Intentionality and the physical: A new theory of disposition ascription

Abstract

Ulling Place (Dialectica, 1996) has suggested that the mark of a dispositional property is intentionality: specifically, directedness towards a particular manifestation. This goes against my approach (‘Dispositions’, Oxford University Press, 1998) of distinguishing the dispositional from the categorical as two types of ascription with reference to conditional entailment by the former. I argue that physical intentionality carries undesirable connotations of panpsychism but that it is avoidable because the claimed advantages of physical intentionality can be gained by a functionalist account that has no panpsychist danger.