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From: evenson@cis.udel.edu (Mark Evenson)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: What does intentionality have that AI doesn't.....
Message-ID: <47622@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
Date: 14 Mar 91 19:02:33 GMT
References: <13503@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> <1991Mar14.150044.12197@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
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In article <1991Mar14.150044.12197@watdragon.waterloo.edu> you write:
>In article <13503@ccncsu.ColoState.EDU> petersja@debussy.cs.colostate.edu (james peterson) writes:
>[...]
>>
>>What it is about "intentionality" the lack of which would impede the 
>>implementation of intelligent behavior artificially is related to the
>>problem of "relevance."  How is it that intelligent creatures are capable
>>of selecting from their manifold inputs that portion which will be considered 
>If I can inject a tangential remark here, we should be aware of a traditional
>division of vocabulary on this issue, namely that between *intention* and
>*intension*.
>

>Intension is related to "intense" and usually means whatever the author
>wants it to, but in this context it refers to "the content of a notion",
>or let's say "the meaning of an intention".  In philosophy (so far as I
>can tell), it also denotes "the ability to form intentions" plus some
>intangible spin.  Call it "motivation" or "purpose" if you like.
>

	In semantic theories of reference from at least the Philosophy
of Science tradition, "intension" is opposed to "extension" as to how
words work in refering to qualities of the world.  I may attempt to
crudely reduce a long debate by suggesting that words work by "picking
out" members of the set of all possible objects (that all words refers
to objects is of course the primary reduction here).  The actual
"things" that a word refers to are said to be its extension.  As to
what unites these varied objects belongs to the realm of the word's
intension.  So, for example "cat" has the extension of furry creatures
with tails, but also has the extension of a hipster as in a "cool
cat".  In the case, one may argue the the intension of the term "cat"
lies in a quality of aloofness, reserve, poise, and cool or something
along these.

	Now, in AI debates there exists the echo of the Logical
Positivist project of ascribing one intension and one extension to
every word in a formalized languages.  Usually this is attempted by
defining the proper extension of a word, and then working backwards to
the intension.  By looking at the set of a words extension,
Positivists hoped to clarify and reduce the diaphaenous web of
intension to a cut and regulated science.  Thus, it is hoped, that
language would lose its ambiguity and the quality of its "shiftiness"
when you sit down to code out an AI tool.

	So, intension is allied with "meaning" but it smacks--for me
at least--of a very rigid structural attempt to codify its existence
from a sort of catalouge of function.  I have deeply held convictions
on why this attempt will fail, but that is not really relevant to my
small insight into "intension".

		Mark Evenson