I ntentionality exists concomitantly Apart from the fact that it presents the physical phenomenon of sound, the mental act of hearing becomes at the same time its own object and content, taken as a whole (100/129) That is, consciousness of a mental state is self-luminous in the sense that it ‘gets a glimpse of itself’ because it is ‘of’ the whole mental state of which it is a constituent or part 5.3 Representationalism: back to Brentano? At this point, Brentano’s views appear to stand in sharp contrast to contemporary theorizing about intentionality and consciousness Not only does he treat these phenomena as intrinsically – metaphysically – related; he also denies the possibility of unconscious mentality Interestingly, however, it seems that ‘representationalism’, a view that rose to prominence in analytic philosophy in the closing decades of the twentieth century, shares certain affinities with the two main Brentanian theses discussed in this chapter (according to which all mental states are intentional, and intentionality and consciousness are constitutively related) At the same time, it seems that representationalism can accept some of the main theses that have motivated more recent non-Brentanian views of intentionality – namely the attempt to naturalize intentionality and the acceptance of unconscious mental states Is such a unification really possible? Representationalism is a view about the relationship between the phenomenological properties and the intentional properties of conscious mental states There have been many variants of the view since its introduction into analytic philosophy,53 but its proponents have for the most part focused on conscious perceptual states, including bodily sensations such as pain and hunger.54 One important dimension of variation concerns the modal strength of the relationship that is taken to hold between the phenomenological properties of perceptual states and their intentional properties According to the ‘supervenience’ version of the view, the phenomenological character of a conscious perceptual state is (metaphysically) determined by the properties that that state represents A stronger ‘identity’ version simply identifies the two sets of properties On this view, if two states represent the same properties, e.g roundness and redness, the phenomenology of those states will be identical; and if two states share the same phenomenology, e.g the what-it’s-likeness of experiencing redness and roundness, then the properties those states represent will be identical As stated, the strong (identity) form of representationalism doesn’t take a stand on which set of properties is more basic – on whether the phenomenology is more basic in such a way such that intentionality is grounded in phenomenology,55 or whether intentionality is more basic in such a way that phenomenology is grounded in intentionality The original proponents of representationalism supported the latter approach, however, and typically combined it with a reductive 223