Intentionality and the theory of signs

FgANZ BREWrANO wrote, in a well-known passage, that intentionality is peculiar to psychical phenomena. No physical phenomenon, he said, shows anything like it; hence intentionality affords us a criterion of the mental or psychical? Let us refer to this view as "Brentano's thesis." Among the phenomena which he would have called "intentional" is the interpretation of signs. One may ask, is it possible to provide an adequate theory of signs which will show Brentano's thesis to be mistaken? In the present paper I shall make certain general points which, I believe, must be considered in any attempt to answer this question, I shall first attempt to state Brentano's thesis somewhat more exactly; then I shall turn to the analysis of the concept sign.