According to recent philosophers of mind, understanding others’ intentions involves factors like embodied processes, environmental embeddedness, collective enactment, which is extended through practices. Our hypothesis is that these explanatory factors may be insufficient or superfluous in light of the heterogeneous linguistic expressions of intentional action and the equally heterogeneous modalities of understanding it in everyday practices. That heterogeneity is explored by Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty, yet under-investigated by aforementioned philosophers of mind, who nevertheless acknowledge the two authors as their precursors. Wittgenstein and Merleau-Ponty regard cinematic experience as integral to contemporary everyday practices and as illuminating varieties of intentional action. The project will reassess Wittgenstein’s and Merleau-Ponty’s approaches, and aim at viably integrating them within the agenda of contemporary philosophy of mind.

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