John Perry

Intentionality is a term for a feature exhibited by many mental states and activities: being directed at objects. Two related things are meant by this. First, when one desires or believes or hopes, one always believes or desires or hopes something. Let’s assume that belief report 1) is true

Brutus wanted to kill Caesar. He believed that Caesar was an ordinary mortal, and that, given this, stabbing him (by which we mean plunging a knife into his heart) was a way of killing him. He thought that he could stab Caesar, for he remembered that he had a knife and saw that Caesar was standing next to him on his left, in the Forum. So Brutus was motivated to stab the man to his left. He did so, thereby killing Caesar.

From: _Language, Mind and Logic_, edited by Jeremy Butter?eld. 123.