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INTENTIONS AND SELF-REFERENTIAL CONTENT Tomis Kapitan Philosophical Papers XXIV (1995), 151-166

1. Representing Agency Within Intentional Content Intentions are often thought to play an indispensible causal role in linking the vast complex of an agent's desires, beliefs, emotions, perceptions, etc. to intentional behavior. States of distal intending establish tendencies to act in certain ways while proximal intendings serve to trigger behavior. Both owe their efficacy, in part, to their contents -- to intentions in the technical sense. My extending my right arm to hail a taxi can be explained, in part, by my standing intention to extend my right arm when I desire an approaching taxi's service, or, by my proximal intending to hail that taxi thinking that extending my arm within the visual range of the driver is a way to secure the desired end.i One who intends to do something intends one's own prospective action. But 'action' is multiply ambiguous, and even if we speak of a tokening of an action-type we ackowledge that what is intended is not just any prospective event involving oneself. My conception of hailing a taxi may include my thought of a taxi stopping nearby in response to my arm motion, but neither the taxi's stopping in response to my arm motion nor the arm motion itself is all that I intend; these events could occur without my doing anything at all, for example, if my arm just happens to go up thereby causing a passing taxi to stop. To capture what more is involved my intention must include a representation of my doing, my agency, my hailing a taxi. In this way intentions concern prospective actions as distinct from bodily movements and their consequences.ii How is agency incorporated into intentional content? Taking causal origin as the distinguishing feature of agency, one hypothesis is that each intention embodies a representation

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of how a prospective event or its consequences is to be brought about. Since it is brought about by an intending, particularly, by the intending in question, then every intending to act includes a representation of its own causal influence and is, thereby, self-referential. When I consider having raised my right arm to answer a question an hour ago, I think of myself as having acted as a result of my intention to do so, and I conceive a similar connection whenever I contemplate raising my arm at some future time. I do not merely will that my arm go up; this might happen when someone else raises it for me and I do nothing. I will that I myself perform that act of arm raising, that a going up of my right arm occur because of my very intention to raise it. In short, to intend to do an action A is to intend to do A as a result of that very intention. This way of embedding the prospective efficacy of intendings within intentional content is the selfreferentiality thesis (SRT).iii Various formulations of the SRT have been offered. John Searle, in writing about raising one's arm, says the following: The Intentional content of my intention must be at least (that I perform the action of raising my arm by way of carrying out this intention). (Searle, 1984, p. 85) Gilbert Harman's formulation is similar: . . . an intention is typically the intention that that very intention will result in your doing what you intend to do.iv Some of the differences are minor, but others are more substantial and it is helpful to display the relevant options. An immediate division concerns the cognitive accompaniments to the agent's reference. Modest versions of the SRT abstract from the agent's manner of referring to the intending state as much as possible through a de re formulation (with temporal parameters kept implicit): SRT1 In intending to do an action A, an agent S intends of his intending to do A that it result in his A-ing.

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This leaves open the mode through which S cognizes his own state of intending to do A. By contrast, stronger versions of the SRT attempt to specify how the agent conceives of this own intending, lending themselves to de dicto formulations. The most straightforward format is this: SRT2 In intending to do an action A, an agent S intends that his intending to do A results in his A-ing. where S is said to identify his intending through explicit reference to its content, namely, to do A. One way to read the formulation given by Searle and Harman, however, is that S's reference is indexical: SRT3 In intending to do A, an agent S intends that this very intending result in his A-ing. So expressed, 'this' or the phrase 'this very intending' are used to attribute indexical reference to the agent. They are, thus, quasi-indicators, for were they the speaker's demonstratives we would be back at a de re formulation typical of modest versions of the SRT.v Both the modest and strong versions can be generalized to provide for self-reference to some intending or other, not necessarily to the intending to do A.vi The explicit causal reading might be replaced with a type of means-end relationship expressed with the 'by' locution and which need not be given a causal reading. Here is a version for the strong thesis: SRT4 In intending to do A, an agent S intends to do A by way of intending to do A. But regardless of whether we take the action as an effect or, more generally, as an end, a further question concerns how it is to be construed precisely. If I intend to raise my right arm am I intending that I raise my right arm as a result of my intending to raise it, or that my right arm rise as a result of my intending to raise it? Taking Harman's words literally, the projected effect is the whole action, but if an action is understood in terms of an intending producing a bodily

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movement and, perhaps, its consequences, then it is the latter that are, properly speaking, the direct objects of the intending. This difference between the agental and non-agental construal of the projected effect, respectively, might dissolve on closer analysis. For the moment, let us understand the locutions 'his A-ing' or 'her A-ing' as ways of maintaining neutrality between these two options.vii What are the grounds for the SRT? Its principal strength seems to be that it explains how agency is incorporated into intentional content and, thus, why agents seem cognizant -- in the very process of acting intentionally -- that they are agents. This alone makes the SRT an interesting hypothesis. Harman has also appealed to the SRT in explaining why one cannot intend to do A if one believes one will not do it, and to resolve problems of causal deviance in describing intentional action. But critics have challenged the belief condition and argued that a proper understanding of the planning aspect of intention can resolve deviance problems without endorsing the SRT (see Mele 1987, 1989, and especially, 1992). Moreover, the SRT is alleged to impute excessive conceptual baggage to agents such as small children by requiring them to have a concept of intention and of the causality of intentional states in order to act intentionally.viii The issue is empirical at this point, but recently, Harman has restricted the SRT to "positive intentions that are the conclusions of full-fleged practical reasoning" and, thus, to suitably rational and self-reflective agents (Harman 1993, p. 145). Let us determine what can be said for the SRT within this more restricted setting.

2. Two Arguments for The Self-Referentiality Thesis Harman has described a positive intention as "an intention to do something that you suppose you will do in consequence of your adopting that intention", where 'intention' refers to a state of intending (Harman 1993, p. 141). This definition does not, by itself, guarantee that positive intentions are self-referential for it may be that the mentioned supposition is distinct

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from the intending. Paradigmatically, positive intentions are the conclusions of deliberations, and he recently offered two arguments why they must be self-referential. First Argument. When an intention is the result of practical reasoning, the intention is the conclusion of that reasoning. Your can rationally reach a positive intention through practical reasoning only if you can conclude (C) that the intention will make a difference by leading to your doing as you intend. The conclusion (C) that your intention will lead to your doing as you intend has to be part of your pratical conclusion. So, the conclusion (C) that your intention will lead to your doing as you intend has to be part of your intention (Harman 1993, p. 141). We may reformulate his reasoning as follows: 1. If a positive intention results from practical reasoning then it is the conclusion of that reasoning. 2. One concludes a positive intention through practical reasoning only by concluding: (C) that positive intention will lead you to do as you intend. 3. Claim (C) must be part of the practical conclusion of the practical reasoning from which that positive intention results. Therefore, (C) must be part of that positive intention (in which case, the intention is self-referential). Premise (1) is plausible as concerns suitably reflective agents when 'intention' is now taken to be the content of an intending. Similarly, they should satisfy (2), though it can be asked why claim C must be concluded or be part of the conclusion rather than a presupposition of practical reasoning. Harman answers this as follows: C cannot follow your practical conclusion (P) because P can be reached only if C has already been reached. C cannot precede P either, since C has to be a conclusion about that particular P: C makes sense only if P exists (Harman 1993, 156, note 18).

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If I understand this correctly, Harman holds that acceptance of claim C must be simultaneous with the acceptance of the practical conclusion P. Why so? Because C is about the intending of a particular content that constitutes the conclusion, in which case C cannot exist unless that conclusion, namely P, exists. But here we must distinguish a content from a consideration of that content and both, in turn, from an acceptance of that content. Obviously, one reflects on the content in order to consider what would happen were one to intend it, yet one can certainly consider this content before one actually intends it or infers it from a set of premises. Practical reasoning is the means of determining which among an array of considered alternatives to intend, in which case the content of the practical conclusion can be considered within deliberation as one reflects on what one can accomplish -- indeed, C might itself be among the practical premises of that reasoning. Hence, neither the intending of that content nor the content qua conclusion need exist in order for one to accept C; one need only reflect upon one's prospective intending of that content. Consequently, (3) is not secured and Harman's first argument fails. Harman's second argument procedes from the claim that an agent views a state of intending as included within the recognized means to one's intentional actions. Second Argument. If an intention to do A is a positive intention, you suppose you will do A only if you intend to do A and you suppose that intending to do A promises to lead to your doing A. To make such suppositions about your intention is to view your intention as part of your means for doing A. If you form the intention of doing A, supposing that M will be part of your means for doing A, then your intention to do A includes an intention to do A by virtue of M. So, your positive intention to do A is in part the intention to do A by virtue of having that intention (Harman 1993, p. 142, and similar reasoning appears in Harman 1976, 1986a and 1986b). This intriguing argument deserves a careful restatement: 1. If you have a positive intention to do A, then you suppose that you will

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do A only if you intend to do A, and that intending to do A will lead to doing A. 2. To make the suppositions noted in (1) is to view your intention as part of the means of doing A. 3. If you form the intention of doing A supposing that M is part of the means of doing A, then your intention to A includes the intention to do A by virtue of M. Therefore, Your positive intention is, in part, the intention to do A by having that intention.ix Grant that premise (1) is suitable for reflective agents, there is a danger of equivocation on 'means' or on 'part of the means' in premises (2) and (3). On the broad reading of these premises, a means or part of the means of S's doing A is any necessary condition of S's performing that action, whereas on a more restricted reading a means is any action S must perform in order to do A. Even here there is a distinction between actions which are merely necessary conditions of S's A-ing and actions which S performs as a means of A-ing. The latter is the only way to read 'means' in premise (3) for I might believe that I can A only by doing something else B as well, but I might not do A as a means to B.x Unlike (3), premise (2) is true of all intentional actions on the broad reading, but Harman does not offer convincing reasons why it must be read in the restricted sense. It does not seem that all intentions are acquired because they are viewed as something else one must do in order to act, and it is doubtful that acquiring an intention is always something one does. Sometimes we are in an intending state without forethought or deliberation, as when we suddenly intend to take a drink of water, or when angered we react with a pointed remark or a violent movement. We certainly acquire intentions in such cases, though we do not intend to acquire them, nor did we previously adopt a plan into which acquiring them figured as distinct steps. We simply find

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ourselves in an intending state through no effort of our own, much as we sometimes find ourselves possessed with odd or embarrassing desires (Mele 1992, chp. 12). Consequently, the attempt to derive the restricted reading of premise (2) from a more general thesis concerning all intentions is dubious. To be sure, there are many cases of explicitly formulating or consciously adopting an intention where the adoption may plausibly be described as something the agent does (Harman 1976, p. 440), and it is with these that premise (2) is properly concerned. However, an agent might formulate an intention to do something before giving much thought about how to go about doing it. One might plan to learn group theory, for example, while "supposing" -- in the sense of tacitly believing -- that one will have to open a book to do so, even though opening a book is not yet part of the envisioned plan. Even if it were included, one might not think of any basic actions or bodily movements concerning how one will open the book or turn the pages and so on. Such actions are external to the plan when intended -- even if they might later come to be intended as one implements the plan -- yet one is certainly intending to learn group theory. Again, one who presses a button wired to a bomb with the intention of killing the local Mayor might not consider with which finger to press the button even though in adopting the plan to kill the Mayor by means of a bomb, the agent "supposed" that the bomb would not explode without a button being pressed and a finger being moved (Castañeda 1990, chapter 3). So, if no particular finger is such that the agent supposed its pressing the button is something he will do in the course of following his plan to kill the mayor, then no such act is among the components of that plan. At the same time, the agent realizes that the motion of some finger or other will be a means to killing the mayor. If this is so with respect to a basic action like a particular finger motion, then the same should hold equally for states of intending. Like many bodily movements, intendings (as means) are typically external to the plan of action when adopted. Hence, even if premise (1) is true and 'means' is understood in the restricted sense, you do not thereby view

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your intention to do A as a means of doing A in the course of intending to do A, in which case premise (2) does not hold. The restricted reading of premise (2) is more plausible when an intention is acquired as the result of "full-fleged practical reasoning" and is explicitly included within a plan of action. But now the stumbling block is premise (3), for there still remains a question about exactly what is included. Leaving a party I form a plan about how to return home and decide, while descending the staircase, to take a taxi. Then I remember that I have never hailed a taxi from the curb before and, so, devise a strategy of extending my arm when a taxi comes in view as a means for getting it to stop. I reflect a bit further and realize that my perception of a taxi will trigger an immediate or proximal intending to raise my arm which will, in turn, be the trigger that causes my arm motion. So, I factor looking for a taxi and intending to extend my arm the minute I see a taxi into the plan as well. I now suppose that intending is something I do, something which requires my effort, unlike a perception. Confident that my perceptual-behavioral apparatus is working properly, I have decided on a plan in which a future state of intending is viewed as a means to a further end. Hence, on the most likely scenario of an agent viewing an intending as a means to an action, in the restricted sense of means required by premise (3), there is still no selfreferential intention present since it is a prospective intending, identified qua type, that is a component of the plan, and this is a distinct state from the agent's present adoption of the plan. Consequently, even when we grant that premise (2) -- understood in the restricted sense - holds for that subclass of intentions which are conclusions of "full-fleged practical reasoning," it is unclear that the intending that figures into the action-plan is the same state as the intending of that action plan. Consequently, premise (3) has not be established. I conclude that neither of Harman's arguments succeeds.

3. A Regress Argument Against the SRT

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The SRT cannot work unless agents are equipped with certain capacities for practical reflection, specifically, abilities to both identify their intendings and impute to them causal efficacy. Call these the "referential" and "imputational" demands respectively.xi The former can be achieved in many ways, e.g., indexically, through specification of its content, by description of its properties, but how is the latter secured? Presumably, as with causal imputations generally, the agent has some sense of the purported cause's causally relevant features. This can occur in different ways, for example, by recourse to psychological or physiological properties that underlie the intending's efficacy. But this is likely to be the exception. Assuming that the efficacy of intendings is tied to their content, agents typically satisfy the imputational demand by knowing what is intended. I attribute to my present intending the power to cause me to inscribe a 'U' on this page because to inscribe a 'U' on this page is what I intend. Let us set forth this principle of supposed efficacy as follows: PSE It is by identifying its content that an agent takes his state of intending to have the potential to bring about a given result.xii Combining PSE and the SRT generates a regress. Suppose I intend to raise my right arm. On the simplest strong thesis, SRT2, I describe my intending as follows: (1) I intend [that my right arm be raised as a result of my intending [to raise my right arm]]. where 'my right arm be raised' is neutral between the agental and non-agental readings and brackets signal content clauses as well as acting as scope markers. PSE requires that I identify the intending to which I am referring by means of its content while attributing to it a causal potential derived from this content. But if 'to raise my right arm' specifies the content of the intending to which I attribute causal potential, then, while we have satisfied PSE, we are attributing causal efficacy to an intending whose content is apparently not self-referential, namely, that whose content is specified by the infinitive 'to raise my right arm'. If the phrase is

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elliptical for a more complete self-referential content, then (1) gives way to, (2) I intend [that my right arm be raised as a result of my intending that [my right arm be raised by virtue of my intending [to raise my right arm]]]. Again, while the content clause that my right arm be raised by virtue of my intending to raise my right arm contains a reference to an intending, no reference to any intending is made in the embedded infinitive clause 'to raise my right arm' even though this is the content of a supposed efficacious intenting. To satisfy SRT2 we must once again take the phrase 'to raise my right arm' in (2) as elliptical for a self-referential content, namely, that my right arm be raised as a result of my intention to raise my right arm. But then we are off on a regress, a vicious internal regress since the attempt to identify an intending which is supposedly both efficacious and selfreferential leads us to an ever-increasing complexity of content, eventually generating an intention whose complexity renders it inaccessible to a finite act of thinking. Consequently, either the contents of intendings are unthinkable, contrary to PSE, or, some intentions are not self-referential, contrary to SRT2.xiii The regress can be avoided if we take the indexicals in some versions of the SRT to imply an indexical reference of the agent's part. Just as one can identify an item indexically without conceptualizing any of its properties other than a certain spatio-temporal relational property it has in virtue of being the object of one's experience -- being a this, a that, a you, a beyond, etc. -- perhaps an agent picks out an intending indexically without grasping its content. Then the imputational demand does not generate a regress. Consider, then, this first-person report of the relevant intention: (3) I intend [that my right arm be raised as a result of this very intending]. Reference by way of demonstratives or demonstrative phrases can be immediate, as when I refer to this piece of paper in front of me now, or mediate, as when I refer to an absent person as the author of that book the latter being the immediate demonstrative referent. In both, the referent is

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(i) an item in immediate awareness, and (ii) possesses its demonstrative status only in virtue of one's conscious orientation towards something. If 'this very intention' in (3) expresses an immediate demonstrative reference, perhaps it is direct, with the indexical mode of presentation -- its "character" -- forming no part of propositional content.xiv PSE should not be invoked to force a reading of(3) as, (4) I intend [that my right arm be raised as a result of this very intending [to raise my right arm]]. for 'to raise my right arm' does not add to what is reported as intended by the content clause in (3). In this way, the potential regress can be avoided and the SRT retained. The direct reference account of demonstrative reference has been challenged when the reference in question is the agent's thinking reference to a particular item (see note 11). Further, as long as content is identified as the the causally relevant feature of the supposed efficacious intending, the threat of a regress remains whenever it comes to specifying the self-referential content whether this mode is part of the intention or not. Aside from these difficulties, many, if not most, intending states are tacit or dispositional, and not being objects of conscious awareness, their contents cannot embody demonstrative references to themselves. Only for intendings of which the agent is conscious can 'this very intending' in (3) be a demonstrative phrase inside the scope of 'I intend'. If 'this very intending' serves as a quasi-indicator, on the other hand, then I, qua speaker, am attributing to myself qua agent a disposition to make a demonstrative reference to a certain intending. In that case, I qua speaker must still identify the intending through 'this very intending' which I use either demonstratively to refer to an intending or as a reflexive pronominal phrase. The former would require that the intending be an object of my conscious awareness which, since I am the agent of (3), is contrary to hypothesis that the intending is tacit. The reflexive reading escapes this result, but leaves us with the question of how I qua speaker identify the intending which is the object of reference through the reflexive

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'this very intending'. If the content clause 'that my right arm be raised' supplies the antecedent, then we are picking out the correlated intending by reference to its content, in which case the regress reappears. This problem can be circumvented if we move to the third-person reports, thus, (5) S intends [that his right arm be raised as a result of this very intending]. where 'this very intending' is used only as a quasi-indicator. Tacitly intending to ask the first question at the end of the lecture, I am now disposed to make a demonstrative reference to my own intending when the appropriate moment for action comes. Throughout the interval between my forming that intention and the end of the lecture, I had the disposition to ask the first question by virtue of this very intention, but prior to the end of the lecture I was not identifying that disposition demonstratively. A tacit attitude towards anything requires orientation towards a definite content; how can this be unless one has already identified the intending to which one is disposed to attribute efficacy, that is, unless that intending is already an object of thought which retains its identity throughout the endurance of that state? My tacit intention to ask the first question cannot be identified demonstratively since, by hypothesis, it is tacit and not an object of my immediate awareness. Nor can it be described merely as the first intending I have when the lecture ends, for typically, I have many intentions concurrently, and for all I know, a sudden emergency will arise just as the lecture ends which will bring about my intending something else instead. Nor is it feasible for me to identify it in terms of physiological state descriptions, for these are typically beyond the purview of any agent. Presumably, my present tacit identification is by means of content, namely, to ask the first question, even though when the lecture ends my reference to that intending may be demonstrative. It is by grasping its content do I suppose that my prospective intending will lead to the desired action and not some other action instead.xv At best, the SRT can work only for immediately demonstrated intendings which are the objects of consciousness. But even here, PSE is not easily avoided. The SRT requires that an

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agent imputes causal efficacy, and since content is typically the only causally relevant feature of an intending accessible to an agent, the regress problem with ascertaining the precise content returns in full force. I conclude that not only do arguments for the SRT fall short, but there is positive reason to deny that thesis. How then do we propose to explain that chief datum that motivates the endorsement by SRT by so many philosophers, namely, that in intending to act what we intend is an action, i.e., an event involving an exercise of our own agency, rather than a event which merely involves us in some way? I think that part of the answer is to understand that when we intend we do not accept a proposition to the effect that one is doing or will do a certain action. What is intended is not truth-valued at all; intentions are not propositions. In intentionally extending my arm to hail a taxi, I do not think, "I am extending my arm" or "I am hailing a taxi." It is difficult to see how the thought of such contemplative content can be causally efficacious in generating action. What we need is content whose very acceptance in an intending way is action-triggering. It is here that the infinitive constructions should be taken more seriously. What I endorse in intending to hail a taxi is "I, to hail the taxi" in which my action is represented as something to be done rather than something which is being done or which will be done. It is hence, that the behavior tendencies are activated. Reflective agency certainly involves thinking of actions propositionally, especially when I consider whether I can perform it and what its likely results would be. But these reflections need be no part of intentional content. When I intend to ride my bicycle to my office tomorrow morning what I intend is just that, to ride my bicycle to my office tomorrow morning, and in so doing I might give little heed to the causal mechanisms that underlie execution of this intention. There need be no representation of the various motions I make with my hands and legs, the particular muscle contractions required, or the specific volitions involved. I need think only of the agent (myself), the action type, and a linkage represented by the infinitive constructions 'to

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do' or 'to bring about.' The linkage expressed by these phrases is identical neither to a predicative nexus expressed by 'am doing', 'does' or 'will do', nor to a causal nexus expressed by 'brings about' (Castañeda 1975, chp. 12). It is through such representations -- of actions practically-considered -- that intendings come to have their peculiar causal force.xvi

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NOTES i. There may be a mismatch of content and effect produced, for example, if one tries to move the middle finger on the left hand when entertwined with the rest of one's fingers and ends up moving a finger on the right hand. See the discussion of this matter in Ginet 1990, pp. 42-44. ii. This point has been emphasized by several writers, including Searle 1984, p. 85 and Donagan 1987, pp. 87-88. iii. Among those who have embraced some form of the SRT are Grice 1972, Harman 1976, 1986a, 1986b, 1993, Donagan 1987, Searle 1984, Velleman 1989, and Ginet 1990. iv. Harman 1993, p. 141. See also, Harman 1986a, p. 86, where Harman writes, "Intending to be raising one's arm is intending that this very intention is in the normal direct way leading one to be raising one's arm." Alan Donagan phrases the SRT this way: "In choosing that a raising of your right arm by you occur you would be choosing that a going up of your right arm occur that will be explained by your choice" (Donagan 1987, p. 88). v. A quasi-indicator is a pronominal device for attributing indexical reference to an agent. The phrase is H-N. Castañeda's (see Castañeda 1989, chapters 5 and 12). vi. A generalization of SRT1 could take this form: SRT1G In S's intending to do A, there is an action-type B such that S intends of his intending to do B that it result in his A-ing. A generalization on the first version of the strong SRT, on the other hand, might take this format: SRT2G In S's intending to do A, there is an action-type B such that S intends that his A-ing be a result of his intending to do B. In each case there are two different ways to understand the occurrence of 'his intending to do B', namely, as indicating S's reference to a particular state of intending to do B or to some or other state of intending of a certain type, namely, that whose content is to do B. The need for this distinction is evident to handle an objection raised in Wilson 1989, pp. 279. vii. The foregoing suggests a simple argument for some version of the SRT: Whenever I intend to A, what I intend must include a representation of my own agency. But one's own agency involves something happening -- a bodily movement or the results of such a movement -- as a result of one's intending. Hence, whenever I intend to A I am intending that an event take place as a result of an intending. On the surface, this reasoning commits a simple intentional fallacy of arguing that because one has a certain attitude towards X and X has the property F then one has that attitude towards X qua F or towards the content that X is F. Causation by an intending might be constitutive of agency, but it doesn't follow that an agent thinks of agency in these terms. But being an instance of an invalid form does not doom an argument, and if we reject this reasoning it remains to understand how agency is incorporated into content.

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viii. On the SRT, as propounded by Harman and Searle, S intends to A only if S intends that his intention have a certain result. This requires of all intenders not only that they have a concept of intention but that they have a conceptual grip, as well, on causation and on an intention's resulting in what is inteded. The requrement is psychologically unrealistic. Some beings whose behavior is such that we confidently attribute intentions to them are very probably incapable of intending if the SRT is true (Mele 1992, p. 204). Gilbert Harman has responded that the content of a child's intention can be about that intention "without the child having any distinctive concept or mental representation of that intention." Harman 1993, p. 145. Yet, presumably the child must refer to an intention in some way if the SRT is true, even if it does not represent it qua intention (Mele 1992, pp. 205-6). ix. Initially, it seems that this reasoning generates an infinite regress of intendings, for if intending A is something one does, as Harman says, then it must be brought about by a further intending, namely, to A by intending to A and this, in turn, by a further intending. But Harman counters that if intending (willing) is self-referential, then an intending to A is not distinct from an instance of intending to A by means of that very intending. If the intentions are "inseparable" in this way, then there is no infinite regress. See Harman 1976, pp. 440-441, and Harman 1986b, p. 372, where the regress is not ruled out but called "harmless," and also, Harman 1993, p. 144, where he claims that the regress is not a "bad infinite regress." x. The distinction is drawn by Mele: Suppose that Barney's going bowling tonight would upset Betty. Then his going bowling is a means of upsetting Betty. But even if Barney knows this, he may go bowling tonight without doing this as a means of upsetting Betty. Barney goes bowling as means of upsetting Betty only if he goes bowling, at least in part, in order to upset Betty" (Mele 1992, p. 214). xi. The reference is not linguistic; it is the agent who "refers," identifies, cognizes, or thinks about a particular item, and he need not do so through language, at least in not any overt fashion. To use the language of Castañeda 1989a, the relevant attitude is one of "thinking reference." xii. This principle is compatible with distinguishing between the modest and strong versions of the SRT, specifically, between SRT1 and SRT2; to identify an intending by way of its content is not necessarily to identify it qua intending as SRT2 requires. Similarly, one can replace the causal locution in PSE by talk of a means-end relationship in the style of SRT4. Also, since one might realize that one's intending to do action A can be efficacious in bringing about some further result p, PSE is not the claim that when one realizes that a given intending has the causal potential to bring about p, one must identify its content in terms of bringing about p; it is enough if the agent believes that there is a connection between doing the action intended and p. xiii. The difference between the modest and strong versions of the SRT is irrelevant as long as identification of an efficacious intention occurs by way of content. Similarly, the regress can be

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generated if we shift to the more general form of the either thesis. I am not assuming that this argument can be generalized to rule out all self-referential attitudes. xiv. In such a case, the content clauses of intendings specify modes of presentation, but while these reveal the contents of those attitudes they are not parts of the contents of attitudes about those attitudes. Hence, granting that one realizes an intending to raise one's right arm to have its causal force in virtue of the content, this mode of presentation is not part of the intention. On the distinction between content and character in conjunction with indexicals see Kaplan 1989. xv. One might attempt to salvage the SRT by using Ginet's formulation: "If I intend to do a certain thing, I intend to do it intentionally: I intend that I do it and that my doing it be a caryying out of that very intention" (Ginet 1990, 35). The version of the SRT that this suggests is, SRT& S intends [that he himself do A and that his A-ing be a carrying out of his intending [to A]]. Once again, we can distinguish strong from modest versions, and indexical from non-indexical variants. If 'that very intention' is a quasi-indicator then S's intention to do A is accompanied by another intention, namely, an intention that he do A by way of the intending to do A. The regress is avoided because causal efficacy is attributed to a non-self-referential intention, namely, the intending to do A. So, we replace the claim that all intentions are themselves selfreferential with the claim that all intentions are accompanied by a further intention, or generalizing upon SRT&, by an additional desire, wish or belief that the intention in question be efficacious. We are back at the problem we started from: how is agency built into the content of an intending, specifically, in the intending to do A? If each conjunct of SRT& is itself elliptical for a conjunction, and we are serious that all intentions are conjunctive in this manner, we face a regress that would require the agent to have an infinite number of intendings in order to have any intending at all. SRT& affords no way out of the difficulties. xvi. The author is indebted to Alfred Mele, Michael Pendlebury, Michael Bratman and members of Bratman's 1993 NEH Summer Seminar on Intention for helpful comments, to the National Endowment for the Humanities for its financial support, and to Pamela Brown of the Office of Sponsored Projects at NIU for her suggestions concerning a proposal to fund this study.

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REFERENCES

Bratman, M., 1987. Intentions, Plans and Practical Reason (Harvard). Castañeda, H-N., 1975. Thinking and Doing (Reidel). Castañeda, H-N., 1989a. Thinking, Language, & Experience (Minnesota). Castañeda, H-N., 1989b. "Direct Reference, the Semnatics of Thinking, and Guise Theory," in J. Almog et al, Themes from Kaplan (Oxford), 105-144. Castañeda, H-N., 1990. Intentionality, Modality, and Supervenience, M. J. van den Hoven, and G. J. C. Lokhorst, eds. (Rotterdam: Erasmus Universiteit). Donagan, A., 1987. Choice (Routledge & Kegan Paul). Ginet, C., 1990. On Action (Cambridge). Grice, H. P., 1971. "Intention and Uncertainty," Proceedings of the British Academy 57, 263-279. Harman, G., 1976. "Practical Reasoning," The Review of Metaphysics 85, 431-463. Harman, G., 1986a. Change in View (MIT). Harman, G., 1986b. "Willing and Intending," in Grandy and Warner, eds., Philosophical Grounds of Rationality (Reidel), 363- 380. Harman, G., 1993. "Desired Desires" in R. G. Frey, Value, Welfare, and Morality (Cambridge). Kaplan, D., 1989. "Demonstratives," in J. Almog et al, Themes from Kaplan, (Oxford), 481-563. Mele, A., 1987. "Are Intentions Self-Referential?" Philosophical Studies 52, 309-329.

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Mele, A., 1992. Springs of Action (Oxford). Searle, J., 1983. Intentionality (Cambridge). Velleman, J. D., 1989. Practical Reflection (Princeton). Vermazen, B., 1993. "Objects of Intention," Philosophical Studies 70. 85-128. Wilson, G., 1989. The Intentionality of Human Action (Stanford).

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