Place, U. T. (1999b). Intentionality and the physical - a reply to Mumford. Philosophical Quarterly, 49, 225-231. doi:10.1111/1467-9213.00139
[Abstract]Martin and Pfeifer (1986) claim "that the most typical characterizations of intentionality" proposed by philosophers are satisfied by physical dispositions. If that is correct, we must conclude either, as they and Mumford do, that the philosophers are wrong and intentionality is something else or, as I do, that intentionality is what the philosophers say it is, in which case it is the mark, not of the mental, but of the dispositional. To my contention that the intentionality of a disposition consists in its being directed towards its future manifestations Mumford objects that the notion of directedness is obscure and cannot in the light of Martin's (1994) argument be elucidated by reference to what would happen if the conditions for its manifestation are satisfied. But Martin's argument rests on the mistaken assumption that causal conditionals of which dispositional ascriptions are an instance are of the form 'If p then q'.
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