Intentionality (The Aboutness of Thought)

Argument

Physical descriptions are third-person and causal. They specify what happens and what produces it. Mental content, however, is first-person and semantic: beliefs are about things, and they can be true or false depending on whether they correspond to their objects.

The “aboutness” of thought (intentionality) does not obviously reduce to electrochemical events, which are not intrinsically about anything. A neuron firing is a state-change; it does not carry truth conditions by itself.

Naturalism can offer correlational stories (this brain state occurs when one thinks of Paris), but correlation is not an explanation of semantic content. Theism provides a straightforward metaphysical fit. Minds arise from Mind; meaning arises within a reality that is already intelligible.

Even without immediate theistic conclusion, intentionality remains a pressure point for strict materialism: it must explain not only why brain states occur, but how they acquire meaning and truth conditions.

Formal Argument

P1. Beliefs have intentional content and truth conditions: they are about reality and can be correct or incorrect.

P2. Purely physical descriptions (structure and causation) do not, by themselves, contain semantic content or truth conditions; they are not intrinsically “about” anything.

P3. Strict materialism holds that mental states are identical to purely physical states.

P4. If mental states are identical to purely physical states, then intentional content and truth conditions are either eliminated as unreal or treated as unexplained emergent add-ons.

C1 (Intermediate Conclusion). Therefore, strict materialism cannot account for rational thought, since rational thought requires real intentional content and truth conditions.

P5. Any adequate worldview must account for the possibility of truth-directed thought and intentionality.

P6. If reality is grounded in Mind (as in theism), intentionality and meaning are fundamental rather than accidental byproducts.

C2. Therefore, strict materialism is false or explanatorily inadequate, and theism provides the metaphysical precondition for intentional, truth-directed thought.

Analogy

Consider a page filled with symbols. From a purely physical standpoint, it is ink distributed on paper. Yet the same ink-pattern could be a poem in one language, meaningless scribbles to someone who cannot read it, or an encoded message to someone with the cipher.

The physical facts underdetermine the semantic facts. Meaning is not visible in the ink as a physical property; it depends on an interpretive framework grounded in mind. Likewise, neural events may be the vehicle of thought, but “vehicle” is not the same as “content.” A complete account must explain how semantic content arises at all, not merely which physical events correlate with it.