If we ask ourselves about our intentions (and not impressions), or if we want to know their content, we cannot find an answer just in the empirical observation of our behavior. The knowledge about an intention is neither observational nor empirical because what we can describe in details are solely intentional actions.
So in order to have intentions and to explain them, we must be able to engage ourselves in those practical activities and have practical competences, which allow us to be confident with those activities.
It is well known that the Latin word ‘intentio’ means directing towards a goal; I assume that this directness is the most basilar property of an intentional stance. Each intentional agent must have therefore a sort of interaction with the environment and be able to change it. This capacity of engaging actions in a specific context by means of intentional regularities explains why an intentional agent has an observable, distinct, and independently neutral behavior that characterizes it from the rest.
In order to distinguish human intentions from those of other intentional agents we have to consider how the intentional regularities have been fixed, i.e. how an agent has reached the condition to have intentions, to perform actions and to have believes. In this way we can understand that kind of engagement that enables humans to be conscious about their intentional activities.
Intentions in rational beings are low-order mind statuses that are accompanied by high-order cognitive dispositions such as self-consciousness, and rule following.
Intentions are always linked with specific behaviors, which can be called intentional regularities. The intentional regularities lie on intentional properties.
The behavior of a natural buffer structure, for example, has specific and predictable regularities, which depend on its geometrical and physical properties. This kind of behavior can also be defined as stimulus-answer to specific internal conditions.
A natural buffer structure has intentional regularities, which depend on intentional properties that are linked directly with its physical-geometrical characteristics.
The intentional regularities are not causally determinate by intentional properties but they are supervenient. The intentional properties of an intentional system are causally determinate by its physical-geometrical structure, but the intentional regularities – its neutral behavior – are by all means supervenient on its intentional properties.
The concept of supervenience permits to understand the nature of the interaction and of the directness of an intentional agent with its environment.
Each intentional agent can change its behavior in conformity with the environment due to its properties – physical/geometrical and intentional/neutral.
The interaction with the environment and the intentional properties determines the behavior of an intentional system and its intentional regularities.
In philosophy, supervenience (logic in Prometheus’ orthogonality) is an ontological relation that is used to describe cases where -roughly speaking- the upper-level properties of a system are determined by its lower level properties. Neutrality belongs to the highest ones since is governed by both -lower and upper- properties (ethics & poetry).
The interaction with the environment and the intentional properties determines the behavior of an intentional system and its intentional regularities.
This first level of analysis about the intentionality enables me to deliver a primary definition of an intentional system: 1) it performs an interaction with the surroundings (inputs); 2) this interaction implies intentional regularities that are observable and predictable (inputs-processes-outputs; outputs are easy to measure/report or validate. They are usually tangible, regulated/sensed variables; a sensor exists within the information system), because 3) they are supervenient (neutral) on its intentional properties, which depend causally on its physical properties (outcomes are difficult to measure or validate. They are usually intangible, nonregulated variables; sensors do not exist within the systems; outcomes are second level results; e.g., state of an internal equilibrium).
The kind of interaction of an intentional system is quite austere because its directness is only towards less events. Poetry is a good example of an intentional agent. Through its observable and controlled simplicity (few words ordered in line) it can perform very complex actions (simplexity).
The example of poetry is very intriguing because it consents us to observe the innocuous interaction between a system (poem) and a human. This can enable us to understand the differences between these two kinds of intentional agents. Further it will be clear that the most important difference is that humans are not merely intentional agents but rather rational intentional agents.
All intentional agents can perform actions on the basis of norms and rules, they can respect them and therefore they can interact with other intentional agents.
While an intentional system like the natural buffer structure has directness only towards the inner environment and can respond to stimuli with predictable intentional regularities (neutrality), the directness of an intentional agent is determinate by higher functions and their behavior implies a conformation with them. This kind of intentional regularities towards a behavioral normative (in social psychology three different normative behaviours have been identified: obedience, conformity and compliance) requires the capacity to recognize normative links between actions, systems and intentions and to develop intentional reactions (e.g., critical thinking). They are more complex than those of an intentional system to perform answers in compliance with the environment.
In the case of intentional agents we can observe the capacity to interact with other intentional agents by means of common rules and a common language. As I’ve already mentioned, each intentional agent must have a sort of interaction with the environment and be able to change it.
Now the further question is: What does distinguish intentional agents from a rational intentional agent?
A rational intentional agent can perform actions and follow rules in a way that is very similar to other intentional agents and apparently only his intentional properties differ but the intentional regularities (neutrality) are the same. But this is only a form of technical understanding and no personal understanding.
So an intentional agent differ from a rational intentional agent because it 1) cannot change the rules governing its interaction with the environment; 2) it can neither perform nor understand equivocal actions like skills; 3) it can recognize neither the presence of other intentional agents/intentional systems nor their abilities. On the other hand a rational intentional agent can instead perform these intentional attitudes and not merely because his intentionality is more developed, but because he is rational.
A rational intentional agent can change the rules governing his interaction with the environment by simply changing his angle of attack (e.g., mindset), thus changing the functional coherence. A theraputic system is not in the position to recognize the presence, the connection and the value of the bond with a natural buffer structure but the rational intentional agent.
So understanding can be defined as an intentional attitude due to the definition of intentionality as directness and interaction with an environment, but it is borne only by rational beings because it arises from a kind of disposition towards other similar intentional agents. Disposition towards the others, is similar to the interaction of intentional systems and agents with the environment.
A rational and intentional disposition of a healthcare professional towards an individual like a patient, presupposes a very high-order interaction with the environment, implying the attention of the professional towards his practice, his abilities, his performances, his results, and his values. This kind of disposition is an intrinsic quality and it is not determinate by rules or norms. It involves the capacity to observe and understand the behavior of other intentional agents, to be self-conscious about the practical background on which lie their activities and generally speaking to have a very large perspective on the intentional surroundings.
In the evolutionary psychology the capacity to understand the adults as intentional beings and not merely as beings with intrinsic motivation (instincts) is considered one of the most important evolutionary differences between humans and animals.
Rational agents performing this kind of disposition understand themselves as active agents in an intentional context that any philosophers like W. Sellars and R. Brandom call the logical space of reasons, i.e. a space in which believes, behaviors and actions can be shared and justified.
