Handbook of the History of Logic: - Fordham University Faculty

Logic and Theories of Meaning . . . 371
my act and the object intended. But what and where is this object exactly and
how is the cognitive relationship established between this object and me? These
are the questions that arise in discussions about intentionality. The intentionality
debate is mainly an ontological and epistemological debate about the relation
between our thoughts and the things we think of.
Discussions on the nature of intentions arise around the middle of the 13 th -
century in connection with the influence of Avicenna. 123 The Latin term ‘intentio’
has two Arabic counterparts: ma’qul and ma’na, which makes it semantically
ambivalent. Ma’qul means concept or thought. Thoughts are related to extramental
things as well as to words. Not surprisingly, the term ma’qul occurs in
Alfarabi’s commentary on Aristotle’s De interpretatione, where the relation between
thought, language and reality is discussed, as a translation of the Greek
noêma. Ma’na, at the other hand, seems to be an epistemological term; it refers
to the intelligible species that is present in the mind when an extra-mental thing
is known. According to De Rijk the semantic ambivalence of the term ‘intentio’
is at the basis of the distinction between first and second intention: the notion of
first intention has to do with the thing apprehended, whereas second intentions
arise from the object’s being apprehended. 124 Generally speaking, when the object
of an intention is an extra-mental thing, the intention is a first intention and when
the object is itself an intention, the intention is a second intention. Second intentions
are the subject of logic, according to Avicenna. We call this kind of logic
‘intentionalistic’, as opposed to terminist logic, which was primarily concerned
with language, not with concepts. For intentionalists logic is a scientia rationalis,
whereas for the terminist logicians it is an ars or scientia sermocinalis.
Thus, an intention is a concept as well as the foundation of its content. 125
This ambivalence reflects the medieval conviction that it is possible for the human
intellect to discover the truth about the extra-mental reality, because of the fundamental
parallelism existing between the structure of the outside world on the
one hand and the ways in which we understand things on the other hand. For the
Medieval mind, however, there is no ‘on the one hand’ and ‘on the other hand’:
the human intellect grasps the extra-mental things through concepts that designate
these things including their being conceived of. 126 This is the reason why in
intentionalist logic questions about logic and meaning are frequently interwoven
with epistemological questions. A good example of this interconnectedness can be
found in the logic and epistemology of Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274). His ideas about
the representativeness and reliability of our thinking about reality can be seen as
the foundation on which later thinkers build their theories. 127 Although his direct
influence is difficult to assess and although there is no specific work on intentions
from his hand, he seems to have set the philosophical agenda for the authors of
123For the Arabic sources of the concept of intention, see Knudsen [1982, pp. 479–80]. For the
Aristotelian and Augustinian roots, see De Rijk [2005, p. 30 ff].
124De Rijk [2005, p. 23].
125See also: Knudsen [1982, p. 480].
126De Rijk [2005, p. 24].
127De Rijk [2005, p. 348].