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Intention

mental state representing commitment to perform an action

Quotes

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A - C

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When the same thing is done by the same man at different times, by the diversity of his intention, however, his action is now said to be good, now bad.
-- Peter Abelard
  • Bonam quippe intentionem, hoc est, rectam in se dicimus, operationem vero non quod boni aliquid in se suscipiat, sed quod ex bona intentione procedat. Unde et ab eodem homine cum in diversis temporibus idem fiat, pro diversitate tamen intentione eius operatio modo bono modo mala dicitur.
    • In fact we say that an intention is good, that is, right in itself, but that an action does not bear any good in itself but proceeds from a good intention. Whence when the same thing is done by the same man at different times, by the diversity of his intention, however, his action is now said to be good, now bad.
      • Peter Abelard, Ethica, seu Scito Teipsum, Bk. 1; translation by D E Luscombe from Peter Abelard's Ethics (1971) p. 53
  • Part of how we come to take command of our world, to take command of our environment, to make these tools by which we're able to do this, is we ask ourselves questions about it the whole time. So this man starts to ask himself questions. "This world," he says, "so who made it?" Now, of course he thinks that, because he makes things himself. So he's looking for someone who would have made this world. He says, "Well, so who would have made this world? Well, it must be something a little like me. Obviously much much bigger. And necessarily invisible. But he would have made it. Now why did he make it?" Now we always ask ourselves "why?" because we look for intention around us; because we always intend– we do something with intention. We boil an egg in order to eat it. So we look at the rocks, and we look at the trees, and we wonder what intention is here even though it doesn't have intention.
  • According to Husserl, that 'act of meaning', or the use of a given phrase as an expression of a certain language, consists in the fact that a sensory content appears in consciousness, by means of which one might think visually about that phrase, should that content be joined by an appropriate intention directed to that phrase. But when a given phrase is used as an expression belonging to a certain language, then that sensory content is joined by another intention, not necessarily a representative one, which is however in principle directed to something other than that phrase itself. Together with the sensory content in question, that intention makes up a uniform experience, but neither the experiencing of that sensory content, nor that intention is a complete, independent experience. Both the one and the other are non-independent parts of the experience as a whole. The meaning of a given expression (as a type) would be, according to Husserl, the type under which that intention joined to the sensory content must fall if the given phrase is to be used as an expression belonging precisely to that language
  • Nullum malum bona intentione factum excusatur.
    • No evil can be excused because it is done with a good intention.
    • Art. 1
    • Variant translation: An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention.
  • The simplest way of expressing the major thesis of the theory of spontaneous order is to say that it is concerned with those regularities in society, or orders of events, which are neither (1) the product of deliberate human contrivance (such as a statutory code of law or a dirigiste economic plan) nor (2) akin to purely natural phenomena (such as the weather, which exists quite independently of human intervention). While the words conventional and natural refer, respectively, to these two regularities, the ‘third realm,’ that of social regularities, consists of those institutions and practices which are the result of human action but not the result of some specific human intention.
    • Norman Barry, "The Tradition of Spontaneous Order", Literature of Liberty. Vol. v, no. 2 (Summer 1982), pp. 7-58.
  • My first concert - apart from Beethoven at School and Satie at the opening of my exhibition in Kleve in 1960 - was at the gallery Parnass in Wuppertal in 1963. Dressed like a regular pianist in dark grey flannel, black tie and no hat, I played the piano all over – not just the keys – with many pairs of old shoes until it disintegrated. My intention was neither destructive nor nihilistic. “Heal like with like” – similia similibus curantur – in the homeopathic sense. The main intention was to indicate a new beginning.. ..or simply a revolutionary act. This was my first public Fluxus appearance.
    • Joseph Beuys in: Interviews with Caroline Tisdall, 1974 & 1978; as quoted in Energy Plan for the Western man - Joseph Beuys in America, Four Walls Eight Windows, New York, 1993. p. 128 - Joseph Beuys' comment on his first Fluxus performance in 1963 'Heal like with like'.
  • Courts of justice ought to carry into effect the intentions of testators as far as they can consistently with the rules of law.
  • INTENTION, n. The mind's sense of the prevalence of one set of influences over another set; an effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.
    • Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).
  • If our intention had been merely to bring back a handful of soil and rocks from the lunar gravel pit and then forget the whole thing, we would certainly be history's biggest fools. But that is not our intention now — it never will be. What we are seeking in tomorrow's trip is indeed that key to our future on earth. We are expanding the mind of man. We are extending this God-given brain and these God-given hands to their outermost limits and in so doing all mankind will benefit. All mankind will reap the harvest. … What we will have attained when Neil Armstrong steps down upon the moon is a completely new step in the evolution of man.
    • Wernher von Braun, Banquet speech on the eve of the Apollo 11 launch, Royal Oaks Country Club, Titusville (15 July 1969); quoted in "Of a Fire on the Moon", LIFEmagazine (29 August 1969), 67, No. 9, p. 34
  • The intention of the testator is the polar star by which we must be guided.
  • Conscientia rectæ voluntatis maxima consolatio est rerum incommodarum.
    • The consciousness of good intention is the greatest solace of misfortunes.
    • Cicero, Epistles, V. 4.
  • Veracity does not consist in saying, but in the intention of communicating truth.
  • Few men, I imagine, who become great started on their career with the intention of becoming so. The intention generally accompanies the unsuccessful. The secret of real greatness seems to be a happy knack of doing things as they come in your way; and they rarely present themselves in the form which careful preparation would enable you to deal with.
    • Mandell Creighton, Heroes, address given to the Social and Political Education League (4 November 1898)

D - F

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  • Why do philosophers call aboutness intentionality"? ...[M]edieval philosophers ...coined the term, noting the similarity between such phenomena and the act of aiming an arrow at something (intendere arcum in). Intentional phenomena are equipped with metaphorical arrows... aimed at... whatever... the phenomena are about or refer to or allude to. But... many phenomena that exhibit this minimal... intentionality do not do anything intentionally... Perceptual states, emotional states, and states of memory... can be entirely involuntary or automatic responses... The medieval theorists noted that the arrow of intentionality could... be aimed at nothing... in a rather particular way. They called the object of your thought, real or not, the intentional object. ...Any intentional system is dependent on its... thinking about—perceiving, searching for, identifying, fearing, recalling—whatever... its "thoughts" are about. ...[T]he best way to confuse a particular intentional system is to exploit a flaw in its way(s) of perceiving or thinking ..[C]onfusing other intentional systems is a major goal in the life of most intentional systems. After all, one of the primary desires... is... for... food ...[and] to avoid becoming the food of another intentional system. ...But ...[t]here is no taking without the possibility of mistaking. That's why it's so important for ...theorists to ...identify and distinguish the ...varieties of taking (and mistaking) ...to have an accurate picture of ...capacities for distinguishing ..."thinking about" things.
    • Daniel Dennett, Kinds of minds: Toward an Understanding of Consciousness (1996) pp. 36-37.
 
In the creative act, the artist goes from intention to realization through a chain of totally subjective reactions.
-- Marcel Duchamp, 1957
  • In the creative act, the artist goes from intention to realization through a chain of totally subjective reactions. His struggle towards the realization is a series of efforts, pains, satisfactions, refusals, decisions, which also cannot be fully self-conscious, at least on the aesthetic plane. The result of his struggle is a difference between the intention and its realization, a difference which the artist is not aware of.
    • Marcel Duchamp, 'The Creative Act', 1957 (Duchamp's lecture in Houston, April 1957)
  • Consequently, in the chain of reactions accompanying the creative act, a link is missing. This gap which represents the inability of the artist to express fully his intention, this difference between what he intended to realize and did realize, is the personal 'art coefficient', contained in the work.
    • Marcel Duchamp, 'The Creative Act', 1957 (Duchamp's lecture in Houston, April 1957)
  • A fallacy is an unsound or inconclusive argument; an argument supposed or alleged to prove a conclusion which it does not prove. The name is sometimes confined to sophisms, that is, unsound arguments used with the intention to deceive. But the intention is a point of secondary importance in the theory of fallacies; and, indeed, those fallacies in which the reasoner deceives himself are by far more dangerous than the others, because they are by far more common. The term Fallacy, it will thus be observed, is applicable to an argument taken as a whole, not to any of the propositions of which the argument is composed. The propositions severally must be true or false: the argument which they constitute must be correct or fallacious ; that is, its conclusion must either follow or not follow from the premises.
    • Encyclopædia Britannica (1855) Entry "Fallacy" in: The Encyclopaedia Britannica, Or Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature. Vol. 9. p. 475-479.
  • Technical rules are not to be relied upon in explaining the intention of testators: and yet cases of intention are much embarrassed by authorities.
    • Eyre, C.J., Burnsall v. Davy (1798), 2 Bos. & Pull. 220.

G - L

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  • At root karma or ‘action’ is considered a mental act or intention; it is an aspect of our mental life: ‘It is “intention” that I call karma; having formed the intention, one performs acts (karma) by body, speech and mind.’
    • Rupert Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism, Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition, 1998, p. 119
  • We must decide according to the intention of the legislature, which is to be collected from the general object of the Act and from the particular words used in it.
    • Grose, J., Farmer v. Legg (1797), 7 T. R. 192.
 
The Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the People to the intention of their agents. [...] where the will of the Legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the People, declared in the Constitution, the Judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former. They ought to regulate their decisions by the fundamental laws, rather than by those which are not fundamental.
Alexander Hamilton
  • The Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the People to the intention of their agents. Nor does this conclusion by any means suppose a superiority of the Judicial to the Legislative power. It only supposes that the power of the People is superior to both; and that where the will of the Legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the People, declared in the Constitution, the Judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former. They ought to regulate their decisions by the fundamental laws, rather than by those which are not fundamental. [...] whenever a particular statute contravenes the Constitution, it will be the duty of the Judicial tribunals to adhere to the latter and disregard the former.
  • People say that my works are "neutral". But if you paint something, it is "something", and it cannot be neutral. Being neutral is a mere expression of a form of intention.
    • Jasper Johns, as quoted in Jasper Johns in Tokyo (August 1964), by Yoshiaki Tono; later in Jasper Johns, Writings, Sketchbook Notes, Interviews (1996), edited by Kirk Varnedoe, p. 101
  • Simplicity and purity are the two wings by which a man is lifted above all earthly things. Simplicity is in the intention — purity in the affection. Simplicity tends to God,— purity apprehends and tastes Him.
    • Thomas à Kempis, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895). p. 545.
  • The difference between good and bad intentions is this : — that good intentions are so very satisfactory in themselves, that it really seems a work of supererogation to carry them into execution ; whereas evil ones have a restlessness that can only be satisfied by action — and, to the shame of fate be it said, very many facilities always offer for their being effected.
  • Nichts unter der Sonne ist Zufall—am wenigsten das wovon die Absicht so klar in die Augen leuchtet.
  • I do not see why, if we can tell what a man intends, and can give effect to his intention as expressed, we should be driven out of it by other cases or decisions in other cases. I always protest against anything of the sort.

M-R

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  • That which is produced with intention has passed over from non-existence to existence.
  • Management [ Providence ], knowledge, and intention are not the same when ascribed to us and when ascribed to God.
  • As there is a difference between works of nature and productions of human handicraft, so there is a difference between God's rule, providence, and intention in reference to all natural forces, and our rule, providence, and intention in reference to things which are the objects of our rule, providence, and intention. This lesson is the principal object of the whole Book of Job; it lays down this principle of faith, and recommends us to derive a proof from nature, that we should not fall into the error of imagining His knowledge to be similar to ours, or His intention, providence, and rule similar to ours. When we know this, we shall find everything that may befall us easy to bear; mishap will create no doubts in our hearts concerning God, whether He knows our affairs or not, whether He provides for us or abandons us. On the contrary, our fate will increase our love of God; as is said in the end of this prophecy: "Therefore I abhor myself and repent concerning the dust and ashes" (xlii. 6); and as our Sages say: "The pious do everything out of love, and rejoice in their own afflictions." If you pay to my words the attention which this treatise demands, and examine all that is said in the Book of Job, all will be clear to you, and you will find that I have grasped and taken hold of the whole subject; nothing has been left unnoticed, except such portions as are only introduced because of the context and the whole plan of the allegory. I have explained this method several times in the course of this treatise.
 
The nature and intention of government … are social. Based on the idea of natural rights, government secures those rights to the individual by strictly negative intervention, making justice costless and easy of access; and beyond that it does not go.
-- Albert Jay Nock, 1935
  • It may now be easily seen how great the difference is between the institution of government, as understood by Paine and the Declaration of Independence, and the institution of the State. … The nature and intention of government … are social. Based on the idea of natural rights, government secures those rights to the individual by strictly negative intervention, making justice costless and easy of access; and beyond that it does not go. The State, on the other hand, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing.
  • A bon entendeur ne faut qu'un parole.
  • Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning. There should not be a single ornament put upon great civic buildings, without some intellectual intention.
    • John Ruskin, Seven Lamps of Architecture, The Lamp of Memory.

S-Z

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  • Sometimes, to do wrong deeds, one's intentions don't have to be bad; unfavorable timing and circumstances might lead one to do so.
  • We do not judge the outcome of a process by the intentions of its authors. We aim to analyse the objective effects of actions, regardless of their intentions.
  • These laws must be construed according to the intention of them: and the circumstances of things at the time of enacting them ought to be taken into consideration.
    • Wilmot, J., Rex v. Inhabitants of Burton-Bradstock (1765), Burrow (Settlement Cases), 536.
  • Eo animo quidque debetur quo datur, nec quantum sit sed a quali profectum voluntate perpenditur.
    • Translation: The spirit in which a thing is given determines that in which the gift is acknowledged; it is the intention, not the face-value of the gift, that is weighed.
    • Seneca the Younger, Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, no. 81, sect. 6; translation from Tochi Omenukor Words of a Woman (New York: Writer's Club Press, 2002) p. 15.

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