Intentionality is a philosophical expression that deals with the characteristics of the facts, in relation to the mind, which is why it points to or is directed towards an object. Intentionality is linked to thought or consciousness. Thanks to intentionality, an individual has the ability to identify the reality that surrounds him and that naturally leans towards it and, at the same time, the self, not only as an object but as a subject of the fact.
Franz Brentano was the philosopher who first introduced the concept of intentionality. He argued that mental states were the only ones that were intentional and therefore marked with it. This means that if a person has a belief, that belief is about something, if he has an ambition it is about something and so it happens with other mental states.
However, some contemporary philosophers affirmed that Brentano was wrong in his theory, since there were some mental states such as the perception of pain that are not related to something, that is, they do not resemble other standard mental states. The pain can be located in a specific area, for example in a tooth, in a toe, in the head, etc., said pain does not present any orientation and much less is directed towards something.
Quite the opposite happens, when the person wants to eat ice cream, in this case the desire has an objective, that is, a direction and in this case it is ice cream.
All of the above shows that pains do not represent intentional states of mind, but desires do.
