The Intentional Stance
E319077
The Intentional Stance is a philosophical theory by Daniel Dennett that explains how we predict and interpret behavior by treating systems as if they have beliefs, desires, and rationality.
All labels observed (4)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| "The Intentional Stance" (1987) | 1 |
| The Intentional Stance canonical | 1 |
| book "The Intentional Stance" | 1 |
| “The Intentional Stance” by Daniel Dennett | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T2996679 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Intentional Stance Context triple: [Daniel Dennett, notableWork, The Intentional Stance]
-
A.
The Mind’s I
The Mind’s I is a philosophical anthology edited by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett that explores consciousness, self, and identity through essays, stories, and thought experiments.
-
B.
The Language of Thought
The Language of Thought is a seminal philosophical and cognitive science work by Jerry Fodor that argues for an innate, mental "language" underlying human thought and reasoning.
-
C.
Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics
Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics is a seminal 1959 work of analytic philosophy that develops a systematic account of our conceptual scheme for thinking about objects, persons, and their identity over time.
-
D.
The Concept of a Person and Other Essays
The Concept of a Person and Other Essays is a collection of philosophical writings by A. J. Ayer that explores issues in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of mind and language.
-
E.
The Science of Ethics
The Science of Ethics is a major 19th-century philosophical work by Leslie Stephen that systematically examines moral philosophy and the foundations of ethical theory.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Intentional Stance Target entity description: The Intentional Stance is a philosophical theory by Daniel Dennett that explains how we predict and interpret behavior by treating systems as if they have beliefs, desires, and rationality.
-
A.
The Mind’s I
The Mind’s I is a philosophical anthology edited by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett that explores consciousness, self, and identity through essays, stories, and thought experiments.
-
B.
The Language of Thought
The Language of Thought is a seminal philosophical and cognitive science work by Jerry Fodor that argues for an innate, mental "language" underlying human thought and reasoning.
-
C.
Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics
Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics is a seminal 1959 work of analytic philosophy that develops a systematic account of our conceptual scheme for thinking about objects, persons, and their identity over time.
-
D.
The Concept of a Person and Other Essays
The Concept of a Person and Other Essays is a collection of philosophical writings by A. J. Ayer that explores issues in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of mind and language.
-
E.
The Science of Ethics
The Science of Ethics is a major 19th-century philosophical work by Leslie Stephen that systematically examines moral philosophy and the foundations of ethical theory.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (50)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
interpretive strategy
ⓘ
philosophical theory ⓘ theory of mind ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
animals
ⓘ
artificial agents ⓘ chess-playing programs ⓘ computers ⓘ humans ⓘ |
| associatedPhilosopher | Daniel Dennett ⓘ |
| assumes |
that the system has coherent beliefs
ⓘ
that the system has coherent desires ⓘ that the system is approximately rational ⓘ |
| author | Daniel Dennett ⓘ |
| contrastedWith |
design stance
ⓘ
physical stance ⓘ |
| coreClaim |
attributing beliefs and desires is a predictive strategy, not a claim about inner metaphysical states
ⓘ
success of intentional predictions justifies using intentional vocabulary ⓘ systems that are complex enough can be fruitfully treated as intentional systems ⓘ |
| criticizedFor |
alleged instrumentalism about mental states
ⓘ
downplaying the reality of consciousness ⓘ relying on idealized rationality ⓘ |
| describedIn |
The Intentional Stance
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
book "The Intentional Stance"
|
| field |
cognitive science
ⓘ
philosophy of mind ⓘ philosophy of psychology ⓘ |
| influenced |
cognitive science models of agency
ⓘ
interpretations of rational choice theory ⓘ philosophy of artificial intelligence ⓘ |
| introducedInWorkBy |
The Intentional Stance
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
"The Intentional Stance" (1987)
|
| mainIdea |
attributing rationality to a system helps us forecast its behavior
ⓘ
we can predict and explain behavior by treating systems as if they have beliefs and desires ⓘ |
| method | treat the system as an intentional system and derive predictions from attributed beliefs and desires ⓘ |
| proposedBy | Daniel Dennett ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
belief
ⓘ
computational theory of mind ⓘ desire ⓘ folk psychology ⓘ functionalism ⓘ prediction of behavior ⓘ rationality ⓘ theory of mind ⓘ |
| relatedWorkByAuthor |
"Brainstorms"
ⓘ
Consciousness Explained ⓘ
surface form:
"Consciousness Explained"
"Elbow Room" ⓘ |
| stanceType | interpretive stance ⓘ |
| supportsView | that mentalistic language can be scientifically respectable ⓘ |
| usedFor |
explaining intelligent behavior
ⓘ
interpreting linguistic behavior ⓘ modeling decision-making ⓘ understanding artificial intelligence systems ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Intentional Stance Description of subject: The Intentional Stance is a philosophical theory by Daniel Dennett that explains how we predict and interpret behavior by treating systems as if they have beliefs, desires, and rationality.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
book "The Intentional Stance"
this entity surface form:
"The Intentional Stance" (1987)
subject surface form:
Mind
this entity surface form:
“The Intentional Stance” by Daniel Dennett