Physical Intentionality. The Phenomenological Roots of Biosemiotics

The concept of intentionality is traditionally ascribed to a state of consciousness or a mental state. The thesis according to which intention is the mark of the mental implies a representational model, essentially connected to the centrality of the notion of determination or characterization. This essay aims to investigate the apparently oxymoronic notion of physical intentionality, which implies an expressive model and the centrality of the notion of forceful (or powerful) property. The reason for this profound paradigm shift must be found in the replacement of the notion of invariance with the notion of tension, that marks the transition from a phenomenology of the inert to a phenomenology of the living.