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A CONCEPT OF INTENTIONAL SYSTEM

Conference Paper · July 2016

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Antônio Carlos Rocha Costa

Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul
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 A CONCEPT OF INTENTIONAL SYSTEM

Antônio Carlos da Rocha Costa

PGIE/UFRGS - PPGComp/FURG
ac.rocha.costa@gmail.com

In: Book of Abstracts – IV Conf. Brazilian Society for Analytic Philosophy,

Campinas, July 5-8, 2016. p.148-149.

In this paper, we present an operational semantical model for Husserl’s notion of intentionality, on
the basis of which we define the concept of intentional system. We take Husserl’s notion of
intentionality from the first volume of his Ideas.

We characterize an intentional act in terms of four components: its object, access action,
noesis and noema. This gives rise to what we call the Husserlian square, where six relations are
specified, between those four components, one of those relations being the relation of intentionality,
which captures the directedness of the intentional act toward its object. The six relations between
the components of the Husserlian square give rise to two semantical functions, which we respectively
call the intentional semantical function and the actional semantical function. These functions
constitute core elements of the concept of intentional system, which we define in the paper, and
discuss briefly below.

The Husserlian square admits two versions, namely, a bottom-up version, from object and
access action to noesis and noema, and a top-down version, from noesis and noema to access
action and object.

If, in the bottom-up version, one takes the access action to be the operation of intuition of the
object, then the bottom-up version of the intentional act seems to formally explicate, to a sufficient
degree, Husserl’s original sense of intentional act. If, in the top-down version, one takes the access
action to be constructive of the object, then the top-down version of the intentional act seems to
formally explicate, to a sufficient degree, the common-sense understanding of an act of realization
of an object. We, thus, assimilate the two directions, top-down and the bottom-up, of the Husserlian
square to the two directions of intentionality that Searle classically formulated as mind-world and
world-mind.

Next, we define the concept of intentional process, as any sequence of actions where at least
one is an intentional act. We give an operational semantical model for intentional processes,
illustrating its use in the analysis of a simple agent-base computational system.

Then, we define the concept of intentional system. The minimal structure allowing a system
to be characterized as an intentional system is specified. The agent-based system of the example is
shown to conform to it

We finish the paper with a brief discussion of the ways the formal semantical model of
(individual) intentional systems presented in the paper can possibly contribute to the definition of an
operational semantical model for collective intentional systems, and their collective intentional acts
and processes.

Referência:

Costa, A. C. R. Elements for a Formal Model of Intentional Systems. In: Ribeiro, L. et al. Anais do III
WEIT - Workshop-Escola de Informática Teórica, UFRGS, 2015. Disponível em:
https://www.ufrgs.br/weit2015.

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