Abstract

In his What is intention, Bratman proposed that intentions can be seen as both inputs and outputs of practical reasoning. However, he chose not to pursue a full theory to distinguish which outputs of practical reasoning are intentions and which outputs are not. Building on Bratman’s analysis of intention, we develop a sequence of theories. An initial naive theory suggests that an event is intended if it cannot be excluded without undermining the agent’s goal. However, this approach fails in non-trivial cases with causal dependencies. A revised theory is then offered to incorporates an agent’s subjective understanding of causal relation ships to better align intentions with practical reasoning. Finally, the theory is further extended to account for probabilistic beliefs, defining intentions as commitments to altering event prob abilities based on an agent’s reasoning process. The resulting framework is evaluated through thought experiments, addressing limitations in earlier approaches and capturing the stability and practical role of intentions. The paper concludes by situating the theory as a step towards completing Bratman’s work on intention.