OLOFOS - Interventionism for the Intentional Stance: True Believes and Their Brains

Rencontre avec Markus Eronen (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Netherlands) organisée dans le cadre des séminaires OLOFOS "Scientific représentation(s) of causation"

The relationship between psychological states and the brain remains an unresolved issue in philosophy of psychology. One appealing solution that has been influential both in science and in philosophy is the intentional stance developed by Dennett, according to which beliefs and desires are real and objective phenomena, but not necessarily states of the brain. A fundamental shortcoming of this approach is that it does not seem to leave any causal role for beliefs and desires in influencing behavior. In this paper, I show that intentional states ascribed from the intentional stance should be seen as real (interventionist) causes, develop this to an independently plausible ontological position, and present a response to the latest interventionist causal exclusion worries.