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Intentions and Programs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

William Todd
William Todd*
Affiliation:
University of Cincinnati
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Extract

It is suggested that there is a strong connection between intentions and plans, and these plans are then taken to be programs of the sort suggested by Miller, Galanter, and Pribram in Plans and the Structure of Behavior. There is then a hierarchy of programs connected with intentions stretching from the macroscopic level of ordinary discourse to the neurological level. It is argued that as we proceed downwards we arrive at a threshold below which we can still describe the phenomena but below which we can no longer speak of intentions. The paper concludes with a discussion of the criteria for the identity of intentions at various levels.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , December 1971 , pp. 530 - 541
Copyright
Copyright © 1971 by The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

This paper has profited from the suggestions of many persons including the referee for this journal, Miss Lisa Rechtin of the University of Cincinnati, Professors Lynd Forguson, John Hunter, and other members of the University of Toronto philosophy department before whom an earlier version of the paper was read.

References

[1] Anscombe, G. E. M. Intention. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1957.Google Scholar
[2] Baier, A. “Act and Intent.” Journal of Philosophy 67 (1970): 648–658.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[3] Miller, G., Galanter, E., and Pribram, K. Plans and the Structure of Behavior. New York: Holt, 1960.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[4] Pribram, K. “The Neurophysiology of Remembering.” Scientific American 220 (1969): 73–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed