What is intention as opposed to motivation? When I intend to visit my friend, it could indeed be the case that I am also motivated to see my friend, but if all “intention” means is “motivation,” there doesn’t seem to be a need for both terms. Perhaps when people talk about “being intentional,” they mean something like “though you are motivated to do x, y, and z, you should be more motivated to do x.” The word “intention” could suggest a “focused motivation” (“motivation but with emphasis”), though I don’t deny that “intention” is often used as a simile for “motivation.”

Adding to the confusion, the word “intentional” can also be used as a simile for “focus”: there seems to be both “intention as motivation” and “intention as focus,” and in a single conversation, people might switch between the multiple meanings of “intention” as if they are all the same. If I say, “Humans are intentional creatures,” I could mean “Humans are able to focus on a single leaf in a tree out of thousands.” Arguably, this capacity to be intentional is a defining characteristic of human beings and consciousness itself, and though I don’t deny the more philosophical meaning of the term “intentional” (say regarding phenomenological “intentionality”), I don’t think this is what is ordinarily meant when “intention” is used; rather, the term seems to often mean “a motivated focus,” “a valuing of x over y and z,” etc.

The hope of this work is to help isolate a clearer meaning of the word “intention,” because I fear a lack of clarity regarding the term might contribute to a failure to recognize how we can use “intention” to conceal us from ourselves and to control others. This work will be structured similar to papers like “On Love” by O.G. Rose, which will explore possible meanings of a term until we can better isolate a definition. Where such is achieved, clearer thought can follow.

For the full paper:
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Substack:
https://ogrose.substack.com/p/intention

For more by O.G. Rose:
https://www.og-rose.com/