Foundations for an Ontology of Belief, Desire and Intention

Abstract

Belief, desire, and intention are central notions in mentality and agency. We provide conceptual and formal foundations for an ontology of those mental entities. In this framework, beliefs and desires have a dual face: dispositional and occurrent. As distinct from beliefs and desires, intentions are dispositions to actions that emerge from a decision process in which occurrent beliefs and occurrent desires interact. We also discuss how our theory can be extended to some major philosophical accounts of desires, and cognitive biases such as wishful thinking.