Lewis on Intentionality

Abstract David Lewis’s account of intentionality is a version of what he calls ‘global descriptivism’. The rough idea is that the correct interpretation of one’s total theory is the one (among the admissibleinterpretations) that come closest to making it true. I give an exposition of this account, as I understand it, and try to bring out some of its consequences. I argue that there is a tension between Lewis’s global descriptivism and his rejection of a linguistic account of the intentionality of thought. I distinguish some different senses in which Lewis’s theory might permit, or be committed to, a kind of holism about intentional content, and I consider the sense in which Lewis’s account might be said to be an internalistaccount, and the motivation for this kind of internalism. David Lewis’s account of intentional states and intentional content is an internalistone, in a sense: he is a proponent of narrow content. His strategy for solving the problem of intentionality is the most explicit and well developed internalise strategy that I know of, and I think it helps to bring out some consequences that any internalise account will have. Lewis’s constructive proposals along with his criticisms of alternative strategies also throw light on a range of issues that keep recurring in the debates about intentionality, questions about the relation between language and thought, about holism, about the relation between internal and external perspectives on the content of speech acts and propositional attitudes.