To be published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (in press)

Kluwer, 201-10. Please consult the published version for purposes of quotation. 1.

Intentionality is an essentially mental, essentially occurrent, and essentially experiential (conscious) phenomenon. Any attempt to characterize intentionality that detaches it from conscious experience faces two insuperable problems. First, it is obliged to concede that almost everything (if not everything) has intentionality – all the way down to subatomic particles. Second, it has the consequence that everything that has intentionality has far too much of it – perhaps an infinite amount. The key to a satisfactory and truly naturalistic theory of intentionality is (1) a realistic conception of naturalism and (2) a properly developed understanding of the phenomenon of cognitive experience. 1. ‘Intentionality’, ‘Experience’, ‘Physicalism ’ and ‘Naturalism’ My subject is concrete intentionality, intentionality considered as a real, concrete physical-world phenomenon, something that can be correctly attributed to (states of or occurrences in) concrete entities like ourselves and dogs. I’m not concerned with intentionality considered as a property of