I’ve been thinking a lot about this question from my context as an AP Physics and Physical Science teacher for close to 20 years previous to hopping in to my PhD studies in Ecology and Religion where I’m focusing on questions of consciousness and intentionality.
Electrons are just plain weird. I always thought it fascinating that we discovered them before protons and neutrons.
Philosophers don’t just philsophize… they help science move ahead by realizing that materialist reductionist viewponts don’t always point to where the data or truth is trying to lead us…
Good read here…
What is an Electron? How Times Have Changed:
I have argued strongly in my book and on this blog that calling electrons “particles” is misleading, and one needs to remember this if one wants to understand them. One might instead consider calling them “wavicles“, a term itself from the 1920s that I find appropriate. You may not like this term, and I don’t insist that you adopt it. What’s important is that you understand the conceptual point that the term is intended to convey.
Is intentionnality of electrons à valid concept and what does it mean or describe?
Great question! Philosophically (and I’d argue theologically), “intentionality” does not mean intention in the everyday sense (planning, choosing, wanting), but rather the about-ness or directedness of experience or thought. A belief is about something, a perception is of something, a desire is toward something. That structural directedness is what philosophers call intentionality (Brentano 1874; Husserl 1913; SEP, “Intentionality”).
On the standard view, intentionality is a feature of mental or experiential states. It belongs to consciousness, perception, judgment, or representation. Under that definition, electrons do not have intentionality, because they are not conscious subjects and do not represent objects or meanings (SEP, “Intentionality”). In this strict sense, attributing intentionality to electrons would be a category mistake, I think.
However, there are two important clarifications.
First, philosophers often distinguish intrinsic intentionality from derived or as-if intentionality. We regularly speak as if non-mental systems are directed (“the thermostat wants to keep the room cool”), but this is explanatory shorthand, not a literal claim that the object has about-ness of its own (Dennett 1987; SEP, “Intentionality”).
Second, some metaphysical traditions question whether intentionality must be restricted to human or animal minds. Panpsychist and process-relational approaches suggest that very basic forms of directedness, responsiveness, or prehension may be fundamental features of reality itself, even at the level of elementary entities (Whitehead 1929; Goff 2017; SEP, “Panpsychism”). In those frameworks, one might speak carefully of proto-intentional or pre-intentional structures, not full-blown intentionality as found in conscious experience.
So, is the intentionality of electrons a valid concept? In the strict phenomenological and philosophy-of-mind sense… no. As a speculative or metaphysical proposal, it can be meaningful if clearly distinguished from conscious intentionality and used to explore how relationality, responsiveness, or directedness might precede mind rather than emerge fully formed within it.
That distinction matters, I believe! Without it, the term risks either collapsing into metaphor or overstating what physics or phenomenology actually claim.