separate assessment.
Scientific use case
Philosophy of mind, psychology, and semantics can compare kinds of intentional states, their contents, and misrepresentation. Reports, behaviour, and experimental tasks provide different limited forms of access.
Example
Mara fears an alleged tunnel beneath the house although no tunnel exists. Her fear still has determinate content and changes her behaviour without presupposing a real object.
Counterexample
An intention to travel tomorrow is only one particular intentional state. A reflexive withdrawal can be caused by a stimulus without possessing the same articulated object-directed content.
Distinction
Distinguish intentionality from intention as a plan, attention as selective orientation, and reference as a linguistic relation. Intentionality is the more general object-directedness of mental states.
Effect on thought and perception
The concept explains how minds can engage with absent and possible things. Used loosely, it conflates conscious purpose, linguistic meaning, and information processing.
Resonance
Consciousness does not remain enclosed but extends a line towards something. Even a nonexistent object can become effective within that relation.
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Intentionality“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-103-027. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-103-027The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.
Historical background
Locke asks what a speaker’s words immediately signify and how the speaker supposes them to correspond with another person’s ideas. This gives neighbouring background for intentionality as directedness toward something, but not a direct genealogy of the later philosophical technical category. The Atlas must distinguish that directedness from merely having a deliberate communicative intention. A representation may concern an object even when the person is not planning an action, and intending to communicate does not ensure successful reference. Locke’s theory of ideas supplies an older problem of mediation; it should not be presented as Brentano’s or Husserl’s account in disguise. Direct later philosophical texts are needed to establish those distinctions and the English label’s transmission. The comparison remains useful only while its theoretical distance stays explicit.
How conceptual history changes the analysis
Intentionality is the directedness of a mental state toward something; it is not identical with deliberate action or successful linguistic reference.
References for the historical section
- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Books III–IV; Project Gutenberg ebook 10616 · Essay III.ii.1–4: signs of the speaker’s ideas and reference to others’ conceptions
Selected witness, not a complete genealogy or first English attestation. Contemporary Atlas comparisons are editorial interpretations. Only the named passage of the identified transcription was inspected; philosophical positions remain attributed, not treated as settled empirical results.