intentional, a. (n.)
(ɪnˈtɛnʃənəl)
[ad. med.L. intentiōnālis (Herveus Natalis De Intent., c 1300), f. intentiōn-em intention: cf. F. intentionnel (Palsgr. 1530).]
A. adj.
1. Of or pertaining to intention or purpose; exisiting (only) in intention. intentional fallacy: in literary criticism, the fallacy that the meaning or value of a work may be judged or defined in terms of the writer's intention.
| 1530 Palsgr. 316/2 Intencyonall belongyng to the intent, intencionel. 1602 in Moryson Itin. ii. (1617) 247 Where wee see faith and dutie onely intentionall in origine. a 1695 W. D. Dissuas. Cursing in Boyle's Wks. (1772) VI. 31 These intentional sins, for being ineffectual against others, divest not the being criminal in themselves. 1754 Richardson Grandison I. xxvi. 186 Her heart overflows with sentiments of gratitude on every common obligation and even on but intentional ones. 1818 Cruise Digest (ed. 2) VI. 154 The second will never operated, it was only intentional. 1946 Wimsatt & Beardsley in Sewanee Rev. LIV. 482 The question of ‘allusiveness’, for example,..is certainly one where a false judgement is likely to involve the intentional fallacy. 1948 [see affective a. 7 c]. 1954 W. K. Wimsatt Verbal Icon i. 6 It is not so much a historical statement as a definition to say that the intentional fallacy is a romantic one. 1958 Listener 9 Oct. 578/2 A studied defence of what has been labelled—and dismissed—as the ‘intentional fallacy’. |
2. Done on purpose, resulting from intention; intended. Rarely of an agent: Acting with intention.
| 16.., a 1677 [implied in intentionally]. a 1729 Rogers (J.), The glory of God is the end which every intelligent being is bound to consult, by a direct and intentional service. 1744 Harris Three Treat. Wks. (1841) 7 There is, too, another alteration..which..is equally wanting; and that is with respect to the epithet, ‘intentional or voluntary’. 1824 Syd. Smith Wks. (1867) II. 41 We accuse nobody of intentional misrepresentation. 1828 Scott F.M. Perth ii, Considering this as an intentional insult. a 1862 Buckle Civiliz. (1873) III. v. 306 An intentional suppression of facts. 1863 J. G. Murphy Comm. Gen. ii. 5 Man is the only intentional cultivator. |
3. Scholastic Philos. Pertaining to the operations of the mind; mental; existing in or for the mind.
intentional species, appearances or images supposed to be emitted by material objects so as to strike the senses and produce sensation.
| 1624 F. White Repl. Fisher 452 The thought of man is a spirituall or intentionall motion and action, and not a substantiall thing. 1647 H. More Poems 277 Let him..with uncessant industry persist Th' intentionall species to mash and bray In marble morter. 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. i. §14. 15 It is evident, that Empedocles did not suppose Sensations to be made by intentional Species or Qualities. 1694 R. Burthogge Reason 79 Colours, Sounds, Sapors, Time..are Intentional things, things that, as such, have only an esse Objectivum, an esse Cognitum, as the School⁓men phrase it. 1704 Norris Ideal World ii. vii. 344 Some philosophers talk of..intentional species, and of their successive generating and spawning each other, after their first emission from the object, throughout the several points of the medium. |
4. Heb. Gram. Applied by some to the use of the Future or Imperfect tense (in some cases marked by a special form) of the Hebrew verb to express intention; also called cohortative: e.g. in Gen. xi. 7.
| 1892 Davidson Hebr. Gram. 60 note, Both the Jussive and Cohortative are comprehended by Ewald under the name Voluntative; for Cohortative Böttcher prefers to use the term Intentional. |
† B. n. An appearance or phenomenon which has no substantial or concrete existence. Obs.
| 1658 W. Sanderson Graphice 4 The sight is the subject of Forms without a Body; which are called, Intentionalls. 1697 tr. Burgersdicius his Logic i. iii. 5 To a true Being..are oppos'd..3dly. Appearances, or as they commonly say, Intentionals, as the Rain-bow, Colours appearing, Species's and Spectres of the Senses and Understanding, and other things whose Essence only consists in their Apparition. |
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Restrict Scholastic Philos. to sense 3 a and add: [3.] b. Phenomenol. [a. G. intentional (F. Brentano Psychol. v. empirischen Standpunkte (1874) I. ii. i. 127.] Pertaining to or characterized by intentionality (sense *b); intentional object, an object (real or imaginary) to which an act of consciousness is supposedly directed.
| 1902 C. Hague tr. Brentano's Origin of Knowl. Right & Wrong 12 The common feature of everything psychical consists in what has been called by a very unfortunate and ambiguous term, consciousness; i.e. in a subject-attitude; in what has been termed an intentional relation to something which, though perhaps not real, is none the less an inner object of perception. 1931 W. R. Boyce Gibson tr. Husserl's Ideas ii. ii. 122 The intentional object..first becomes an apprehended object through a distinctively ‘objectifying’ turn of thought. Ibid. 133 Apart from perception, we find a variety of intentional experiences which essentially exclude the real immanence of their intentional objects. 1957 R. M. Chisholm Perceiving xi. 169 The phenomena most clearly illustrating the concept of ‘intentional existence’ are what are sometimes called psychological attitudes; for example, desiring, hoping, wishing, seeking, believing, and assuming. 1976 A. R. Lacey Dict. Philos. 99 Since Brentano, who brought these issues to light and revived some medieval terminology, objects like Cicero, Apollo and unicorns, in these contexts, are called intentional objects, and are sometimes said to have intentional inexistence (existence in the mind, or as an object of the mind's activity). 1986 Brit. Jrnl. Aesthetics Autumn 394 Beliefs about fictitious persons are ‘second order’ beliefs about ‘intentional objects’. |