Daniel C. Dennett, in his paper, "True Believers: The Intentional Strategy and Why it Works," puts forth his explanation of folk psychology. Dennett's philosophy is that people can use this "intentional strategy" to predict the behavior of "intentional systems" rather accurately and quickly, without knowing much more than the beliefs of the system. I will examine Dennett's theory, some of the objections to Dennett's theory, and put forth both Dennett's, and my own refutations of these objections.
Dennett's "intentional strategy" is very simple to explain. Dennett feels that rational objects (people, dogs, thermostats, etc.) act in a predictable manner. He lists four steps to using the intentional strategy. First, one must treat the object as a rational object. Second, one deducts what beliefs this object will have, "given its place in the world and its purpose." (Dennett 153) Next, using the same criteria, you decide what desires the object should have. Finally, using your knowledge of these beliefs and desires, you deduce how the object will behave in a particular situation. Dennett uses a thermostat as an example of a rational system. In the case of the thermostat, one could use the intentional strategy, and say, "if the thermostat believes that the room is too cold, then the thermostat will turn the boiler on, because that is what a thermostat does when the room is tool cold."
A closer look at what Dennett means by a "rational object" is in order. Dennett states that rationality can be attributed to anything which operates in a manner based upon certain reasons, whether they be beliefs of desires. Therefore, a rational object can be a person, animal, artifact, or even a plant. A computer is a rational object, because it does certain things in certain circumstances, because of its beliefs and desires. The notion of a rational object is central to the intentional stance, because it ensures the general predictability of an object.
Dennett takes care to define beliefs as well. Dennett says that beliefs are acquired through sensory perception. "Exposure to x, that is, sensory confrontation with x over some suitable period of time, is the normally sufficient condition for knowing (or having true beliefs) about x." (Dennett, 153) Interestingly, Dennett equates beliefs with knowledge.
Dennett is careful to point out that exposure does not guarantee knowledge. In addition to accounting for sensory malfunction and intended deceptions, Dennett states that we only develop beliefs about what is relevant to us. "I do not typically come to know the ratio of spectacle-wearing people to trousered people in a room I inhabit, though if this interested me, it would be readily available." (Dennett, 154)
Falsehoods, misperceptions, misunderstandings, and so forth complicate the learning process. False beliefs are roots in many different causes, but the result is always the same. In addition, "arcane and sophisticated beliefs" (Dennett, 154) can confuse the user of the intentional strategy. Dennett feels that although these difficulties can complicate the intentional strategist, they do not invalidate the strategy, as long as one takes into account their existence, despite their misplacement in the object's belief system. To clarify, Dennett puts forth that "[a]n implication of the intentional strategy, then, is that true believers mainly believe truths." (Dennett, 154) Too many false beliefs will throw off the system, then. The reason being is part of the second step in the intentional strategy: that one assumes the beliefs that an object should have, based upon its circumstances and purpose in the world.
The understanding of an object's desires comes from the same process as with beliefs. For example, "survival, absence of pain, food, comfort, procreation, entertainment" (Dennett 154) are all standard desires of people. "One is not supposed to need an ulterior motive for desiring comfort or pleasure or the prolongation of one's existence." (Dennett 155) As with beliefs, the intentional strategy only functions properly when dealing with desires that an abject should have, based upon its function and place in its environment.
Language creates complications in the way in which we determine an object's desires. Dennett believes that language creates a certain degree of exactness in our understanding of desires that we normally would not detect. For example, if someone was to say, "I want a white, 1985 Monte Carlo SS," we understand immediately that they desire a "white, 1985 Monte Carlo SS." But there is no way that we would understand this unless they said it. If we saw them driving a white, 1985 Monte Carlo SS, that would not necessarily indicate a desire for such a vehicle; the car may have been a gift, or the only car available, etc. But through language, it is possible for the person to state exactly what they desire.
Language also forces us to have specific desires. Dennett asks, "[h]ow, indeed, could a creature come to contract such a specific desire without the aid of language?" (Dennett, 155) Without language, one could not understand precisely what a white, 1985 Monte Carlo SS was so that one could desire it. Without language, this object could not be. However, this specificity creates desires within us that would not ordinarily exist. Whereas we might simply want a car, we are forced to choose a particular make, model, color, etc. of car, because one cannot simply ask for a car. Dennett is quick to point out, however, that despite our dependence upon language to express beliefs and desires, beliefs and desires are not stored inside the head as sentences.
After outlining these four steps, Dennett turns to the question of how to use the intentional strategy. Dennett claims that there are no other valid theories of explaining behavior other than the intentional system. He furthur claims that the intentional system "works with people almost all the time." (Dennett 156) He uses the idea of "universal truths" to illustrate this point. When certain questions are offered to large numbers of people, although they may be from different backgrounds, different cultures, etc., and the factors involved in answering the question are numerous, the vast majority of people will give the same answer. Not only would they give the same answer, "there would be widespread agreement about the major points." (Dennett, 156) Dennett explains that "[o]ur use of the intentional strategy is so habitual and effortless that the role it plays in shaping our expectations about people is easily overlooked." (Dennett, 156) He goes on the declare that the intentional system is applicable to not only people, but any other rational system we can conceive of.
Dennett states that the intentional strategy "gives us predictive power we can get by no other method." (Dennett, 157) He compares the effectiveness of the intentional method to the power of other methods. For example, the Laplacean method, which states that if one knows the physical state of a system, down to a sub-atomic level, one can predict the behavior of that state as far into the future as one wants. But the deficiency of such a method is its inability to understand patterns. Dennett explains this by saying:
This inability to predict fine-grained descriptions of actions, looked at another way, is a source of strength for the intentional strategy, for it is this neutrality with regard to details of implementation that permits one to exploit the intentional strategy in complex cases, for instance, in chaining predictions. (Dennett, 158)
Whereas a Laplacean would be able to achieve the same results as the intentionalist, with massive amounts of computing power, the Laplacean would fail to grasp the "big picture." This deficiency makes it impossible to calculate the consequences of an irrational, unexpected, or random action. The intentionalist, on the other hand, would simply be able to take this new event into account, and revise his predictions accordingly. In this manner, Dennett defeats a major objection to the intentional strategy. The object is that a being with mental abilities such that our behavior to them is like a thermostat is to us, would have no difficulty in predicting our behavior.
Dennett uses the pattern predicting abilities of the intentional strategy to defeat this objection. For one thing, Dennett says that the intentional strategy will arrive at the same result as the Laplacean method. In addition, the Laplacean will have to re-calculate the entire system if anything as insignificant as a gust of wind enters the system from outside, whereas the intentionalist realizes that minor events and disturbances do not change the overall pattern of events. Most importantly, the intentional strategy is so much more efficient that "[t]he [intentional strategist's] performance [seems] like magic!" (Dennett, 159) In addition, many of the disturbances that disrupt the Laplacean method are beliefs and desires; because the intentional strategy takes these into account, surprises are less likely.
Another defense of the intentional stance that Dennett puts forth is "the unavoidability of the intentional stance with regard to oneself and one's fellow intelligent beings." (Dennett, 160) This forced acceptance of the intentional stance is that no matter how much one may try to utilize the Laplacean method, or other methods to one's own behavior, one must use at least a minimum, if one wants to be able to learn from his fellow beings. As Dennett states, "[i]f they observe, theorize, predict, communicate, they view themselves as intentional systems. Where there are intelligent beings the patterns must be there to be described, whether or not we care to see them." (Dennett, 160)
Another refutation of the Laplacean method is based upon common sense. It is simply impossible to be able to understand in minute detail anything as large as yourself, on a global scale. It is difficult enough to understand the minute physical details of a system much smaller than oneself. Think of how many pieces of paper would be required to describe the details of every particle in one sheet of paper. The storage system of the details for such a method must, at a minimum, be as large as the system being described. If the system being described is oneself, the system becomes infinitely big as the "observing" portion expands to cope with itself.
Dennett now turns to the effectiveness of the intentional strategy. Dennett recognizes that the intentional strategy is not perfect. But he believes that it works extremely well.
The objective fact is that the intentional strategy works as well as it does, which is not perfectly. No one is perfectly rational, perfectly unforgetful, all-observant, or invulnerable to fatigue, malfunction, or design imperfection. (Dennett, 160)
Indeed, in situations where people hold irrational beliefs, those which are obviously false, those which are contradictory, etc., the intentional strategy is doomed to failure. However, these cases may be ruled out, because our definition of the intentional strategy assumes that we are describing a rational object.
Another supporting argument against the idea of irrationality within the system, is that as the complexity of the system increases, the objects within it are better equipped to judge the situation properly. Dennett states, "[t]here comes to be a two-way constraint of growing specificity between the device and the environment." (Dennett, 162) what he means by this, is that as a system becomes more complex, the object forming beliefs about it will become more adept at perceiving its surroundings. Therefore, as the environment provides more opportunities to fool the object, the object develops more methods of preventing its acceptance of false beliefs.
Finally, Dennett turns to the topic of why the intentional strategy works. Dennett's first theory explaining the success of the intentional strategy is that "evolution has designed human being to be rational, to believe what they ought to believe and want what they ought to want." (Dennett, 164) Dennett himself recognizes the shortcomings in this answer, which are that despite its "truth and brevity," (Dennett, 164) this answer isn't very meaningful. In addition, all this answer seems to really do is justify the intentional strategy as the method of folk psychology, and doesn't help much in terms of understanding why the action of the strategy works.
Dennett, while searching for a better explanation of why, takes the opportunity to refute others' explanations of why. The Skinnerians feel that the intentional strategy works because it acts as a "shortcut" to behavior theory. Dennett discounts this theory because it still does not explain the action of the mechanism itself. Others state that the "account of how the strategy works and the account of how the mechanism works will (roughly) coincide." (Dennett, 164) These theorists put forth that the mind uses a particular "language of thought," like a computer and its programming language, and that the intentional strategy is a way for an outside observer to explain the visible works of this "computer." Dennett supports this theory, and believes that "some version of it will prove correct," (Dennett, 164) but he also feels that this explanation is not very "obvious." Dennett puts this theory down because he feels that the evidence support the claim of a "language of thought" is weak, and founded more in "there could be no other explanation," and less in "this is what we observe happening."
Overall, I feel that Dennett's explanation of the intentional stance leaves little to be desired. His explanation is clear and succinct, and rests very firmly upon common sense. The few objections that are raised against it are relatively weak, and Dennett's refutations of these objections satisfy me for the most part. I feel that Dennett has established a feasible system. I feel that Dennett never fully justified his claim that the intentional strategy is the only possible form of folk psychology that truly works, but this is because the large numbers of alternate theories makes discounting all of the others hard. He does make a few attacks against fatalists, which he sees as his main opponents, and these attacks are effective, but not so strong that he is able to completely discredit them. It is my belief that Dennett has tried to explain the methods of folk psychology, and he has succeeded well.
I have loved working with computers since I was a kid. I specialized in software development, but I also do a lot of systems administration and some network engineering. Currently, my development interests are in C#, parallel processing, and exploring business usage of dynamic and functional languages. In addition to my day job, I write for TechRepublic, primarily in the "Programming and Development" area, and ForMortals. I am currently (when time permits) working on a book that aims to teach new developers everything about how to write software, other than how to program in and of itself. In addition, I do a bit of software development under the banner of my own company, Titanium Crowbar Industries
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