In Freud and Philosophy Of Mind, Jerome Wakefield wants to show that Freud's philosophy of mind is best understood in its Cartesian-Brentanian context.
According to Brentano, mental acts are essentially (1) intentional ( equated with representational) and (2) conscious.
Brentano understands the consciousness property as an immediate reflexive intentionality ( analogous to the aristotelian "I cannot see without seeing that I am in a seeing-state") ; this reflexivity being different from reflexion.
According to Brentano these properties are eidetically necessary, but not logically : there is no a priori absurdity in the idea of an unconscious mental state.
This opens the door for Freud's theory.
Freud keeps the intentionality criterion and abandons the consciousness property.
So, according to Freud ( in Wekefield's reading) mental states are
(1) brain states
(2) having an intentional / representational content ( Freud is materialist regarding intentionality)
(3) but essentially unconscious ( neither consciously directed towards their objects , nor phenomenbally conscious).
(4) consciousness is an accidental and mysterious quality of some mental states.
My questions : on what textual evidence can one claim that Freud makes of intentionality an / the essential feature of mental states? the author says there are many of them , but does not provide examples.
