Not every feeling is intentional

Abstract

The most promising representionalist account of sensations and occurrent emotions is the ‘impure’ version of representationalism, which analyses the structure of an intentional state as consisting of an intentional content and a psychological mode. However, a critique of representationalism could question the analogy between propositional attitudes and sensory modes. Propositional attitudes cannot be exemplified without an object; but the same is far from clear in the case of sensory modes. In order to have a plausible account of non-intentional emotions and sensations, we need to conceive these mere feelings as playing certain characteristic functional roles. What makes this account possible is the observation that having a certain functional role does not entail that the state is intentional.