On Wed, 25 Jan 2006, Anthony Waterman wrote:   
> How can an abstraction (a 'football team') have an   
> 'intent' (which implies intentionality, and can therefore   
> be properly attributed only to a rational agent)?   
  
Even if we are to adopt a psychologistic understanding  
of the denotation of 'intent', and it is far from obvious  
that we should, I wager Anthony will have to count dogs  
and cats among his "rational" agents. (I.e., I wager that  
his explanations of e.g. dog behavior rely on attributions   
of intentionality.)  If we go beyond a simple psychologistic  
understanding of intent to less "soul-full" stories about  
actors, then we can begin to understand the attribution  
of intent as a useful strategy in circumstances beyond  
those in which we might suspect a ghost in the machine.  
  
Alan Isaac