Intentionality and Self-Awareness

Intentionality is often posited as one of the first characteristics of mind, referring to the mind’s innate tendency to be directed towards something other than itself. However, self-awareness is also a feature of the mind, and self-awareness seems counter to intentionality in that it reflexively stares back into the conscious state itself, almost as though it were first removed or displaced and suspending this outward orientation while looking back inwards to its own processes. Self-awareness could be defined as a higher-order form of intentionality or it could be its own separate mode of thought and thus a separate feature of the mind. Can self-awareness and intentionality exist in isolation? Is one more fundamental than the other?

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