Volume 98, Issue 4, Fall 2024
Kinds of Intentionality and Kinds of Approaches to Intentionality
Henrik Lagerlund
Pages 411-426
https://doi.org/10.5840/acpq2025324302
Hervaeus Natalis on the Historical Problems of Intentionality
After Thomas Aquinas, it became standard to divide ¡°intentio¡± into first and second intentions (the distinction ultimately derives from Avicenna). Roughly, the distinction captures the intentionality of concepts like ¡°Socrates¡± or ¡°human being,¡± which are first intentions, versus concepts like ¡°species¡± or ¡°genus,¡± which are second intentions. Hervaeus Natalis (d. 1323) was the first to write an independent treatise on this distinction, and he also introduced and used the word ¡°intentionaliter¡± in a new way, as well as attempts a definition of the notion of intentionality, perhaps the first such attempt. His treatise is called De secundis intentionibus (On Second Intentions), and can only be described as a treatise on the philosophy of mind and about the problem of intentionality. In this article, I will place Hervaeus in relation to the debate on mental content between Henry of Ghent and John Duns Scotus, and show how he has the resources to define a concept of ¡°intentionality¡± as ¡°the mark of the mental.¡±