Intentional inexistence is a similar phenomenon concerned with the existence of objects within mental states. This happens when a person perceives or thinks about an object. In some cases, the intentional object corresponds to a real object outside the mental state, like when accurately perceiving a tree in the garden. In other cases, the intentional object does not have a real counterpart, like when thinking about Bigfoot. The problem of intentional inexistence is the challenge of explaining how one can think about entities that do not exist since this seems to have the paradoxical implication that the thinker stands in a relation to a nonexisting object.
Intentional inexistence is a similar phenomenon concerned with the existence of objects within mental states. This happens when a person perceives or thinks about an object. In some cases, the intentional object corresponds to a real object outside the mental state like when accurately perceiving a tree in the garden. In other cases, the intentional object does not have a real counterpart, like when thinking about Bigfoot. The problem of intentional inexistence i,s the challenge of explaining how one can think about entities that do not exist since this seems to have the paradoxical implication that the thinker stands in a relation to a nonexisting object.