INTRODUCTION

The intentional realist's metaphysical program, I claimed in the first chapter, is twofold: he must show how the semantic properties of an individual's propositional attitudes can arise out of non-semantic or less than fully semantic properties and relations. This is what the naturalization of intentionality is about. The intentional realist must also show how semantic properties can be causally efficacious. He must justify what I called the strong causal thesis. Discussion of the strong causal thesis, however, requires knowing more about what semantic properties of propositional attitudes are and will be deferred until the second part. In the previous chapter, we have gone some way into exploring informationally based attempts at naturalizing intentionality. In the present chapter, I want to pursue my incursion into informational semantic territory to see how far it can take us into promised land – towards an approximation of the semantic properties of beliefs.

One of the striking features of a belief content is its uniqueness. Beliefs may generate new beliefs in virtue of their contents. One's singular belief that a is F may generate the general belief that there are Fs. One's belief that P may generate the disjunctive belief that P or Q. One's conjunctive belief that P and Q may generate either the belief that P or the belief that Q, and so on. But for all that, there being Fs is not part of the content of the belief that a is F.