Franz Brentano
Encyclopedia
Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Brentano (January 16, 1838 – March 17, 1917) was an influential German
philosopher
and psychologist
whose influence was felt by other such luminaries as Sigmund Freud
, Edmund Husserl
, Kazimierz Twardowski
and Alexius Meinong
, who followed and adapted his views.
. He studied philosophy
at the universities of Munich
, Würzburg
, Berlin
(with Adolf Trendelenburg
) and Münster
. He had a special interest in Aristotle
and scholastic philosophy. He wrote his dissertation in Tübingen
On the manifold sense of Being in Aristotle. Subsequently he began to study theology
and entered the seminary in Munich and then Würzburg and entered the Jesuit order. He was ordained a Catholic priest on August 6, 1864. In 1865/66 he wrote and defended his habilitation
essay and thesis and began to lecture at the University of Würzburg
. His students in this period included, among others, Carl Stumpf
and Anton Marty
. Between 1870 and 1873 Brentano was heavily involved in the debate on papal infallibility
. A strong opponent of such dogma
, he eventually gave up his priesthood and his tenure in 1873 and in 1879 left the church altogether.
In 1874 Brentano published his major work: "Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint" and from 1874 to 1895 taught at the University of Vienna
. Among his students were Edmund Husserl
, Alexius Meinong
, Christian von Ehrenfels
, Rudolf Steiner
, T.G. Masaryk, Sigmund Freud
, Kazimierz Twardowski
and many others (see School of Brentano
for more details). While he began his career as a full ordinary professor, he was forced to give up both his Austrian citizenship and his professorship in 1880 in order to marry. He was permitted to return to the university only as a Privatdozent. After his retirement he moved to Florence
in Italy
, transferring to Zürich
at the outbreak of the First World War
, where he died in 1917.
— a concept derived from scholastic philosophy — to contemporary philosophy
in his lectures and in his work Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkte (Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint). While often simplistically summarised as "aboutness" or the relationship between mental acts and the external world, Brentano defined it as the main characteristic of mental phenomena, by which they could be distinguished from physical phenomena. Every mental phenomenon, every psychological act has content, is directed at an object (the intentional object). Every belief, desire etc. has an object that they are about: the believed, the desired. Brentano used the expression "intentional inexistence" to indicate the status of the objects of thought in the mind. The property of being intentional, of having an intentional object, was the key feature to distinguish psychical phenomena and physical phenomena, because, as Brentano defined it, physical phenomena lacked the ability to generate original intentionality, and could only facilitate an intentional relationship in a second-hand manner, which he labeled derived intentionality.
and Edmund Husserl
) thought that the natural sciences could only yield hypotheses and never universal, absolute truths as in pure logic
or mathematics
.
However, in a reprinting of his Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkte [Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint], he recanted this previous view. He attempted to do so without reworking the previous arguments within that work but it has been said that he was wholly unsuccessful. The new view states that when we hear a sound, we hear something from the external world; there are no physical phenomena of internal perception.
) view. At the centre of Brentano’s theory of judgment lies the idea that a judgment depends on having a presentation, but this presentation does not have to be predicated. Even stronger: Brentano thought that predication
is not even sufficient for judgment, because there are judgments without a predicational content. Another fundamental aspect of his theory is that judgments are always existential
. This so-called existential claim implies that when someone is judging that S is P he/she is judging that some S that is P exists. (Note that Brentano denied the idea that all judgments are of the form: S is P [and all other kinds of judgment which combine presentations]. Brentano argued that there are also judgments arising from a single presentation, e.g. “the planet Mars exists” has only one presentation.) In Brentano’s own symbols, a judgment is always of the form: ‘+A’ (A exists) or ‘-A’ (A does not exist).
Combined with the third fundamental claim of Brentano, the idea that all judgments are either positive (judging that A exists) or negative (judging that A does not exist), we have a complete picture of Brentano’s theory of judgment. So, imagine that you doubt whether midgets exist. At that point you have a presentation of midgets in your mind. When you judge that midgets do not exist, then you are judging that the presentation you have does not present something that exists. You do not have to utter that in words or otherwise predicate that judgment. The whole judgment takes place in the denial (or approval) of the existence of the presentation you have.
The problem of Brentano’s theory of judgment is not the idea that all judgments are existential judgments (though it is sometimes a very complex enterprise to transform an ordinary judgment into an existential one), the real problem is that Brentano made no distinction between object
and presentation. A presentation exists as an object in your mind. So you cannot really judge that A does not exist, because if you do so you also judge that the presentation is not there (which is impossible, according to Brentano’s idea that all judgments have the object which is judged as presentation). Twardowski
acknowledged this problem and solved it by denying that the object is equal to the presentation. This is actually only a change within Brentano’s theory of perception, but has a welcome consequence for the theory of judgment, viz. that you can have a presentation (which exists) but at the same time judge that the object does not exist.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
philosopher
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and psychologist
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
whose influence was felt by other such luminaries as Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
, Edmund Husserl
Edmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
, Kazimierz Twardowski
Kazimierz Twardowski
Kazimierz Jerzy Skrzypna-Twardowski was a Polish philosopher and logician.-Life:Twardowski's family belonged to the Ogończyk coat-of-arms.Twardowski studied philosophy in Vienna with Franz Brentano and Robert Zimmermann...
and Alexius Meinong
Alexius Meinong
Alexius Meinong was an Austrian philosopher, a realist known for his unique ontology...
, who followed and adapted his views.
Life
Brentano was born at Marienberg am Rhein, near BoppardBoppard
Boppard is a town in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, lying in the Rhine Gorge, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It belongs to no Verbandsgemeinde. The town is also a state-recognized tourism resort and is a winegrowing centre.-Location:Boppard lies on the upper Middle...
. He studied philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
at the universities of Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, Würzburg
Würzburg
Würzburg is a city in the region of Franconia which lies in the northern tip of Bavaria, Germany. Located at the Main River, it is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. The regional dialect is Franconian....
, Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
(with Adolf Trendelenburg
Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg
Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg was a German philosopher and philologist.-Early life:He was born at Eutin, near Lübeck. He was educated at the universities of Kiel, Leipzig, and Berlin...
) and Münster
Münster
Münster is an independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also capital of the local government region Münsterland...
. He had a special interest in Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
and scholastic philosophy. He wrote his dissertation in Tübingen
Tübingen
Tübingen is a traditional university town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.-Geography:...
On the manifold sense of Being in Aristotle. Subsequently he began to study theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
and entered the seminary in Munich and then Würzburg and entered the Jesuit order. He was ordained a Catholic priest on August 6, 1864. In 1865/66 he wrote and defended his habilitation
Habilitation
Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a scholar can achieve by his or her own pursuit in several European and Asian countries. Earned after obtaining a research doctorate, such as a PhD, habilitation requires the candidate to write a professorial thesis based on independent...
essay and thesis and began to lecture at the University of Würzburg
University of Würzburg
The University of Würzburg is a university in Würzburg, Germany, founded in 1402. The university is a member of the distinguished Coimbra Group.-Name:...
. His students in this period included, among others, Carl Stumpf
Carl Stumpf
Carl Stumpf was a German philosopher and psychologist.Born in Wiesentheid, he studied with Franz Brentano and Hermann Lotze...
and Anton Marty
Anton Marty
Anton Marty was a Swiss philosopher. He specialized in philosophy of language, psychology and ontology. The linguists in Prague School were influenced by his works.-Sources:...
. Between 1870 and 1873 Brentano was heavily involved in the debate on papal infallibility
Papal infallibility
Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church which states that, by action of the Holy Spirit, the Pope is preserved from even the possibility of error when in his official capacity he solemnly declares or promulgates to the universal Church a dogmatic teaching on faith or morals...
. A strong opponent of such dogma
Dogma
Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, or a particular group or organization. It is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from, by the practitioners or believers...
, he eventually gave up his priesthood and his tenure in 1873 and in 1879 left the church altogether.
In 1874 Brentano published his major work: "Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint" and from 1874 to 1895 taught at the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
. Among his students were Edmund Husserl
Edmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
, Alexius Meinong
Alexius Meinong
Alexius Meinong was an Austrian philosopher, a realist known for his unique ontology...
, Christian von Ehrenfels
Christian von Ehrenfels
Christian von Ehrenfels was an Austrian philosopher, and is known as one of the founders and precursors of Gestalt psychology.- Life :...
, Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...
, T.G. Masaryk, Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
, Kazimierz Twardowski
Kazimierz Twardowski
Kazimierz Jerzy Skrzypna-Twardowski was a Polish philosopher and logician.-Life:Twardowski's family belonged to the Ogończyk coat-of-arms.Twardowski studied philosophy in Vienna with Franz Brentano and Robert Zimmermann...
and many others (see School of Brentano
School of Brentano
The School of Brentano refers to the philosophers and psychologists who studied with Franz Brentano and were essentially influenced by him. While it was never a school in the traditional sense, Brentano tried to maintain some cohesion in the school...
for more details). While he began his career as a full ordinary professor, he was forced to give up both his Austrian citizenship and his professorship in 1880 in order to marry. He was permitted to return to the university only as a Privatdozent. After his retirement he moved to Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, transferring to Zürich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
at the outbreak of the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, where he died in 1917.
Intentionality
Brentano is best known for his reintroduction of the concept of intentionalityIntentionality
The term intentionality was introduced by Jeremy Bentham as a principle of utility in his doctrine of consciousness for the purpose of distinguishing acts that are intentional and acts that are not...
— a concept derived from scholastic philosophy — to contemporary philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
in his lectures and in his work Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkte (Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint). While often simplistically summarised as "aboutness" or the relationship between mental acts and the external world, Brentano defined it as the main characteristic of mental phenomena, by which they could be distinguished from physical phenomena. Every mental phenomenon, every psychological act has content, is directed at an object (the intentional object). Every belief, desire etc. has an object that they are about: the believed, the desired. Brentano used the expression "intentional inexistence" to indicate the status of the objects of thought in the mind. The property of being intentional, of having an intentional object, was the key feature to distinguish psychical phenomena and physical phenomena, because, as Brentano defined it, physical phenomena lacked the ability to generate original intentionality, and could only facilitate an intentional relationship in a second-hand manner, which he labeled derived intentionality.
Theory of perception
He is also well known for claiming that Wahrnehmung ist Falschnehmung ('perception is misception' or literally 'truth-grasping is false-grasping') that is to say perception is erroneous. In fact he maintained that external, sensory perception could not tell us anything about the de facto existence of the perceived world, which could simply be illusion. However, we can be absolutely sure of our internal perception. When I hear a tone, I cannot be completely sure that there is a tone in the real world, but I am absolutely certain that I do hear. This awareness, of the fact that I hear, is called internal perception. External perception, sensory perception, can only yield hypotheses about the perceived world, but not truth. Hence he and many of his pupils (in particular Carl StumpfCarl Stumpf
Carl Stumpf was a German philosopher and psychologist.Born in Wiesentheid, he studied with Franz Brentano and Hermann Lotze...
and Edmund Husserl
Edmund Husserl
Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...
) thought that the natural sciences could only yield hypotheses and never universal, absolute truths as in pure logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
or mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
.
However, in a reprinting of his Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkte [Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint], he recanted this previous view. He attempted to do so without reworking the previous arguments within that work but it has been said that he was wholly unsuccessful. The new view states that when we hear a sound, we hear something from the external world; there are no physical phenomena of internal perception.
Theory of judgment
Brentano has a theory of judgment which is different from what is currently the predominant (FregeanGottlob Frege
Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege was a German mathematician, logician and philosopher. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern logic, and made major contributions to the foundations of mathematics. He is generally considered to be the father of analytic philosophy, for his writings on...
) view. At the centre of Brentano’s theory of judgment lies the idea that a judgment depends on having a presentation, but this presentation does not have to be predicated. Even stronger: Brentano thought that predication
Predicate (grammar)
There are two competing notions of the predicate in theories of grammar. Traditional grammar tends to view a predicate as one of two main parts of a sentence, the other being the subject, which the predicate modifies. The other understanding of predicates is inspired from work in predicate calculus...
is not even sufficient for judgment, because there are judgments without a predicational content. Another fundamental aspect of his theory is that judgments are always existential
Existential clause
Existential clauses are clauses that indicate only an existence. In English, they are formed with the dummy subject construction with "there", e.g. "There are boys in the yard". Many languages do not require a dummy subject, e.g. Finnish, where the sentence Pihalla on poikia is literally "On the...
. This so-called existential claim implies that when someone is judging that S is P he/she is judging that some S that is P exists. (Note that Brentano denied the idea that all judgments are of the form: S is P [and all other kinds of judgment which combine presentations]. Brentano argued that there are also judgments arising from a single presentation, e.g. “the planet Mars exists” has only one presentation.) In Brentano’s own symbols, a judgment is always of the form: ‘+A’ (A exists) or ‘-A’ (A does not exist).
Combined with the third fundamental claim of Brentano, the idea that all judgments are either positive (judging that A exists) or negative (judging that A does not exist), we have a complete picture of Brentano’s theory of judgment. So, imagine that you doubt whether midgets exist. At that point you have a presentation of midgets in your mind. When you judge that midgets do not exist, then you are judging that the presentation you have does not present something that exists. You do not have to utter that in words or otherwise predicate that judgment. The whole judgment takes place in the denial (or approval) of the existence of the presentation you have.
The problem of Brentano’s theory of judgment is not the idea that all judgments are existential judgments (though it is sometimes a very complex enterprise to transform an ordinary judgment into an existential one), the real problem is that Brentano made no distinction between object
Object (philosophy)
An object in philosophy is a technical term often used in contrast to the term subject. Consciousness is a state of cognition that includes the subject, which can never be doubted as only it can be the one who doubts, and some object or objects that may or may not have real existence without...
and presentation. A presentation exists as an object in your mind. So you cannot really judge that A does not exist, because if you do so you also judge that the presentation is not there (which is impossible, according to Brentano’s idea that all judgments have the object which is judged as presentation). Twardowski
Kazimierz Twardowski
Kazimierz Jerzy Skrzypna-Twardowski was a Polish philosopher and logician.-Life:Twardowski's family belonged to the Ogończyk coat-of-arms.Twardowski studied philosophy in Vienna with Franz Brentano and Robert Zimmermann...
acknowledged this problem and solved it by denying that the object is equal to the presentation. This is actually only a change within Brentano’s theory of perception, but has a welcome consequence for the theory of judgment, viz. that you can have a presentation (which exists) but at the same time judge that the object does not exist.
Major works by Brentano
- (1862) On the several senses of Being in Aristotle (Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles)
- (1867) The Psychology of Aristotle (Die Psychologie des Aristoteles: Insbesondere seine Lehre vom nous Poiētikoshttp://www.archive.org/details/diepsychologied00brengoog)
- (1874) Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt http://www.archive.org/details/psychologievome00kraugoog)
- (1876) Was für ein Philosoph manchmal Epoche macht (against PlotinusPlotinusPlotinus was a major philosopher of the ancient world. In his system of theory there are the three principles: the One, the Intellect, and the Soul. His teacher was Ammonius Saccas and he is of the Platonic tradition...
). Vienna http://www.archive.org/details/MN41856ucmf_0 - (1889) The Origin of our Knowledge of Right and Wrong (1902 english edition)
- (1911) Aristotle and his World View (Aristoteles und seine Weltanschauung)
- (1911) The Classification of Mental Phenomena (Die Klassifikation von Geistesphänomenen)
- (1924–28) Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt. Ed. Oskar Kraus, 3 vols. Leipzig: Meiner. ISBN 3-7873-0014-7
- (1966) The True and The Evident (Wahrheit und Evidenz)
- (1976) Philosophical Investigations on Space, Time and Phenomena (Philosophische Untersuchungen zu Raum, Zeit und Kontinuum)
- (1982) Descriptive Psychology (Deskriptive Psychologie)
- (2008) Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte. Von der Klassifikation der psychischen Phänomene. Ed. Mauro Antonelli. Heusenstamm: Ontos. ISBN 13: 978-3-938793-41-1
External links
- Franz Brentano's Ontology and His Immanent Realism Contains a list of the English translations of Brentano's works