“I propose we simply postpone the worrisome question of what really has a mind, about what the proper domain of the intentional stance is. Whatever the right answer to that question is—if it has a right answer—this will not jeopardize the plain fact that the intentional stance works remarkably well as a prediction method in these other areas, almost as well as it works in our daily lives as folk psychologists dealing with other people. This move of mine annoys and frustrates some philosophers, who want to blow the whistle and insist on properly settling the issue of what a mind, a belief, a desire is before taking another step. Define your terms, sir! No, I won’t. That would be premature. I want to explore first the power and the extent of application of this good trick, the intentional stance. Once we see what it is good for, and why, we can come back and ask ourselves if we still feel the need for formal, watertight definitions. My move is an instance of nibbling on a tough problem instead of trying to eat (and digest) the whole thing from the outset. “Many of the thinking tools I will be demonstrating are good at nibbling, at roughly locating a few “fixed” points that will help us see the general shape of the problem. In Elbow Room (1984a), o compared my method to the sculptor’s method of roughing out the form in a block of marble, approaching the final surfaces cautiously, modestly, working by successive approximation. Many philosophers apparently cannot work that way and have to secure (or so they think) the utterly fixed boundaries of their problems and possible solutions before they can venture any hypotheses.”
-Daniel Dennett, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, Chapter 18 “The Intentional Stance”
[Bold is original]
Reminded me of the idea of ‘hacking away at the edges’.
As far as I understand, he actually does define his terms. Dennett defines a mind as a rational agent/decision algorithm (subject to evolutionary baggage and bugs in the algorithm). Please correct me if I’m wrong.
At this point in the book, he certainly hasn’t reached that conclusion. He’s merely given parameters under which taking the Intentional Stance is a good idea; when it’s useful to treat something as having a mind, beliefs, desires, etc. This, he says, will be a useful stepping stone to figuring out what minds and beliefs and desires really are, and how to know where they exist in this world.
-Daniel Dennett, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, Chapter 18 “The Intentional Stance” [Bold is original]
Reminded me of the idea of ‘hacking away at the edges’.
As far as I understand, he actually does define his terms. Dennett defines a mind as a rational agent/decision algorithm (subject to evolutionary baggage and bugs in the algorithm). Please correct me if I’m wrong.
At this point in the book, he certainly hasn’t reached that conclusion. He’s merely given parameters under which taking the Intentional Stance is a good idea; when it’s useful to treat something as having a mind, beliefs, desires, etc. This, he says, will be a useful stepping stone to figuring out what minds and beliefs and desires really are, and how to know where they exist in this world.