Evolution, functionalism and intentionality

Abstract

The problem of intentionality in philosophy of mind regards the way human and other animals minds are related to the world, a problem that requires a careful analysis by a philosophical approach whose objective is to explain this topic. In Mind, brains and programs, John Searle offers a scathing criticism to functionalist approaches of intentionality and mental states meaning which rely on what he calls “Strong Artificial Intelligence” program research. On Searle’s view, the mere syntactic reproduction of the logical relations of the human brain is not sufficient to reproduce a system with intentionality and meaning. Opposing Searle, Daniel Dennett argues for the thesis that intelligent and apparently designed systems may have their origin in simple and mechanical processes such as algorithmic process, which seems to indicate at first the possibility of an explanation of intentionality following these presuppositions. Having in mind Dennett’s proposal, the objective of this article is to expose some aspects of Dennett’s theory of intentionality and to point out some considerations that may enable a conciliation of a functionalist theory of mind and the phenomenon of intentionality, adducing for the process of natural selection as the fulcrum for this conciliation.