Intentionality - therelationship between conscious states and their objects - is one of the mostdiscussed topics in contemporary debates in philosophy of mind, cognitiveneuroscience and the study of consciousness. Long a foundational concept inPhenomenology, it has also received considerable coverage in the writings ofanalytic philosophers. This book is the first study to offer an impartial,well-informed assessment of the two traditions' approaches through an in-depthinvestigation of the principal thinkers' ideas, so that their positions emergeside-by-side, converging and diverging on certain shared themes.

Beginning with a historical discussion of thedevelopment of the term in the work of Continental thinkers in the 19thand early 20th centuries, the book considers the workof Brentano and Husserl and subsequent existentialist critiques. Fromthere, it explores how empirical-analytic philosophers took up the topic, drawnas they were to materialist and computer models of the mind. Finally MacDonald presentsa new ‘hybrid' account of intentionality that will be a crucial work forscholars working on consciousness and the mind.