%0 Journal Article
%T Connection Principle, Searle, and Unconscious Intentionality
%A Tomislav Janovic
%A Davor Pecnjak
%J Prolegomena
%D 2007
%I Society for the Advancement of Philosophy, Zagreb
%X The present article is a critical assessment of the ¡°Connection Principle¡± (Searle, 1992, 1995) ¨C the principle according to which the two key properties of mental states, intentionality and phenomenality (consciousness), are necessarily co-instantiated. A theory of mind endorsing some version of this principle assumes that all intentional (and therefore mental) states are either conscious or otherwise potentially conscious. The Connection Principle, being a subject of much controversy in the past 15 years, has divided the community of philosophers of mind in two, as it were, irreconcilable camps. What poses a special challenge to both friends and foes of the Connection Principle ¨C albeit for different reasons ¨C is a plausible explanation of intentional character of unconscious mental states. We want to point to and comment on certain weaknesses of Searle¡¯s attempt to solve this problem ¨C an attempt drawing on the idea that unconsciousmental states ¡°retain¡± its ¡°aspectual shape¡± while unconscious. Eventually, we will venture to show why the notion of aspectual shape cannot play the explanatory role assigned to it by Searle, and why a more restrictive and a more consistent criterion for ascribing intentionality to unconscious states is needed. This new criterion should be sensible to our folk-psychological intuition suggesting that there are dispositional states that play an indispensable causal role in our mental economy and, as such, build a genuine subset of all nconscious, i.e., purely neurophysiological states of our mind/brain.
%K Connection Principle
%K Searle
%K intentionality
%K phenomenal consciousness
%K aspectual shape
%K unconscious
%K potentially conscious
%K neurophysiological states
%K mind/brain.
%U http://hrcak.srce.hr./index.php?show=clanak&id_clanak_jezik=19030&lang=en