Intentionality

Brandom’s treatment of intentionality is extremely refreshing, particularly in contrast to the tradition stemming from Husserl that made intentionality a primitive. Brandom sees intentionality both as in need of explanation and as explainable. The explanation ends up tracing it back to purposeful activity, which Brandom thinks of in pragmatist terms and I think of in closely related Aristotelian terms. Though many other perspectives are possible of course, one might say that the whole of both Spirit of Trust and Making It Explicit have been devoted to this. (See also Scorekeeping.)