# Phenomenal Intentionality Research Program **Opening (not a real abstract):** Since the late seventies, the main research program for understanding intentionality has been based on the attempt to naturalize intentionality by identifying a natural relation that holds between internal states of the brain and external states of the world when and only when the former represent the latter. Call this the Naturalist-Externalist Research Program, or NERP. Different versions of NERP differ on how they construe the relevant natural relation. Typically, it is construed as involving in its core a type of tracking relation, whereby internal states occur sensitively to the presence of specific external conditions.1 Some philosophers, however, have remained skeptical of this entire approach. In particular, some have argued that phenomenal consciousness has an essential role to play in the theory of intentionality, a role it is not **Authors:** [[Kriegel]]