Can God Create My Thoughts?: Scotus's Case against the Causal Account of Intentionality

According to a view current at the end of the thirteenth century, cognitive states in general and thoughts in particular are about what causes them. Scotus rejected this causal account of intentionality by arguing that a thought could be caused directly by God and still be about the same object it is about. Scotus concluded that the intentional relation holding between a thought and its object is not causal. Rather, it is a special kind of non-mutual relation, which must be ultimately assumed as primitive. As a consequence of this view, Scotus adopted an original position concerning thoughts about non-existents, the possibility of thoughts occurring in our minds but not caused by our minds, and the possibility of thoughts occurring in no mind whatsoever.