INTENTION IN MECHANISMS AND THE BACONIAN CRITICISM - IS THE MODERN COGNITIVIST REVIVING ARISTOTELIAN EXCESSES

The Baconian Criticism holds that it is unnecessary to use final-cause conceptions when an explanation in terms of the other Aristotelian ca uses is sufficient to the task at hand. It is argued that modem effort s by cognitive psychologists to explain intentionality in machine term inology falls prey to the Baconian Criticism. Cognitive theory is fram ed extraspectively and relies basically and thoroughly on material/eff icient-causation. Introducing final-cause description to such machine processing is superfluous because it adds nothing to our basic underst anding of what is taking place. Telosponsivity, on the other hand, is exclusively introspective in formulation and is not open to the Baconi an Criticism because of its basic reliance on oppositionality in cogni tion. The telosponding person is always ''taking a position'' within a sea of opposite possibilities, which allows for the fact that behavio r could have unfolded differently all circumstances remaining the same . This permits a truly teleological understanding of human behavior, o ne that is not reducible to machine processing.