Mental Action

The Scope of Mental Action

Thinking about something involves the occurrence of mental acts that are individuated by their propositional contents. For example, when one makes a conscious judgment, one judges that such and such is the case. What one judges to be the case is a content that is propositional in form that distinguishes that act of judging from other mental acts. Some argue that such mental acts can be mental actions only if the particular contents that individuate them are ones that one intends to think. However, in the case of many such mental acts, it seems that the content of the mental act cannot figure in the content of one's prior intention. For example, having judged that p, one might choose to assert that p, and having [Page 498]formed the intention to F, one might choose to express that intention, but the mental acts of judging that p and deciding to F cannot themselves be intended.

One response to this line of thought is to claim that when one is engaged in directed thinking, such as trying to figure out an arithmetical problem, although one does not intend to think a thought with the content that p, intention may still have a significant role to play in one's mental activity, for one's intention may be to think a thought that stands in a certain relation to other thoughts or contents. Although one does not decide to judge that p, and one does not decide to decide to F, one may be able to decide to determine (or attempt to determine) whether p, and one may be able to decide to decide (or attempt to decide) whether to F. The conclusion that some draw from this is that although mental acts like judging and deciding are not themselves mental actions, mental action may sometimes play an important role in explaining their occurrence.

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