On objects and worlds of thought in the philosophy of Hintikka
pp. 233-246
in: Jaakko Hintikka, Berlin, Springer, 1987Abstract
Jaakko Hintikka's work on the logic of propositional attitudes has increasingly stressed the intentionality of these attitudes. Underlying his possible-worlds semantics for sentences ascribing propositional attitudes, there has evolved a bona fide metaphysical theory of the intentionality of such attitudes. Here, it is my aim to define some central affinities between this theory and the two great classical theories of intentionality, those of Meinong and Husserl. I shall comment accordingly on some of Hintikka's remarks vis-à-vis Husserl, and I shall offer some related prespectives on Hintikka's views on trans-world identity and de re attitudes. Where it might have been thought that the possible-worlds approach to propositional attitudes is to be recommended primarily for its heuristic or technical merits, the following considerations should reveal sound philosophical motivations for Hintikka's approach. At the least, he is in good company.
