The Intentional Stance

Introduction

A collection of essays published by MIT Press in 1987, most of them written in the early 1980s, each followed by a new “reflection” by Dennett. He distinguishes three ways of predicting a system’s behaviour: the physical stance, which uses the laws of physics; the design stance, which assumes the system works as designed; and the intentional stance, which treats it as a rational agent with beliefs and desires. To have beliefs, on this view, is to be a system whose behaviour can be reliably predicted from the intentional stance – whether person, animal or chess computer. Critics read this as instrumentalism; Dennett replied in his 1991 paper “Real Patterns”.

Connections

Builds on

• The Concept of Mind1949 · Gilbert Ryle

More works by Daniel Dennett

• 1991Consciousness Explained
• 1995Darwin's Dangerous Idea