If we understand mental images this way, they acquire intentionality automatically. The problem with this suggestion is that it does not establish anything much beyond what we already know. Wittgenstein wrestled with this last question. To be sure, we can establish a specific determination when we think of such a figure as, say, climbing up. But the image itself does no work in fixing the determination.
Images are inert.
Therefore, many philosophers conclude that images, in an of themselves, do not refer. So, to repeat the example above, simply having the memory image of my dog cannot, in and of itself, constitute my referring to or thinking about my dog. Even more importantly, philosophers often conclude that because images cannot refer, they cannot have a fundamental role in any of the higher cognitive fuctions. This is especially evident, it is often claimed, when we considter abstract thought about mathematics, or other topics, for which there seem to be no images in any case. This line of criticism can be extended to form the basis of a set of objections that support descriptivism .