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Hume on mental representation and intentionality
Author(s) -
Cottrell Jonathan David
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
philosophy compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.973
H-Index - 25
ISSN - 1747-9991
DOI - 10.1111/phc3.12505
Subject(s) - intentionality , passions , representation (politics) , mental representation , epistemology , psychology , mental state , cognitive science , philosophy , cognition , politics , neuroscience , political science , law
The past two decades have seen an explosion of literature on Hume's views about mental representation and intentionality. This essay gives a roadmap of this literature, while arguing for two main interpretive claims. First, Hume aims to naturalize all forms of mental representation and intentionality, that is, to explain them in terms of properties and relations that are found throughout the natural world (not just in minds) and that are not, individually, peculiar to representational or intentional things. Second, Hume holds that the passions are not representational but do have intentionality extrinsically.