Franz Brentano and Austrian Philosophy [1st ed.] 9783030409463, 9783030409470

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Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook

Denis Fisette Guillaume Fréchette Friedrich Stadler  Editors

Franz Brentano and Austrian Philosophy Vienna Circle Society

Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook Institute Vienna Circle, University of Vienna Vienna Circle Society, Society for the Advancement of Scientific World Conceptions Volume 24

Series Editor Friedrich Stadler, University of Vienna, Austria Advisory Editorial Board Jacques Bouveresse, Collège de France, Paris, France Martin Carrier, University of Bielefeld, Germany Nancy Cartwright, Durham University, UK Richard Creath, Arizona State University, USA Massimo Ferrari, University of Torino, Italy Michael Friedman, Stanford University, USA Maria Carla Galavotti, University of Bologna, Italy Peter Galison, Harvard University, USA Malachi Hacohen, Duke University, USA Rainer Hegselmann, University of Bayreuth, Germany Michael Heidelberger, University of Tübingen, Germany Don Howard, University of Notre Dame, USA Paul Hoyningen-Huene, University of Hanover, Germany Clemens Jabloner, Hans-Kelsen-Institut, Vienna, Austria Anne J. Kox, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Martin Kusch, University of Vienna, Austria James G. Lennox, University of Pittsburgh, USA Thomas Mormann, University of Donostia/San Sebastián, Spain Edgar Morscher, University of Salzburg, Austria Kevin Mulligan, Université de Genève, Switzerland Elisabeth Nemeth, University of Vienna, Austria Julian Nida-Rümelin, University of Munich, Germany Ilkka Niiniluoto, University of Helsinki, Finland Otto Pfersmann, Université Paris I Panthéon – Sorbonne, France Miklós Rédei, London School of Economics, UK Alan Richardson, University of British Columbia, CDN Gerhard Schurz, University of Düsseldorf, Germany

Hans Sluga, University of California at Berkeley, USA Elliott Sober, University of Wisconsin, USA Antonia Soulez, Université de Paris 8, France Wolfgang Spohn, University of Konstanz, Germany Michael Stöltzner, University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA Thomas E. Uebel, University of Manchester, UK Pierre Wagner, Université de Paris 1, Sorbonne, France C. Kenneth Waters, University of Calgary, Canada Gereon Wolters, University of Konstanz, Germany Anton Zeilinger, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria Honorary Consulting Editors Wilhelm K. Essler, Frankfurt/M., Germany Gerald Holton, Cambridge, MA, USA Allan S. Janik, Innsbruck, Austria Andreas Kamlah, Osnabrück, Germany Eckehart Köhler, Munich, Germany Juha Manninen, Helsinki, Finland Erhard Oeser, Vienna, Austria Peter Schuster, Vienna, Austria Jan Šebestík, Paris, France Karl Sigmund, Vienna, Austria Christian Thiel, Erlangen, Germany Paul Weingartner, Salzburg, Austria Jan Woleński, Krakow, Poland Review Editor Bastian Stoppelkamp Editorial Work/Layout/Production Robert Kaller, Josef Pircher Editorial Address Wiener Kreis Gesellschaft Universitätscampus, Hof 1 Spitalgasse 2-4, A-1090 Wien, Austria Tel.: +431/4277 46501 (international) or 01/4277 46501 (national) Email: [email protected] Homepage: http://univie.ac.at/vcs/ More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/6669

Denis Fisette  •  Guillaume Fréchette Friedrich Stadler Editors

Franz Brentano and Austrian Philosophy

Editors Denis Fisette Department of Philosophy University of Quebec at Montreal Montreal, QC, Canada

Guillaume Fréchette Department of Philosophy University of Salzburg Salzburg, Austria

Friedrich Stadler Institute Vienna Circle University of Vienna Wien, Austria

ISSN 0929-6328     ISSN 2215-1818 (electronic) Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook ISBN 978-3-030-40946-3    ISBN 978-3-030-40947-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40947-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

In co-operation with: Commission for History and Philosophy of Science, Austrian Academy of Sciences

Editorial

The essays collected in this book stem from a conference held as a homage to the centenary of Franz Brentano’s death, which took place in Vienna in June 2017.1 It also includes Thomas Uebel’s 25th Vienna Circle Lecture “Intentionality in the Vienna Circle,” which was also the opening address of this conference. The conference’s main topic was “Franz Brentano and Austrian philosophy,” and we brought together distinguished philosophers to discuss several aspects of this theme and Brentano’s philosophy as a whole. This collection of original essays is divided into three parts and is completed by an appendix composed of an article by Moritz Schlick and two unpublished manuscripts from Alfred Kastil. The first part of the book bears on the relationship between Brentano’s philosophy of mind and phenomenology with a special focus on the relationship between Brentano and his student Husserl. The papers in the second part address different aspects of Brentano’s relationship to the Vienna Circle. The third part is on Brentano and the history of philosophy, and it includes four original studies on different aspects of Brentano’s relationship with John Stuart Mill, Wilhelm Jerusalem, Ernst von Lasaulx, and his student Kazimierz Twardowski with respect to the huge influence he has had on the development of Polish philosophy from the beginning of the twentieth century until today. This book also contains a substantial introduction which aims to contextualize the essays, and it is completed by an appendix containing three lectures delivered before the Philosophical Society of the University of Vienna in 1935 and 1936. These lectures are introduced separately in the second part of the book. The first one is a manuscript on Gestaltpsychologie, which formed the basis of M.  Schlick’s paper “Gestaltpsychologie,” and was presented before the Philosophical Society on January 18, 1935; the second and third papers are unpublished writings from Alfred Kastil, in which he proposes a critical discussion of several aspects of neo-positivism. The first is a lecture delivered to the Philosophical Society in 1935 under the

 This conference was in fact the second part of a two-part conference, the first of which took place in Prague at the end of April 2017 and whose main theme was Brentano and his school. 1

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title “Is the distinction between whole and sum merely factual?”2 and it is a critical examination of Schlick’s paper “On the concept of whole”; Kastil’s second contribution to this volume is another talk delivered to the Philosophical Society on November 13, 1936, under the title “Franz Brentanos Kritik der Antimetaphysiker.” Thanks go to colleagues and institutions, mainly in Europe and in Canada, which are responsible for financing this conference: the Vienna Circle Institute, the University of Vienna, the University of Salzburg, the University of Geneva, the University of Liège, the University of Würzburg, the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, the University of Quebec at Montreal, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The editors

 („Ist die Unterscheidung zwischen Ganzheit und Summe keine sachliche?“).

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Contents

Part I Brentano and Austrian Philosophy 1 Introduction: Franz Brentano in Vienna ����������������������������������������������    3 Denis Fisette Descriptive Psychology and Phenomenology: Brentano and Husserl 2 Brentano and Husserl on Intentionality������������������������������������������������   23 Dagfinn Føllesdal 3 Descriptive Psychology and Phenomenology: From Brentano to Husserl to the Logic of Consciousness ����������������������������������������������   49 David Woodruff Smith 4 Brentano’s Concept of Descriptive Psychology ������������������������������������   73 Dermot Moran 5 Brentano on Phenomenology and Philosophy as a Science������������������  101 Guillaume Fréchette Brentano and the Vienna Circle 6 Brentano’s Appointment to the University of Vienna��������������������������  117 Hans-Joachim Dahms 7 Intentionality in the Vienna Circle ��������������������������������������������������������  135 Thomas Uebel 8 (Dis-)Similarities: Remarks on “Austrian” and “German” Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century ��������������������������������������������������  169 Christian Damböck Brentano and the History of Philosophy 9 Learning from Lasaulx: The Origins of Brentano’s Four Phases Theory������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  181 Richard Schaefer ix

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10 Franz Brentano and the Lvov-Warsaw School ������������������������������������  197 Anna Brożek 11 How Many Terms Does a Judgement Have? Jerusalem Versus Brentano��������������������������������������������������������������������  235 Mark Textor 12 Brentano and J. Stuart Mill on Phenomenalism and Mental Monism��������������������������������������������������������������������������������  251 Denis Fisette Documentation: Alfred Kastil and the Vienna Circle 13 Ist die Unterscheidung von Ganzheit und Summe eine sachliche? Bemerkungen zum Vortrage Prof. Schlicks „Über den Begriff der Ganzheit” ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  269 Alfred Kastil 14 Franz Brentanos Kritik der Antimetaphysiker������������������������������������  289 Alfred Kastil 15 Gestaltpsychologie������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  309 Moritz Schlick Part II General Part 16 Carnap’s Second Aufbau and David Lewis’s Aufbau����������������������������  329 David J. Chalmers 17 Carnap and Wittgenstein on Psychological Sentences: 1928–1932. Some Further Aspects of the Priority-Dispute Over Physicalism��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  353 Gergely Ambrus 18 Scientific Communities. A History of Theories and Concepts ������������  387 Markus Arnold Part III Reviews 19 Paolo Mancosu, Abstraction and Infinity. Oxford University Press, 2016������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  427 Georg Schiemer 20 Jordi Cat, Adam Tamas Tuboly (Ed.) Neurath Reconsidered: New Sources and Perspectives. Cham: Springer Nature, 2019 ������������  431 Christopher Burke Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  437

Part I

Brentano and Austrian Philosophy

Chapter 1

Introduction: Franz Brentano in Vienna Denis Fisette

Keywords  Brentano · School of Brentano · Intentionality · Descriptive psychology · Phenomenology · Vienna Circle

The publication of this collection of essays coincides with the marked interest, in recent years, in Brentano’s philosophy, so that, as Tim Crane pointed out in his introduction to the recent reedition of the English translation of Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, Brentano’s work is presently “more scrutinized and debated than it has been for at least a hundred years.”1 This recent interest in Brentano’s philosophy is not merely circumstantial: it is mainly due, beyond the many events that have been organized as part of the centenary of his passing, to the originality and the actuality of his thought in light of the recent debates in philosophy. Indeed, besides Crane, there are quite a few philosophers who have recently contributed to the re-actualization of Brentano’s philosophy. This becomes quite manifest in the domain of philosophy of mind2 in which Uriah Kriegel, for example, has been advocating, for some years a neo-Brentanian philosophical program in addition to having significantly contributed to the recent Thanks to Friedrich Stadler et Guillaume Fréchette for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this introduction.  Crane, T. (2015), “Foreword to F. Brentano, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint”, London: Routledge, p. VIII. J. Benoist speaks of a “recent resurrection” of Brentano and rightly insists on the immense debt of Husserl to his master Brentano (in C.-E.  Niveleau (dir.) (2014), Vers une philosophie scientifique. Le programme de Brentano, préface de J. Benoist, Paris: Demopolis, p. 13. 2  See Tassone, B. G. (2012), From Psychology to Phenomenology: Franz Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint and Contemporary Philosophy of Mind, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 1

D. Fisette (*) Department of Philosophy, University of Quebec at Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano and Austrian Philosophy, Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40947-0_1

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reception of Brentano.3 This interest in Brentano’s work has given rise over the past 5 years to a great deal of original contributions to different aspects of Brentano’s philosophy, as much in the field of the history of philosophy as in those of ontology and metaphysics,4 for example. One of the themes in which Brentano’s ideas are most discussed today is that of the nature of mental phenomena in relation to the notion of intentionality that Brentano has the merit of having reintroduced into the vocabulary of our discipline, and which the papers reproduced in the first section, and, indirectly, most of the essays that we publish in this volume, address. Today, the horizon of the debates on intentionality has changed somewhat since the late 1950s, when Quine was engaged with R.  Chisholm in a controversy over the necessity of the intentional idiom in philosophy or else, in Chisholm’s correspondence with Wilfrid Sellars, on the linguistic or non-linguistic character of the intentional. The overall interest in this issue considerably changed since then, even if Chisholm’s interpretation, which is still associated today with what is commonly called “Brentano’s thesis,” remains at the heart of many debates on the true meaning of Brentano’s view on intentionality.5 One of these debates concerns whether Chisholm, in agreement with the understanding of intentionality by the majority of Brentano’s students, is right to attribute to Brentano, in addition to the psychological thesis (the aboutness of mental phenomena), the so-called ontological thesis (intentional in-existence as an entity endowed with a peculiar form of existence) in his interpretation of the meaning of intentionality in Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, in particular.6 But beyond this exegetical debate, Brentano’s thesis remains a lively alternative in recent philosophy, particularly in relation to the theme of consciousness, which has been, for some years now, the privileged research subject of many contemporary philosophers. One of the interesting debates is that surrounding the relationship between consciousness and intentionality. This debate has been the subject of many recent discussions among Brentano’s commentators, along with several other related issues, such as, for example, the unity of consciousness, which is also central  See among other works Kriegel, U. (2018), Brentano’s Philosophical System: Mind, Being, Value. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Kriegel, U. (Ed.) (2017), The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School, London: Routledge; the special issue on Brentano’s centennial in The Monist (2017) on the occasion of the publication of this journal’s hundredth volume. Two further philosophical journals devoted a special issue to Brentano’s centenary: Brentano Studien, vol. 16, 2018; Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, vol. 142, no. 4, 2017. 4  Lamberto, Maria Luisa (2015), Deskriptive Metaphysik: Die Frage nach Gott bei Franz Brentano, Würzburger Studien zur Fundamentaltheologie, Frankfurt: Peter Lang; see also the papers collected in Tanasescu, I. (Ed.) (2012), Franz Brentano’s Metaphysics and Psychology, Bucharest: Zeta books. 5  Cf. D. Fisette, D. /G. Fréchette, G. (Eds.) (2013), Themes from Brentano, Amsterdam: Rodopi, Section II: “Varieties of intentionality”, p. 87–164; Brentano Studien, Special Issue on Brentano’s Concept of Intentionality. New Assessments, vol. 13, 2015. 6   Brentano, F. (1973) Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, transl. A.C.  Rancurello, D.B. Terrell, and L. McAlister, London: Routledge. 3

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to Brentano and his students.7 This issue is closely related to the one regarding the nature of consciousness in Brentano and to his connection to “phenomenal consciousness” which is now considered, to use David Chalmers’ well-known expression, the “hard problem” in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. In fact, there are several theories of consciousness that more or less explicitly claim to be followers of Brentano. The two most influential are now well established in contemporary philosophy. The first is associated with Tim Crane8 and what he calls in his book Aspects of Psychologism “weak intentionalism,” which is also a version of “Brentano’s thesis” (intentionality as the mark of the mental), and according to which “the nature of a conscious mental state is determined by its intentionality.”9 Recently, U. Kriegel stressed the affinities between Brentano’s descriptive psychology and the phenomenal intentionality program, which can be summarized as “the intentionality a mental state exhibits purely in virtue of its phenomenal character.”10 This program is based on two main principles which are also attributed to Brentano: a) intentionality as the mark of the mental, and b) all mentality is conscious. Another alternative pertains to higher order theories (HOT) of consciousness,11 a version of which has also been advocated by U. Kriegel under the name of self-­representational theory of consciousness.12 All of these theories are corroborated to a certain extent by Brentano’s writings, and they all have the merit of showing the actual relevance of Brentano’s philosophy of mind. There are several other topics related to Brentano’s philosophy that are currently attracting a lot of attention, including that of values in relation to emotions and affective states. This topic has recently given rise to several original contributions,  B. Dainton has recently published several papers on the unity of consciousness which are very instructive as to the relevance of Brentano’s work in light of current debates on the subject; see Dainton, B. (2017a), “Brentano on the Unity of Consciousness”, in: Kriegel, U. (Ed.) (2017), Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School, London and New  York: Routledge, p. 61–74; Dainton, B. (2017b), “Brentano on Phenomenal Unity and Consciousness”, in: Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, vol. 142, no. 4, p. 513–528; Dainton, B. (2014), “Unity, Synchrony, and Subjects”, in: Bennett, D. /Hill, C. H. (Eds.) (2014), Sensory Integration and the Unity of Consciousness, Cambridge: MIT Press, p. 255–285. 8  In fact, the first one goes back to the work of Smith, D. W. (1986), “The structure of (self-)consciousness”, in: Topoi, Vol.5, No. 2, p. 149–156 and it was recently taken up by Thomasson, A. (2000), “After Brentano: A One-Level Theory of Consciousness”, in: European Journal of Philosophy, vol. 8, p. 190–209) who advocates an adverbial theory of consciousness. 9  Crane, Tim (2014), Aspects of Psychologism, Harvard: Harvard University Press, p. 150. 10  Kriegel, U. (Ed.) (2013), Phenomenal Intentionality, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p.  2; Kriegel, U. (2013), “Phenomenal intentionality: past and present, introductory”, in: Phenomenology and the Cognitive Science, vol. 12, p. 437–444. 11  See the special issue of the Brazilian journal Argumentos on Brentano and higher order theories of consciousness, vol. 7, no, 3, 2015. 12  See Kriegel, U. (2009), Subjective Consciousness: A Self-Representational Theory, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009; Kriegel, U. (2003), “Consciousness as Intransitive SelfConsciousness: Two Views and an Argument”, in: Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 33, no. 1, p. 103–132; Kriegel, U. (2003), “Consciousness, Higher-Order Content, and the Individuation of Vehicles”, in: Synthese, vol. 134, no. 3, p. 477–504. 7

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notably with respect to the relationship between Brentano’s conception of values and the contemporary theories called “fitting attitudes theories of value.” Several recent books examine this topic in depth in Brentano’s philosophy.13 This theme has also given rise to original contributions, not only from philosophers belonging to the Geneva environment (K. Mulligan in particular, but also J. Deonna and F. Teroni14) but also from outsiders to Brentanian circles such as J. Olson15 and M. Montague,16 for example, who take a fresh and informed look at Brentano’s contribution in this field of research. But all this recent interest in Brentano’s philosophy cannot develop as much as many would like because, contrary to the writings of several of his students, including Husserl’s, only a fraction of Brentano’s writings is currently accessible to Brentano’s actual and potential readers. And many of his writings that are accessible through the editions of O. Kraus, A. Kastil, and F. Mayer-Hillebrand present major problems because of the editorial policies that prevailed in their editions. This editorial work has to be done all over again because Brentano’s writings have been systematically manipulated in order to promote Brentano’s late philosophical views.17 Since 2008, the reedition of Brentano’s works published during his lifetime has been undertaken by Ontos Verlag (now de Gruyter),18 supplemented by original introductions. Needless to say, the publication of numerous manuscripts, dictations, seminars, lecture notes, or Brentano’s abundant correspondence would greatly contribute to enhancing the contemporary interest in Brentano’s work.19

 Cf. Kriegel, U. (2018), Brentano’s Philosophical System: Mind, Being, Value, chapters 7–9, p. 187–281; Textor, M. (2017), Brentano’s Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press, chapters 9–11, p. 194–245; Fisette/Fréchette (Eds.) (2013), Themes from Brentano, Section IV, p. 273–338. 14  One of Mulligan’s last contributions is “Incorrect Emotions in Ancient, Austrian & Contemporary Philosophy”, in: Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, 2017, vol. 142, no. 4, p. 491–512; Deonna, J. /Teroni, F. (2012), The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction, London: Routledge. 15  Olson, J. (2017), “Two Kinds of Ethical Intuitionism: Brentano’s and Reid’s”, in: The Monist, vol. 100, p. 106–119; Olson, J. (2017), “Brentano’s Metaethics”, in: Kriegel, U. (Ed.) (2017), The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School, London and New  York: Routledge, p. 187–195. 16  Montague, M. (2017), “A Contemporary View of Brentano’s Theory of Emotion”, in: The Monist, vol. 100, p. 64–87; Montague, M. (2017), “Brentano on Will and Emotion”, in: Kriegel, U. (Ed.) (2017), The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School, p. 110–123; Montague, M. (2016), The Given, Oxford: Oxford University Press (chapters 2 and 5 specifically on Brentano). 17  Cf, Fisette/Fréchette (Eds.) (2013), Themes from Brentano, Section V, p. 359–418. 18  Brentano (2008–2018), Sämtliche veröffentlichte Schriften, Berlin: De Gruyter. 19  Note however the recent publication of his correspondence with Stumpf: Binder, T. (Ed.) (2014), Franz Brentano-Carl Stumpf: Briefwechsel 1867–1917, Frankfurt: Peter Lang, and Brentano’s correspondence with G.  Fechner: Brentano, F. /Fechner, G.  T. /Antonelli, M. (Eds.) (2015), Briefwechsel über Psychophysik, 1874–1878, Berlin: De Gruyter. These two documents are important both for biographical information on Brentano and philosophically as complements to his published works. For since Brentano did not publish much during his lifetime but has maintained a substantial correspondence philosophically speaking with his students and several other philoso13

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That said, Brentano’s philosophical program was the starting point for many of his students, who brought their original contributions, even if they sometimes significantly deviated from Brentano’s teaching.20 There is a sense in which Brentano’s program was sometimes developed and deepened in a much more systematic way by his successors, and that Brentano’s philosophy, to be a fundamental contribution in this respect, is not the only one and perhaps not the most elaborated given that Brentano published very little in his lifetime. Be that as it may, several writings from, and commentaries on, Brentano’s successors have been published recently that provide a fairly good idea of the breadth and quality of their contribution to this program. This is the case, for example, for the works of the young Husserl, which, although very critical of Brentano, nonetheless constitute a significant contribution to this program. Several articles in this volume deal with Husserl’s relation to Brentano’s philosophy and I shall later return to that topic. Let us mention Stumpf’s many writings which, thanks namely to the Stumpf Gesellschaft in Hamburg, have been reedited or translated into English.21 In addition to the many scientific studies on Anton Marty, Karl Bühler, and Alexius Meinong,22 there is the recent publication

phers, it constitutes a significant source of information on Brentano’s philosophy. The correspondence with Stumpf, for example, contains in this edition Stumpf’s own letters, and it represents a particularly important source on exchanges that these two philosophers have had on several subjects. There are also several ongoing projects related to the publication of Brentano’s manuscripts, namely in the well-known collection Primary Sources in Phenomenology at Springer which G. Fréchette has recently resurrected. Finally, let us mention the recent publication of the French translation of many writings from Brentano: Essais et conférences. Sur l’histoire de la philosophie, vol. I, Paris: Vrin 2018; Essais et conférences. La philosophie et ses ramifications, vol. II, Paris: Vrin (forthcoming); Psychologie descriptive, trans. A. Dewalque, Paris: Gallimard 2017. 20  The term “philosophical program” is used here in a very broad sense to account for, on the one hand, Brentano’s plan to carry out his reform of philosophy from an empirical point of view, i.e., as a continuum with science, and on the other hand, the structural unity or architecture underlying Brentano’s philosophy as a whole. This problem has recently been raised by several Brentano’s commentators, namely by Kriegel, U. (2017), “Brentano’s Philosophical Program”, in: The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School, p. 21–34; for a broader view on Brentano’s philosophical program, see Fisette, D. (forthcoming), La philosophie de Franz Brentano, Paris: Vrin. 21  Stumpf, C. (2011), Erkenntnislehre, 2nd ed., Lengerich: Pabst Science Publishers; Stumpf, C. (forthcoming), Tone Psychology: Vol. I: The Sensation of Successive Single Tones, trans. R. Rollinger, London: Routledge; Stumpf, C. (2012), The Origins of Music, transl. D. Trippett, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Fisette, D. /Martinelli, R. (Eds.) (2015), Philosophy from an Empirical Standpoint: Essays on Carl Stumpf, Amsterdam: Rodopi. 22  Fréchette, G. /Taieb, H. (Eds.) (2017), Mind and Language – On the Philosophy of Anton Marty, Berlin: De Gruyter; Cesalli, L. /Friedrich, J. (Eds.) (2014), Anton Marty & Karl Bühler. Between Mind and Language, Basel: Schwabe; Rollinger, R. (2010), Philosophy of Language and Other Matters in the Work of Anton Marty: Analysis and Translations, Amsterdam: Rodopi. On Bühler, see Friedrich, J. (Ed.) (2017), Karl Bühlers ‚Krise der Psychologie‘, Berlin: Springer. On Meinong, see Jacquette, D. (2015), Alexius Meinong. The Shepherd of Non-Being, Berlin: Springer; Leclercq, B. /Richard, S. /Seron, D. (Eds.) (2015), Objects and Pseudo-Objects. Ontological Deserts and Jungles from Brentano to Carnap, Berlin: De Gruyter.

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of major works by the Polish philosopher Kazimierz Twardowski,23 as well as his correspondence with A. Meinong.24 This voluminous literature of the past 5 years on the philosophy of Brentano and his successors, including the essays we publish here, provides us with many arguments justifying the current interest in this segment of the history of philosophy in Austria to which Brentano and his successors belong.

1.1  D  escriptive Psychology and Phenomenology: Brentano and Husserl The first part of this collection of essays focuses on the relationship between Brentano’s descriptive psychology and phenomenology with a special focus on the relationship between Brentano and his student Husserl. The authors of the first three papers are recognized leading experts in Husserl’s philosophy, and they take a new look at the links between the father of phenomenology and his master Brentano. The first paper is authored by Dagfinn Føllesdal, a pioneer in the Husserlian studies since the publication of his careful study in the late 1950s on the relationship between Husserl and Frege.25 Føllesdal’s article “Brentano and Husserl on Intentionality” provides a series of insightful remarks regarding his interpretation of the notion of intentionality in Brentano and Husserl, and it includes an appendix containing a talk delivered in 1995 on Husserl’s theory of intentionality in light of Aristotle’s philosophy. His study begins with short remarks on Brentano’s Aristotelian and medieval background in philosophy and argues that Brentano’s early and late conception of intentionality is largely indebted to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. He then comments on Husserl’s alternative position and his own interpretation of Husserl’s theory of intentionality which has been wrongly dubbed “The Frege interpretation” because, according to Føllesdal, his interpretation of Husserl’s notion of noema (intentional content) “is much closer to Bolzano”. Be that as it may, he also briefly discards a well-known objection to this interpretation based on the identification of the noema to an object. The next part is about Husserl’s interpretation of Brentano’s

 Twardowski, K. (2016), Gesammelte deutsche Werke, Brozek, A. / Jadacki, J. /Stadler, F. (Eds.) (2016), Berlin: Springer; Twardowski, K. (2015), On Prejudices, Judgments and Other Topics in Philosophy, Brozek, A. /Jadacki, J. (Eds.) (2015), Amsterdam: Rodopi; Twardowski, K. (2016), Logik. Wiener Logikkolleg 1894/95, Betti, A. /Raspa, V. (Eds.), Berlin: De Gruyter. 24  Meinong, A. /Twardowski, K. (2016), Der Briefwechsel, Berlin: De Gruyter 2016. On Twardowski and Polish philosophy, see van der Schaar, M. (2016), Kazimierz Twardowski: A Grammar for Philosophy, Leiden: Brill; Brożek, A. (2011), Kazimierz Twardowski. Die Wiener Jahre, Berlin: Springer; Brożek, A. /Chybińska, A. /Jadacki, J. /Woleński, J. (Eds.) (2015), Tradition of the Lvov-Warsaw School Ideas and Continuations, Leiden: Brill. 25  Føllesdal, D. (1958), Husserl und Frege: Ein Beitrag zur Beleuchtung der Entstehung der phänomenologishen Philosophie, Oslo: Viv. Akad.Avh. 23

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philosophy on a number of issues, namely on intentionality, and he then sketches the main points in his Husserl interpretation. Finally, in the appendix on Husserl and Aristotle, he criticizes two opposite interpretations of Aristotle’s theory of perception, more specifically on the relationship between the form and matter of sense-­ organ, and he asks whether it is merely a physiological process involved or whether it is not consciousness which is solely responsible for one becoming aware of the reception of sensible forms. Føllesdal criticizes R. Sorabji’s and M.  Burnyeat’s opposite interpretation of Aristotle and adopts a third way that he associates with Husserl’s theory of perception according to which perception involves both awareness and physiology, and the form taken on by our sensory organ (Husserl’s noema) is considered an abstract intentional structure. D.  W. Smith’s rich and complex paper “Descriptive Psychology and Phenomenology: From Brentano to Husserl to the Logic of Consciousness” focuses on Husserl’s theory of intentionality and he seeks to retrace the complex lineage from Brentano to Husserl’s phenomenology after the publication of Husserl’s Philosophy of Arithmetic26 and onward into the reception of Husserl in contemporary philosophy of mind. He first briefly introduces Brentano’s philosophy of mind and then argues that the originality of the young Husserl’s theory of intentionality developed during this period essentially consists in joining together key elements from descriptive psychology and from logical theory, thereby taking an anti-­ psychologistic turn.27 In the second part, he traces the sources of Husserl’s phenomenology in Brentano’s descriptive psychology; he stresses once again Husserl’s contribution to phenomenology and the originality of his theory of intentionality, which lies, among other things, in the use of the ideal logical form and its integration in his theory of mind. The final result is Husserl’s “semantic” theory of intentionality. Woodruff Smith then addresses the issue of the modalities of consciousness, which is another important aspect of his interpretation of Husserl’s theory of consciousness, and it raises in turn the issue of the ontology of Husserl’s intentional content or the so-called noema. Woodruff Smith claims that Husserl was forming a “semantic” conception of the ideal content of intentional experience. However, he argues, on the other hand, that Husserl was not trying to “force” this conception into the intentional content, but rather believed that mathematical constructions in formal semantics were merely “an abstraction from the structure of lived conscious intentional experience.” The fifth part is a modal theory of Brentano’s intentional “in-existence,” which Smith explains in terms of an “intentional relation” to the intentional object “existing in a horizon of alternative possible situations or worlds” (also in terms of what Hintikka called the “intentionally possible”). In the sixth part, he sketches a modal theory of internal consciousness understood as a feature of the modality in which the mental state is actualized, and he concludes his study with  Husserl (2003), Philosophy of Arithmetic. Psychological and Logical Investigations, Collected Works, vol. X, trans. D. Willard, Berlin: Springer. 27  Cf. Smith, D.  W. (2013), Husserl, 2nd ed., London: Routledge; Dreyfus, H. (Ed.) (1982), Husserl, Intentionality, and Cognitive Science. Cambridge: MIT Press; Smith, D. W. /McIntyre, R. (1982), Husserl and Intentionality. Dordrecht: Reidel. 26

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some remarks on the issue of phenomenal consciousness in recent philosophy of mind.28 In his contribution “Brentano’s Concept of Descriptive Psychology,” Dermot Moran adopts a quite different stance on the relationship between Husserl’s phenomenology and Brentano’s descriptive psychology. His paper begins with a preface on Brentano’s relationship with Cardinal John Henry Newman in 1872 during a short trip in Great Britain whose main goal was to meet John Stuart Mill, a meeting which unfortunately never took place. But the main topic of Moran’s paper is Brentano’s descriptive psychology, which he publicly introduced in his lectures on descriptive psychology delivered in Vienna between 1887 and 1891.29 After a short presentation of Brentano’s distinction between descriptive and genetic psychology, Moran describes Husserl’s conception of descriptive psychology during the Halle period and Brentano’s strong influence on Husserl’s phenomenology, which is understood, in the Logical Investigations, as a descriptive psychology in Brentano’s sense. But Moran argues that Husserl was also very critical of Brentano’s philosophy as a letter he wrote on 18 June 1937 to Marvin Farber apparently testifies. In this letter, Husserl suggests that even if he saw in his own philosophy a contribution to Brentano’s program, he has always considered since the defense of his habilitation thesis, that his own way of thinking was quite different from Brentano’s. This is not the place to debate what Husserl meant by “way of thinking,” but there are quite a few testimonies and passages in his work in which Husserl clearly recognizes his immense debt to Brentano as shown by several essays that we publish in this book.30 Moran then draws some parallels between Brentano’s distinction between descriptive and genetic psychology, Wilhem Dilthey’s distinction in “Ideas concerning a descriptive and analytic psychology”31 between explanatory and descriptive or analytical psychology, and Wundt’s distinction in the introduction to his Principles of Physiological Psychology32 between physiological and descriptive psychology. The next three sections bear on several important issues in Brentano’s psychology, namely the methodological priority of the description over the explanation of mental phenomena, the nature of introspection or inner consciousness, and one of  Smith stresses the importance of the topic of qualia and the issue of phenomenal consciousness in philosophy of mind and he refers to the following recent studies which have drawn Brentanian and Husserlian views into these concerns: T. Bayne, T. /Montague, M. (Eds.) (2011), Cognitive Phenomenology. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Kriegel, U. (Ed.) (2013), Phenomenal Intentionality. Oxford: Oxford University Press; see also Smith, D.  W. /Thomasson, A. (Eds.) (2006), Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 29  Brentano, F. (1995), Descriptive Psychology, trans. B. Müller, London: Routledge. 30  In his recent book Husserl’s Legacy. Phenomenology, Metaphysics, & Transcendental Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2017), D. Zahavi quotes the same excerpt (p. 7–8) in order to discard Brentano’s contribution in the development of Husserl’s philosophy! 31  In: Dilthey, W. (1977), Descriptive Psychology and Historical Understanding, trans. R. Zaner & K. Heiges, The Hague: Nijhoff, p. 21–120. 32  Wundt, W. (1902), Principles of Physiological Psychology, trans. E. B. Titchener, London: Swan Sonnenschein. 28

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Brentano’s main principles in his Psychology, to which Husserl pays much attention in his Logical Investigations, and according to which “all mental phenomena are either presentations or based on presentations.”33 The next two sections are about Husserl’s self-criticism of his characterization of his early version of phenomenology in terms of descriptive psychology that Moran situates in 1902–1903, namely in Husserl’s lectures on epistemology.34 The last paper of this section is authored by Guillaume Fréchette and it is mainly about an issue which has only been addressed superficially by the other articles in this section, namely the division within Brentano’s psychology between phenomenology, which is another name for Brentano’s descriptive psychology, and genetic psychology. Fréchette claims that the complementarity of both branches of psychology was central in Brentano’s initial project of a philosophy as science and he argues that this distinction was already involved in Brentano’s early conception of psychology during the Würzburg period. He first emphasizes the importance, in Brentano’s project, of the first and fourth habilitation theses: the first thesis is based on a sharp division between speculative and exact sciences whereas the fourth prescribes the use in philosophy of the methods of the natural sciences. He then maintains that Brentano’s two theses constitute the basis of his program of a philosophy as science to the extent that Brentano’s psychology, for example, is a mixture of what Fréchette calls speculative exactness and empirical research.

1.2  Brentano and the Vienna Circle The three papers of this section address several aspects of Brentano’s activity at the University of Vienna, the relationship that he and his successors in Austria have had with the Vienna Circle, and the place of Brentano’s program in the history of philosophy in Austria. Several studies on this topic have been dominated by the idea of a specific “Austrian philosophy” that goes back to Bernard Bolzano, and which later developed notably via Brentano and his students, to finally result in logical empiricism and the Vienna Circle. This idea was explicitly formulated for the first time in Otto Neurath’s seminal work on the historical development of the Vienna Circle, in which he advances the hypothesis that logical empiricism is the culmination of empiricist trends in the history of philosophy in Austria since Bolzano, and that Vienna’s intellectual environment (Umfeld) has set up the favorable conditions for the development of an empiricist attitude as taught radically by the Vienna Circle.35 This idea has been taken over and systematically developed by Rudolf Haller in several studies, notably in his classical article “Wittgenstein and Austrian  Brentano, F. (1874), Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, p. 85.  Husserl, Allgemeine Erkenntnistheorie. Vorlesung 1902/03, Husserliana Materialien, vol. III, E. Schuhmann (Ed.) (2001), Berlin: Springer. 35  Neurath, O. (1935), Le développement du Cercle de Vienne et l’avenir de l’empirisme logique, Paris: Hermann, p. 8. 33 34

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Philosophy,” in which he defends what is now called the Neurath-Haller thesis according to which there exists since Bolzano an autonomous Austrian philosophy (as opposed to the German tradition) possessing an “intrinsic homogeneity” which is characterized among other things by its scientific Weltanschauung and its aversion to Kantianism and metaphysics.36 The next step was taken by Barry Smith in the 1990s in his influential book Austrian Philosophy, in which he criticizes the alleged regionalist and ethnocentric connotations of the Neurath-Haller thesis, and emphasized the central place of Brentano and his successors in this tradition, thus relegating the logical positivism to merely “a part of the exact or analytic philosophical legacy of Brentano.”37 No one doubts the major impact of Brentano’s philosophical program on the course of the history of philosophy in Austria, despite the fact that, after his resignation as professor in 1880, Brentano had only the status of a Privatdozent in Vienna. However, by the time he definitively left Austria in 1895, most of the chairs of philosophy in the Habsburg Empire were occupied by his own students who, as we shall see, disseminated Brentano’s ideas inside and outside Austria. As for the link with the Vienna Circle, several recent studies, including those reproduced in this book and Uebel’s careful studies on Neurath and the prehistory of the Vienna Circle,38 clearly show that the Austrian members of the Vienna Circle were acquainted with Brentano’s philosophy, namely through the discussions they had with many students of Brentano and Meinong who were active in Vienna at the time when Neurath, Frank, and Hahn made their first step in philosophy. This is partly confirmed by Neurath in the Vienna Circle manifesto (1929), of which he was the main author, and his pamphlet mentioned above where he mentions Brentano several times and stresses the orientation that Brentano and his students adopted toward experimental sciences and logical thinking.39 Moreover, recent studies show that Brentano not only favored the positivist program as advocated by philosophers such as Auguste Comte and even Ernst Mach, for example, in whom Brentano saw the signs of an ascending phase of philosophy at the time, but in addition, his own program of philosophy as a science bore many traces of Comte’s positivism, for instance. It is true that Brentano is sometimes very critical of the main defenders of the positivist program, as shown by his lectures “Contemporary philosophical

 Haller, R. (1996), “Wittgenstein and Austrian Philosophy”, in: Lehrer, K. /Marek, J. C. (Eds.) (1996), Austrian Philosophy Past and Present, Dordrecht: Kluwer, p. 1–20. 37  Smith, B. (1994), Austrian Philosophy: The Legacy of Franz Brentano, La Salle: Open Court, p. 29. 38  See Uebel, T. (2000), Vernunftkritik und Wissenschaft: Otto Neurath und der erste Wiener Kreis, Berlin: Springer; Uebel, T. (1999), “Otto Neurath, the Vienna Circle and the Austrian Tradition”, in: O’Hear, A. (Ed.) (1999), German Philosophy since Kant, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 249–269. 39  Neurath, O. (1935) Le développement du Cercle de Vienne et l’avenir de l’empirisme logique, p. 36, 38, 43. 36

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questions”40 which he held in Vienna 1 year before he left Austria, and in which he carefully examines several versions of positivism from Comte to Mach and Stuart Mill. It is also true that his orthodox students such as Kraus and Kastil created a gap between Brentano’s late philosophy and neo-positivism, as we shall see. But as far as Brentano is concerned, far from rejecting positivism out of hand, he remains close enough to Mach’s and Stuart Mill’s version of positivism, mainly methodologically, to propose different means to fill the gap between their respective philosophical positions. This fact is significant in the present context given that Mach has been a major source of inspiration for most members of the Vienna Circle.41 The first contribution to this section is Hans-Joachim Dahms’ paper “Brentano’s appointment at the University of Vienna”, which is an original and well-documented study of Brentano’s intellectual biography in Vienna and also to the history of philosophy in Austria.42 It commences with the so-called Glaubenskrise in Brentano’s life during his last years in Würzburg and his criticism of the dogma of the Papal infallibility enacted by the Catholic Church during the First Vatican Council in July 1870. The second part deals with the situation of philosophy in Vienna before Brentano’s arrival, and the long and complex process that led to his appointment in 1874. In his article “My Last Wishes for Austria” written shortly before he left Austria in 1895, Brentano observed that, when he arrived in Vienna in 1874, there was indeed a Herbartian doctrine – he refers to Herbart’s two disciples in Vienna, Franz Karl Lott and Robert Zimmermann – but there was no school, and this nothingness was all what existed then in Vienna.43 Dahms clearly explains how Brentano, thanks to the intervention of Hermann Lotze and the minister Karl von Stremayr, managed to obtain this chair in Vienna. He then turns to Brentano’s inaugural lecture in Vienna entitled “On the reasons of discouragement in philosophical domains,”44 in which Brentano outlines for the first time his program of a philosophy as science, and briefly describes the reception of Brentano’s teaching and activity in Vienna. One of the original aspects of Dahms’s paper lies in the discovery of Brentano’s several documents in which he outlines his program for the future of philosophy in Vienna. Some of these documents are not available anymore, but there is one piece entitled “The Needs of Philosophical Studies at our University” that was sent to Stremayr’s successor, Paul Gautsch, in 1886, in which Brentano formulated some recommendations to the Minister for the purpose of attracting new

 The manuscript of the 1893–1894 lectures ‘Zeitbewegende philosophische Fragen’ has not yet been published; it bears the signature LS 20; see also Brentano, F., Über Ernst Machs ‘Erkenntnis und Irrtum’, Chisholm, R. /Marek, J. C. (Eds.) (1988), Amsterdam: Rodopi. 41  Stadler, F. (1997), Studien zum Wiener Kreis, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. 42  See also Dahms, H.-J. / Stadler, F. (2015), “Die Philosophie an der Universität Wien von 1848 bis zur Gegenwart”, in: Kniefacz, K. /Nemeth, E. /Posch, H. /Stadler, F. (Eds.) (2015), Universität – Forschung  – Lehre. Themen und Perspektiven im langen 20. Jahrhundert, Göttingen, Vienna: University Press, p. 77–131. 43  Brentano, F. (1895), Meine letzten Wünsche für Österreich, Stuttgart: Cotta, p. 34. 44  Brentano, F. (1874), Über die Gründe der Entmutigung auf philosophischem Gebiete, Wien: Braumüller. 40

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young students and promoting the scientific and philosophical research in the faculty. To do this, Brentano recommends setting up a seminar and a laboratory of psychology which, however, he would never obtain, as Brentano will later explain in his article “My Last Wishes for Austria.” As Dahms points out at the end of his study, it is only in 1922 that a psychological chair and institute was established in Vienna, and ironically it was a sympathizer of Brentano’s philosophy, namely Karl Bühler, who inherited the responsibility of this institute.45 In his challenging paper “Intentionality in the Vienna Circle,” Thomas Uebel is interested in the overall stance of the Vienna Circle members vis-à-vis Brentano’s notion of intentionality. He maintains that most of them agree with Brentano’s view on intentionality as the key concept in the domain of psychology, but unlike Brentano, they sought to naturalize intentionality through different means, namely via logical behaviorism. He begins with an exposition of the received view according to which logical positivist philosophy of mind aims for the dismissal of intentionality by different means. Moreover, he relies heavily on the work of D. Moran46 to criticize the standard view of Brentano’s thesis that I mentioned above. He claims, after Moran, that Brentano did not “argue that intentionality constituted a mark of the mental that distinguished mind as irreducible to body or that it was to be analyzed as a person’s relation to a proposition – nor was he, as others have argued, much concerned with the mind’s relation to non-existent objects.” This claim is certainly not unproblematic in light of what I said above, but Uebel’s interpretation of Brentano’s theory of intentionality along the lines of a relational approach is also advocated by several well-known interpreters of Brentano.47 Be that as it may, Uebel proposes to stick only to the psychological thesis and the directedness of mental phenomena because it was from this angle that the members of the Vienna Circle understood Brentano’s intentionality thesis. Uebel’s paper is divided into five main parts. He begins with some observations on the relationship between the Austrian members of the so-called first Vienna Circle with Brentano’s students in Vienna. He first hypothesizes that the Meinong-­ Höfler logical textbook,48 which was mandatory for young Austrian students at the time, probably constituted the first contact that O. Neurath, P. Frank, and H. Hahn had with the notion of intentionality. Another possible source considered by Uebel lies in their discussions with Brentano’s students in the Philosophical Society in which Neurath and Frank, for example, were very much involved. The situation is quite different for the non-Austrian members of the Vienna Circle, such as M. Schlick and R. Carnap, who, as we know, were very familiar with the work of  See Benetka, G. (1990), Zur Geschichte der Institutionalisierung der Psychologie in Österreich. Die Errichtung des Wiener Psychologischen Instituts, Wien, Salzburg: Geyer-Ed., p. 148 f. 46  Moran, D. (1996), “Brentano’s thesis”, in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, Vol. 70, p. 1–27. 47  See the special issue on intentionality of the Brentano Studien (vol. 13, 2015) which opposes advocates of the orthodox interpretation of Brentano’s views on intentionality to the proponents of unorthodox and continuist interpretation. 48  Höfler, A. (1890), Logik (unter Mitwirkung v. A. Meinong), Vienna: Tempsky. 45

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Brentano and his students. He first examines M. Schlick and claims that despite his criticism of Brentano and his students, namely in his book Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre,49 Schlick nonetheless endorsed Brentano’s intentionality thesis. He then addresses three aspects of Carnap’s position on intentional relations: first, in the Aufbau50; second, through Carnap’s logical behaviorism; and third, in connection with his conception of psychological terms in Meaning and Necessity,51 in which Carnap developed an intensional logic for the analysis of meaning. The last part of this study concerns Neurath’s position with regard to the intentionality thesis which, according to Uebel, while not a priori against the very idea of intentionality as the mark of the mental, seems to adopt a form of behaviorism. This is not very far from Quine’s behaviorism, which aims at eliminating the intentional and the mental altogether from philosophy. Uebel’s paper also contains an appendix on Carnap’s extensionality thesis. Damböck’s paper “(Dis-)Similarities: Remarks on ‘Austrian’ and ‘German’ Philosophy in the 19th century” raises a more general issue regarding the historiography of the history of philosophy in Austria and it bears on a subset of the Neurath-­ Haller thesis that I mentioned above, i.e., the position advocated by Barry Smith at the very beginning of his book Austrian Philosophy. Smith’s challenging position has been criticized over the years but Damböck is more interested in Smith’s series of features that he listed at the beginning of his book and through which he characterizes Austrian philosophy in the 19th and twentieth century. This series of features is also meant to dissociate the Austrian tradition from the history of philosophy in Germany, which has been dominated by Kantianism in all respects, from German Idealism to the different schools of Neo-Kantianism. Damböck argues that Smith’s features are somewhat too focused on the Bolzano-Brentano axis, and he proposes to purify it from its idiosyncratic elements. He then claims that this new abbreviated list satisfies Austrian philosophers, as well as many representatives of German philosophy, and Smith’s argument to the effect that his list is ultimately applicable only to Austrian philosophers is therefore false. Damböck’s analysis raises the question regarding the scope of this criticism on the Neurath-Haller thesis. This question arises all the more since Smith’s thesis on Brentano’s place in Austrian philosophy was initially intended, if not as a contribution to the Neurath-Haller thesis, at least as an alternative.52 Smith himself ­challenged  Schlick, M. (1918), Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre, Berlin: Springer, in particular §20 entitled “Die sogenannte innere Wahrnehmung” in which he examines the concepts of internal perception and evidence by Stumpf and Brentano. 50  Carnap, R. (1928), Der logische Aufbau der Welt, Berlin: Weltkreisverlag. 51  Carnap, R. (1947), Meaning and Necessity, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 52  Smith seems to distance himself from this thesis in an article published 2 years after his book (“The Neurath-Haller thesis: Austria and the Rise of scientific Philosophy”, in: Lehrer, K. /Marek, J. C. (Eds.) (1996), Austrian Philosophy Past and Present, Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 1–20) in which he argues that the expression „Austrian Philosophy“is a misnomer because it wrongly suggests „that there is a corresponding sectarian or regional or ethnic philosophy” (p. 26). Smith maintains instead that it is the German philosophical tradition which is the philosophical sick man of Europe” (p. 12). 49

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Haller’s criteria and argued that several other criteria can support this claim, including institutional criteria. The real issue then is whether there is a tradition that is typical of the history of philosophy in Austria and how it differs from the German tradition. Neurath’s main hypothesis, as I said, is that logical empiricism is the culmination of empiricist tendencies in the history of philosophy in Austrian since Bolzano, and these empiricist trends constitute in turn the conditions for the development of an empiricist stance of which the Vienna Circle is a radicalization.53 I take it, on the one hand, that the core of Neurath’s understanding of this tradition and the common denominator of this typically Austrian tradition is empiricism in its different forms, and on the other hand, that Neurath’s position so understood is not essentially affected by the criticisms directed against the Neurath-Haller thesis.

1.3  Brentano and the History of Philosophy The contributions in the third section are on the topic of Brentano and the history of philosophy in general. It includes four studies on different aspects of Brentano’s relationship with philosophers belonging to his vast network of interlocutors and acquaintances. These studies of Brentano’s historical work add to the many recent publications on Brentano’s main correspondents and interlocutors that have attracted a great deal of interest in recent years.54 Several of these studies have focused on Brentano’s privileged relationship with British philosophers such as Alexander Bain, Thomas Reid, G.  F. Stout, Edward B. Titchener, for example, or positivist philosophers such as Auguste Comte and Ernst Mach, for example, or with German philosophers such as Hermann R. Lotze, Wilhelm Wundt or Gustav Fechner. These studies provide us with a much better understanding of Brentano’s intellectual environment. Worth mentioning in this regard is the marked interest of the medievalists55 for different aspects of Brentano’s works on medieval and ancient philosophy.

 Neurath, O. (1935), Le développement du Cercle de Vienne et l’avenir de l’empirisme logique, p. 8. 54  Cf. the last issue of Brentano Studien (vol. 16, 2018) on Brentano’s centennial; the proceedings to the Prague conference in June 2017: Fisette, D. /Fréchette, G. /Janousek, H. (Eds.) (2019), Franz Brentano’s Philosophy after one Hundred Years – From History of Philosophy to Reism, Berlin: Springer; Antonelli, M. /Binder, T. (Eds.) (2019), The Philosophy of Franz Brentano, Studien zur österreichischen Philosophie, Amsterdam: Brill. 55  de Libera, A. (2017), “Le Centaure et le Schimmel. Onto-logique d’une fiction dans la Psychologie du point de vue empirique”, in: Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger, vol. 142, no. 4, p.  471–489; de Libra, A. (2014), “Le direct et l’oblique: sur quelques aspects antiques et médiévaux de la théorie brentanienne des relatifs”, in: Reboul, A. (Ed.) (2014), Mind, Values, and Metaphysics, Berlin: Springer, p.  317–347; Reboul, A. (2012), “L’Ouverture écossaise: Brentano critique de Bain”, in: Quaestio, vol. 12, p. 123–15; see also Cesalli, L. /Friedrich, J. (Eds.) (2014), Anton Marty & Karl Bühler. Between Mind and Language, Basel: Schwabe; Fréchette, G. /Taieb, H. (Eds.) (2017), Mind and Language – On the Philosophy of Anton Marty, Berlin: De Gruyter. 53

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The four studies in this section examine three philosophers that Brentano knew well, namely, John Stuart Mill, Wilhelm Jerusalem, and Ernst von Lasaulx; the fourth study examines Brentano’s student Kazimierz Twardowski and his contribution to a renaissance of philosophy in Poland at the beginning of the twentieth century. In “Learning from Lasaulx: The Origins of Brentano’s Four Phases Theory,” Richard Schaefer questions the origins of Brentano’s philosophy of history based on his four phases theory.56 He focusses his attention on Lasaulx with whom the young Brentano studied between 1856 and 1857 and who, according to Stumpf in one his memoirs on Brentano, would have exerted a lasting influence on our philosopher.57 This hypothesis is prima facie plausible even if, again according to Stumpf, it was only Easter of 1860 when Brentano reported having acquired the idea of the four phases “as a way to overcome his pessimism over the state of philosophy.”58 Nevertheless, Schaefer shows convincingly that many parallels can be drawn between the main principles of Lasaulx’s philosophy and Brentano’s program of a philosophy as science that I described above, and also in their approach to history. One of the interesting elements in light of Brentano’s early criticism of Comte’s three states theory is that Lasaulx, in his own philosophy of history, takes into account the negative moments in this historical process  – namely, “decline and death” – and just like Comte and Brentano, he maintains that history is guided by laws. But what is more important, they both encourage the use of the inductive method in philosophy and they both share the overall project of philosophy as science. Anna Brożek’s study “Franz Brentano and Polish Philosophical Thought” is about the influence of Brentano’s philosophy on the Polish philosophical tradition from Kazimierz Twardowski to philosophers of the Lvov-Warsaw School. The first half of her paper is a general reflection on the very phenomenon of “influence” in the practice of the history of philosophy before tackling the Polish philosophical thought as such. She first looks at the source of Brentano’s ideas in Poland (i.e., mainly Twardowski’s work) and she examines the numerous aspects of Brentano’s philosophical program, from Brentano’s philosophy of history to his logic. She argues that it was through his student Twardowski that Brentano exerted his influence on Twardowski’s Polish students and some of the members of the logical branch of the Lvov-Warsaw School: J. Łukasiewicz, S. Leśniewski, and A. Tarski. She claims that Brentano’s philosophy also exerted a certain influence on Polish psychologists who have taken up typical Brentanian themes such as the distinction between descriptive and physiological psychology, the priority of the descriptive over the explanatory, the intentional character of mental phenomena and their  Brentano, F. (1998), “The Four Phases of Philosophy and Its Current State,” in: Mezei, B. /Smith, B. (Eds.) (1998), The Four Phases of Philosophy, Amsterdam: Rodopi. 57  Stumpf, C. (1922), „Franz Brentano“, in: Lebenslaufe aus Franken, vol. 2, Würzburg: Kabitzsch Verlag, p. 68. 58  Stumpf, C. (1976), “Reminiscences of Franz Brentano”, trans. L.  McAlister, in: McAlister, L. (Ed.) (1976), The Philosophy of Franz Brentano, London: Duckworth, p. 27. 56

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classification in three classes, Brentano’s ontology, ethics, and philosophy of history. In her conclusion, she points out that several aspects of Brentano’s program are still alive in contemporary Polish philosophy.59 In his paper “Brentano and Jerusalem on the Nature of Judgment”, Mark Textor carefully examines the difference between Jerusalem’s theory of judgment and Brentano’s. In the first part, he compares Brentano’s theory of judgment (based on the notion of psychological mode or attitude) with that of Mach, which he describes as a relational theory of judgment whose function consists in relating something to something else. The second part of his paper is meant to introduce W. Jerusalem’s theory of judgment in his “Anti-Brentano book”60 in which he sides with Mach against Brentano. In Die Urteilsfunktion, Jerusalem develops three arguments against Brentano’s view of judgement in terms of attitudes: the circularity argument, the linguistic articulation argument, and the argument from the judgment function, which Textor examines in the next three parts of his paper. He argues that Brentano can escape Jerusalem’s arguments. My own study, the last of this collection of essays, is entitled “Brentano and John Stuart Mill on Phenomenalism and Mental Monism” and I examine Brentano’s criticism of a version of phenomenalism that he calls “mental monism,” which he attributes to “positivist” philosophers such as Ernst Mach and John Stuart Mill, for example. I am mainly interested in Brentano’s criticism of Mill’s version of mental monism which is based on the idea of “permanent possibilities of sensation.” Brentano claims that this form of monism can be characterized by the identification of the class of physical phenomena with that of mental phenomena, and argues that it commits itself to a form of idealism. Brentano argues instead for a form of indirect or hypothetical realism based on intentional correlations. Kastil’s manuscripts in the appendix constitute a significant contribution to this book’s main topic, i.e., the relationship between Brentano’s philosophical program and the history of philosophy in Austria, in particular the philosophy of the Vienna Circle.61 Alfred Kastil was a student of Anton Marty in Prague and he is known, in the Brentanian circles, as the main editor, with Oskar Kraus, of the publication of Brentano’s writings as I mentioned above. He was also closely related to Brentano in the last years of his life as shown by his extensive correspondence with Brentano. He spent most of his career in Innsbruck, where he was professor from 1909 to 1934, and he then moved to Schönbühel near Melk in Austria, not too far from Vienna, where he lived in Brentano’s summer house thanks to Brentano’s son Giovanni, to whom Kastil had been the tutor several years before. At Schönbühel, Kastil’s main concern was to prepare the edition of Brentano’s writings for  Cf. Brożek, A. /Jadacki, C. J. /Woleński, J. (Eds.) (2016), Tradition of the Lvov-Warsaw School Ideas and Continuations, Leiden, Boston: Brill. 60  Jerusalem, W. (1895), Die Urteilsfunktion: eine psychologische und erkenntniskritische Untersuchung, Wien: Braumüller. 61  On Kastil’s life and work, see Goller, P. (1989), Die Lehrkanzeln für Philosophie an der philosophischen Fakultät der Universität Innsbruck (1848 bis 1945), Innsbruck: Kommissionsverlag der Wagner’schen Kommissionsbuchhandlung, p. 123–151. 59

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p­ ublication, but he also accepted, for two semesters, a lectureship at the University of Vienna, where he lectured on “Selected metaphysical questions” in the summer semester of 1937 and, in the winter semester of 1937–1938, he lectured on “The philosophy of Franz Brentano”.62 Moreover, at the beginning of the 1930s, Kastil took up, together with Oskar Kraus, the scientific defense of Brentano’s late philosophy against Brentano’s unorthodox students and against neo-positivism or logical empiricism advocated by the members of the Vienna Circle.63 Kastil undertook an all-out campaign against philosophers who did not comply with this version of Brentano’s late philosophy based on reism, including Stumpf64 and his student Husserl.65 Worth mentioning in this context is Kastil’s Gastvorlesung that he read in Karl Bühler’s seminar in the summer semester of 1935 on Brentano’s conception of the relationship between psychology and philosophy.66 We know that Bühler obtained the chair of “Philosophy with special consideration for experimental psychology and pedagogy” at the University of Vienna in August 1922 and he began his teaching the same year as the Kantian Robert Reininger and as Moritz Schlick, who inherited Brentano’s chair occupied before him by Ernst Mach and partly Ludwig Boltzmann. There is a sense to say that, upon his arrival in Vienna, Bühler assumed Brentano’s legacy. For by obtaining a fully equipped experimental psychological research institute at the University of Vienna, Bühler succeeded where all of his predecessors in Vienna failed, starting with Brentano himself who, as I said above, left Vienna in 1895 namely because of the ministry’s refusal to grant him a laboratory of psychology. Although it was not Bühler but Schlick who inherited officially

 Wieser, A. R. (1950), Die Geschichte des Faches Philosophie an der Universität Wien 1848–1938, Dissertation in philosophy, Vienna: University of Vienna, p. 227. 63  Kastil’s crusade against the so-called Brentano’s secessionist students had already begun in 1909, in his book Studien zur Erkenntnistheorie (vol. I: Descartes. Halle: M.  Niemeyer 1909), where he denounced the major modifications proposed by Brentano’s students Meinong, Höfler, and Twardowsky to the master’s conception of intentionality. 64  In his article “Ein neuer Rettungsversuch der Evidenz der äußeren Wahrnehmung. Kritische Bemerkungen zu Stumpfs Erkenntnislehre” (in: Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung, vol. 3, 1948, p. 198–218), Kastil again defends Brentano against Stumpf’s criticism of Brentano’s thesis of perception as judgment. 65  See Kastil, A. (1958), “Brentano und der Psychologismus”, in: Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, vol. 12, no. 3, p. 351–359) in which he defends Brentano against Husserl’s objection of logical psychologism in his Prolegomena. 66  Kastil’s short presentation in Bühler’s seminar is a sketch of Brentano’s philosophical program and a concise description of its two main branches, i.e., metaphysics and psychology, of the three main normative sciences i.e., aesthetic, ethics, and logic, which are rooted in psychology, and of the distinction, within the latter, between descriptive and genetic psychology. He then raises the question of psychologism, which he understands in terms of the confusion between Sein and Sollen with respect to the relationship between philosophy and psychology, and he argues that Brentano saw in this objection a mere sobriquet unsuitable for serious philosophical discussion. He also examines a second objection pertaining to the manner in which anti-psychologists base their requirement of the a priori character of the concepts of metaphysics. The last part of his paper is a brief description of Brentano’s works. 62

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Brentano’s chair, the hiring of Bühler in Vienna was nevertheless intended to fill this gap as one can see in the ministry’s report dated from 1922: Since Brentano’s departure, the Faculty of philosophy in Vienna and its institute, which specializes itself in experimental psychological research, have been deprived of their representative in this field. We therefore very much welcome the news that Professor Bühler will obtain from the municipality of Vienna a prestigious research chair within the Faculty and a fully equipped experimental psychological research institute with assistants and an extensive library, which will be made available to him. Through the person of Bühler, this institute will maintain a close relationship with the Faculty of philosophy, which will be to the advantage of the research chair’s scientific activities.67

But the linkage of Bühler to Brentano and the Austrian tradition in philosophy is not merely institutional. Indeed, in most of his published writings before his arrival in Vienna,68 his main interlocutors were associated with the Austrian tradition and Brentano, whom Bühler called the “Spiritus Rector” of philosophical psychology of the old Austria.69 For example, the theoretical part of Bühler’s 1913 treatise on the perception of Gestalten focuses on the discussions triggered by Christian von Ehrenfels’s publication of his classic “On Gestalt Qualities”70 and to which participated most of Brentano’s students, including Husserl and Stumpf.71 Kastil’s two papers in the appendix are lectures delivered in the Philosophical Society at the University of Vienna. The first one is entitled “Is the distinction between whole and sum merely factual?”72 and it is a critical examination of Schlick’s article “On the concept of whole” (“Über den Begriff der Ganzheit“), which was also presented before the Philosophical Society on January 18, 1935.73 The basic manuscript for this publication entitled “Gestaltpsychologie” (1933/34) is also reproduced in the appendix. Schlick tackles the erroneous use of the term whole (Ganzheit) in both philosophy and science in order to show that the solutions generally proposed with this concept to several different problems ranging from the

 Quoted in Benetka, G. (1990), Zur Geschichte der Institutionalisierung der Psychologie in Österreich, Wien: Geyer-Ed., p. 179 (my translation). 68  See especially Bühler, K. (1913), Die Gestaltwahrnehmung. Experimentelle Untersuchungen zur psychologischen und ästhetischen Analyse der Raum- und Zeitanschauung, vol. 1, Stuttgart: Spemann; Bühler, K. (1922), Die Erscheinungsweisen der Farben, Jena: Fischer. 69  Bühler, K. (1960), Das Gestaltprinzip im Leben des Menschen und der Tiere, Stuttgart: Hans Huber, p. 15. 70  von Ehrenfels, C. (1929), „On Gestalt Qualities“, trans. B. Smith, in: Smith, B. (Ed.) (1929), Foundations of Gestalt Theory, Munich: Philosophia, p. 11–81. 71  On the major influence of Stumpf’s program on Bühler’s thought, see Fisette, D. (2016), “Phenomena and Mental Functions. Karl Bühler and Stumpf’s Program in Psychology”, in: Brentano Studien, vol. 14, p. 191–228. 72  „Ist die Unterscheidung zwischen Ganzheit und Summe keine sachliche?“, in this volume. 73  Schlick, M. (1933–1934, 1934–1935), “Über den Begriff der Ganzheit”, in: Wissenschaftlicher Jahresbericht der philosophischen Gesellschaft der Universität zu Wien, Wien: Verlag der philosophischen Gesellschaft der Universität zu Wien, p. 23–37; also in Schlick, M. (2008), Die Wiener Zeit. Aufsätze, Beiträge, Rezensionen 1926–1936, Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Abteilung I, Band 6, J. Friedl, J. /H. Rutte, H. (Eds.) (2008), New York: Springer, p. 681–700. 67

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mind-body problem to the relationship between individuals and community are in fact only pseudo-solutions because the sentences containing the word “totality” do not have a clear and unequivocal meaning. The concept of whole, which he identifies to that of Gestalt in the Berlin school (he refers to W. Köhler) serves as a special case of a philosophical analysis that does not, as in science, bear on facts and it does not give either an immediate knowledge of reality, but merely an elucidation of the issue on the way we express the facts. And elucidation understood with this meaning is the prerequisite for being able to express the facts correctly. The concept of Gestalt as that of sum are two modes of description which do not refer to different objective properties of a given configuration, but they mean first and foremost different modes of presentation. Schlick argues indeed that between totality and sum there is no substantial difference but only “different ways of describing the same facts” (p. 015563) and that one is much more convenient or practical than the other one. Schlick claims that most pseudo-problems (Scheinprobleme) in philosophy and science arise from the fact that one confuses questions of facts with issues belonging to descriptions and logical grammar.74 Kastil’s second lecture was presented on November 13, 1936 under the title “Franz Brentanos Kritik der Antimetaphysiker” and it is a reflection on the state of philosophy in Vienna nearly 50 years after the establishment of the Philosophical Society. Kastil more specifically refers to philosophers who succeeded Brentano in Vienna and who were the main detractors of metaphysics, from Mach to the members of the Vienna Circle.

 On Schlick’s paper “Gestaltpsychologie”, see F. Stadler’s introduction in this volume to his edition of Schlick’s paper. 74

Chapter 2

Brentano and Husserl on Intentionality Dagfinn Føllesdal

Abstract  Brentano’s lectures attracted a large number of very gifted students who became fascinated with the idea of intentionality and developed it further in several different directions. Brentano followed up Aristotle’s view on our mind taking on the form of the object and he was particularly influenced by Thomas Aquinas’ approach. His students struggled with how to deal with acts without objects, for example hallucinations, and proposed different solutions. Husserl tried to agree with his teacher as far as he could. He even regarded agreement with one’s teacher as a duty, which could only be forsaken for very good reasons. But he thought he had such reasons. These led him to phenomenology, which is briefly presented in this paper. In a short appendix I use the connection between Aristotle and Husserl to examine the controversy between two prominent Aristotle scholars, Myles Burnyeat (1992) and Richard Sorabji (1974, 1992), and their many followers on both sides concerning the interpretation of Aristotle’s theory of perception. The appendix was presented in lectures at conferences in 1995 and 1996, but never sent off for publication. It was published in Greek translation in 1997. In the following years, Burnyeat, who died on September 20, 2019, modified his view, probably without knowing about my criticism. As far as I know, Sorabji stands by his view. Keywords  Aristotle · Intentionality · Brentano · Husserl · Phenomenology · Miles Burnyeat · Richard Sorabji

Brentano was a remarkable figure in the development of contemporary philosophy. His lectures attracted a large number of very gifted students who became fascinated with the idea of intentionality and developed it further in several different directions. I will start with some very short remarks on the background of this idea in Aristotle and medieval philosophy, and then go on to look at some of its problems D. Føllesdal (*) Universitetet i Oslo, Oslo, Norway e-mail: [email protected] © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano and Austrian Philosophy, Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40947-0_2

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and how to tackle them. Fortunately, during recent years a large number of good scholars have dealt with these issues. I will refer to many of them, and I will include in my bibliography several more who have made important contributions. What they all have in common, is that they combine careful textual scholarship with thorough knowledge of the systematic issues. I am happy for this development, which has led to better philosophy and less polemics.1 Also, the importance of good archives should be mentioned, together with the people who created them and run them and who are seldom remembered and given thanks. The archive that is most relevant for Brentano-studies is The Franz Brentano  – Archive Graz. Rudolf Haller, professor of philosophy in Graz, was a central figure in its founding, which is briefly outlined on the home page of the archive. Two other persons who deserve credit for their work to preserve and make accessible Brentano’s manuscripts, letters and books, were Roderick Chisholm at Brown University together with Brentano’s son, the physicist Johann Christian Michael („John“) Brentano. In his ‘Self-Profile’ Chisholm reports on how they met and together got a Brentano Archive established at Harvard’s Houghton Library.2 Among other archives that are important for research on Brentano, those who influenced him and those who were inspired by him, I will mention the Bolzano archive in Salzburg, the Husserl archive in Leuven and the Ingarden archive in Krakow.3  I would, however, like to mention by name three close friends and collaborators who, unfortunately, are not with us any more: Izchak Miller (1935–1994) (Dissertation: Husserl, Perception, And Temporal Awareness. MIT Press, 1984, it was the best selling philosophy book that year). Richard Tieszen (1951–2017), who did very valuable work on the philosophy of mathematics, especially Gödel (see the literature list at the end of this article), and Hubert Dreyfus (1929–2017), who wrote his 1964 dissertation on Husserl’s Theory of Perception and did remarkable work on Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, Michel Foucault, and the limitations of computers and artificial intelligence. 2  Brentano, J.C.M. (1966), and Chisholm, Roderick M. (1986). 3  The Bolzano-Winter Archive in Salzburg, which opened in 1980, has been built up by Edgar Morscher, assisted by Anneliese Müller. It is exemplary, both in accessibility and in fast and very good publication of central works. A visit is recommended, both because of the quality of the archive and the importance of Bolzano. The Husserl-Archives Leuven got a very good start when the Franciscan Herman Leo Van Breda in 1938 with cunning and courage rescued out of Germany more than 40,000 pages of Husserl’s Gabelsberger stenography manuscripts and his complete research library (and also Husserl’s widow and two surviving children). The manuscripts and library were well protected at the Catholic University of Leuven, and after the war the manuscripts began to be transcribed and published. The first few years they were published by Nijhoff, which cared for readers more than for profit. However, Nijhoff was bought by Reidel, which in turn was bought by Springer, and although all the editorial work was done and paid for by the Husserl Archive, the price of the volumes skyrocketed, so that only the rich universities and very few scholars could afford to buy them. (An example is Stanford University, which was subscribing to two sets of Husserliana, one for the University Library and one for the Philosophy Department, but had to go down to just one. Many other universities had to cancel their subscriptions.) To consult the unpublished manuscripts, one had to travel to the Husserl archives, where one was not permitted to make copies. I am regretting how much of my life I have had to travel and spend at the Husserl archives, mainly in Cologne, where they had copies of the manuscripts, and where Elizabeth Ströker, who was director from 1971 to 1993, was very helpful. Fortunately, the Husserl-Archive has made a great leap forward: 1

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2.1  Ancient and Medieval Background Brentano’s main background in philosophy was, as part of his education to become a priest, focused on Aristotle and the Middle Ages, mainly Thomas Aquinas. Rolf George, in his contribution to the Brentano conference in Graz 1977, ponders whether “Brentano’s difficulties as an academic teacher may be cited here. Scholarly traditions are more dependent on the formation of academic school than is the spreading of systematic insights. … Brentano’s early writings on Aristotle acquired the reputation of being ‘Thomistic’ at a time when the consultation of St. Thomas as an Aristotle commentator was not in style.”4 I agree with George that Brentano’s difficulties may be an example of how “schools” and other labels close people’s minds. There is much in Aristotle, as well as in Thomas Aquinas, that helps throw light on Brentano’s conception of intentionality. In an appendix to this paper I am including the manuscript for a lecture that I gave in 1995 on the interpretation of Aristotle’s philosophy where I go into some contested points that help bring out what Brentano, and after him Husserl, were struggling with. One central point in Aristotle and his medieval followers was that perception consists in a transfer of the form of the perceived object to our mind. What does the form consist in? And what happens when we are wrong about the object, and in particular if there is no object, as in the case of hallucinations and other serious cases of misperception? Let me add that these problems are treated in a much more satisfactory way by Thomas Aquinas than by Aristotle and the Aristotle scholars I discuss in that lecture. One of the seminars I taught at Stanford together with Patrick Suppes, this one also together with the specialist on Medieval philosophy Rega Wood, was devoted to Thomas Aquinas’ commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima. Here we noted again and again how Thomas interpreted Aristotle’s often underdetermined passages in such a way that they expressed very clearly a view that was much more satisfactory than that arrived at by other commentators, and he anticipated insights that were followed up by Brentano and became even clearer and more worked out in Husserl.

The Husserl publications are now freely available in electronic form through The Open Commons, which is funded by a consortium of libraries coordinated by their partner Knowledge Unlatched. This will be a great benefit for scholars in all universities in all countries, especially the poor ones. The Roman Ingarden Philosophical Research Centre at the Jagiellonian University was opened in 2005, having been proposed by Władysław Stróżewski. In 2015 the University established the Roman Ingarden Digital Archive, which will work for the free internet accessibility of all its manuscripts and will seek to realize the threefold task of all archives: collect, protect and make accessible all over the world, and thereby stimulate and facilitate the study of Ingarden and also of Brentano and Husserl. It was originated by Leszek Sosnowski, who is now its head, assisted by Dominika Czakon and Natalia Anna Michna. 4  Rolf George (1978, p. 264).

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However, Thomas Aquinas did not claim any credit for his philosophical insights. He always introduced his final interpretation modestly by: “As the philosopher says.” Husserl likewise tried to agree with his teacher Brentano as far as he could. He even regarded agreement with one’s teacher as a duty, which could only be forsaken for very good reasons. But he thought he had such reasons and tried to communicate them to Brentano as best he could. Husserl appreciated Brentano’s emphasis on intentionality and made it the core of his own phenomenology. However, he found Brentano’s way of dealing with this notion unsatisfactory and worked out phenomenology as a better way of handling it. Brentano never approved of Husserl’s phenomenology, and he often complained that he found Husserl unclear and hard to understand. Husserl on his side, found Brentano’s treatment of intentionality unsatisfactory, and argued that Brentano’s act-object dichotomy was not adequate for giving an acceptable analysis of intentionality.

2.2  Husserl, Bolzano and Frege The basic problem that Husserl saw in Brentano was that Brentano and his other students had tried to clarify intentionality by a dichotomy: act  – object, which Brentano had taken over from Aristotle and the Medievals. Intentionality, according to Brentano, consists in acts always directed towards an object. Husserl argued that one needs a trichotomy, which in Ideas and later works he labeled act – noema – object. My interpretation of Husserl is sometimes dubbed “The Frege interpretation.” I never used that label myself, for reasons that I will come to. However, the label fits: Frege’s trichotomy expression  – sense  – reference, parallels Husserl’s trichotomy, which was central in Husserl’s way of dealing with intentionality and enabled him to overcome the problems that Brentano and his other students were struggling with. In the first letter Frege sent him,5 on May 24, 1891, he draws a schema to clarify his trichotomy, applied to three kinds of expression, sentences, proper names and concept words: Sentence ↓ Sense of sentence (thought) ↓ Reference of sentence (truth-value)

Proper name ↓ Sense of proper name ↓ Reference of proper name (object)

Concept-word ↓ Sense of concept-word

↓ Reference of concept-word (concept) → (object which falls under the concept-word) (I have here translated Frege’s ‘Bedeutung’ with ‘reference’)

 See J.N. Mohanty (1982 p. 118).

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However, Husserl did not take the trichotomy over from Frege. He was familiar with similar trichotomies in Bolzano and in other philosophers that he studied before he read Frege, and he uses a similar distinction in his 1891 review of Schröder’s Vorlesungen über die Algebra der Logic, 1 year before Frege’s article “Über Sinn und Bedeutung,” Frege and Husserl corresponded intermittently from 1891 on, and Husserl’s first published book, Philosophie der Arithmetik, volume 1 (1891) contains sharp criticism of Frege. In 1894 Frege wrote a very critical review of this first volume of Philosophie der Arithmetik. While the other three reviewers had been positive, Frege’s review must have been quite a blow to the poor Privatdozent in Jena who was hoping eventually to get a job with a salary that could support him and his family. He had already struggled long with a second volume and was aware of many weaknesses in his position. In November 1894 he wrote to Meinong that after a long break he continued working on the second volume and was hoping to finish it the next spring.6 However, by 1896 he had stopped that work and started work on a new, antipsychologistic project, which 5  years later was published as two volumes, in quick succession: Logische Untersuchungen. While Philosophie der Arithmetik contained a number of attacks on Frege and his anti-psychologism, Frege is mentioned only once in Logische Untersuchungen, in a short remark where Husserl criticizes Frege’s use of the word ‘Bedeutung’ for the object referred to. This kind of vengeance may be typical of a scholar who is criticized at a crucial early point in his career. Many years later, in the second edition of the work (1913), Husserl added in a footnote: Cf. also G. Frege’s stimulating work Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik (1884), p. vi f. (I need hardly say that I no longer approve of my own fundamental criticisms of Frege’s antipsychologistic position set forth in my Philosophie der Arithmetik I, pp. 129–32. I may here take the opportunity, in relation to all of the discussions of these Prolegomena, to refer to the Preface of Frege’s later work Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, vol. 1 Jena (1893).7

Husserl also praised Frege on many later occasions. Here are three oral expressions of indebtedness that I like to quote: In 1926 W.R. Boyce Gibson wrote in his diary: “Husserl remarked that Frege’s criticism was the only one he was really grateful for. It hit the nail on its head”8 Andrew Osborn visited Husserl in 1935 in Schwarzwald and asked him about Frege’s influence on the abandonment of the psychological approach of the Philosophy of Arithmetic. “Husserl concurred, but also mentioned his chance discovery of Bolzano’s work in a second-hand bookstore.”9 And finally: I spoke to Roman Ingarden during his visit to Harvard in November 1959 and his longer stay in Oslo in 1967, and he told me that Husserl had said to him “Frege war entscheidend” (“Frege was decisive”).

 Karl Schuhmann (1977, p. 43).  Husserl (1900, 1913, p. 318). 8  Spiegelberg (1971). 9  Karl Schuhmann (1977, p. 463); Osborn, A. D. (1934). 6 7

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The parallel between noema and sense is not uncontested. Many claim that the noema is something quite different from sense. However, Husserl is very clear on this. Thus, for example, in the third volume of Ideen, Husserl says: “The noema is nothing but a generalization of the idea of meaning to the field of all acts.”10 Also in many of his other works, Husserl expresses similar views. Thus, in Ideen I, he says: Originally, these words [‘Bedeuten’ and ‘Bedeutung’] related only to the linguistic sphere, that of ‘expressing’. It is, however, almost unavoidable and at the same time an important advance, to widen the meaning of these words and modify them appropriately, so that they in a certain way are applicable to the whole noetic-noematic sphere: that is to all acts, whether these are intertwined with expressing acts or not.11

And in Ideen I, page 233.35–37, Husserl characterizes the full noema as a “ ‘Sinn’ (in the widest sense).”12

2.3  Bolzano In spite of all these parallels between Husserl and Frege, and many, many more, I have not used Frege as starting point in my courses on Husserl’s phenomenology, which I have been giving from 1961 on, first at Harvard and later at Stanford and in Oslo. Instead I have started my courses with six lectures on Bernard Bolzano (1781–1848). Why? Bolzano makes use of the same expression – sense – reference trichotomy as did later Frege and Husserl, and he also introduced and explained in a very clear way several other fundamental issues that are crucial for Husserl, but were not discussed by Frege. Bolzano anticipated notions and distinctions that have been introduced in the philosophy of language, philosophy of perception and philosophy of action during the past 60  years and that Husserl made use of, for example the semantics of indexicals and proper names. In addition, of course, when one works in a new field and on new problems, as did Husserl, even distinctions that one takes over from others have to be developed and modified for the new issues. I will not go into these finer points here. I will give only a brief outline of the main ideas, while in my courses on Husserl, with a whole semester at my disposal, we could go into these finer points. One reason why Husserl found so many helpful distinctions in Bolzano, was that Bolzano made fundamental contributions to the whole range of philosophical fields,  “Das Noema überhaupt ist aber nichts weiter als die Verallgemeinerung der Idee der Bedeutung auf das Gesamtgebiet der Akte” (Ideen III, p. 89). Husserl here uses ‘Bedeutung’ for what Frege called ‘Sinn’, and he criticizes Frege for his choice of words. 11  304.7–14 12  Compare also pp. 219 and 223. Husserl knew Frege’s work very well. As I noted earlier, he corresponded with Frege, and his copy of Frege’s Grundgesetze, which is preserved in the Husserl archive in Leuven, shows that he studied the book very carefully and discovered small slips in Frege’s formal proofs. 10

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not only logic, philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of language, but also social and political philosophy, aesthetics, ethics, and philosophy of religion. His fundamental ideas and distinctions were therefore already adapted to this broader field. He was also an outstanding mathematician, and anticipated by 60 years several important ideas and results of Weierstrass, Husserl’s doctor father, who was himself one of the foremost mathematicians of his time.13 I have two more, somewhat extraneous reasons for starting my course with lectures on Bolzano: (i) Half of the students who take my Husserl-courses are specializing on philosophy. The others come from other fields: literature, history, social sciences, psychology, etc. They do not know Frege and would need introductory lectures on him that would be boring to the philosophy students. Bolzano is new to all of them. (ii) Bolzano is a favorite of mine, both as a philosopher and as a human being. I want as many as possible to get to know him and appreciate him. It was not easy to use Bolzano in an English-speaking class in 1961, when I started teaching these courses. The only work by Bolzano that had been translated into English, was his Paradoxes of the infinite, and he was not even mentioned in Encyclopedia Britannica. However, one of the students in the course, Terrence Malick, the later film-maker, knew German well and wrote English masterly, and he translated some particularly important sections of the Wissenschaftslehre into English.14 Another student, David Lewis, became so interested in Bolzano that he wrote his term paper on him. There are clear traces of Bolzano in Lewis’ later work. The following year, Jan Berg’s excellent book Bolzano’s Logic came out and was a valuable addition to the reading for the course.15 So, if this interpretation should be given a label, it would be the Bolzano interpretation. Why, then, has this interpretation of Husserl been called the Frege interpretation? Probably because, when in 1969 I was invited to present this Husserl interpretation at the annual meeting of the American Philosophical Association in New  York, I had one hour for my presentation and decided to start from Frege, whom everybody in the audience was familiar with and who had some of the most important distinctions I needed, while very few in the audience were likely to know much about Bolzano, if they had heard about him at all. This lecture, when it was  Also Norway’s renowned young mathematician, Niels Henrik Abel (1802–1827) expressed in a letter from 1826 his admiration for Bolzano’s “well-defined concepts and closely reasoned method of work.” Earlier that year, from 2. to 8. April, Abel had visited Prague. It is not known whether he then tried to meet Bolzano. However, it was too late. Already 6 years earlier, on January 20, 1820, Bolzano’s view on how a Christian should live in society had brought him into conflict with the regime in Vienna and he had been removed from his professorship. From 1823 to 1830 he spent summers with Josef and Anna Hoffmann on their estate in Tĕchobuz, 80 kilometers south-east of Prague. From 1830 to 1841 he lived there the whole year. 14  Some years later, selections from the Wissenschaftslehre were translated into English, by Rolf George (1978) and Jan Berg (1973). Fortunately, in 2014 a complete English translation in four volumes came out, by Rolf George and Paul Rusnock (see bibliography at the end of this article). 15  Jan Berg. Bolzano’s Logic. (1962). My review: Isis, 56 (1965), pp. 390–91. 13

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published in the Journal of Philosophy, had the title “Husserl’s notion of noema,” so there was no mention of Frege in the title.16 And, of course, I have never even ­suggested that Husserl got these ideas from Frege. In my teaching I always like starting from something clear and simple, and in my courses on Husserl I have found that Bolzano is an excellent basis for understanding Husserl, while in short lectures to an audience that is not familiar with Bolzano, Frege is a good starting point. Even non-­philosophers have usually heard a little bit about Frege and find that his expression – sense – reference trichotomy helps them to understand Husserl. Robert Sokolowski has proposed that this interpretation should be called “the West Coast interpretation”: Phenomenology was never very prominent in England although through the efforts of Wolfe Mays at Manchester and his students Barry Smith, Kevin Mulligan and Peter Simons a vigorous group of students was founded about twenty years ago with the intent of exploring the early period of phenomenology and showing its relation to the origins of analytic philosophy in Gottlob Frege and other thinkers in Austria in the early part of the century. The development in England, incidentally, has a counterpart in the United States, an interpretation of Husserl that is inspired by Frege and analytic philosophy. It is centered in California and is represented by such writers as Dagfinn Føllesdal, Hubert Dreyfus, Ronald McIntyre, and David Woodruff Smith. It draws especially on Husserl’s earlier writings. This «West Coast» reading of Husserl has as its antithesis an «East Coast» interpretation, situated largely in the Boston-to-Washington corridor, that takes its bearings especially from Husserl’s later philosophical and logical works and does not use Frege and analytic philosophy as its starting point. It reads Frege in the light of Husserl and not vice versa. It is expressed in the writings of John Brough, Richard Cobb-Stevens, John Drummond, James Hart, Robert Sokolowski, and others. … The two «schools» differ especially in their understanding of noema, sense, and the phenomenological reduction. The basic theoretic difference between them is that the West Coast group identifies sense and noema and posits them as mediators between the mind and the world, whereas the East Coast group distinguishes sense and noema as the outcomes of two different kinds of reflection upon the intended object: it does not posit them as mediating the intentional relation of mind to world.17

2.4  The Tripartite Distinction Act-Noema-Object Now a little more on the tripartite act-noema-object distinction, which I regard as basic to Husserl’s fully developed phenomenology and of great help for understanding him. As I just mentioned, there are critics of this interpretation who have claimed

 A contributing factor may also have been the title of my first little book: Husserl und Frege (1958). However, this book was devoted exclusively to Frege’s criticism of Husserl’s early psychologism, that Husserl gave up, and contains no discussion of phenomenology. 17  Sokolowski 2000, pp. 222–223. I am very grateful to Sokolowski for our long friendship, which includes numerous lectures and seminars that he has arranged, where we have discussed our interpretations of Husserl. I am also grateful to the other British and American philosophers he mentions, and to Jitendra Nath Mohanty for our friendship, which began in Göttingen in the early 1950’s, when we both studied there, and for the last few years has been transmitted through his son. 16

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that Husserl has no such tripartite distinction, the noema and the object are just two aspects of one and the same entity. Meinong’s distinction between existing and non-­ existing objects was one way of attempting to preserve Brentano’s dichotomy, and similar proposals were made by Brentano’s other students. Twardowski was one of the better defendants of Brentano’s view, and those who reject my Husserlinterpretation should study Husserl’s criticism of Twardowski’s attempt to manage with Brentano’s dichotomy, for example Husserl’s rejection of Twardowski’s view on impossible objects in favor of Bolzano’s view. As I just mentioned, there are Husserl scholars who claim that there is textual evidence against my interpretation. Some of them maintain that one of the many passages that I quote in my article as evidence for this interpretation has been mistranslated by me, and that it shows that the noema is the same as the object, and not, as I claim, distinct from the object. This is a passage from Husserl’s Ideas where Husserl writes: The tree, the thing in nature, is by no means the perceived tree as such, which belongs inseparably to the perceiving as the perceptual Sinn. The tree can burn, may be dissolved in its chemical elements, etc. The Sinn, however — the Sinn of this perception, which belongs by necessity to its essence — cannot burn, it has no chemical elements, no forces, no real properties.18

The disagreement concerns the phrase “is by no means”, which I employ to translate “ist nichts weniger als”. My critics claim that “ist nichts weniger als” should be translated as “is nothing but.” They seem not to be aware that the phrase is ambiguous in German, it can mean “is nothing but,” but it can also mean “is by no means”, “is least of all”, “is as different as it can be from,” or the like. This second reading is confirmed by the rest of the sentence: “The tree, the thing in nature, is by no means the perceived tree as such, which belongs inseparably to the perceiving as the perceptual Sinn. The tree can burn, may be dissolved in its chemical elements, etc. The Sinn, however  — the Sinn of this perception, which belongs by necessity to its essence — cannot burn, it has no chemical elements, no forces, no real properties.” One may wonder what kind of entity this may be that can burn and cannot burn, etc. One proposal has been that this entity can burn qua tree and not burn qua Sinn. However, those who are in favor of this interpretation usually do not explain what this would mean. And Husserl certainly never addresses such a question. There are critics of this interpretation who accept my translation of this passage but who disagree with me on other passages. Often these are passages where Husserl uses quotation marks. Like Bolzano and Frege, Husserl used quotation marks to indicate a shift in reference. What shift is intended is usually determined by special conventions distinguishing different kinds of usage. Unfortunately, in some of the Husserliana volumes quotation marks have been dropped. One of these volumes came out while I was working at the Husserl Archive in Cologne, and I asked Elizabeth Ströker what had happened. She told me that there were sometimes so 18

 Ideas I, §89, Husserliana, Vol 3, p. 222.

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many quotation marks in Husserl’s manuscripts that they had deleted some of them since they clogged the page. Given that Husserl was as systematic in his use of quotation marks as were Bolzano and Frege, the way a specific author uses these symbols is an important part of what our students should learn. Here are some more of the numerous passages in Husserl on the noema. In the manuscript Noema und Sinn Husserl says: “Sinne are nonreal objects, they are not objects that exist in time.”.19 And further out in the same manuscript: “A Sinn does not have reality [Dasein], it is related to a temporal interval through the act in which it occurs, but it does not itself have reality, an individual connection with time and duration.”.20 I read this manuscript in the 1960s in the Husserl Archive in Leuven, but unfortunately it took many years before parts of the manuscript were published, and it is not yet out in full. There are, however, many similar passages in Husserl’s published work, and alternative interpretations have difficulties both with Husserl’s texts and with giving a satisfactory systematic account of Husserl’s phenomenology. They bring back Brentano’s problems with his dichotomy act-object. These alternative interpretations also have problems with explaining, in the example I mentioned earlier, how the tree can burn, while the noema of the tree cannot burn, but still, supposedly, be the same as the tree. In my noema article I quote a large number of further texts to back up my interpretation. Thus, for example, in Ideen, I:21 “Consciousness relates in and through this Sinn to its object.” And “each intentional experience has a noema and in it a Sinn, through which it relates to the object”.22 Compatibility with the texts is a sine qua non for a satisfactory interpretation. Where an interpretation clashes with the text, the interpreter has some explanation to do.23 The philosophical issues that engaged Brentano cover a broad spectrum of fields. Husserl followed up this whole broad range of topics, and has detailed discussions of perception, meaning and communication, intersubjectivity, the role of the body and also our use of tools, for example a hammer (an example which philosophers who do not know Husserl often credit to Heidegger). Husserl developed

 NuS 109.  NuS 114. 21  p. 316.15. 22  329.9. Compare also pp. 316.18 and 318.18. 23  Husserl’s notion of intentionality involves body and action. The experienced object is structured by the agent’s bodily and intellectual activity and is not just passively observed. This active structuring is a central point in Husserl’s phenomenology. His treatment of action goes far beyond standard theories of action, which mainly focus just on preferences, beliefs and choice and do not go into the role of actions in our constituting the world. Husserl’s approach to this field has been followed up by many others, notably by Merleau-Ponty, who gives ample credit to Husserl. Hubert Dreyfus did very interesting work on Merleau-Ponty quite early, which has been followed up by his students and many others and which I recommend for further reading (see the bibliography at the end of this article). 19 20

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phenomenology as a means for studying intentionality, and thereby carried on, enriched and developed further Brentano’s project.

2.5  Brentano and Husserl on Intentionality The basic idea in Brentano’s theory of intentionality is the directedness of acts. This was taken over by Husserl, but put into a different framework that we will now look at. Beginning with perception, Aristotle, Aquinas and the other medieval philosophers whom Brentano started from, made use of the Aristotelian notion of form, morphe. In perception, the form of the perceived object is transferred from the object via a medium and our sensory organ(s) to our passive intellect. As we will note in the Appendix to this paper, there is some disagreement among interpreters concerning the various stages in this process, for example as to whether and how our bodily sensory organs take on the form of the object perceived. However, for them all, perception is a purely receptive process. In the Ideas (1913), where Husserl works out his own alternative most in detail, he introduces a new terminology, mainly, I think, in order to emphasize and clarify some of the differences between himself and Brentano and the Aristotelian-­ scholastic tradition. The main difference is his introduction of the notions of noema, noesis and hyle. The noema takes the place of the Aristotelian form. It is a structure, a complex set of relations, and it is not simply passively received, but is a result of a structuring process, the noesis, which we are carrying out without paying attention to it  – we experience a structured object and usually tend to take this object, as Aristotle and the medievals did, as an object out there that is passively received by us. When I have been teaching courses on Husserl, from 1961, I have found it pedagogically helpful to start with the following diagram of an act, which specifies the different factors and how they are interrelated: Temporal: hyle noesis

Non-temporal:

noema

thetic component meaning component (Sinn), includes the determinable X

The first two elements, the hyle and the noesis, are temporal and are parts of the act. They are experiences that we have, they have a duration in time, in a special sense of duration that we are not going to discuss here. There is an interplay between these two elements: the noesis structures the act, while the hyle constrains the noesis and thereby the structure the act can have. Every act has a noesis, and corresponding to it, a noema. The noesis is a very distinctive kind of experience, which gives

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meaning, or structure, to the act. Husserl calls the noesis the meaning-giving element of the act. We will get back to it in connection with the noema. The hyle are experiences which we typically have when our sense organs are affected, but we can also have them in special other situations, for example when we are affected by fever, drugs or nervous disturbances. They form a kind of boundary condition for the kind of noesis we can have in an act of perception. For perception to take place, the noesis and the hyle must fit harmoniously together. Note that we may keep our eyes open and think about something else, for example a philosophical or a mathematical problem. In such a case we have hyle, but the hyle do not play any role in determining the object of our act. This has to do with what Husserl calls the “thetic” character of the act, to which we shall soon come. Husserl often called the hyle “sense data” (Sinnesdaten). Looked at from our contemporary perspective, this is an unfortunate choice of words. In British empiricism and also in much later philosophy “sense data” has been used for entities which supposedly are perceived and are the basis for our structuring the world as consisting of physical objects. Husserl has sometimes been interpreted that way, as a sense datum philosopher. However, one does not need to read much of Husserl before one discovers that the hyle are not entities that are perceived. They are, as just noted, experiences that we typically have when our sense organs are affected. And they play an important role in perception, in that they constrain the kind of noesis we can have in an act of perception. Let us, for example, consider the duck/rabbit picture, which is suitable for illustrating many points in Husserl. When we look at such a picture, our hyle are not sufficient to determine whether we look at a picture of a duck or a rabbit. However, our hyle are not compatible with our looking at, for example, a locomotive. Hence the hyle constrain the structure of the act, but do not determine the object of the act. There is always ample scope for different kinds of structuring, through various noeses.24 It may be helpful, in order to avoid the misleading connotations of sense datum theories of perception, to take as examples of hyle the kinesthetic experiences we have when we move our body, for example when we walk up or down a hill. The kinesthetic experiences constrain the way we structure the world, but they are not entities that we perceive. Husserl has detailed discussions of kinesthetic experiences and the role they play in our experience of the world, in particular our experience of space. However, I will not go into this here. Finally, in addition to hyle and noesis, there is the noema. The noema is a meaning, a structure in an act. The noema reflects the relations between all the features of consciousness that go into the act. The noema is a very rich structure with several components, which we will soon get to. However, before we turn to them, let us note that the noema has no temporal coordinates. It contains determinations of the  This holds not only for “ambiguous” cases, like the duck/rabbit picture, but for all perception. However, normally we do not notice the numerous other possibilities. Which cases we notice, depends on several factors, including our past experiences. Thus, for example, if we have grown up in an area with lots of rabbits, but no ducks, we would probably not experience the duck/rabbit picture as ambiguous. 24

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temporal features of the objects of acts, but it is not itself temporal. It can, in principle, be the same in several acts, acts of the same agent that take place at different times, or even acts carried out by different agents (although so much of the agent’s peculiarities and background and of the spatio-temporal setting is involved in the noema that in practice no two agents would ever have the same noema, and even for one agent to have the same noema twice would be problematic). The notion of the noema may help us make the notion of an act a little clearer. However, since the noema has no temporal coordinates it is strictly speaking not a part of the act. The act has temporal coordinates and can only have parts that are temporal. This is why I prefer to call the noema an element in our analysis of acts. As one should expect, there is a thorough-going parallelism between noema and noesis. An example Husserl gives in order to clarify the two notions, is that of a judgment. Philosophers have often maintained that what we study in logic, are abstract entities called judgments, and not the acts through which we make the judgments. Husserl’s distinction between the abstract noema and the temporal noesis fits this view into a more general framework. Now to the various components of the noema: Husserl distinguishes two main constituents: (1) the thetic character and (2) the noematic meaning (Sinn). Within the meaning again, he singles out what he calls “the determinable X” for special attention. This latter notion will be crucial for our handling numerous cases where reference and indexicality play a role. First, however, the thetic character. This is what distinguishes different kinds of acts: perception, imagining, dreaming, etc., and also uttering, asserting, etc. The thetic character is crucial for whether and in what way the hyle constrains the noesis. In perception, for example, the noesis has to fit in with the hyle, while in imagination no such fit is required.25 In speech (and in communication in general), the thetic character differentiates different kinds of speech acts, which were explored by some of Husserl’s students.26 We will come back to the thetic character later, but will first take a look at the other main factor in the noema: the meaning component. The meaning component has two constituents, both having to do with the object of the act. One constituent corresponds to the various properties we expect the object of the act to have. The second constituent reflects the fact that the act is object-directed: the act is directed towards something that has more to it than what we are presently anticipating, and our anticipations may turn out to be wrong. This second constituent in the meaning of the act Husserl calls the determinable X. This is a crucial notion in his philosophy. It distinguishes him from all other philosophers I know, including Frege and to some extent Bolzano, with whom he has otherwise  Husserl’s notion of the thetic component resembles Frege’s notion of assertoric force (“behauptende Kraft”). As I mentioned earlier, Husserl studied Frege’s work carefully, and sometimes uses Frege’s examples, e.g. concerning the identity of the victor at Jena and the vanquished at Waterloo. However, Husserl knew these basic ideas earlier, from Bolzano and Mill, and it is very fortunate that Bolzano’s main work, Wissenschaftslehre, is now fully translated into English (see the bibliography at the end of this paper). 26  Adolf Reinach and others. See Barry Smith (1990). 25

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much in common. And it is at the core of his approach to intentionality and his way of dealing with reference, in particular how he might deal with Putnam’s twin earth case. We will return briefly to this example later, but let us now first take a look at this important idea. For Brentano, every act is directed towards an object. For Husserl, every act is as if it is directed towards an object. There is not always an object there, I may be hallucinating or seriously misperceiving, but until I discover this, my act is as if of an object. It is this ‘as if of’ that Husserl is exploring in his phenomenology. Here the determinable X comes in. Objects play an important role in our lives, in perception, thinking and practical action. We conceive of the world as consisting of objects, which we explore and make use of. The determinable X reflects this object-­ directedness of our consciousness. The noematic meaning of an act is grouped around the act’s determinable X. We conceive of the object as having a variety of properties, as bearing relations to other objects and to our body, as being valuable, useful for various purposes, etc. Here are four features that characterize our experience of objects: (i) Enriching. Objects have many more properties than those that are reflected in the meaning component of the noema, we have only partial knowledge of them, there is always more to find out about them. They transcend our experience of them, Husserl writes.27 Our intellectual endeavors are very much aimed at determining what the objects we encounter are like. The notion of object plays a double role here: objects always present us with the challenge of finding out more about them. And they guide us in this exploration: objects that share some properties are usually expected to share other properties as well. Husserl explores this in his notion of “pairing,” which we will not discuss here. Objects therefore play an important role in the associative processes through which the meaning-component in the noema becomes enriched, that is, in the determination of the determinable X. (ii) Adjusting. We may be wrong about some of the properties we attribute to the object. The further course of our experience may show that the object has other features than we originally expected, we come to adjust our beliefs about the object. So the noematic meaning does not only become expanded, but also adjusted. This kind of adjustment would of course be impossible if we think that the object of an act is the one and only object that has all the properties that the noematic meaning ascribes to it, or at least the “essential” ones, whatever  It is important to distinguish ‘transcendental’ and ‘transcendent’ in Husserl. What is transcendental, are the factors in our consciousness that we are not normally aware of, but that are important for our “constituting” the world, such as noesis, noema and hyle. In phenomenology we study these by carrying out the ‘transcendental’ reduction, where we turn away from our ‘natural’ absorption in the world and reflect instead on the constituting of the world. The objects that we are aware of and engaged by in our natural attitude to the world, Husserl calls ‘transcendent’, since they have lots of features that go beyond our experience of them. In translations of Husserl these words often get mixed up, This happens even more often in translations of Sartre, who uses this same pair of words and is usually translated by people without a background in philosophy. 27

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that might mean. Then an adjustment of the noema would in most cases mean an exchange of object. In order to understand the relation between noema and object, we have to take into account the determinable X.  The notion of the determinable X is crucial for understanding how the object of the act gets determined. (iii) Change. Time and space play a role. An object may change its properties over time. Persons are examples: I am the same person now as when I was born, but I have changed very many of my properties. An object may have different properties at different times or in different places, look differently in different light or from different sides, etc. In German the word ‘gleich’ is sometimes used for ‘similar’, other times for ‘identical’. However, although Husserl uses this word, he is clear: objects may be similar, without being identical to one another, and one and the same object may have many different aspects. Part of our notion of the determinable X is therefore a conception of identity for the kind of objects we are considering, for example persons. (iv) Explosion. Sometimes the discrepancies between our anticipations and the further course of our experiences may be so severe that our noema “explodes,” to use Husserl’s word. We come to see that the act has no object, and perhaps that we are hallucinating or seriously misperceiving. Often in such cases the act is superseded by another act that has an object similar to the one we thought was there. This act has a new determinable X, many of the anticipations in the noematic meaning are changed, and in some cases also the thetic component may change, for example from perception to hallucination. Given the identity criteria for the objects we encounter, we can go wrong about the identity of objects. We may discover that what we took to be two objects are just two aspects of one and the same object. Frege’s morning star/evening star is an example. Or we may discover that what we thought was one object was actually two. The twin earth situation, to which we are coming, is an example. “But what cannot all step into the unity of an identifying consciousness, what can a person not all mix up!” writes Husserl.28

2.6  Some Further Features of Husserl’s View After this overview of the main points in Husserl’s analysis of acts and their objects, let us now look more closely at some of these points: The hyle are, as we noted, not data that we perceive, but experiences that constrain how we structure what we perceive. To avoid Husserl’s misleading label “sense data” (Sinnesdaten) let us use kinesthetic experiences as an example, experiences which we have, for example,  Christian Beyer: “Aber was kann nicht alles in die Einheit eines identifizierenden Bewusstseins treten, was kann der Mensch nicht alles verwechseln!“(Husserl: Husserliana XXVI, The Hague 1987, p. 213, 5–6). More on Beyer and the twin world example later. 28

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when our body is moving, for instance uphill or downhill. These experiences constrain the way we structure the world, but we are not so easily tempted to call them “sense data”. They are not structured ‘data’, but merely constraints. These constraints are what give “reality character” to what we perceive, Husserl said, following William James, whose The Principles of Psychology (1890) was very important for his development towards phenomenology and also for his later “idealism”. This structuring activity is not something we are normally aware of, but something that we can study through a special process of reflection that Husserl calls “the transcendental reduction,” where instead of focusing on the normal object of the act, we concentrate on the structuring activity, the noesis, or the resulting structure of the act, the noema. Some of the main findings of such transcendental reduction are the following: 1. The way we structure our experience is very dependent on our past experience. This is very much a matter of what is normally called ‘induction’: we expect the future to be similar to the past. Most of this past experience we may have forgotten, or never think about, but it leaves sediments [Niederschläge] that contribute to how we structure our present experience. 2. Where the hyle we have is compatible with several different structures we have made use of in the past, we may vacillate between these structures. Such vacillation may be illustrated by so-called ambiguous images, such as the rabbit-duck illusion, which was made famous by Wittgenstein who used it to illustrate the difference between “seeing as” and “seeing that”. Wittgenstein took the duck-­ rabbit picture from a book by Joseph Jastrow (Jastrow 1900), who already in 1890 collaborated with Charles Peirce on experimental psychology, but the picture was used already in 1892 in a humor magazine. The picture was much used by the Gestalt psychologists, Wertheimer, Koffka and Köhler, namely on the “Gestalt switch” phenomena. Whether or not we regard a picture as ambiguous depends in part on our past experience. Thus, for example, a person who has grown up surrounded by ducks, but never seen or heard of rabbits, will not regard the duck-rabbit picture as ambiguous. This is part of the reason why this kind of pictures may be of help in psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. (Koffka and Köhler were students of Carl Stumpf, who in turn was a student of Brentano. So was Husserl: in 1884, when Husserl had studied with Brentano for 2  years, Brentano advised him to follow Stumpf to the University of Halle for his habilitation dissertation, since Brentano no longer was entitled to supervise students for advanced degrees. After 1 year with Stumpf, Husserl got his habilitation and became a Privatdozent in Halle.)29 3. Our structuring is not a result solely of our experience of the nature around us, but also of our conception of other subjects, humans and also animals, as experiencing the world in which we live together. A simple example would be seeing a person getting scared by something that is hidden to our sight. Also our recognition that some people or animals see things from another angle or have their 29

 For more on Stumpf, see Fisette (2015a, b) and (2018).

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view blocked from where they are, or have poorer eyesight or poorer hearing than others, contributes to the way we structure the world. Generally, empathy is crucial for how we conceive of others and their experiences and thereby also for the way we structure what they and we experience. (See my quotation from Quine later in this paper.) 4. In view of 3, not only the factual features of the world, but also its normative features, what is good or bad, right or wrong, is part of our noematic structuring of our world. Husserl’s notions of noema, noesis and hyle provide a background for the empirical psychological studies that characterize so much phenomenology. The active process that he describes moves us a long way from Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ conception of the form of the object being transferred to our intellect. For Husserl, perception, therefore, is not a passive process, but an active process of structuring. And a major task of phenomenology is to study the interplay between noema/noesis and hyle in this process.

2.7  Object So far, I have talked about noema, noesis and hyle. What about the object, which is so central for Aristotle, Aquinas and Brentano? It might be tempting to think that the noema is the object of the noesis. However, Husserl insists that while the noema is a structure, a good, but not quite matching candidate for what Aristotle called the form of the object, it is not the object itself. Every act has a noema, but not every act has an object, there is not always an object that has the structure of that noema. This trichotomy, act  – noema  – object, therefore, is Husserl’s response to the problem of acts without objects that Brentano and all his students were struggling with when they worked with a dichotomy: act – object. Given that the noema is a structure, Husserl called it a meaning, a Sinn. Many of the problems that arise in analyzing perception are paralleled in the philosophy of language in connection with the reference of proper names and other singular terms (the middle column above). In my dissertation (1961) I argued that the simple Frege view, that an expression refers to the one and only object, if any, that satisfies the expression’s sense, is untenable. “Genuine” singular terms have a much more complicated semantics and keep on referring to the same object in all worlds where they have a reference. This has consequences both for Frege’s philosophy of language and for the philosophy of perception. Kaplan, Perry, Donnellan, Kripke, Evans and many, many others have explored the rich variety of puzzles that arise in connection with singular terms. This is one of the central topics of contemporary “analytic” philosophy. Perception and philosophy of language are intimately connected. Husserl’s view is detailed and penetrating. He examines the reference of different kinds of expression, such as indexicals and demonstratives, and he looks into the

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complexities that are involved even in the reference of ordinary singular terms, such as names. Brentano’s central concern was the study of acts and their intentionality, notions that engaged all of his students. In our normal lives we are absorbed by the world and its objects or we are engaging in other forms of activity. Husserl calls all these activities acts. Many acts involve movements of our bodies. Others are intellectual or emotional. They, too, may be prompted by or lead to bodily acts. They all involve our consciousness. The aim of phenomenology is to study, in detail, the structures of acts. We study acts by reflecting on them. We carry out what Husserl calls the transcendental reduction (which is part of the phenomenological reduction). We are then not directed towards the natural world and its objects, as we are in our daily lives, but we reflect on our acts. We discover the three elements that we have been discussing: the hyle, the noesis, and the noema. Husserl discusses many examples that he sometimes is able to deal with, other times keeps on struggling with. An example of the latter is his “twin world” example that occurs in a manuscript Husserl wrote in 1911 and that Christian Beyer discovered and discussed in the final section of his book Bolzano und Husserl, 1996.30 Husserl’s discussion starts as follows: “But how is it, if on two celestial bodies two people in surroundings that seem to be totally similar, conceive of “the same” objects and adjust their utterances accordingly? Does not the “this” in these two cases have a different meaning?”31 Husserl immediately gives a variant of the example: Let us change the example somewhat. Let two similar surroundings be arranged on the earth, and two people in the same position relative to them, who experience the same appearances, utter the same words, etc. Do their words have the same meaning?32

Later he gives a third variant, where only one person is involved: If I were brought from one surrounding to another totally similar one, where my empirical perceptions were either absolutely similar or fit in with my being in the same surroundings, and if, being confounded through the route, which did not give me enough clues to estimate

 Beyer, Christian, From Bolzano to Husserl  - A Study of the Origin of the Phenomenological Theory of Meaning (Phaenomenologica 139). Dordrecht: Kluwer 1996. Unveränd. Reprint 2012. Beyer wrote this section while he was at Stanford in 1994–95. Beyer worked with Wolfgang Künne in Hamburg and is now professor in Göttingen. Putnam learned about Husserl’s twin world example before he died and discusses it in Putnam (2019). See also Beyer (1997a, b), (2011) and (2017). 31   “Wie aber, wenn auf zwei Himmelskörpern zwei Menschen in völlig gleicher Umgebungserscheinung” dieselben“Gegenstände vorstellen und danach” dieselben“Aussagen orientieren? Hat das” dies“in beiden Fällen nicht eine verschiedene Bedeutung?” (Husserl 1987, Ergänzende Texte, Beilage XIX, 211.44–212.2). 32  Ändern wir das Beispiel etwas ab. Es seien auf der Erde zwei gleiche Umgebungen hergestellt und zwei Menschen zu ihnen in gleicher Lage, beide völlig gleiche Erscheinungen habend, in gleichen Worten aussagend etc. Haben beiderseits die Worte dieselben Bedeutungen? (Husserl 1987, p. 212, 3–6). 30

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correctly the direction of the movement, I believe that I have returned to the same start point […].33

However, Husserl’s manuscript contains no answer to these questions. His example remained in manuscript form until was printed in 1987, long after Putnam had put forth his twin earth example, and Beyer was the first to mention it in the philosophical discussion. So Putnam got the idea independently. I will not here go through Husserl’s examples and discuss what light they throw on the issues he and Putnam consider, in particular the twin world issues, reference, demonstratives, kinds and idealism. But I refer to Beyer’s work. There is much more to be said on the relation between the noema and the object and thereby also on Brentano’s problems concerning acts and their objects. A reader who is familiar with the contemporary discussion of reference and indexicals will find that Husserl still has much to contribute to resolve the issues. He anticipated not only Putnam’s example, but also many other of the problems and proposals that have been made in the recent discussion. Thus, for example, he anticipated many of the issues and observations that have been made by John Perry, and Perry and I have taught joint seminars where these ideas play a central role.34 Critics of the “Frege interpretation” often argue that there is a gap between philosophy of language, which was Frege’s field, and phenomenology, which deals with acts, mind and consciousness. Then, why did Husserl write that the noema is a generalization of the notion of Sinn to all acts? And why would Husserl come up with examples which are getting so much attention among philosophers of language? Are perhaps the philosophy of language and the philosophy of acts, mind and consciousness more closely connected than these critics think? Comparing Husserl to one of the foremost philosophers of language, Quine: both Husserl and Quine saw that when we are seeking to understand certain social phenomena, for example language learning and language use, intersubjectivity and interaction, we must focus on the evidence that is available to the participants in the pertinent social situations. This evidence is empirical, it comes to us through our senses. Both Husserl and Quine studied very carefully the way this evidence works, and they were led to very similar positions. Perception and language are dependent on intersubjective adaptation. Husserl studied this adaptation in great detail and concluded that “even what is straightforwardly perceptual is communal.”35 Quine, too, in his Paul Carus lectures in 1973 observed the social nature of perception: “Perception being such a private business, I find it ironical that the best

 Würde ich von einer Umgebung in die andere völlig gleiche gebracht, wobei die empirischen Anschauungen entweder absolut gleich oder im Sinne eben anschaulich gleicher Umgebung zusammenpassend sein werden, und glaube ich, verwirrt durch den Weg, der nicht genug Anhaltspunkte richtiger Schätzung der Bewegungsrichtung abgab, zum selben Ausgangspunkt zurückgekehrt zu sein … (Husserl 1987, p. 212, 30–35). 34  See, for example, Perry (2019). 35  Husserl (1954), p. 163. 33

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evidence of what counts as perceptual should be social conformity. I shall not pause over the lesson, but there is surely one there.”36 Quine never studied Husserl. However, during the following years he moved more and more in the direction of Husserl. And he recognized this: In an interview with Giovanna Borradori in 1994, he said: “I recognize that Husserl and I, in very different ways, addressed some of the same things.”37 Another, related, reason why some phenomenologists to begin with were critical of the Frege interpretation is that they found that it obliterates the difference between two main “schools” in contemporary philosophy: phenomenology and “analytic philosophy.” What would they say to Quine? And what to Gödel and Putnam? As I said, Critics of the “Frege interpretation” often argue that there is a gap between philosophy of language, which was Frege’s field, and phenomenology, which deals with acts, mind and consciousness. However, all these issues are interrelated, and good philosophers, like Husserl and Quine, discover this. My conclusion is that every major philosopher works within a much broader and more precise framework than that which is covered by a “school” label, and that the labels often prevent us from seeing this. Both with regard to philosophical views and the emphasis on arguments for one’s views I regard Husserl as much closer to Quine, Gödel and Putnam than, for example to Heidegger, who did his best to distance himself from Husserl.

2.8  Appendix The following paper started as an invited lecture given at a conference “The Actuality of Greek Philosophy” in Rethymnon, Crete, Greece, October 28, 1995, and in a symposium “Ancient and Modern” at the American Philosophical Association Pacific Division meeting, Seattle, April 5, 1996. A Greek translation of the lecture was printed in Myrta Dragona-Monachu, and George Roussopoulos (Eds.), The Actuality of Ancient Greek Philosophy, Athens: Ellinika Grammata 1997, pp.  279–288. The English version of the paper has never been submitted anywhere. In the lecture I used Husserl and passages from Aristotle to criticize two interpretations of Aristotle that were prominent at that time, by Myles Burnyeat and Richard Sorabji. Without knowing about my paper, Burnyeat has during the past years written a number of papers in which he modifies his original view that I was criticizing. In 2001 there was an exchange between Burnyeat and Sorabji (see my bibliography below). However, Sorabji has, as far as I know, not carried out any revision of his view, and my criticism of him therefore still stands.

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 Quine (1974), p. 23.  Quine (2008), p. 64.

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2.8.1  H  usserl’s Theory of Intentionality and the Interpretation of Aristotle’s Philosophy Husserl’s theory of intentionality, which is the core of phenomenology, stems from Aristotle’s theory of perception, via the scholastics and Husserl’s teacher Brentano. The history of this transmission is well known. (For a recent discussion of this, see Sorabji, Richard (1991)). In this paper I will use the connection between Aristotle and Husserl to examine some issues that are currently disputed in Husserl scholarship and in Aristotle scholarship. In the case of Aristotle scholarship I am particularly thinking of the controversy between Myles Burnyeat (1992) and Richard Sorabji (1974, 1992) and their many followers on both sides concerning the interpretation of Aristotle’s theory of perception. Burnyeat’s paper has just been published, but it has been circulating in manuscript form since 1983. 2.8.1.1  Aristotle The key idea in Aristotle’s theory of perception is introduced in De Anima in the following way: In regard to all sense-perception generally we must understand that a sense (sense organ) is that which is able to receive perceptible forms of things apart from their matter, as wax receives the imprint of the signet ring apart from the iron or gold of which it is made…38

According to Thomas, we understand (grasp) an external thing by having its species in our intellects, so that “once in act through this species as through its own form, the intellect knows the thing itself.” In Summa contra gentiles Thomas puts it this way: We must further consider that the intellect, having been informed by the species of the thing, by an act of understanding forms within itself a certain intention (intentio) of the thing understood.39

Thomas connects these intentions with language by speaking of these intentions as mental words, or inner words40 to which the outer words which we speak or write correspond. This is similar to the view on language Aristotle advances in the opening book of De Interpretatione. An early explicit formulation of the view that mental states are intrinsically verbal can, as pointed out to me by John Boler, be found in Augustine: ... the knowledge we retain in memory gives birth to a word that is altogether the same kind as the knowledge from which it is born. The thought formed by the thing that we know is a

 De Anima II, 12, 424a17-20.  SCG I, 53 [2–4]. 40  SCG IV, 11 [6]. 38 39

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D. Føllesdal word that is neither Greek nor Latin nor of any other language. (To convey into the knowledge of those with whom we speak) some sign is adopted by which it is signified.41

Similar views on mental states as proto-linguistic abound, more or less explicitly, in contemporary philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and discussions of artificial intelligence.42 2.8.1.2  Husserl I will now give a brief sketch of Husserl’s theory before we compare and contrast Husserl and Aristotle to get more insight in both. The key idea in Husserl’s theory of intentionality is that our acts are directed towards objects in virtue of their having a noema. In an earlier paper I have characterized the noema through twelve theses, the two main ones being: • The noema is an intensional entity, a generalization of the notion of meaning to the realm of all acts • The noema is not the object of the act, but that in virtue of which the act has an object. To put the second feature into Aristotelian-scholastic terminology, the noema is not the ad quem or object of perception, but the ad quo, the means by which we perceive. The noema is a complex structure through which our experience is organized in such a way that we perceive full-fledged objects that have much more to them than what meets the eye. The objects we perceive have features that we have not yet observed, for example a side turning away from us; the objects are experienced as extended in space and time and as being located in a world that stretches through space and time. Perception is hence not a passive reception of impulses from our surroundings, but an active structuring. There are, however, no given elements out there in the world that are given structure. When our sensory organs are affected, we have certain experiences, which Husserl calls hyle, using the Aristotelian term for matter. When we perceive, these hyle constrain the noema. However, the physical impulses we receive and the consequent hyletic constraints do not uniquely determine what the noema of an act is going to be. A large variety of noemata are compatible with the given hyle. Husserl compares the noema to Aristotelian form and the hyle to matter. His hyleomorphism does, however, not consist in the noema giving form or structure to the hyle. The hyle are not objects out there, they are not experienced, they are experiences. There are no sense data or other raw unstructured given elements out there, there are physical objects, and they are directly perceived, without intermediaries.

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 De Trinitate 15:10.  See Føllesdal 1990a, b for a criticism of such views.

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Husserl’s hyleomorphic terminology expresses his indebtedness to Aristotle. And although there are important differences, his view on perception and the distinctions he makes, may be helpful in attempting to interpret Aristotle. 2.8.1.3  Conflicting Interpretations of Aristotle Recently, two radically different interpretations of Aristotle’s theory of sense perception have emerged, both proposed and supported by prominent Aristotle scholars. One group of interpreters, with Richard Sorabji as a central figure, and including Thomas Slakey, and to some extent also Martha Nussbaum and Hilary Putnam, maintains that the sense-organ’s taking on form without matter is a physiological process. Some of them, like Slakey, insist that the process is simply physiological, others, like Sorabji, hold that the process is something more, in addition to being physiological, just as ‘a house is not simply bricks; it is also a shelter’.43 Myles Burnyeat, who is the front figure of the other group, is convinced that this is not Aristotle’s view, Burnyeat claims at the other extreme: “The physical material of which Aristotelian sense-organs are made does not need to undergo any ordinary physical change to become aware of a color or a smell.”44 Burnyeat actually argues for two claims: The first … claim is that the reception of sensible forms is to be understood in terms of becoming aware of colours, sounds, smells, and other sensible qualities, not as a literal physiological change of quality in the organ.

... The second claim … is that no physiological change is needed for the eye or the organ of touch to become aware of the appropriate perceptual objects. The model says: the effect on the organ is the awareness, no more and no less.45 (Burnyeat’s emphasis.)

According to Burnyeat: ... what produces the perception of red or of middle C is not light striking the retina or the movement of air striking the ear; it is red and middle C. All of which is further ground for thinking that the unordinary change produced by this unordinary agency, the taking on of sensible form, is not red in your eye or middle C in your ear, in the sense that Sorabji requires, but simply awareness of red and middle C.46 (my emphasis.)

I cannot side with either Burnyeat or Sorabji in their interpretation of Aristotle here. Both systematic and textual considerations support a third interpretation, and this third interpretation comes out rather close to Husserl’s theory of perception. Burnyeat is right that awareness is involved. Aristotle discusses perception, and perception comprises awareness. However, Burnyeat is seriously wrong when he  Sorabji (1974), p. 175.  Burnyeat (1992), p. 19. 45  Burnyeat (1992), pp. 21–22. 46  Burnyeat (1992), p. 20. 43 44

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holds that awareness is all. Also changes in the physical world are needed. There is no sight without light striking the retina. And Aristotle discusses the transmission of the form through the medium to the sensory organ. Sorabji, on the other hand, says nothing about awareness. And he also has a very literal reading of what it means for the sense organ to take on the form of the object perceived: it means that the sense organ takes on the properties of the object perceived, for example becomes hot or cold, blue or red. However, Aristotle’s view becomes quite implausible if this is what he means. What, for example if we see a square object, does our eye apple then become square? Aristotle’s discussion of form in De Anima as well as in his other works makes it amply evident that he has a much less literal notion of form. The form is more like an abstract structure, which can be instantiated in different ways in different media. Thus, when music is produced and transmitted, or written down in some notation or recorded, the form depends on the medium. (Terrell Ward Bynum compares the form to information, in Bynum (1987)). Neither Burnyeat nor Sorabji addresses the problem of transmission, for different reasons. For Burnyeat, physical and physiological processes play no role. As he stated in the last quotation above, perception is solely a matter of awareness. Sorabji, on the other hand, has such a literal notion of form that any account of transmission would immediately become implausible, as becomes obvious in my example of the square object. We can hence subscribe to the first half of the following statement by Burnyeat, which is directed against Sorabji, but we cannot agree with the second half, when it is meant as saying that perception is solely a matter of awareness: The organ’s becoming like the object is not literally and physiologically becoming hard or warm, but a noticing or becoming aware of hardness and warmth.47

2.8.1.4  Aristotle and Husserl We hence reject the two opposite extreme interpretations of Burnyeat and Sorabji and end up with an interpretation which was fairly common in the Middle Ages, notably in some of the late scholastic Aristotelians.48 It is also strikingly similar to Husserl’s theory of perception. It stresses that perception involves both awareness and physiology. And it regards the form taken on by our sensory organ (Husserl’s noema) as an abstract structure and not as a collection of properties. Let me end by noting two further similarities between Husserl and Aristotle, which are interesting because Husserl here disagrees with his teacher Brentano and holds a view that is decidedly more Aristotelian:

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 Burnyeat (1992), p. 22.  see Simmons (1994).

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(1) Husserl deviates from Brentano in holding that that which gives the act its directedness (Husserl’s noema) is not the object of the act. The noema is the ad quo; the object is the ad quem. (2) As a consequence of (1), Husserl can accept, like Aristotle, that there are mental states whose object does not exist. For Brentano, every act has an object that ‘inexists’ in the act.

References Berg, Jan. 1962. Bolzano’s Logic, Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis, Stockholm Studies in Philosophy, 2, Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Beyer, Christian. 1996. From Bolzano to Husserl – A Study of the Origin of the Phenomenological Theory of Meaning, Phaenomenologica 139, Dordrecht: Kluwer. Reprint 2012. ———. 1997a. Husserl’s Representationalism and the ‘Hypothesis of the Background’. Synthese 112: 323–352. ———. 1997b. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie der empirischen Bedeutung., In Phänomenologische Forschungen. Neue Folge 2(2), 167–176. ———. 2011. Husserl’s conception of consciousness. In Phänomenologische Forschungen. Neue Folge eds. Konrad Cramer and Christian Beyer, 43–54, ibid.. ———. 2017. Husserl and Frege on Sense. In Phänomenologische Forschungen. Neue Folge ed. Stefania Centrone, 197–227, ibid. Bolzano, Bernard. 1972. Theory of Science. Selection edited and translated by Rolf George, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. ———. 1973. Theory of Science. Selection edited, with an introduction, by Jan Berg. Translated from the German by Burnham Terrell, Dordrecht and Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company. ———. 2014. Theory of Science. First complete English translation in four volumes by Rolf George and Paul Rusnock, New York: Oxford University Press. Brentano, J.C.M. 1966. The Manuscripts of Franz Brentano. Revue internationale de Philosophie 20 (78): 477–482. Burnyeat, Myles. 1992. Is an Aristotelian Philosophy of Mind Still Credible? (A Draft). In Essays on Aristotle’s De Anima, ed. M. Nussbaum and A. Rorty, 15–26. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bynum, Terrell Ward. 1987. A new Look at Aristotle’s Theory of Perception. History of Philosophy Quarterly 4 (2): 163–178. Centrone, Stefania, ed. 2017. Essays on Husserl’s Logic and Philosophy of Mathematics, Synthesis Library 384, 197–227. Berlin: Springer. Chisholm, Roderick M. 1986. Self-Profile. In Roderick M. Chisholm, ed. Radu J. Bogdan, 3–77. Dordrecht: D. Reidel. Cramer, Konrad, and Christian Beyer, eds. 2011. Edmund Husserl 1859–2009, Treatises of the Academy of Sciences Göttingen New Episode XIV. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Fisette, Denis. 2015a. Reception and Actuality of Carl Stumpf’s Philosophy. An Introduction. In Philosophy from an Empirical Standpoint: Essays on Carl Stumpf, ed. D.  Fisette and R. Martinelli, 11–53. Amsterdam: Rodopi. ———. 2015b. A Phenomenology Without Phenomena? Stumpf’s Criticism of Husserl’s Ideas I.  In Philosophy from an Empirical Standpoint: Essays on Carl Stumpf, ed. D.  Fisette and R. Martinelli, 319–356. Amsterdam: Rodopi. ———. 2018. Phenomenology and Descriptive Psychology: Brentano, Stumpf, and Husserl. In Oxford Handbook of the History of Phenomenology, ed. D. Zahavi, 88–104. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Føllesdal, Dagfinn. 1990a. Noema and Meaning in Husserl. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50 (Supplement): 263–271. ———. 1990b. Indeterminacy and Mental States. In Perspectives on Quine, ed. Robert Barrett and Roger Gibson, 98–109. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. George, Rolf. 1978. Brentano’s Relation to Aristotle. Grazer Philosophische Studien 5: 249–266. Husserl, Edmund. 1900. Logische Untersuchungen. Leipzig: Verlag von Veit und Comp. Halle 1900, second, revised edition English translation by J.M. Findlay, ed. by D. Moran, London: Routledge. ———. 1913, 1976. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Translated by W.R. Boyce Gibson. Husserliana III/1. Den Haag; Nijhoff, Translated by Fred Kersten, The Hague: Nijhoff. ———. 1954. Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, Walter Biemel (Ed.), The Hague: Nijhoff, 1954, Husserliana VI; The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, translated by David Carr, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970. ———. 1987. Vorlesungen über Bedeutungslehre Sommersemester 1908. U. Panzer (ed.). Husserliana Bd. XXVI, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff. Jastrow, Joseph. 1900. Fact and Fable in Psychology. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Miller, Izchak. 1984. Husserl, Perception, and Temporal Awareness. Cambridge: MIT Press. Mohanty, J.N. 1982. Husserl and Frege. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Osborn, A.D. 1934. The philosophy of Edmund Husserl in its Development from His Mathematical Interests to His First Concept of Phenomenology in Logical Investigations. New  York: International Press. Perry, John. 2019. Frege’s Detour: An Essay on Sense, Reference, and Truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Putnam, Hilary. 2019. Mind and Meaning: Themes from Putnam, Lauener Library of Analytical Philosophy, editor Michael Frauchiger, Berlin: De Gruyter. Quine, W.V. 1974. The Roots of Reference. La Salle: Open Court. ———. 2008. “Twentieth-Century Logic,” Interview with Giovanna Borradori in 1994. In Quine in Dialogue, ed. D. Follesdal and D. Quine. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schuhmann, Karl. 1977. Husserl-Chronik: Denk- und Lebensweg Edmund Husserls. Dordrecht: Martinus Nifhoff. Shields, Christopher. 1993. Some Recent Approaches to Aristotle’s De Anima. In: Aristotle, De Anima, Books II and III, transl. by Hamlyn, pp. 157–187. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Simmons, Alison. 1994. Explaining sense perception: a scholastic challenge. Philosophical Studies 73: 257–275. Smith, Barry. 1990. Towards a History of Speech Act Theory. In Speech Acts, Meanings and Intentions, ed. A. Burkhardt, 29–61. Berlin/New York: Critical Approaches to the Philosophy of John R. Searle. Sokolowski, Robert. 2000. Introduction to Phenomenology. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sorabji, Richard. 1974. Body and soul in Aristotle. In Philosophy 49, pp 63–89. Here quoted from the reprint in Michael Durrant, (Ed.), Aristotle’s De Anima in focus, London: Routledge, 1993. ———. 1991. From Aristotle to Brentano: The Development of the Concept of Intentionality. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Supplementary volume, pp. 227–259. Spiegelberg, Herbert. 1971. From Husserl to Heidegger: Excerpts from a 1928 Freiburg Diary by W. R. Boyce Gibson. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 2: 58–81.

Chapter 3

Descriptive Psychology and Phenomenology: From Brentano to Husserl to the Logic of Consciousness David Woodruff Smith

Abstract  In his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874) Franz Brentano launched the discipline of phenomenology as descriptive psychology. Drawing on Brentano’s work, Edmund Husserl developed a conception of phenomenology founded on an enhanced theory of intentionality as a distinctive property of consciousness. Husserl expanded Brentanian descriptive psychology with an ontology of meaning or content influenced by logical theory, from Bolzano to Frege and beyond. Here I shall outline an evolving line of phenomenological analysis of the structure of consciousness and its intentionality. This lineage draws key factors from first Brentano and then Husserl with further explication through subsequent forms of ideal meaning and modal ontology. The resulting model of intentional consciousness is a direct legacy flowing from Brentano’s work, though it goes beyond Brentano’s more purely empiricist constraints. On Brentano’s analysis, an act of consciousness is “directed” primarily toward an object: an object existing “intentionally in” the act. And the act is also directed secondarily, “incidentally”, toward itself: in “inner consciousness”. The primary form of directedness leads into Husserl’s theory of intentionality via phenomenological content or “noematic” meaning. The secondary form of directedness leads into Husserl’s theory of awareness-of-consciousness in “inner time-consciousness”. Thus, phenomenal intentional consciousness features the way the object is presented in consciousness modified by the way that presentation itself is carried out. These two features of an act of consciousness define the fundamental form of consciousness. These features can be further explicated in terms of the way the act is directed via phenomenological content toward the object in “intentionally possible” situations (“in” consciousness) and the way the act itself is executed phenomenally (with “inner consciousness”). The result is a “modal” model of precisely intentionality cum inner awareness.

D. W. Smith (*) University of California, Irvine, CA, USA © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano and Austrian Philosophy, Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40947-0_3

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Recent philosophers of mind have gradually come to focus on features of phenomenological content and inner consciousness that were sharply characterized in Brentano and pursued further in Husserl. The modal model affords a theory of the ideal “logical” structures that define the Brentanian forms of “intentional in-­ existence” and “inner consciousness”. Keywords  Descriptive psychology · Phenomenology · Consciousness · Intentionality · Inner consciousness · Mental phenomena · Content · Meaning · Modality · Semantic theory of intentionality · Modal model of (self-) consciousness · Logic of consciousness · Brentano · Husserl · Bolzano · Twardowski · Carnap · Føllesdal · Hintikka

3.1  I ntroduction: Brentano’s Legacy in Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind There is an evolving line of philosophical theory that defines the discipline of phenomenology and its theory of consciousness. The lineage leads directly from Brentano into Husserl and onward into contemporary developments of Husserlian phenomenology, focusing on the theory of intentionality in acts of consciousness, and on the phenomenological character of experience. I should like here to trace that complex line of theory as developing, historically and conceptually, from core ideas set out by Brentano himself. A distinctive aspect of this line of theory as it has evolved after Brentano is the role of logical theory in the foundations of phenomenology. The “logical” aspect of the “phenomena” of consciousness comes into sharp focus, perhaps surprisingly, as we trace this particular development of phenomenological theory: from Brentano through Twardowski into Husserl and ultimately into a reconstruction of Husserlian theory in light of logics of meaning and modality. Within the theoretical lineage we’ll trace, Brentanian ideas lead from Brentano through Husserl into a “semantic” approach to intentionality and, further, into a “modal” model of intentionality and inner consciousness: the definitive features of mental phenomena for Brentano. The phenomenal aspects of conscious intentional experience are fundamental for phenomenology, as Brentano astutely observed. Less familiar is how the logical aspects of consciousness have emerged in explication of the phenomena of consciousness, and I try to bring out these aspects in the present study. Neo-Brentanian and neo-Husserlian views on phenomenological content have emerged in recent philosophy of mind. At issue are competing views of phenomenal character, cognitive (as opposed to sensory) phenomenology, phenomenal intentionality, and inner consciousness. The present study would place these issues within a

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particular structure of the “phenomena” defined in the meta-­phenomenological framework we’ll trace below.

3.2  D  escriptive Psychology, Phenomenology, and the Structure of Consciousness: From Brentano to Husserl In his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (2015/1874), Franz Brentano sought a scientific basis for the emerging discipline of psychology. He divided the discipline into two parts: genetic psychology and descriptive psychology. Genetic psychology was to study the causal processes giving rise to mental states, while descriptive psychology was to study the character of mental states per se, as opposed to their causal origins. Genetic psychology Brentano called physiological psychology, which would today take the form of cognitive neuroscience. Descriptive psychology Brentano occasionally called phenomenology: the analysis of the forms and characteristics of mental phenomena per se. Brentano’s use of the term “phenomenology” occurs in lectures from 1887 to 1891 published as Descriptive Psychology (1995/1887): in an Appendix titled “Descriptive Psychology or Descriptive Phenomenology”.1 In his conception of descriptive psychology, Brentano followed an Aristotelian form of definition, seeking fundamental traits characteristic of a mental state. Most famously, Brentano proposed that every mental state or act is characteristically “directed” toward some object, an object with “intentional in-existence”: the object exists “intentionally in” the mental state, or is “contained intentionally in” the mental state. But Brentano further proposed that every mental act is also directed “incidentally” toward itself, i.e., in “inner consciousness”, thanks to which the act is conscious. Accordingly, Brentano focused sharply on both intentionality and consciousness — distinct features of mind that have each drawn continuing theoretical debate. In particular, Brentano analyzed a mental phenomenon — a mental state or mental act or act of consciousness  — as consisting formally of a presentation of an object and, “alongside” that presentation, an accompanying inner presentation of the object presentation itself. The object presentation is further modified by a judgment, either affirming or denying the presented object, and also by an affective character coloring the object presentation. Descriptive psychology, or phenomenology, is thus, for Brentano, the science that so analyzes the structure of mental phenomena.2

 Recent studies of Brentano and his theory of mind include: Fisette and Fréchette 2013, Huemer 2015, Textor 2017. 2  The details of Brentano’s analysis of object presentation and inner presentation are laid out in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, pp. 81–161. 1

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In the wake of Brentano’s seminal work, Edmund Husserl centered his conception of phenomenology on the intentionality of consciousness: where every act of consciousness is “intentional”, or a “consciousness of something”. Husserl thus treated “intentionality” as a property of an act of consciousness rather than a mode of being of the object of consciousness — an important theoretical shift. Also, for Husserl, an act’s self-consciousness takes the form of “inner time consciousness”  — building temporal structure into “inner consciousness”, or consciousness-of-consciousness. Brentano spoke interchangeably of the “object” or “content” of a mental act, since he held that the object toward which the act is directed is “contained intentionally in” the act. Brentano began his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint with a theory of science centered on “phenomena”, or things as they appear. He may or may not have endorsed a phenomenalist ontology, identifying physical objects with “phenomena”, contrary to his Aristotelian background. For, he wrote, “physical phenomena” of color and shape are “merely phenomena; color and sound, warmth and taste, do not really and truly exist outside of our sensations, even though they may point to objects which do so exist” (p. 9, emphasis added). In any case, turning from physics to psychology, Brentano aligned “object” and “content” within a mental phenomenon. In Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint Brentano’s main concern was to articulate foundations of the science of psychology. His ontological commitments appear to have been downplayed for that purpose. However, in later work, from 1904 onward, he pursued a radical particularism or perhaps conceptualism called “reism”. On that view only particular individual things, or res, actually exist; universals do not, nor therefore do substances underlying them. Rather, Brentano “conceives both substances and attributes as real things that are related to one another by a particular mereological relation” (as Wolfgang Huemer recounts Brentano’s later ontology, in Huemer 2015, section 7). Thus, in the case of a white table, there is a fundamental “real” particular from which both “white” and “table” parts are abstracted — as mere phenomenal “concepts”, I gather. However the doctrine of reism might work, it would seem that Brentanian mental phenomena would need to point ultimately to “real” things outside the phenomena themselves — which would entail a distinction between internal mental contents and external objects. Now, Brentano’s students took Brentanian theory further than Brentano himself taught (or preferred). In particular, Kasimir Twardowski, in On the Content and Object of Presentations (1977/1894), sharply distinguished the content and object of a mental presentation (Vorstellung). Thus: According to [Bernard] Bolzano, if someone claims to find it absurd to maintain that a presentation has no object whatsoever and, hence, does not present something, then this can only be due to the fact that he confuses the content of a presentation  — which indeed belongs to every presentation — with the object of the presentation. And as examples of such “objectless” presentations, Bolzano mentions the following: Nothing, round square, green virtue, golden mountain.3

 Twardowski 1977/1894, p. 18; see pp. 27ff on the difference between content and object.

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For Twardowski, the “content” of a presentation (Vorstellung) is a proper part of the presentation. However, the “object” presented is something else: in the four cases cited by Bolzano, there is no object at all answering to the content — and for obviously different reasons in those four types of presentation. Where there is an object, for Twardowski, it may be an external object like (say) a tree or, in the case of judgment, a state of affairs that the tree exists. I note Twardowski’s reference to Bernard Bolzano, who wrote in Prague well before Brentano taught in Vienna; for Bolzano’s concerns were logical, where Brentano’s were psychological.4 In the Logical Investigations (1900–01/20), Husserl further ramified the distinction between content and object of consciousness. Indeed, for Husserl, the distinction is basic to the theoretical foundations of phenomenology per se. The phenomenological content of an act of consciousness is not the object of consciousness. Rather, the content is that aspect of the act in virtue of which the act is directed toward the given object if such exists. Specifically, on Husserl’s theory in the Investigations, the “real content” of an act of consciousness is a dependent part or “moment” of the act, while the “ideal content” of the act lies in the “intentional essence” of the act, i.e., the ideal species carrying the ideal logical form of the act’s directedness. Accordingly, Husserl’s theory of intentionality joined descriptive phenomenology with logical theory. And so thereby, as oft observed, with Husserl phenomenology took an anti-psychologistic turn.5 With the advent of Husserl’s Logical Investigations, the science of phenomenology was to study not only concrete acts of consciousness, and the concrete contents thereof per Brentano, but also the ideal intentional contents of acts of consciousness: what Husserl called sense or Sinn, including forms of meaning expressible in language as Bedeutung. Husserl thus invoked meaning-content in the sense of logical theory from Bolzano to Gottlob Frege and beyond. For Husserl, intentional content was to be conceived along the lines of Bolzano’s notion of an idea-in-itself, or Vorstellung an sich — or also Frege’s notion of Sinn, containing the “way of being given”, or Art des Gegebensein, of the object meant (Bedeutung) by a term bearing that Sinn.6 Interestingly, by the 1920s, in the Vienna Circle era, Rudolf Carnap’s “logical empiricism” in the Aufbau7 developed a logic-based theory of the formation of knowledge, leading from elementary sensory presentations to the “constitution” of everyday objects: an analysis of “the logical construction [i.e. ‘constitution’] of the world”. Carnap’s analysis of knowledge reflects both Brentanian concerns with “phenomena” and Husserlian analyses of the phenomenological “constitution” of  See Betti 2017 on Twardowski, and Morscher 2014 on Bolzano, noting Twardowski’s familiarity with Bolzano’s writing and therewith Twardowski’s influence on the Polish logic tradition. 5  Cf. details in Smith 2013a, b. 6  See essays gathered in Dreyfus ed. 1982, including Føllesdal’s seminal 1969 essay “Husserl’s Notion of Noema”; and also Smith and McIntyre 1982, reconstructing Husserl’s theory of intentionality via Sinn. Note Morscher 2014 on Bolzano’s anti-psychologistic conception of logic, prior to Frege and Husserl. 7  Carnap 2003/1928. 4

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objects in our surrounding world. It is interesting, then, to note the long-running concerns with logic among Austrian philosophers from Bolzano in Prague to Husserl in Vienna and Göttingen and beyond, even as phenomenology pursued the nature of consciousness on the heels of Brentano’s teaching in Vienna. Of particular relevance, to our concerns here, is that part of logical theory which developed after Frege as formal semantics in the 1930s and led into model-theoretic and possible-­ worlds semantics. In mathematical logic, “semantics” emerged from the work of Alfred Tarski, on the heels of Kurt Gödel: Gödel working in Vienna before emigrating to the United States, and Tarski working with Twardowski and logicians in Lvov and Warsaw before emigrating to the United States. Tarski’s explicitly “semantic” theory of truth can even be read as providing a formal analogue to Husserl’s theory of intentionality and epoché. My point here is simply that connections between logical and phenomenological theory were in the air back in the day.8

3.3  F  rom Psychology to Phenomenology: Ideal/Logical Content in Consciousness After earning his doctorate in mathematics on the calculus of variations (in 1882 in Vienna, after studying in Berlin with Karl Weierstrass and Leopold Kronecker), Husserl studied philosophy with Brentano in Vienna (1884–86). Husserl then returned to mathematics for his Habilitation on philosophy of number (accepted in 1887 with Carl Stumpf at Halle), from which came his Philosophy of Arithmetic (1891, reprising his Habilitation). He then spent a decade synthesizing his philosophical and mathematical views, as he drafted his Logical Investigations (1900–01, first edition). Therein Husserl launched the modern discipline of phenomenology, with an anti-psychologistic turn grounded in mathematical-logical perspectives. Where Brentano was an avowed empiricist philosopher, in the lineage of David Hume and John Stuart Mill, Husserl was a mathematical philosopher, in the lineage of Bernard Bolzano, Karl Weierstrass, Georg Cantor, David Hilbert, and Hermann Weyl  — the latter four being interlocutors of Husserl’s over many years. Frege famously charged Husserl with psychologizing arithmetic, in a review of Husserl’s pre-phenomenological Philosophy of Arithmetic (1891/2003). Husserl then spent a decade developing a conception of phenomenology that posited ideal contents of consciousness with a character both phenomenal and logical cum mathematical. And so, in his Logical Investigations (1900–01) Husserl launched the discipline of phenomenology as we know it today: not as a kind of “empirical psychology”, but  Cf. Smith 2016a, b. Tarski refers to Husserl’s Logical Investigations, wherein the Prolegomena outlines a philosophical conception of metamathematics, and Tarski was in contact with Carnap, who was familiar with Husserl’s Ideas I. In his later years Gödel himself saw in Husserl’s phenomenology a foundation for his own philosophy of mathematics: cf. Tieszen 2005, 2011. 8

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rather as a new type of analysis of ideal “logical forms” of the “phenomena” of consciousness. As it were:

Husserl  Bolzano  Brentano.

Bear in mind how logic and mathematics were growing together in Husserl’s day amidst results from Cantor and Hilbert and ultimately Kurt Gödel and Alfred Tarski.9 Interestingly, Dallas Willard has argued that in Philosophy of Arithmetic Husserl did not mean to reduce number to “psychical” presentations, as Frege thought, but rather to follow Bolzano in seeking a “categorial” or “formal” construct corresponding to numbers and/or totalities. And, Willard observes: This was certainly made all the more difficult by Husserl’s use of the term “content” to refer both to the object — either real or “merely intentional” — of a representation, concept or act, and to sense contents and other constituents or parts of a representation, concept or act.10

Thus, in Philosophy of Arithmetic Husserl was following Brentano’s use of “content” and “object”. But then in the Logical Investigations Husserl went on to distinguish content and object within a detailed theory of intentionality at the foundation of phenomenology. Between Bolzano and Frege there came the work of Hermann Lotze in logic and psychology. Lotze is remembered for his Platonistic conception of logical “ideas”. In his day, following Brentano, the foundations of psychology were under extensive discussion (even leading into William James’ work). Denis Fisette traces Husserl’s incorporation of the notion of ideal concepts and propositions or thoughts, from Bolzano onward through Lotze’s study of Plato’s theory of ideas. At any rate, Husserl’s own critiques of Lotze and Twardowski emphasized the ideal status of propositions and their constituents not only in the foundations of logic and mathematics, but also in the theory of intentionality. And this sweep of “ideas” — from Bolzano’s Vorstellung-an-sich and Satz-an-sich through Lotze’s Ideas in logic and to Frege’s Sinn and Gedanke — led into Husserl’s own conception of ideal meanings. For Husserl, this conception of meanings was to be central for the foundations of both logic and phenomenology. Especially important for logic, Husserl held, was the type of meaning called a proposition (Satz) or thought (Gedanke); for propositions are what are true or false and thus essential in the theory of deduction (as truth-­preserving). For Husserl, accordingly, the ideal status of propositions and other forms of intentional content ground the philosophy of logic and also of the theory of intentionality.11  See Morscher 2014 on Bolzano’s conception of logic, and the foundations of mathematics anticipating set theory, noting Bolzano’s anti-psychologistic view on which Husserl drew. 10  See Husserl 1891/2003, pp. xxv-xxvi. 11  Cf. Fisette 2017 for an extensive study of these notions and their evolution from Bolzano to Lotze to Twardowski to Frege and their role in Husserl’s development of phenomenology. Frege’s own views followed in the wake of Lotze, some of whose lectures Frege himself attended in Göttingen. 9

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In later years, Husserl added a transcendental motif to his conception of phenomenology, in his Ideas I (1913), and ultimately a genetic motif, in the posthumous Crisis (1935–1938; 1970). Phenomenology is thus to take a “transcendental” perspective on what one experiences, focusing on the way the object of consciousness is presented in an experience, and on what makes possible various forms of experience. While Husserl’s transcendental turn adapts a neo-Kantian idiom of “transcendental” philosophy, his scheme for the foundations of phenomenology is not Kantian. For Husserl, the “transcendental” aspect of consciousness resides in the ideal logical form of the way an object is given or appears in consciousness: what Husserl called “noema” (following Aristotle). The “noema” or “noematic content” of an intentional experience — especially the “noematic sense [Sinn]” inhering in the experience — Husserl characterized as “the perceived as perceived”, “the judged as judged”, etc. Ultimately, in the Crisis, Husserl delved into the intersubjective cultural heritage carried in the meanings invoked in our everyday experiences. While phenomenology in practice is focused on the lived phenomenal character of experience, Husserl’s metatheory for phenomenology invoked aspects of the metalogical or metamathematical theory that was developing from Frege into mathematical logic after Husserl’s day.12 Dagfinn Føllesdal has long stressed the affinity between Husserl’s model of intentionality via noema and Frege’s model of reference via Sinn. On Føllesdal’s interpretation, Husserl’s theory of intentionality posits a structure of the following form:

Subject — act — noema — —  object  if such exists.



The object of consciousness (if such exists) is always given in a certain way: say, in thinking of Napoleon as “the victor at Jena” or rather as “the vanquished at Waterloo” (in Husserl’s example). And the way the object is given or presented is captured in the act’s noema, specifically, its “noematic Sinn”. Husserl’s notion of noema, Føllesdal noted, was conceived as a generalization of the notion of Sinn. Behind that notion of Sinn, Føllesdal has long observed in lectures, lay Bolzano’s distinction between the object of a presentation, or Vorstellung, and the mode of presentation carried in the ideal Vorstellung an sich.13 In the Logical Investigations, we noted above, Husserl took the Sinn content of an act of consciousness to be the type or ideal form of the act: an ideal species of the act called its “intentional essence”. In Ideas I Husserl modified his ontology of content. Instead of a type or universal, the act’s noema, or noematic Sinn, was assumed to be its own kind of entity: an ideal meaning entity, whose role is to intentionally prescribe an object of consciousness, rather than to group similar acts of consciousness as under a species. While some readings of Husserl on noema treat noematic content as purely phenomenal, I take the noema — à la Føllesdal — to be an ideal  These themes are detailed in Smith 2013a.  See Føllesdal’s article “Husserl’s Notion of Noema” in Dreyfus ed. 1982. Cf. Smith 2013a, Smith and McIntyre 1982.

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meaning that defines phenomenal intentional character. In this respect Husserl proposes what we may call a “semantic” theory of intentionality.14 In Ideas I Husserl famously proposed a methodology designed specifically for the new science of phenomenology. In order to study structures of consciousness precisely as we experience acts of perception, thought, emotion, etc., we are to “bracket” the question of the existence of the ostensive objects of our experience, that is, existence in the surrounding world of nature and everyday life. This method Husserl called epoché, borrowing the term from the ancient skeptics. Putting aside the external objects of consciousness, we are to turn our attention instead to objects just as they are perceived, or judged or desired, etc. For the object of an experience as experienced Husserl introduced the term “noematic content”, or “noema”, now understood as a form of ideal meaning or Sinn. Ideal meaning thus makes possible intentional consciousness as we experience it and is part of the structure of consciousness that is analyzed through epoché. Husserl’s mathematical background configures the content of an experience as an ideal logico-mathematical entity, then, rather than a merely “empirical” entity, a “real” content of consciousness, posited in empirical “psychology”. And the method of bracketing turns inter alia to the analysis of forms of consciousness bearing noematic contents of various types. The move toward ideal meaning steers away from Brentano’s own “empirical standpoint”, and presumably from his later doctrine of “reism” if applied to mental phenomena. Nonetheless, the method of bracketing is sharply pre-figured in Brentano’s own distinction between genetic psychology and descriptive psychology. For the whole point of the latter discipline, for Brentano, is to circumscribe precisely all and only characteristic features of the properly mental phenomena (those observable in light of inner perception), while setting aside both the question of their physiological (compare neural) basis and the question of the external existence of the “objects” appearing in mental acts. And since for Brentano mental acts always appear in “inner consciousness” (albeit “incidentally”), the range of phenomena analyzed in descriptive psychology, or phenomenology, is precisely: all and only acts of phenomenal consciousness. In Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, as he homes in on the characteristics of mental acts,15 his idiom moves from “mental phenomena” to “mental states” to “mental acts” and finally to “acts of consciousness”. In the final analysis, then, “mental phenomena” are structured acts of consciousness: the subject matter of phenomenology as we know it in Husserl’s wake  — Husserl developing a beefed-up ontology of ideal structures of consciousness. Whatever the ontological status of contents, Husserl and his successors in classical phenomenology — including Edith Stein, Martin Heidegger, Emanuel Levinas, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty  — explored rich forms of meaning in everyday experience: under the German term “Sinn” or the French “sens”, terms ubiquitous in the writings of these thinkers. In these terms

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 On these points, cf. Smith 2013a, especially the closing chapter, and note Smith 2016b.  pp. 81–161.

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classical phenomenologists pursued the “phenomena themselves”: in our familiar experience of time, space, self, embodiment, intersubjectivity, personhood, community, and so on. Here we find Brentanian descriptive phenomenology at work in diverse ways attentive to our manifold forms of experience.

3.4  T  he Logic of the Phenomena of Consciousness: Meaning and Modality Suppose we bracket some of the debates over rationalist, empiricist, neo-Kantian, and meta-logical conceptions of the mind and its place in science. We can then see a clear line of development leading from Brentano’s own sharply defined, yet subtle, characterizations of mental activities. This line of development, as I see it, leads instructively from Brentano’s descriptive psychology into Husserl’s logically informed formulation of phenomenology. And that style of phenomenology has been nicknamed “analytic phenomenology”. In this conception of phenomenology, we do not leave the “phenomena” behind, the lived forms of experience phenomenally presenting various kinds of things in our surrounding world — as if ascending to a Platonic or Fregean “heaven” of “ideas”, never to return to our concrete consciousness in the Lebenswelt. Rather, we abstract from the “phenomena”  — Brentanian “mental phenomena”, as it were — the ideal forms of consciousness: which Husserl presented in the Logical Investigations as “logical forms” of consciousness.16 In the 1950s and 1960s logicians developed formal models of meaning, truth, and modality, as formal semantics led from the logic of sense and reference (à la Frege and later Carnap) into modal logic, i.e., the logic of possibility and necessity. Models of both meaning and modality found application in relation to Husserlian intentionality theory.17 As noted, Føllesdal has emphasized the links between Husserl and both Bolzano and Frege. The structure of intentionality relates subject, act, noema, and object (if such object exists). And if the noema functions in this “logical” or “semantic” manner, the act is directed in virtue of its noema toward an appropriate object in the world if such exists. On the semantic model of intentionality, that is, the act is successfully related intentionally to whatever object (if any) “satisfies” the noematic Sinn entertained in the act. This model of intentionality should be seen as evolving from Brentano’s core idea of directedness toward an “object”, after the distinction between “internal” content and “external” object is elaborated, and after the logical or semantic model of Sinn is developed.  cf. the Prolegomena.  Systems of modal logic and their semantics — in the form of possible-worlds semantics — were developed in the late 1950s by Stig Kanger and Jaakko Hintikka, then Saul Kripke and others. Føllesdal’s 1961 doctoral dissertation was a study in quantified modal logic featuring standard names that keep their reference in different possible worlds: cf. Føllesdal 2004/1961. 16 17

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In the background of this evolution is Alfred Tarski’s formulation of model theory for formal semantics, taking shape in the 1930s. Tarski’s metalogical or metamathematical conception of semantics reflected in some ways Husserl’s vision of metalogic in the Prolegomena of the Logical Investigations.18 As modal logics were developed in the 1950s, Jaakko Hintikka applied the style of possible-worlds semantics (model theory reformed) to the logic of attributions of knowledge, belief, and perception. This “modal” approach to perception, belief, etc., can be seen as articulating a model of intentionality, especially significant for perception, a model resonant with Husserl’s conception of “horizon”. On a formal level, Hintikka’s logic treated “A sees that p” as syntactically like “it is necessary that p”, where a modal operator (“A sees that” or “it is necessary that”) modifies a sentence “p”; Hintikka’s semantics then defined truth-conditions in terms of alternative possibilities or “worlds”. Our concern here looks to the semantics of these modal formulations as a model for intentionality. On Husserl’s theory of intentionality, the Sinn content in an act “predelineates” a “manifold” or “horizon” of further possibilities left open regarding the object intended, possibilities constrained by the subject’s expectations or associations regarding the intended object. This pattern in the act’s intentional directedness can be modeled by the style of possible-worlds semantics developed by Hintikka, especially for the logic of perception. Thus, the sentence “David sees that this crow is circling overhead” is true if and only if in every possible situation or world compatible with the content of the visual experience so described, there is such a crow circling above the head of the subject David. The horizon of the experience thus prescribes an appropriate range of visually possible situations compatible with the content of the experience. In Husserl and Intentionality (1982) Ronald McIntyre and I presented a reconstruction of Husserl’s theory of intentionality that centered on a semantic conception of noematic Sinn and its intentional reach into a horizon of appropriate possible situations or worlds — drawing on the logic of meaning and modality (as configured by Føllesdal and Hintikka). The resulting “modal” model of intentionality, I want to emphasize here, fits properly into the line of development from Brentano through Twardowski into Husserl and ultimately into the “analytic” style of phenomenology that features ideal meaning or Sinn and its role in directing consciousness toward various possibilities in intentionally possible situations.19

 as noted in Smith 2013a; cf. Smith 2016a, b.  See: Dreyfus ed. 1982, Smith and McIntyre 1982, and Smith 2013a. The specific alignment of Husserl’s structure of horizon with Hintikka’s structure of intentionally possible worlds is detailed in Smith and McIntyre 1982. The Tarskian connection is explored in Smith 2016a, b. The point here is to emphasize the conceptual development of the theory of conscious intentionality from Brentano forward, leading into these more formal models of intentionality. 18 19

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3.5  T  he Ontology of Contents: From Phenomena to Their Species to Their Meaning Brentano began his theory of mind with a broadly empiricist notion of phenomenal contents as parts of “mental phenomena”. As his later “reism” resisted abstract or ideal entities, his conception of content would presumably have remained concrete. Subsequently, Husserl’s theory of ideal content, realized in “real” content, moved from his early conception of “intentional essence” into his later conception of “noematic content”. What are the theoretical virtues of these evolving conceptions of “content”? Husserl’s early view simply assumed a distinction between type and token: real contents being instances or tokens of content types, i.e., shareable species or “essences” of intentional acts of consciousness. What is gained by adding to the ontology of phenomenology a conception of ideal meaning called “Sinn”? On the type-token model of content, intentionality remains a fundamental property of experiences. Thus, a proper part or aspect of an intentional experience (a “moment”, per Husserl) is its “content”, that which carries the mode of presentation of the intended object. That’s all: intentionality, carved down to that part of the experience, is a primitive aspect of the experience — simply Brentanian! Descriptive psychology or phenomenology is ably served by this rather neutral ontology. Why might one draw in a more complex ontology of Sinn, as we find Husserl, drawing on Bolzano and joining with Frege and presaging model-theoretic and possible-­worlds semantics? The case for an ontology of Sinn seems best laid, I believe, within the framework of an ontology of diverse categories. Thus, we might find a place in the world for ideal or abstract mathematical entities, e.g., numbers, sets, mathematical structures (such as topologies), etc. But we might also find a place in the world for ideal or abstract meaning entities: what we call “ideas” (or “Vorstellungen”, in German), e.g., concepts, thoughts or propositions, images, percepts, etc. These are the kind of things that serve to present things in our consciousness. They are called ideal or abstract because they are not themselves spatiotemporal. As the property Tree is shared by several botanic individuals in my yard, so the idea or Sinn “tree” is shared by various experiences in which the subject sees or imagines or thinks of trees, for instance, as I look upon a specific Podocarpus in my back yard. Of course, the move to such a framework of categories raises challenging issues about abstracta in relation to the concrete objects around us in everyday life. But that is the spirit in which a mathematically trained philosopher like Husserl worked. And he was not alone: we noted Bolzano before Husserl’s day, and Frege in Husserl’s time, and Gödel after he had read Husserl and Leibniz.20 Basically, with an eye to the work in mathematical logic that was developing around Husserl and in coming decades, we may see that Husserl was forming a  Cf. Smith 2013a for a reconstruction of Husserl’s complex system of categories. Cf. Tieszen 2005, 2011, and 2017 on varieties of platonic realism about mathematical entities and indeed their Husserlian “constitution” in consciousness. 20

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“semantic” conception of the ideal content of intentional experience. The point is not that the logicians’ apparatus is to be pressed into consciousness itself. As Husserl argued in the Crisis, “mathematization” is a form of abstraction from the structure of space or time, an abstraction produced in our cultural theoretical constructions. We might well infer that the mathematical construction of logic in formal semantics would be, for Husserl, an abstraction from the structure of lived conscious intentional experience. An act’s noema would thus be a fundamental entity posited in the metatheory of Husserlian phenomenology. It is this entity that we might see modeled in set-theoretic terms in Tarski-style model theory, and further conceptualized in the form of possible-worlds semantics. It was the work of Tarski, in relation to Hilbert and Gödel, that brought formal semantics into mathematical logic. Interestingly, Tarski was a nominalist using set-­ theoretic machinery to formulate a model-theoretic style of semantics, yet Gödel was a “Platonic realist” using categorial structures of number, set, and so on to force a semantic framework in his technical results. While Gödel worked with Carnap and the Vienna Circle in the 1920s, and produced his incompleteness results in metamathematics in the early 1930s, by the 1950s Gödel saw in Husserlian phenomenology his preferred ontology for a Platonic realism of ideal entities. In the 1930s Tarski worked on his own conception of metamathematics, producing model theory and a bona fide formal semantics.21 The main feature of Sinn for our purposes here is its role in directing consciousness toward things in the world around us: according to of Husserl’s theory of intentionality, at the foundation of Husserlian phenomenology. The argument in favor of introducing Sinn, in addition to an act’s ideal species, is that we know what it is like to entertain or grasp “ideas” in our own conscious experiences, “ideas” directing us to the world. But meaning, or Sinn, the range of “ideas”, is unlike anything else in the world, deserving a categorial niche different from that of ideal species (or numbers or sets or other ideal entities).

3.6  “Intentional In-Existence”: A Modal Theory Brentano introduced his conception of intentionality with two different terminologies. In an oft-quoted passage he writes: Every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) in-existence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction toward an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning a thing), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself … We can, therefore, define mental

 On the context of Husserl and mathematical logic, see Tieszen 2005, 2011, 2017. Reading Gödel, Kant, and Husserl, Richard Tieszen has charted a position of “constituted platonism” see Tieszen 2005, 2011, and Tieszen 2017 for further historical context regarding Husserl and Gödel.

21

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D. W. Smith p­ henomena by saying that they are those phenomena which contain an object intentionally within themselves.22

On the one hand, then, an object “exists intentionally in” the mental phenomenon. On the other hand, the mental phenomenon “contains an object intentionally within itself”. The first phrasing suggests a mode of being, where the object “exists” not in the external world (as a substantial “thing”), but rather “intentionally in” the mental act. The second phrasing suggests containment, where the object “is included or contained in” the mental act, evidently as a proper part of the act. Although Brentano uses “content” and “object” interchangeably in this passage, he prefers the term “object” as his text develops. In this passage, importantly, he also uses interchangeably the formulations of an object’s “existing intentionally in the act” and an object’s “being contained intentionally in the act”. As I find Brentano’s writing both careful and subtle, I think Brentano is opening toward an important distinction between object and content, and not simply confusing two items of ontology. If so, we might draw from Brentano himself a proper distinction between content and object, much as Twardowski and Husserl sought. But I think there is still more afoot for Brentano about the ontology of intentionality. For Brentano introduces “intentional in-existence” with a nod to Medieval thinkers rather than, say, Kant or Hume. The passage quoted above suggests, inter alia, a notion of an “intentional object” that is merely phenomenal, as opposed to an external object such as a physical object. Indeed, phenomenalism was in the air with the positivism of Brentano’s day (e.g. in Mach and Comte), where science could talk of “phenomena”, or objects as they appear, but not of things beyond the reach of our senses. Brentano introduces the term “phenomena” with subtlety. Arguably, he leaves open the question of whether “physical phenomena” of color and shape may well “point to” external objects, i.e., to “objects” “which truly exist outside of our sensations”.23 In any case Brentano’s concern is to demarcate “mental phenomena”, which “truly exist” as they appear in “inner perception”.24 So, whatever the status of the object “contained in” a mental phenomenon, it indubitably “exists in” that mental phenomenon, though it is evidently not simply reduced to the “mere phenomena” that may “point to” it. Might the object itself also exist in a different way beyond its residing (“intentionally”) in the mental phenomenon? What I would emphasize here is Brentano’s evocative discussion of the status of objects of consciousness existing intentionally in mental acts. As I see it, Brentano opens the door to the ontology of intentionality and its objects, in ways that look beyond “mere phenomena”.

 Psychology 1974/2015, pp. 92–92. I’ve added the hyphen here for “in-existence”, in the English translation of the German “Inexistenz”, as the term is hyphenated in the next paragraph in the English translation. I’ve included the last sentence above, from the subsequent paragraph in the text, because Brentano there talks explicitly of the mental phenomenon “containing” the object. 23  see p. 9. 24  see p. 10. 22

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One approach to the ontology of “intentional” objects begins with a sharp distinction between content and object of consciousness, as pressed by Twardowski and Husserl. Thus, the tree I see may exist beyond my consciousness, while the noema in my visual experience points toward the tree itself. As noted, Husserl characterized the noematic Sinn inhering in the experience as “the perceived tree as such”. But that “perceived tree” is distinct from the physical tree before me, which can burn up, and only the former “exists in” my experience, i.e., as noematic content. How, then, does the tree itself “exist” if not “in” the experience — as a literal part (or “moment”)?25 Another approach, I would like to propose, looks to modal ontology developed after Brentano’s day. The idea here is that “intentional in-existence” can be explicated in terms of an intentional relation to the “intended” object existing in a horizon of alternative possible situations or worlds. Then we are looking to “existence in” a logical space of relevant possibilities, rather than “existence in” a purely phenomenal space of sensory appearances. On this modal model of intentionality, the intended object of an act of consciousness stands in an intentional relation between the act of consciousness — occurring, let us assume, in the actual world — and a structure of intentionally possible situations or worlds wherein the object exists in those possible situations and has appropriate properties in those situations. The relevant situations or “worlds” belong to what Husserl called the “horizon” of “motivated possibilities” for the intended object as experienced, and these are basically what Hintikka called “intentionally possible” worlds: visually possible situations, in the case of visual perceptual experience; doxastically possible situations, in the case of belief or of conscious judgement; epistemically possible situations, in the case of cognitive claims to knowledge; and so on. In the terms of modal logic, the relevant possibilities are those possible worlds that are “alternative” to the actual world, here, with respect to the subject of the given act of consciousness.26 This modal model of intentionality, I want to propose, can be seen as explicating Brentano’s Medievalesque conception of intentional in-existence. An “intentional object” is not a merely phenomenal appearance, on this approach, but rather an object with a particular mode of being. This approach to intentionality invites further developments in the ontology of modality, embracing varieties of possibility along with actuality. Perhaps the most detailed development of an ontology of “modes of being” is that found in the work of Roman Ingarden, who studied with Husserl. Ingarden wrote his dissertation with Husserl in Göttingen (completed in 1917, Ph.D. 1918), he then wrote his Habilitation with Twardowski in Lvov (1925), and he taught (when permitted) in Lvov and then Krakow until his death in 1970. Despite his admiration for Husserl, Ingarden sought a realist ontology opposed to Husserl’s  Cf. Smith 2013a, pp. 425–433, on the ontology of the noema in Husserl’s categorial ontology.  Again, cf.: Smith and McIntyre 1982 for this reconstruction of Husserl’s model of intentionality. Lest the possible-worlds approach seem far removed from Husserl’s vision of phenomenology, we note that Husserl himself occasionally spoke of possible worlds, obviously with Leibniz in mind. 25 26

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later “transcendental idealism”, which Ingarden took to reduce the world to contents of consciousness — Ingarden siding thus with Twardowski in separating object and content of consciousness. Importantly, Ingarden developed an intricate ontology featuring a variety of “modes of being”, an ontology that bears directly on the status of objects of intentional experience — including the status of objects in art works dependent on the artist’s creation. Ingarden’s extensive ontology is laid out in his treatise, Controversy over the Existence of the World.27 On my own reading, Husserl’s “transcendental idealism” does not reduce the world to phenomena in consciousness, despite passages that sound like a radical idealism. Husserl’s Ideas I begins with a succinctly formulated system of ontological categories (as emphasized in Smith 2013a). In any case, Ingarden’s system of categories offers a key to how a Brentanian view of “intentional in-existence” might be developed further than Husserl’s view of intentionality within Husserl’s category scheme.28 On a modal approach to intentionality, it might be argued, there is a mode of being in intentional relation to an act of consciousness. Thus, we may say that the tree I see has a “formal” mode of being as an object, a “material” mode of being as a spatiotemporal object (if it exists), and an “existential” mode of being as dependent on my visual act, here following Ingarden. Moreover, we might further say that the tree I see has a modal status or mode-of-being consisting in its being in an intentional relation to my concrete visual experience. That is, following Hintikka, there is an intentional relation that ties my experience of seeing-the-tree, occurring or existing in the actual world, to an array of possible worlds in which the “intended” object exists in intentionally possible situations, viz., possible “worlds” compatible with the content of my visual experience. If there exists a tree appropriately before me in the actual world as I experience the visual act, that object is the “intended” tree, and that same tree exists, as prescribed, in each of the possible worlds compatible with my experience and its noematic Sinn. On this modal model of intentionality, we should emphasize, the act’s Sinn is not replaced by its effects in prescribing an array of possible situations. Rather, the Sinn does its work in effecting the intentional relation’s reaching into these alternative possible worlds. Seen in this light, the modal model explicates both of Brentano’s phrasings in the passage quoted: the content is internal to the mental act, and in virtue of its content the act is directed toward a horizon of possiblities involving the object. Hence, the object of consciousness is tied intentionally into the mental act via its Sinn, even if the object exists in its own right in the actual world external to the act itself.  This two-volume work Ingarden wrote during and following World War II, revising over the years, only now in an English translation: see Ingarden 2013/1947ff., Ingarden 2017/1947ff.; cf. Thomasson 2016. 28  Cf. Ingarden 2013/1947–65, Controversy over the Existence of the World, Volume I.  See Thomasson 2016 on Ingarden’s philosophy, his categorial ontology, and his notion of modes of being. Cf. Thomasson 1999, pp.  121ff., on a system of “existential categories”, where abstract artifacts, including works of fiction, enjoy a mode of being dependent on intentional activities. 27

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Such a modal model goes well beyond Brentano’s ontology of mental phenomena, as well as his later “reism”. Nonetheless, a more expansive ontology, along the above lines, would serve to explicate more precisely Brentano’s phenomenological description of an object as existing intentionally, if not actually, in the visual experience itself.

3.7  “Inner Consciousness”: A Modal Theory For Brentano, the second main characteristic of consciousness, beyond presentation of an object, is “inner consciousness”: wherein the act of consciousness is presented “alongside” the object of consciousness. Following Aristotle, Brentano argued that the mental act is not accompanied by a higher-order “inner observation” of the act, on pain of infinite regress. Rather, the mental phenomenon includes, as a constitutive part, an “inner perception” of the mental phenomenon. Brentano cites Aristotle’s idea of dual-awareness whereby we are aware of the object seen and also of our seeing it, the act-awareness working “alongside” the object-awareness, en parergo.29 On a basic interpretation of Brentano’s view, an act of consciousness is simply directed toward a plurality including the object and the act together.30 Husserl would later pursue several types of “wholes”, so we might find a dependent part (or “moment”) of the act that is the inner perception within the whole act. On Husserl’s own analysis, reflection is directed upon the act itself only through the practice of epoché or bracketing, while a pre-reflective form of inner perception lies in inner time-consciousness, achieved through a fusion of retentions and protentions that are strictly dependent parts of the act directed upon its proper object (say, in seeing a tree). Yet there is another avenue open to Husserlian analyses of phenomenological structure with an eye to Brentano. Indeed, the modal approach to intentionality, I find, suggests an explication of inner consciousness. On this modal model of “inner awareness”, one’s awareness of one’s ongoing experience, in an act of consciousness, is not a second form of awareness of the act, running alongside awareness of the object, but rather a feature of the modality in which the act is executed. Or so I have proposed in a series of studies, citing Brentano as a starting point. Here I should like to situate this model within the lineage from Brentano to Husserl and onward to the modal model of intentionality.31 Suppose, as I hear a cawing sound overhead, I look up and see a raven swooping down toward me. A simple description of my visual experience might read as follows:  cf. Brentano 2015/1874, p. 133.  Cf. Textor 2017. 31  On this modal model of inner awareness, see Smith 1986, 2004, and 2013b, starting with “The Structure of (Self-) Consciousness” in 1986. And see Smith 2013a, pp. 410ff., in relation to details in Husserl’s own phenomenological analyses including time-consciousness. 29 30

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Following Hintikka’s logic of perception, we refine this description of my experience as follows, assuming the form of a “propositional attitude”: There exists an object x perceptually individuated for D such that D sees that x is a raven and x is swooping.

Symbolically: “



 E d x  Sd  Rx & Wx 

”

,



where “Sd” (for “David sees that”) is treated as a modal operator modifying the propositional clause “Rx & Wx” (for “x is a raven and x is swooping”). For Hintikka, the quantifier “Edx” binding the variable “x” within the scope of “Sd (…)” assumes that the objects over which “x” ranges are perceptually individuated for the designated subject (“d”) (as opposed to physically individuated, without regard to any subject; for such objects Hintikka’s logic uses a different style of quantifier “Ex”). Here Hintikka’s logic enters phenomenological territory, where perceptual individuation is “demonstrative”: as in my seeing “this bird” from my subjective perspective. Now let us bring Husserlian phenomenology into this logic. To reflect the phenomenological character of the experience, we recast the logical formulation above as a phenomenological description of the experience from the subject’s first-person perspective: I see that (this object is a raven and it is swooping).

The ideal phenomenological content of the experience described then has the following structure, using angle brackets to articulate noematic content rather than lingustic structure:

On Husserl’s basic analysis, the act’s noema has two parts: (i) the Sinn, presenting the object as given, viz., the situation of the raven in flight; and (ii) the thetic content, specifying the way the experience is executed, with a “thesis” of seeing (rather than hearing, or judging, or doubting, etc.). Following Husserl, then, the noema of the visual experience above is formed from the Sinn, ,

modified by the thetic content, .

Husserl himself sometimes spoke of the “modalities” of judging, doubting, etc., carrying various epistemic qualities. What I have proposed is a structure of different “modal” features that define the role of inner awareness in a typical everyday act of consciousness. Turning to the proposed modal model of inner consciousness, let us re-formulate the phenomenological description of my visual experience as follows:

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“Phenomenally in this very experience I now here see that this object is a raven and it is swooping”.

The phenomenological content of the experience so described — its noematic content, if you will — is then the ideal meaning structure:

Here we articulate the mode of presentation of the object (the raven as perceived), ,

as modified by the modality of presentation of the object (in the enacted experience), .

Within the latter modal content we abstract several distinct factors of phenomenological structure in consciousness — following the underscored parts of the content as ascribed: phenomenality, inner awareness, egocentricity, spatiotemporal locality, and the act species. In a typical visual experience, these several modal features work together to modify the presentation of the object (the raven in flight). Importantly, these features are not part of the “intended” object, but are rather part of the way the “intention” is carried out in the act of consciousness. This complex of factors in “modal” content goes beyond Brentano’s analysis of presentation plus “judgment” (affirmative or negative), beyond Husserl’s analysis of presentation with thetic character (seeing, seeing clearly, seeing attentively, etc.), and beyond Hintikka’s analysis of propositional content constrained by intentional modality (“D sees that (…)”). For Brentano, and for Husserl, it goes without saying that the full form of the experience is phenomenal, or appearing in consciousness, including its being executed by the subject. On the present model, phenomenal inner awareness is an integral part of the experience, but it does not form a part of the proper object of awareness (the flight of the raven, as opposed to my seeing it, phenomenally, etc.). The lived character of my seeing the raven is articulated with these modal characters, but my seeing the raven — with these “modal” ways of seeing — is no part of the raven in flight. If I turn my attention to my visual experience itself, as in the practice of bracketing the raven itself, then and only then does my seeing come into view, i.e., in phenomenological reflection. Accordingly, on the modal model, my visual consciousness is directed ravenward, and my visual consciousness is executed in its ways with a certain pre-­ reflective awareness of my seeing the raven (“phenomenally in this very experience I now here see … “). This model captures a Brentanian form of “inner consciousness”, without simultaneous “introspection” or “inner observation”. To articulate this complex form of awareness, however, we draw on a conception of ideal meaning and intentional modalities that has emerged only as phenomenology has struggled to articulate a rich array of features in the “logic of consciousness” in our everyday experience. On this model, the elements in the modal content do not direct my consciousness toward itself, as a secondary object of awareness, but rather “modalize” my activity

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in performing the act of consciousness. Accordingly, this structure of modal content articulates my phenomenal “inner consciousness” of: the subject “I”, the act “this very experience”, the experiential locus “now here”, and the act-type “seeing”. The indexical elements indicate aspects of the immediate context of my consciousness, aspects of my performance of the act of consciousness, just as these items are phenomenally lived in virtue of the modality of presentation. Such is the structure of a typical phenomenal act of consciousness: quite in the spirit of Brentano’s initial project of descriptive psychology, ramified with a richer sense of phenomenological structure.

3.8  C  oda: Phenomenal Consciousness in Recent Philosophy of Mind Some features of phenomenological content have gradually come into view in philosophy of mind, sometimes with inspiration from Brentano or Husserl. That these features are appearing on reflection is a sign that we are getting well into the phenomena themselves. A century after the appearance of Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874), Thomas Nagel published an article titled “What Is It Like to be a Bat?” (1974). Nagel’s opening sentence sets the scene: “Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable.” While assuming that consciousness occurs in animal organisms including humans, Nagel argues that no contemporary theory of mind-body reduction captures what is essential to consciousness. For “what it is like” to have a conscious experience — what it is like to be a bat experiencing echo location or a human experiencing vision or thought or other forms of consciousness — resists reduction to either physical or functional properties of the neural processes that surely underlie consciousness in creatures on planet Earth. The “subjective character of experience”, “the phenomenological features of experience”, are definitive of consciousness, Nagel argues, but escape physicalist reduction. For, Nagel writes, “every subjective phenomenon is essentially connected with a single [subjective] point of view, and it seems inevitable that an objective, physical theory will abandon that point of view.”32 Phenomenological character has gained salience in recent years as philosophers of mind have tackled “cognitive phenomenology” and “phenomenal intentionality”. The thesis of cognitive phenomenology holds that conscious thinking has a distinctive phenomenal character of “what it is like”, just as much as does the sensuous character of feeling pain or seeing red. And the thesis of “phenomenal intentionality” holds that intentional mental states are often if not always phenomenal, and that phenomenal intentionality is fundamental (in ways to be argued). Recent studies have drawn Brentanian and Husserlian views into these concerns. 32

 Nagel 1997/1974, p. 520.

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Walter Hopp has argued at length for a Husserlian account of phenomenological content,33 and Michelle Montague has detailed the case for a Brentanian account of phenomenological account.34 These studies follow on debates since the 1980s about both content (internalist or externalist?) and awareness per se (higher-order monitoring or not?).35 Brentano’s account of “inner consciousness” or “inner perception” has been a significant stimulus for a variety of views regarding higher-order consciousness, or “awareness of awareness”, in Montague’s phrase.36 In the present study I have emphasized the “logic” of consciousness, not to overrun the “phenomenal” aspect of consciousness, but to bring out the way in which formal structure can be seen as abstracting from the phenomenological. Indeed, observing the “subjective point of view”, per Nagel, note the several points of indexical content in the above models of phenomenological structure — modes of meaning “pointing” toward relevant objects in the subject’s surrounding world and toward aspects of the experience itself.

References Bayne, Tim, and Michelle Montague, eds. 2011. Cognitive Phenomenology. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Betti, Arianna. 2017. Kazimierz Twardowski. Online. Betti, Arianna. Kazimierz Twardowski. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2017 Edition), Edward N.  Zalta (ed.), URL https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/ twardowski/ Brandl, Johannes. 2013. What is Pre-Reflective Self-Awareness? Brentano’s Theory of Inner Consciousness Revisited. In Themes from Brentano, ed. Denis Fisette and Guillaume Frèchette. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. Brentano, Franz. 2015/1874. Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. London/New York: Routledge.. Reprinting the 1973 English translation by Linda L. McAlister, drawing on translating work by Antos C. Rancurello and D. B. Terrell. With Foreward to the Routldege Classics Edition by Tim Crane. Original German text, 1874. ———. 1995/1887. Descriptive Psychology. Trans. and Ed. Benito Müller. London/New York: Routledge. Lectures given by Brentano between 1887 and 1891. Carnap, Rudolf. 2003/1928. The Logical Structure of the World. Trans. Rolf A. George. Chicago/ La Salle: Open Cour. Reprinting the 1967 English translation of the German original of 1928, Der Logische Aufbau der Welt. Known as the Aufbau. Dahlstrom, Danieal O., Andreas Elipdou, and Walter Hopp, eds. 2016. Philosophy of Mind and Phenomenology. London/New York: Routledge.

 in Hopp 2011.  in Montague 2016. 35  Cf. Smith and Thomasson, eds., 2005; Bayne and Montague, eds., 2011; Kriegel, ed., 2013; Dahlstrom, et al., eds., 2016. 36  Of particular relevance to the present study, regarding inner consciousness, are: Smith 1986, Thomasson 2000, Brandl 2013, Montague 2016, Zahavi and Kriegel 2016. 33 34

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Dreyfus, Hubert L., ed. 1982. Husserl, Intentionality, and Cognitive Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Fisette, Denis. forthcoming. Hermann Lotze and the Genesis of Husserl’s early philosophy (1886–1901). In Rodney Parker, ed., The Idealism-Realism Debate in the Early Phenomenological Movement, Berlin, Springer. Fisette, Denis, and Guillaume Fréchette, eds. 2013. Themes from Brentano. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. Føllesdal, Dagfinn. 2004/1961. Referential Opacity and Modal Logic. New  York/London: Routledge. Publication of Føllesdal’s 1961 doctoral dissertation, under W. V. Quine. With a 2014 Introduction by Føllesdal. Hopp, Walter. 2011. Perception and Knowledge: A Phenomenological Account. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Huemer, Wolfgang. 2015. Franz Brentano. Online: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2015 Edition), Edward N.  Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/ entries/brentano/ Husserl, Edmund. 2003/1891. Philosophy of Arithmetic: Psychological and Logical Investigations with Supplementary Texts from 1887–1901. Trans. Dallas Willard. Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. From the German original of 1891. ———. 1970. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy. Trans. David Carr. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Original German manuscripts written, 1935–1938. German edition first published 1954. 1935–38/1970. Called the Crisis. Ingarden, Roman. 2013/1947ff. Controversy over the Existence of the World. Volume I. Translated and annotated by Arthur Szylewicz. Frankfurt am Main, and New York: Peter Lang. Translated from Polish and German editions published from 1947 through 1965. ———. 2017. Controversy over the Existence of the World. Volume II. Translated and annotated by Arthur Szylewicz. Frankfurt am Main, and New York: Peter Lang. Translated from Polish and German editions published from 1947 through 1965. Kriegel, Uriah, ed. 2013. Phenomenal Intentionality. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Montague, Michelle. 2016. The Given: Experience and its Content. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Morscher, Edgar. 2014. Bernard Bolzano. Online. Morscher, Edgar. Bernard Bolzano. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/bolzano/ Nagel, Thomas. 1974. What Is It Like to Be a Bat? Philosophical Review 83 (4): 435–450. Reprinted in Ned Block, Owen Flanagan, and Güven Güzeldere, (Eds.) (1997), The Nature of Consciousness, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, pp. 519–527. Smith, David Woodruff. 1986. The Structure of (Self-) Consciousness. Topoi 5 (2): 149–156. ———. 2004. Return to Consciousness. In Mind World: Essays in Phenomenology and Ontology, ed. David Woodruff Smith, 76–121. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2013a. Husserl. London/New York: Routledge. ———. 2013b. Consciousness, Modality, and Inner Awareness. In Reference, Rationality, and PHenomenolgy: Themes from Føllesdal, ed. Michael Frauchiger, 49–71. Frankfurt: ontos verlag. ———. 2016a. Truth and Epoché: The Semantic Conception of Truth in Phenomenology. In Beyond the Analytic-Continental Divide: Pluralist Philosophy in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Paul Livingston, Jeffrey A.  Bell, Andrew Cutrofello, and Paul M.  Livingston, 111–128. London/New York: Routledge. ———. 2016b. Husserl and Tarski: The Semantic Conception of Intentionality cum Truth. In Husserl and Analytic Philosophy, ed. Guillermo Rosado Haddock, 143–173. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Smith, David Woodruff, and Ronald McIntyre. 1982. Husserl and Intentionality. Dordrecht/ Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company.

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Smith, David Woodruff, and Amie L. Thomasson, eds. 2005. Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Textor, Mark. 2017. Brentano’s Mind. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Thomasson, Amie L. 1999. Fiction and Metaphysics. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2000. After Brentano: A One-Level Theory of Consciousness. European Journal of Philosophy 8: 190–209. ———. 2016. Roman Ingarden. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2016/entries/ingarden/ Tieszen, Richard. 2005. Phenomenology, Logic, and the Philosophy of Mathematics. Cambridge/ New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2011. After Gödel: Platonism and Rationalism in Mathematics and Logic. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2017. Simply Gödel. New York: Simply Charly. Twardowski, Kasimir. 1977. On the Content and Object of Presentations. Trans. Reinhardt Grossman. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Zahavi, Dan, and Uriah Kriegel. 2016. For-Me-Ness: What It Is and What It Is Not. In: Dahlstrom, et al. (Eds.) (2016), pp. 36–53.

Chapter 4

Brentano’s Concept of Descriptive Psychology Dermot Moran

Abstract  In this paper, I begin by outlining Franz Brentano’s connections with John Henry Newman (on issues of faith) and then explore in detail Brentano’s evolving conception of descriptive psychology from Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874) to his Descriptive Psychology lectures (1887–1891). Brentano was developing a descriptive, “empirical” science of mental phenomena (in opposition to Wundt’s physiological psychology and to Fechner’s psychophysics), and his focus was on a priori necessary laws that are given directly to intuition. Brentano developed his psychology from Aristotle and from the then contemporary psychology (especially British psychologists, such as Alexander Bain, John Stuart Mill, Henry Maudsley, and others). Husserl’s descriptive phenomenology was deeply influenced by Brentano’s descriptive psychology, although, in his mature works, Husserl abandoned all of Brentano’s main distinctions and developed a new intentional analysis that identified consciousness as a self-enclosed domain governed by a priori eidetic laws. In this paper I will explore Brentano’s and Husserl’s conceptions of descriptive psychology but I shall also examine Wilhelm Dilthey’s account of descriptive psychology that was based on ‘motivation’, a concept adopted by Husserl. Husserl’s mature phenomenology advanced far beyond Brentano’s descriptive psychology. But, despite their differences, I shall show that both Brentano and Husserl were committed to a non-reductive sui generis exploration of the ‘life of consciousness’ (Bewusstseinsleben) understood as a dynamic complex of essential features that can be apprehended by reflective analysis. Keywords  Brentano · Newman · Dilthey · Descriptive psychology · Inner perception · Introspection · Motivation

In memory of Dale Jacquette D. Moran (*) Department of Philosophy, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano and Austrian Philosophy, Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40947-0_4

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4.1  F  ranz Brentano’s Family Connection to Newman’s Catholic University Before discussing Brentano’s descriptive psychology, I would like to draw your attention to interesting historical link between my former alma mater University College Dublin and Franz Brentano. University College Dublin started life as the Catholic University, founded by John Henry Newman (1801–1890) in 1854. Newman was also the first rector of the university, serving from 1854 to 1858. Franz Brentano was aware of Newman’s work and visited him in the Birmingham Oratory, in May 1872, after Newman had left Dublin for good. There is an extant correspondence between them. It was Franz’s devout Catholic mother Emilie (1810–1882)1 who recommended that her son go to see Newman because she had worries about his faith. Brentano stayed with Newman in Birmingham for two weeks, from second to 16th May 1872. They discussed issues concerning the declaration of papal infallibility in 1870, Brentano’s crisis of faith, and whether he should remain in the priesthood. After Brentano had left, Newman wrote a letter in Latin to an unknown friend saying that Brentano had not been moved by any of Newman’s arguments.2 It is much less known that Franz Brentano’s older sister, Maria Ludovica Caecilia Brentano (1836–1921), lived in Dublin for a period during Newman’s time there. She was married to Sir Peter le Page Renouf (1822–1897), a British professor who taught at Newman’s University from 1855 to 1864, firstly as a lecturer in French, and then as professor of ancient history and Oriental languages. Renouf had studied at Oxford, where, under the influence of Newman, he had converted to Catholicism in 1842, nota bene: prior to Newman’s own conversion, and he left Oxford without a degree. Newman, always loyal to the Oxford converts, offered Renouf a job in his new university in Dublin. In August 1856, Newman dispatched Renouf to Munich to purchase a medical library for the Catholic University in Dublin.3 While in Germany, Renouf was introduced to the Brentano family and met Ludovica, when she was just 20 and he was 34. They married in July 1857 and moved to the Dublin suburb of Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire). Ludovica herself met Newman in 1857 when she came to Dublin. Her mother Emilie came to stay with her in Dublin after the birth of her son in October 1858, but Newman had just left Dublin, so Brentano’s mother and Newman never met, although they did correspond, having been connected through Ludovica.  Emilie Brentano was married to Christian Brentano and after his death, edited his writings, see Christian Brentano, Nachgelassene religiöse Schriften, ed. Emilie Brentano, Aschaffenburg 1854. She was an active translator of religious works. 2  Newman, John Henry/Dessain, Charles Stephen/Gornall, Thomas (1974), The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman vol. XXVI: Aftermaths, January 1872 to December 1873, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 89–90. See Bottone, Angelo (2014/15), ‘When Brentano Visited Newman’, in: Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society, pp. 41–48. 3  In the previous year, 1855, Newman had established the first medical school in Dublin in Cecilia Street, The Catholic University Medical School, which was later, in 1908, to become the University College Dublin Faculty of Medicine. 1

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Renouf, a self-taught Egyptologist, and specialist in hieroglyphics, later became known for his translation of Tibetan Book of the Dead, which was completed after his death by Edward Naville.4 In 1864 his decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics led to him being appointed Keeper of Oriental Antiquities in the British Museum. Renouf, like Brentano, opposed the doctrine of papal infallibility and wrote pamphlets about it. Brentano’s sister’s Ludovica wrote to Lord Acton on sixth September 1871 saying that her mother was very worried about Brentano’s clerical vocation and afraid he would not get the professorship in the Catholic University of Würzburg. As the Newman scholar and archivist, Angelo Bottone, records: Ludovica adds “I believe that the affairs of the church also weigh heavily on his mind, and help to make him feel so unhappy”. She is referring to the crisis of faith Franz Brentano was going through following the first Vatican Council and particularly the declaration on the papal infallibility. Towards the end of the letter she writes: “Mama had thought a visit to Dr Newman might be desirable for Franz just now”.5

Lord Acton replied: “Nobody can once have met him without being deeply impressed by his Persönlichkeit …. I shall be curious to see how he judges some of my friends in this country.”6 Brentano was familiar with Newman’s philosophical work, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent published in 1870.7 In his Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis (The Origin of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong, 1889)8 he called the Grammar of Assent ‘an interesting work which has received but little attention in Germany’.9 In his Vom Dasein Gottes (On the Existence of God, published posthumously in 1929) he refers to the Grammar of Assent again;10 and in his Geschichte der Philosophie der Neuzeit (History of Modern Philosophy) there is one page containing a series of notes and questions on the notion of faith or assent in Newman.11  The Tibetan Book of the Dead, trans. Sir P. LePage Renouf, continued and completed by Prof. E. Naville, London: The Society of Biblical Archaeology 1904. 5  Ludovica Renouf to Lord Acton, 6 September 1871, in: Kevin J.  Carhcart (Ed.) (2004), The Letters of Peter le Page Renouf, Dublin: University College Dublin Press, vol. 4, pp. 107–8. I 6  Cathcart, Kevin J. (Ed.) (2004), Ibid., Dublin: University College Dublin Press, p.  107. See Bottone, Angelo (2014/15), ‘When Brentano Visited Newman’, in: Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society, pp. 41–48. 7  Newman, John Henry (1979), An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, introduction by Nicholas Lash, South Bend, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. 8  Brentano, Franz (1889), Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis, Leipzig: Dunker & Humblot; trans. R.M. Chisholm and E.H. Schneewind, The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1969. 9  Ibid., p. 58. 10  Brentano, Franz (1929), Vom Dasein Gottes, hrsg. Alfred Kastil, Hamburg: Felix Meiner 1929; trans. S.F. Krantz, On the Existence of God: Lectures Given at the Universities of Würzburg and Vienna, Dordrecht: Nijhoff 1987, see p. 77. Brentano cites Newman as arguing that, although the proof for the existence of God is probable, the knowledge that God exists can be known with certainty. It is natural for humans to move from probability to certainty. 11  Brentano, Franz, Geschichte der Philosophie der Neuzeit, ed. by Klaus Hedwig, Hamburg: Meiner 1987, p. 296. 4

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Robin Rollinger who is currently editing Brentano’s 1884–1885 lectures on Die elementare Logik und die in ihr nötigen Reformen, confirms that Brentano discusses Newman in those lectures. Newman opposed the Lockean idea of degrees of assent. Assent, for Newman, is ‘absolute’ and ‘unconditional’ and unrelated to the nature or content of the ‘apprehension’. Inference is conditional; assent is given once and for all; it does not admit of degrees. For Newman, there is either assent or not. Inference and assent are different; arguments cannot always command assent. Newman distinguished between subjective certitude and objective certainty. Newman writes: Certitude is ‘...the perception of a truth with the perception that it is a truth, or the consciousness of knowing as expressed in the phrase “I know that I know...”’.12 Truths held by assent may be implicit or explicit. This account of assent held without explicit proof allegedly had a strong influence on Ludwig Wittgenstein, who owned a copy of Newman’s Grammar of Assent,13 in his On Certainty. On 16th May 1872 Newman wrote to Brentano’s mother Emilie confirming that her son Franz had visited him in Birmingham. On the following day he wrote a second letter to Emilie Brentano, Franz mother: My dear Madam, I read your letter with extreme sympathy for you, and great gratitude for the confidence you place in me; and I have done my very best to fulfil your wishes. But, as you know so well, the first springs of thought are from God. It is He, and not man, who gives us those initial beliefs, views, and methods of inquiry, which are ruling principles in our judgements and opinions. It is not by learned or by strong arguments, or by controversial skill, that your dear son will be back to you – but by his Mother’s prayers. St Monica had a long and time in seeking her son’s salvation, but she persevered, and at His own good moment sent the St Ambrose to fulfil her prayer. Your son is far more advantageously placed than her son. He is a man of irreproachable life. He wishes to do God’s will: He has a [….] in the great mysteries and the old dogmas of Christianity, which St Augustin had not. Recollect what a Bishop said to her: The child of so many tears cannot be lost”. God He will hear you also: When with the woman in the Gospel (Luke XVIII) you cry out “against your adversary”. We do not forget to offer our prayers in union with you.14

Newman’s influence on him was strong. Brentano went on to follow his conscience and leave not just the priesthood but eventually the Catholic Church.15 But in philosophical terms, what interested Brentano is the idea of assent as a direct

 Newman, John Henry (1870), An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, p. 163.  Wittgenstein, Ludwig, On Certainty, ed. G. E. M. Anscombe & G. H. Von Wright, translated by Denis Paul and G. E. M. Anscombe, London: Harper & Row Publishers 1969. Newman speaks about ‘spontaneous assent’ to our beliefs about everyday matters to which we give credence. See also Wolfgang Kienzler, ‘Wittgenstein and John Henry Newman On Certainty’, in: M. Kober (Ed.) (2006), Deepening Our Understanding of Wittgenstein, Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp.  117–138. See also Angelo Bottone, Angelo (2005), ‘Newman and Wittgenstein After Foundationalism’, in: New Blackfriars, vol. 86 no. 1001, pp. 62–75. 14  Quoted in Bottone, Angelo (2014/15), ‘When Brentano Met Newman’, in: Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society, pp. 43–44. 15  Schaefer, Richard (2007), ‘Infallibility and Intentionality: Franz Brentano’s Diagnosis of German Catholicism’, in: Journal of the History of Ideas Vol. 68, No. 3, pp. 477–499. 12 13

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affirmation or rejection of a proposition, and also the notion that everyone has a natural certitude which is not explicitly grounded in tested beliefs.

4.2  Brentano’s New Psychology I shall now examine what precisely Brentano meant by ‘descriptive psychology’ (deskriptive Psychologie), a conception that emerged slowly in his writings from Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874)16 to his Descriptive Psychology lectures (1887–1891).17 I shall make some comparisons with both Wilhelm Dilthey’s descriptive psychology and then discuss in more detail its relation to Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology, which, for a period (1891–1902), especially in the First Edition of his Logical Investigations (1900–1901)18 Husserl also initially characterized as ‘descriptive psychology’.19 Of course, the term ‘phenomenology’ is also used by Brentano from whom Husserl inherited it.

 Brentano, Franz, Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, Hamburg: Meiner 1973, 2 volumes, trans. Antos C.  Rancurello, D.  B. Terrell, and Linda McAlister, Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, London: RKP 1973, reprinted with a new preface by Peter Simons, London: Routledge 1995, hereafter ‘PES’ and page number of the English translation. The first edition of Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, published in Leipzig in 1874, was divided into two Books, with three further books promised, and indeed even a sixth book on “the relationship between mind and body”, according to the Foreword to the 1874 Edition (PES xv). Brentano republished the second Book with some additional essays in 1911. In 1924 a second edition of the whole of Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, was produced by Oskar Kraus with additional essays and notes. 17  Brentano, Franz, Deskriptive Psychologie, ed. R.  Chisholm and W.  Baumgartner, Hamburg: Meiner 1982, trans. by Benito Müller as Descriptive Psychology, London: Routledge 1995. Hereafter cited as ‘DP’ followed by page number of the English translation. I am indebted to Denis Seron, ‘Brentano’s Project of Descriptive Psychology’ in Uriah Kriegel, Uriah (Ed.) (2017), Routledge Handbook of Brentano and the Brentano School, Routledge. 18  Husserl, Edmund (1900–1901), Logische Untersuchungen, 2 Bände, Halle: Max Niemeyer. Husserl himself oversaw the publications of four editions: a revised Second Edition of the Prolegomena and first five Investigations in 1913, a revised Edition of the Sixth Investigation in 1921, a Third Edition with minor changes in 1922, and a Fourth in 1928. A critical edition, which also includes Husserl’s written emendations and additions to his own copies (Handexemplar), has appeared in the Husserliana series in two volumes: Volume XVIII, Logische Untersuchungen. Erster Band: Prolegomena zur reinen Logik. Text der 1. und der 2. Auflage, hrsg. Elmar Holenstein, The Hague: Nijhoff 1975, and Volume XIX, Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Band: Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis, in zwei Bänden, ed. Ursula Panzer, Dordrecht: Kluwer 1984. The only English translation is: Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations, 2 Volumes, trans. J.N.  Findlay, revised Dermot Moran, London/New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul/Humanities Press, 2001 which translates from the Second Edition. Hereafter, the Investigations will be cited as ‘LU’ followed by the relevant volume (I or II) and page number in the English translation, and volume number and page number of the Husserliana (abbreviated to ‘Hua’) edition of the German text. 19  See Brück, Maria (1933), Über das Verhältnis Edmund Husserls zu Franz Brentano vornehmlich mit Rücksicht auf Brentanos Psychologie, Würzburg: Triltsch. 16

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The term ‘descriptive psychology’ is used in many different senses in the nineteenth century and it certainly came to have wide currency in the Brentano school (Twardowski, Meinong, Stumpf, etc.) following the Master.20 But the term was also used by Wilhelm Dilthey, in a way that influenced Husserl especially in his 1925 lectures on Phenomenological Psychology, where Husserl discusses Dilthey directly.21 Brentano himself does not use the precise term ‘descriptive psychology’ in his 1874 Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. Rather, the term itself emerged in his writings around 1887/1888, according to Oskar Kraus, in his 1924 Editor’s Introduction to Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, but it is more or less identical with what Brentano earlier calls ‘empirical psychology’. Brentano’s manuscripts that include the lecture course of 1887/1888 is entitled Deskriptive Psychologie. A second lecture course, entitled Deskriptive Psychologie oder beschreibende Phänomenologie was delivered in 1888–1889.22 The third lecture course, entitled Psychognosie, was given in 1890–1891 (DP, p. xvi). In his Author’s Preface to his lecture given on 23rd January 1889, and originally entitled ‘On the Natural Sanction for Law and Morality’ [Von der natürlichen Sanktion für Recht und sittlich], and published as Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis (The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong),23 Brentano writes: What I have presented here is a part of a “Descriptive Psychology” which I hope to be able to publish in its entirety in the near future. This work will develop some of the views that were set forth in my Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint and will differ in fundamental respects from everything that has previously been said upon the subject. My readers will then be able to see, I hope, that I have not been idle during the long period of my literary retirement.24

Brentano therefore sees his descriptive psychology as in direct continuity with his psychology ‘from an empirical standpoint’. He also describes it as ‘pure psychology’ in contrast to ‘physiological psychology’25 — insisting that he is in no way disparaging physiological psychology, but at the same time pure psychology or ‘psychognosy’ is prior ‘in the natural order’.26 Elsewhere, Brentano likens

 See Rollinger, Robin (1999), Husserl’s Position in the School of Brentano, Dordrecht: Kluwer; and Albertazzi, Liliana/Libardi, M. /Poli, R. (Eds.) (1996), The School of Franz Brentano, Dordrecht: Kluwer. 21  Descriptive psychology is now a name in use for a type of personalistic psychology advocated in the United States based on the work of psychologist Peter Ossorio. See Ossorio, P. G. Persons (1966), reprinted: Ann Arbor, Michigan: Descriptive Psychology Press 1995. 22  Although the term ‘Phänomenologie’ occurred in the title, it does not seem to have been used in the lectures themselves. 23  Brentano, Franz, Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis, Leipzig: Dunker & Humblot 1889; reprinted Hamburg: Meiner 1969. trans. Roderick Chisholm and Elizabeth Schneewind as The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul 1969, reprinted 2009). Hereafter ‘ORW’ and page number of the English translation. 24  ORW, p.xi. 25  DP, p.7. 26  Ibid., p.8. 20

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descriptive psychology to a chemical analysis of a substance into its ultimate, simplest constituents. He writes: Just as the chemist separates the constituent elements of a compound, it seems that the psychologist, too, should try to separate out the elementary phenomena which make up the more complex phenomena.27

Others such as Wundt also used the idea of chemical analysis but in a more naturalistic way to pick out the physiological parts of a psychic process rather than its structural features, as Brentano seeks.

4.3  H  usserl’s Conception of Descriptive Psychology (1891–1902) Husserl’s relationship with Brentano was complex, many-sided and extended over a long period—from 1884 (when Husserl first began to attend Brentano’s lectures in Vienna) up until shortly before Brentano’s death in March 1917, as evidenced by the correspondence between them.28 In his Vienna years, Husserl even accompanied Brentano on his vacations. Later, they would occasionally meet up, until their last encounter in 1908. According to his doctoral student Maria Brück’s reminiscences, Husserl had declared in 1932: ‘without Brentano I could not have written a word of philosophy’.29 Even after he left Brentano and Vienna in 1886, Husserl diligently collected the transcripts of Brentano’s lectures, such as his Descriptive Psychology lectures of 1887–1891, his investigation of the senses, as well as his studies of fantasy, memory, and judgment, which Husserl discussed in his Phantasy, Image Consciousness and Memory (1898–1925) lectures. At their 1908 meeting, however, Husserl reported that he had the sense that they no longer understood each other.30 Brentano and Husserl exchanged their publications. Thus, Husserl sent Brentano his Philosophy of Arithmetic (sent in 1891) and the first volume of his Logical Investigations (sent in 1900). Interestingly, in their correspondence, the one topic they do not address is intentionality, although later Husserl would credit Brentano with the re-discovery of this concept, while conceding that Brentano never grasped its true significance nor possessed the method to investigate it properly. Husserl always said he was primarily influenced by Brentano’s rediscovery of

 PES, p.46.  Husserl, Edmund, Briefwechsel, ed. Karl Schuhmann in collaboration with Elizabeth Schuhmann. Husserliana Dokumente, 10 Volumes, Dordrecht: Kluwer 1994, vol. 1, pp. 3–59. 29  See Moran, Dermot (2017), ‘Husserl and Brentano’, in: Kriegel, Uriah (Ed.) (2017), Routledge Handbook of Brentano and the Brentano School, London & New York: Routledge, pp. 293–304. 30  Hill, Claire Ortiz (1998), ‘From Empirical Psychology to Phenomenology: Edmund Husserl and the “Brentano Puzzle”’, in: Roberto Poli (Ed.) (1998), The Brentano Puzzle, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 151–167, esp. p. 164. 27 28

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intentionality.31 As Brentano says, consciousness is always ‘having- objectively’ (Gegenständlichhaben).32 But Brentano’s understanding of descriptive psychology did not make use of intentional description in the manner in which it was developed by Husserl. Indeed, Brentano did not make great use of intentionality once he had identified it as the essential characteristic of all and only mental phenomena. Brentano influenced Husserl in many areas including: the ideal of exact scientific philosophy leading to essential definitions and a priori laws (Husserl’s strenge Wissenschaft);33 the adoption of a mereological compositional analysis in the dissection of philosophical problems; the project to reform logic involving the reduction of the Aristotelian scheme; problems concerning the nature of timeconsciousness, especially the nature of the awareness of past experiences; and, the issue under discussion here, the project for ‘descriptive psychology’ (also called by both ‘phenomenology’) of the essences of conscious acts (perception, imagination, memory etc.) and their inter-dependency (i.e. relations of founding). Thus, in his later Amsterdam Lectures of 1928, commenting on the situation at the beginning of the twentieth century, Husserl writes of the efforts of scientists like Ernst Mach to offer a theory-free description of phenomena and compares this with developments in psychology: Parallel to this we find in certain psychologists, and first in Brentano, a systematic effort to create a rigorously scientific psychology on the basis of pure internal experience and the rigorous description of its data (“Psychognosia”).34

Undoubtedly Husserl’s conception of descriptive psychology came directly from Brentano and later from Brentano’s student Carl Stumpf, with whom Husserl studied for his Habilitation (on Brentano’s recommendation). Even after his period in Vienna, Husserl kept in touch with Brentano and, for instance, possessed a manuscript of Brentano’s lectures on Descriptive Psychology (1887–1891). Husserl’s first publication Philosophy of Arithmetic, moreover, is explicitly essay in descriptive psychology, identifying the origin of our concepts of number, organised around Brentano’s distinction between ‘authentic’ (eigentlich) and ‘inauthentic’ (uneigentlich) presentations.  See Moran, Dermot (2000), ‘Husserl’s Critique of Brentano in the Logical Investigations’, Manuscrito, in: Special Husserl Issue, Vol. XXIII No. 2, pp. 163–205. 32  DP, p.155. 33  For an illuminating discussion of the meaning of ‘exact science’, especially as it was later taken up by the Vienna Circle, see Huemer, Wolfgang (2018), “Vera philosophiae methodus nulla alia nisi scientiae naturalis est” Brentano’s Conception of Philosophy as Rigorous Science’, in: Brentano Studien 16/1. Both Husserl and Brentano thought of Kant, for instance, as an inexact thinker whose invoked arbitrary or ‘mythical’ constructions. 34  Husserl, Edmund, Phänomenologische Psychologie. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925. Hrsg. W.  Biemel, Husserliana IX, The Hague: Nijhoff 1968, reprinted 1977, pp.  212–3; translated in Psychological and Transcendental Phenomenology and the Confrontation with Heidegger (1927–31), The Encyclopaedia Britannica Article, The Amsterdam Lectures “Phenomenology and Anthropology” and Husserl’s Marginal Note in Being and Time, and Kant on the Problem of Metaphysics. Ed. Thomas Sheehan and Richard Palmer. Husserl Collected Works VI, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers 1997, p. 302. 31

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The second volume of the Logical Investigations, subtitled Investigations in Phenomenology and the Theory of Knowledge, in its first edition (1901) offers ‘analytical inquiries’ (analytische Untersuchungen) or ‘descriptive analyses’ into fundamental issues in epistemology and the philosophy of logic, and here Husserl uses the term ‘descriptive psychology’ more or less as an equivalent for ‘phenomenology’. He speaks of carrying out a ‘phenomenology of the logical experiences’.35 Phenomenology is here introduced as a presuppositionless mode of approaching epistemological concepts, in order to exhibit their conceptual contents and interrelations with other concepts with ‘clarity and definiteness’,36 by tracing these concepts back to their ‘origin’ (Ursprung) in intuition. In his Introduction to the Second Volume of Investigations, Husserl explicitly identifies phenomenology with ‘descriptive psychology’: “Phenomenology is descriptive psychology. Epistemological criticism is therefore in essence psychology, or at least capable of being built on a psychological foundation.”37 But, around 1902, Husserl moved away from characterizing phenomenology – especially eidetic phenomenology – as descriptive psychology, since he began to see all psychology (i.e. both branches according to Brentano’s conception) as deeply embedded in naturalism. Indeed, the mature Husserl regularly criticized Brentano for his naturalism, as well as for not seeing the possibilities for the application of intentional analysis, for not appreciating the concept of constitution. Brentano, for his part, rejected Wesensschau and the positing of ideal, general objects, which meant he could never accept Husserl’s eidetic phenomenology. Almost from the very beginning (c. 1890), Husserl was explicitly critical of many aspects of Brentano’s philosophical outlook, including Brentano’s conception of logic as an art of reasoning (Kunstlehre) and his attempt to explain all forms of number in terms of authentic and inauthentic presentations. Furthermore, Husserl’s discovery of the phenomenological reduction and his explicit embrace of transcendental philosophy after 1907 meant that he thenceforth characterized Brentano, somewhat unfairly, as a naturalist whose project could never be realized because it missed the very essence of consciousness. In fact, despite his criticisms, it took Husserl many years to extract himself from under the shadow of Brentano. As he wrote in a very late letter on 18 June 1937 (he died the following April) to his American student Marvin Farber: Even though I began in my youth as an enthusiastic admirer [als begeisterter Verehrer] of Brentano, I must admit that I deluded myself, for too long, and in a way hard to understand now, into believing that I was a co-worker [Mitarbeiter] on his philosophy, especially, his psychology. But in truth, my way of thinking was a totally different one [eine total andere] from that of Brentano, already in my first work, namely the Habilitation work of 1887...38

 Phänomenologie der logischen Erlebnisse, LU, I Intro., p. 168; Hua XIX/1 10.  Klarheit und Deutlichkeit, LU, I, p, 168; Hua XIX/1 10. 37  LU, I, Intro., p. 176; Hua XIX/1 24. 38  Husserl, Edmund, Briefwechsel, op. cit., vol. 4, p. 82; trans in Kah Kyung Cho, ‘Phenomenology as Cooperative Task: Husserl-Farber Correspondence during 1936–37,’ in: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 50, Supplement 1990, pp. 36–43, esp. p. 36. 35 36

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Husserl was particularly drawn to Brentano’s efforts to reform classical Aristotelian logic in his 1884–1885 lecture course, Die elementare Logik und die in ihr nötigen Reformen [Elementary Logic and its Necessary Reforms]. Late in life, Husserl was still crediting Brentano, for instance in his Crisis of European Sciences §68, ‘for the fact that he [Brentano] began his attempt to reform psychology with an investigation of the peculiar characteristics of the mental (in contrast to the physical) and showed intentionality to be one of these characteristics; the science of “mental phenomena” then has to do everywhere with conscious experiences’.39 Husserl would discuss, in his own lectures on ethics and value theory,40 delivered between 1908 and 1914, Brentano’s conception of value theory based on Brentano’s lectures on ‘Practical Philosophy’ (Practische Philosophie, Wintersemester 1884) that he had audited in Vienna (and which rejected Kant’s categorical imperative as a foundation for morality and replaced it with ‘do the best one can’).41 Brentano drew a structural parallel between acts of judgment and acts of feeling and willing in terms of their object-directedness. But Husserl departed from Brentano in thinking (with Kant) that the moral good is produced by the good will. Subsequently, in Ideas I, Husserl will cite Brentano’s Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis (Brentano 1889/1969). Husserl and Brentano both agreed on the need for a formal axiology. Husserl also attended Brentano’s 1885–1886 course ‘Selected Questions from Psychology and Aesthetics’ (Ausgewählte Fragen aus Psychologie und Ästhetik) and later in a letter to Brentano of 27 March 1905 recalled that these lectures helped him to reflect on the relation between perception and fantasy. Husserl resisted Brentano’s view that memory of the past is actually a kind of fantasy. Husserl emphasises more and more, from Ideas I (1913)42 onwards that consciousness must be approached in its ‘purity’, in pure ‘immanence’, as a self-­ enclosed domain with everything contingent and all assumptions drawn from the actual, ‘transcendent’ world removed: … consciousness considered in its “purity” must be held to be a self-contained complex of being [als ein für sich geschlossener Seinszusammenhang] a complex of absolute being [als ein Zusammenhang absoluten Seins] into which nothing can penetrate and out of which nothing can slip…43  Crisis, pp. 233–4; Hua VI 236. Husserl, Edmund, Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie: Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie, ed. W. Biemel, Husserliana VI, The Hague: Nijhoff 1954; trans. David Carr. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press 1970. Hereafter ‘Crisis’ followed by page number of English translation and Husserliana volume and page number. 40  Vorlesungen über Ethik und Wertlehre, Husserl 1988. 41  Husserl 1988: 90, 221. 42  Husserl, Edmund, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch: Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie 1. Halbband: Text der 1–3. Auflage, ed. Karl Schuhmann, Husserliana Volume III/1, The Hague: Nijhoff 1977; trans. Daniel O. Dahlstrom. Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2014. Hereafter ‘Ideas I’. 43  Ideas I § 49, p. 90; Hua III/1 93. 39

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Consciousness is a unified ‘complex’ (Zusammenhang, Komplex), a seamless living stream involving a web of interrelated emotional and affective states, including desires, feelings, moods, and so on. Acts and attitudes are founded on one another, interpenetrate and modify one another. It is not enough, therefore, to isolate the elements, the alphabet or ‘ABC’ of consciousness with its grammar and syntax. The interlocking interconnection of Erlebnisse, with its different layers or ‘strata’ that ‘interpenetrate or intersaturate’ each other,44 must also be mapped and understood. The ‘connections of consciousness’45 must be documented and clarified (and, ultimately, justified or validated). Intentional life takes many forms,46 which must be identified, described, classified, with their intentional contents, objects, ‘modes of givenness’, and ‘modes of validation’ (Geltungsmodi). Husserl had moved far beyond Brentano’s pure psychology.

4.4  Wilhelm Dilthey’s Concept of Descriptive Psychology More or less around the same time as Brentano was developing his ideas on descriptive psychology in his lectures in Vienna, Wilhelm Dilthey, in his very important 1894 essay on descriptive and explanatory psychology, Ideen über eine beschreibende und zergliedernde Psychologie, was advocating a similar science of psychology as a foundation for the human sciences.47 A decade earlier, in his Introduction to the Human Sciences (1883), Dilthey had argued that a ‘descriptive psychology’ was a necessary ‘reflective starting point’ for the human sciences. Dilthey’s position in many ways parallels that of Brentano.48 Descriptive psychology, for Dilthey, aimed at describing the inner content and meaning of mental states, approached from a different position than from the natural sciences that depended on causation. Causation, according to Dilthey, could only explain how psychic states follow one another; that is the function of explanatory psychology (‘die erklärende Psychologie’). Dilthey means by explanatory psychology the work of Mill, Spencer, and even Münsterberg. Descriptive psychology, on the other hand, must work with the notion of motivation. In our lived experience, what is essential (relative to the

 Sie durchdringen sich oder durchtränken sich, Hua XVI 75.  Bewusstseinsverknüpfungen, Hua VII 252. 46  Hua XXXV 81. 47  Wilhelm Dilthey, Wilhelm (1894), Ideen über eine beschreibende und zergliedernde Psychologie, in: Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, pp. 1309–1407; reprinted in Gesammelte Schriften, Band 5, Die geistige Welt. Einleitung in die Philosophie des Lebens. Abhandlungen zur Grundlegung der Geisteswissenschaften, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1924, pp.  139–240; trans. Descriptive Psychology and Historical Understanding, R.M. Zaner and K.L. Heiges (trans.), with an introduction by R.A. Makkreel, The Hague: Martinus Nijhof 1977. 48   See Orth, Ernst Wolfgang (1984), ‘Wilhelm Dilthey und Franz Brentano zur Wissenschaftsforschung’, in: Phänomenologische Forschungen 16, pp. 24–54. 44 45

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whole of our life) stands out from what is inessential.49 There is the flow of experience (Erlebnis); then the pre-reflective awareness of experience that Dilthey called ‘Innewerden’; and finally there is ‘inner perception’ (innere Wahrnehmung). Dilthey wanted a ‘descriptive or analytical psychology’ which offered a ‘presentation of the components and continua which one finds uniformly throughout all the developed modes of human psychic life, where these components form a unique nexus which is neither added nor deduced, but rather is concretely lived [through] (erlebt).’50 All human life is fleeting experience, what remains constant is consciousness of self and consciousness of world.51 It is the ‘nexus of life’ (Lebenszusammenhang) that can be experienced in ‘inner perception’.52 Psychology must capture the depth of life – and hence, for Dilthey, there is more genuine psychology to be found in King Lear or Hamlet than in the manuals of explanatory psychology.53 Descriptive psychology, for Dilthey, finds structural laws that govern the formation of a psychic life as a developing whole, as a striving governed by values and teleology – all the processes work together to ‘give form to the soul’.54 Psychic life is a nexus that ‘tends towards the fullness of life, towards the satisfaction of one’s drives and happiness’.55 Dilthey shows considerable awareness of the importance of what he calls ‘objective spirit’ (objektiver Geist).56

4.5  Brentano’s Mereological ‘ABC of Consciousness’ Just as Dilthey recognized the interconnected flow of conscious life, and yet sought to parse it into its identifiable moments, so too Brentano’s descriptive psychology offers an a priori analysis of psychological states into their atomic components or ‘fundamental classes’ (Grundklasse). Husserl would later term this the ‘ABC of consciousness’ (das ABC des Bewusstseins).57 Psychology, properly pursued, carves out our mental nature at its joints. Psychology as an analytic science, for Brentano, reveals the most fundamental natural kinds of ‘the psychic’ (das Psychische). Psychology, then, is the descriptive study of the ‘ultimate mental elements out of  Dilthey, Descriptive Psychology and Historical Understanding, p. 56 (GS V, p. 173).  Ibid., p. 35 (GS V, p. 152). 51  Ibid., p. 83 (GS V, p. 200). 52  Ibid., p. 35 (GS V, p. 152). 53  Ibid., p. 36 (GS V, p. 153). 54  Ibid., p. 59 (GS V, p. 176). 55  Ibid., p. 90 (GS V, p. 209). 56  See Throop, C. Jason (2002), ‘Experience, Coherence, and Culture: The Significance of Dilthey’s “Descriptive Psychology” for the Anthropology of Consciousness’, in: Anthropology of Consciousness 13 no. 1, pp. 2–26. 57  See Ludwig Binswanger’s reminiscence, ‘Dank an Edmund Husserl’, in Edmund Husserl 1859–1959, Recueil commémoratif publié á l’occasion du centenaire de la naissance du philosophe, Dordrecht: Nijhoff 1960, p. 65. 49 50

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which more complex phenomena arise’, as he puts it in Psychology from the an Empirical Standpoint,58 or of ‘psychical realities’, as he puts it in Descriptive Psychology.59 Brentano thought that all complex psychological states (he called them ‘acts’) could be explained as complexes of the three fundamental acts, namely, ‘presentations’ (Vorstellungen), judgments (Urteile), and emotional movements (Gemütsbewegungen) or the ‘phenomena of love and hate’). Brentano’s immediate model for his tripartite division of mental life is Descartes.60 Furthermore, as a Cartesian, Brentano attributed absolute reality or being to our psychological states since they appear as they are to the experiencing subject. As Brentano puts it, their esse is percipi: ‘As they appear to be, so they are in reality’.61 But he is also inspired by British Empiricism, especially Hume’s distinction between impressions and ideas. All ideas should be traced back to impressions, similarly complex judgments have to traced back to their founding presentations. Descriptive psychology is meant to provide a kind of alphabet and laws of combination or the syntax and grammar of mental states. In 1895, in My Last Wishes for Austria, Brentano invokes the Leibnizian idea of a characteristica universalis and sees it as discovering connections ‘in the same way as the totality of words arises from letters’.62 Here he also publicly uses the term ‘descriptive psychology of psychognosy’. In Meine letzten Wünsche für Österreich Brentano sees the distinction between descriptive psychology and genetic psychology as one of the defining doctrines of his ‘school’: My school distinguishes a psychognosy and a genetic psychology (in distant analogy to geognosy and geology). The one shows all the final psychical constituents from the combination of which arises the totality of psychical phenomena, in the same way as the totality of words arises from letters. Its implementation could serve as basis for a characteristica universalis as envisaged by Leibniz and, before him, Descartes. The other one teaches us about the laws according to which phenomena come and disappear. Given that, due to the undeniable dependency of the psychical functions on the processes in the nervous system, the conditions are to a large extent physiological, one can see here how psychological investigations must intertwine with physiological ones.63

On this account descriptive psychology is opposed to psychophysics and to ‘genetic’ psychology (which doesn’t just mean physiological psychology—a term that also had a wide number of different meanings in Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) and others – but also deals with the generalized laws governing the flow of experiences, such as the principle of association, and so on). Brentano frequently refers to the ‘law of the succession of mental phenomena’.64 In this sense Brentano’s  PES, p. 45.  DP, p. 137. 60  Ibid. p. 8. 61  PES, p. 20. 62  Franz Brentano, Franz (1895), Meine letzten Wünsche für Österreich, Stuttgart: Verlag der J.G. Cotta’schen Buchhandlung. This was originally published as a series of articles. 63  cited in DP, p. xvi. 64  PES, p. 47. 58 59

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distinction between physiological and descriptive psychology is different from the distinction in Wundt’s Principles of Physiological Psychology.65 Wundt believes psychology is the investigation of ‘conscious processes in the modes of connexion peculiar to them’,66 but conscious processes are embodied and, Wundt says, it is not possible to do psychology while neglecting physiology. Wundt regarded his method as revolutionary, akin to the revolution in the natural sciences produced by the experimental method. Wundt’s aim is to show the relation between the two sciences of ‘vital phenomena’ i.e. physiology and psychology. As he writes: Physiology is concerned with all those phenomena of life that present themselves to us in sense perception as bodily processes, and accordingly form part of that total environment which we name the external world. Psychology, on the other hand, seeks to give account of the interconnexion of processes which are evinced by our own consciousness, or which we infer from such manifestations of the bodily life in other creatures as indicate the presence of a consciousness similar to our own.67

Wundt is critical of any reliance on a purely descriptive psychology or what he calls ‘direct apprehension of conscious processes themselves’. He writes: Psychologists, it is true, have been apt to take a different attitude towards physiology. They have tended to regard as superfluous any reference to the physical organism; they have supposed that nothing more is required for a science of mind than the direct apprehension of conscious processes themselves. It is in token of dissent from any such standpoint that the present work is entitled a “physiological psychology.”68

Wundt is proposing a psychology informed by physiology: “In so far as physiological psychology receives assistance from physiology in the elaboration of experimental methods, it may be termed experimental psychology.”69 Wundt wants an explicitly experimental science as opposed to one based on ‘self-observation’: It is only with grave reservations that what is called ‘pure self-observation’ can properly be termed observation at all and under no circumstances can it lay claim to accuracy. On the other hand, it is of the essence of experiment that we can vary the conditions of an occurrence at will and, if we are aiming at exact results; in a quantitatively determinable way.70

Aside from Wundt, One of Brentano’s chief targets is Gustav Theodor Fechner’s Elemente der Psychophysik (Fechner, 1860),71 which had considerable impact on him (leading to a correspondence with Fechner, whom he first met on his European travels in November 1873). Other targets are, of course, Wilhelm Wundt, as well as  Wundt, Wilhelm, Principles of Physiological Psychology, trans. Edward Bradford Titchener, New York: Macmillan, 1904. Hereafter ‘Principles’. 66  Principles, p. 2. 67  Ibid., p. 1. 68  Ibid., p. 2. 69  Principles, p. 3. 70  Ibid., p. 1. 71   Fechner, Gustav Theodor (1860), Elemente der Psychophysik, Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel 1860. 65

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British psychologists such as Alexander Bain, John Stuart Mill, Henry Maudsley, and others. Henry Maudsley (1835–1918), in opposition to Mill, had sought to base psychology on physiology,72 and had asserted that ‘material conditions are the basis of consciousness’.73 On Maudsley’s view, the mind even when it is inactive (non-­ conscious) is still working and only physiology will cast light on this. Brentano, on the other hand, opposes the idea of ‘unconscious ideas’.74 Brentano thinks Maudsley ends up admitting that all physiology can do is overthrow false findings of old psychology, it can offer no insight about how the new science of psychology is to be pursued.75 Brentano compared descriptive psychology as a descriptive, classificatory science, to botany, zoology and geology. One must first discover, identify and classify new forms of animal and plant life. And so it is for the mind. Brentano writes: Psychology, like the natural sciences, has its basis in perception and experience. Above all, however, its source is to be found in the inner perception of our own mental phenomena. We would never know what a thought is, or a judgement, pleasure or pain, desires or aversions, hopes or fears, courage or despair, decisions and voluntary intentions if we did not learn what they are through inner perception of our own phenomena. Note, however, that we said that inner perception [Wahrnehmung] and not introspection, i.e. inner observation [Beobachtung], constitutes this primary and essential source of psychology.76

In the case of psychology, these ultimate constituents are intentional states. Its discoveries are exact, a priori laws (laws more exact than the laws of physics), according to Descriptive Psychology, unlike the inductive laws of physiological psychology. Brentano emphasizes the exactness of descriptive psychology.77 In a note added in a later edition in PES Brentano writes that psychology can ascend to general laws without induction and is as ‘a priori as mathematics’. He continues: But while psychology never leaves the domain of concepts based directly on perception, mathematics and geometry immediately turn to the most complicated conceptual constructions. For example, a concept of an ideal geometrical solid, which is never formed by simple abstraction but already involves a process of conceptual attribution not directly based on perception, belongs to such a class of concepts. This is, of course, even more true of a concept such as “3+n dimensions.” Mathematics, on the other hand, is dependent upon descriptive psychology insofar as a clarification of its basic concepts and ultimate axioms is impossible without analysis of consciousness; hence, of course, we also speak of “philosophy of mathematics.”78

 PES, p. 55.  Ibid., p. 56. Maudsley, Henry (1867), The Physiology and Pathology of the Mind, New York: Appleton. Maudsley was a critic of Mill and an admirer of Alexander Bain, Herbert Spencer and others. He is proposing a ‘physiology of the mind’ – primarily interested in the study of insanity. 74  PES, p. 59. 75  Ibid., p. 55. 76  Ibid., p. 29. 77  DP, p. 7. 78  PES p. 29 n. 1. 72 73

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According to Brentano, psychological laws are sui generis; they cannot be deduced from physical laws.79 Furthermore, as he would later emphasize, in this sense psychology is more fundamental that physics, since psychic laws track our experience which is what is most immediate for us; whereas external reality is mediated through our psychic experiences. Brentano always maintained that our most direct familiarity is with our own conscious states. Descriptive psychology, furthermore, can uncover a priori, universal truths on the basis of insights from immediate, individual experience –even from a single instance of an individual person carrying out inner perception on his or her own states. Brentano did not think his descriptive empirical psychology is inductive in the sense of making generalizations. Rather, he believes psychology can generate necessary laws and apodictic truths. Indeed, he claims that ‘… the ascent to apodictic truths, i.e. to insights which are obvious and self-evident from the general ideas obtained in this way, is accomplished directly without any inductive steps’.80 Brentano somewhat misleadingly refers to psychic states as ‘phenomena’ – simply in so far as he does not want to commit himself as to their physical or metaphysical nature. As we shall see, he only grudgingly accepts the definition of psychology as the science of mental phenomena.81 He was certainly troubled by invocation of the ‘soul’ and, at least initially, he sought to pursue a psychology of mental episodes that bracketed the question of the role and status of the ego (something for which Husserl would criticize him). In fact, Brentano did move towards a much deeper appreciation of the metaphysical nature of the personal ego, and, in his 1901 Outline of a Psychognosy, for example, he says that each of us appears to ourselves as a ‘personal unity’.82 In his later reist phase, he even saw the psychological agent as the only true substance. Especially in his discussion of our sense of ‘proteroaesthesis’, or the experience of one thing as being after or subsequent to another, Brentano emphasizes – as does Husserl – the unity of consciousness. He writes in Descriptive Psychology: ‘The whole of present consciousness is therefore decidedly embraced by a real unity [eine Einheit der Realität]’.83 Just as Dilthey maintained (and indeed William James and Henri Bergson), consciousness is an organic but complex unity: Nevertheless, it [human consciousness] is undoubted composed of many parts, some of which, like seeing-hearing, are mutually separable, others [of which], like the seeing and the noticing of what is seen, are at least one-sidedly separable.84

Separable and distinctional parts can be apprehended by consciousness and this will influence both Stumpf and Husserl.

 Ibid., p. 47.  Ibid. p. 29 n. 3. 81  Ibid., pp. 9–11. 82  DP, p. 155. 83  Ibid., p. 15. 84  Ibid., p. 16. 79 80

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4.6  The Priority of Descriptive Psychology as a Science In 1874 and, again, in 1889, Brentano emphasizes that descriptive psychology has priority among the sciences. According to Brentano, following Aristotle, De Anima 402a1–3,85 psychology is a science prior to the other sciences in importance. He repeats this in 1889 when he says that ‘psychognosy is prior in the natural order’.86 Description precedes explanation. Thus, anatomy precedes physiology.87 Of course, the findings of genetic psychology can be useful for descriptive psychology, but one must have a general sense of the flora and fauna of a particular field before one can analyze it more causally. He contrasts his descriptive psychology with psychophysics and physiology. In addition, it is precisely the a priori and exact character of psychology (based on inner perception) over and against natural science which studies matters that are really signs for what is behind them.88 He writes: The high theoretical value of psychological knowledge is obvious in still another respect. The worthiness of a science increases not only according to the manner in which it is known, but also with the worthiness of its object. And the phenomena the laws of which psychology investigates are superior to physical phenomena not only in that they are true and real in themselves, but also in that they are incomparably more beautiful and sublime.89

Brentano’s editor Oskar Kraus summarizes this very boldly in his note: Psychology is distinguished by the fact that it has to do with phenomena which are known immediately as true and real in themselves. This, and nothing else, was and is Brentano’s doctrine.90

This is a peculiarity of Brentano’s concept of the psychological. Furthermore, Brentano clearly values psychological acts and operations as of a higher order than any events in nature. From this point of view, it seems to me that it is quite wrong to characterize Brentano as a naturalist (as Husserl does albeit indirectly). Brentano thinks of psychical reality as of a higher order than physical reality although he brackets this ‘metaphysical’ prejudice in his actual psychological investigations. What remains – as Husserl will note – is the peculiar immediate givenness of mental phenomena. Psychology, for Brentano, is not just first in the natural (metaphysical) order, because of the being of psychological entities, it also provides the underlying science for other human sciences – including aesthetics, politics, ethics, and, controversially,

 see PES, p. 26.  DP, p. 8; p. 13. 87  Ibid., p. 8. 88  PES, p. 19. 89  Ibid., p. 20. 90  Ibid., p. 20 n. 13. 85 86

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logic.91 Psychology, furthermore, not just has intense theoretical interest, it also has immense practical value – it is even called the ‘science of the future’.92 In Book One of Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, Brentano goes on to review various proposals for psychology (Wundt, Mill). He proceeds in Aristotelian manner – proposing a definition, discussing it, finding flaws with it e.g. he has problems with ‘science of the soul’, and even ‘science of mental phenomena’,93 since, he concedes, some think ‘phenomena’ do not really exist. He does think psychology classically included the great theme of the immortality of the soul and in his 1901 Sketch of a Psychognosy he accepts the title ‘science of the soul’ or ‘science of the activities of the soul or as the science of the relations of the soul’.94 Brentano is against a purely materialist account of psychology as was gaining ground in his day (e.g. Lange). As he writes later in his discussion of arguments for the existence of God: One view very widely accepted by natural scientists is that a physiological process is the substratum for a psychological one. Consciousness supervenes on certain processes in the brain, so to speak, as a parergon, as a surplus with no corresponding surplus on the other side.95

Brentano is a great admirer of the Aristotelian aporetic method: In concluding our discussion of psychological method, let us add a final and more general remark concerning a methodological procedure which often prepares and facilitates investigations in other fields, but which does so especially in the psychological field. I have in mind the procedure which Aristotle used to be so fond of, namely, compiling “aporiai.” This method exhibits all the various conceivable assumptions, indicates for each of them the characteristic difficulties, and in particular gives a dialectical and critical survey of all the opposing views, whether formulated by eminent men or held by the people. … I believe that it is evident why psychologists in particular can derive even greater profit from the conflicting opinions of others than investigators in any other field. There is some truth, some experiential basis, underlying each of these opinions even though it may be viewed one-sidedly or interpreted erroneously. Moreover, when we are dealing with mental phenomena, each individual has his own special perceptions which are not accessible in the same way to anyone else.96

 Ibid., p. 21.  Ibid., p. 25. 93  Ibid., p. 10. 94  DP, p. 155. 95  Brentano, Franz, On the Existence of God: Lectures given at the Universities of Würzburg and Vienna (1868–1891), ed. and trans. Susan Krantz, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff 1987, p. 57. 96  PES, p. 73. 91 92

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4.7  Introspection and Inner Perception In Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, Brentano claims to be the first to have made the distinction between introspection and inner perception.97 Brentano was acutely aware of the limitations of inner perception, the observation of states in immediate memory, the limitation to the peculiarities of the specific individual, the lack of capacity for carrying out experiments. He writes: The experimental foundation of psychology, therefore, would always remain insufficient and unreliable, if this science were to confine itself to the inner perception of our own mental phenomena and to their observation in memory. This is not the case, however. In addition to the direct perception of our own mental phenomena we have an indirect knowledge of the mental phenomena of others. The phenomena of inner life usually express themselves, so to speak, i.e. they cause externally perceivable changes.98

He continues: They are expressed most fully when a person describes them directly in words. Of course such a description would be incomprehensible or rather impossible if the difference between the mental lives of two individuals was such that they did not contain any common element. In that case their exchange of ideas would be like that between a person who was born blind and another who was born without the sense of smell trying to explain to one another the color and the scent of a violet. But this is not the case. On the contrary, it is obvious that our capacity for mutually intelligible communication encompasses all kinds of phenomena and that we ourselves are able to form ideas of mental states experienced by another person during a fever or under other abnormal conditions on the basis of his description.99

Here Brentano – like Ryle – sees a significant role for language. We should study how others express their experiences  – beliefs, desires and emotions. It was J. L. Austin who later took the view that the number of distinct psychological states could be determined from the number of different psychological verbs in a given language (e.g. assume, surmise, doubt, etc). Brentano claims to have clarified the notion of ‘inner perception’ – against critics such as Lange. Inner perception is our direct apprehension of the occurrent mental act as it occurs – our awareness of the perceiving, judging, willing or imagining. On the other hand, Brentano acknowledges that the experienced present is very short and what many calls inner perception is actually ‘observation in memory’.100 ‘Inner observation’ only occurs in memory, but memory as fallible, ‘whereas inner perception is infallible and does not admit of doubt’.101 He agrees with the critics of introspection who say that as soon as one focuses attention on one’s anger, it dissipates.  Ibid., p. 30. For a discussion of Brentano on inner perception, see Mark Textor, Mark (2015), ‘“Inner Perception Can Never Become Inner Observation”: Brentano on Awareness and Observation’, in: Philosopher’s Imprint vol. 15 no 10, pp. 1–19. 98  PES, p. 37. 99  Ibid., p. 37–38. 100  Ibid., p. 35. 101  Ibid., p. 35. 97

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We can of course gain psychological knowledge about others, but only on the basis of what we already recognize on the basis of inner perception: Inner perception, therefore, constitutes the ultimate and indispensable precondition of the other two sources of knowledge. Consequently, and on this point traditional psychology is correct as against Comte, inner perception constitutes the very foundation upon which the science of psychology is erected.102

Brentano proposes as a universal law that ‘we can never focus our attention on the object of inner perception’.103 In inner perception, our focus is on the mental act or complex of acts that we are undergoing. Furthermore, and this adds to Brentano’s Berkeleyanism, inner perception for Brentano is actually the most genuine form of perception (as he writes in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint Book Two) and in fact the only mental act that should truly be called ‘perception’: Moreover, inner perception is not merely the only kind of perception which is immediately evident; it is really the only perception in the strict sense of the word. As we have seen, the phenomena of the so-called external perception cannot be proved true and real even by means of indirect demonstration. For this reason, anyone who in good faith has taken them for what they seem to be is being misled by the manner in which the phenomena are connected. Therefore, strictly speaking, so-called external perception is not perception. Mental phenomena, therefore, may be described as the only phenomena of which perception in the strict sense of the word is possible.104

External perception is not really perception, for Brentano, it seems to be more like an act of inferring: “The objects (mental phenomena) of inner perception have real existence whereas colors and sounds etc., have only ‘intentional existence’.”105

4.8  The Fundamental Class of Presentations One of Brentano’s fundamental psychological laws is that all mental acts are dependent on ‘presentations’ (Vorstellungen): ‘All mental phenomena are either presentations or based on presentations’.106 Presentation means any appearing before the mind: ‘We speak of a presentation when something appears to us’ (Wir reden von einem Vorstellen wo immer uns etwas erscheint); and again: ‘As we use the verb “to present”, “to be presented” means the same as “to appear”’.107 A presentation is any kind of ‘appearance’ or ‘appearing’ (Erscheinung): ‘By presentation I do not mean that which is presented but the act of presenting’.108 He mentions – hearing a sound,

 Ibid., p. 43.  Ibid., p. 30. 104  Ibid., p. 91. 105  Ibid., p. 92. 106  Ibid., p. 85. 107  Ibid., p. 81. 108  Ibid., p. 79 and p. 80. 102 103

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seeing a colour, feeling warmth or cold—‘as well as similar states of imagination’.109 In Descriptive Psychology, he speaks of ‘experiential presentations’.110 Presentations merely present something to the mind; in themselves they do not indicate existence or non-existence, and are not valued as good or evil, Brentano says: ‘Psychological acts that belong to the first class cannot be said to be either correct or incorrect’,111 yet later he says that every presentation is a good in itself,112 since it provides some kind of addition or extension to our consciousness, ‘a welcome enrichment to our world of ideas’.113 Presentations, on this account, seem to be very close to Hume’s ‘impressions’ (translated in the German as Eindrücke), but, for Brentano, they cover a wider range of mental undergoings, from individual sensory experiences to day-dream images to entertaining abstract ideas. They can be perceived, remembered, imagined or ideated in any manner. Presentations are not sense-data but they may include them. Thus, Brentano even speaks of the ‘presenting of a concept’.114 Thus, he says in The Origin of our Knowledge of Right and Wrong, that the 3 fundamental classes are found in Descartes and presentations are his ideae: The first fundamental class, Descartes’ ideae, is that of ideas in the broadest sense of this term, or, as we may also call them, presentations [Vorstellungen]. This includes the concrete intuitive presentations that are given to us through the senses along with those concepts that are not properly called sensible.115

Going well beyond Hume, presentations can include abstract ideas that are not yet being processed in judgments. In The Origin of our Knowledge of Right and Wrong, Brentano says that the idea of the good is based on an intuitive presentation.116 Here he is drawing on Aristotle’s De anima Book III Chapter 8, and on the medieval dictum that nothing is in the mind that was not previously in the senses. So he goes on to say that even concepts like ‘end’, ‘purpose’, and cause ‘have their origin in certain concrete intuitions’.117 Something can present itself as a purpose before it is judged as such. He rejects the idea that notions, such as cause, should be treated as a priori categories. They are apprehended in experience. The content of these concrete intuitions can be ‘physical’ or ‘psychological’ in Brentano’s sense.118 On the other hand, in Descriptive Psychology Brentano says: ‘every content of an experience is individual’119 so he  Ibid., p. 79.  Empfindungsvorstellungen, DP, p. 21. 111  ORW, p. 9. 112  Ibid., p. 14. 113  Ibid., p. 14 n. 32. 114  Vorstellen des Begriffs, DP, p. 15. 115  ORW, p. 9. 116  Ibid., p. 8. 117  Ibid., p. 8 n. 18. 118  Ibid., p. 9. 119  DP, p. 149. 109 110

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seemed to think of each appearing as the presentation of an individual entity or image or sensory object (a sound, a colour, a image in imagination, and so on). Brentano spends some time rejecting various accounts of ‘presentation’ found in Herbart, Meyer, and others. He particularly wants to separate presentations from feelings. Presentations are not feelings but feelings are based on presentations (PES 80). Presentations can be combined or separated at will (e.g. gold mountain) – but this is different from judging. Judgements involve an act of assertion or denial directed upon the presentation. He particularly rejects Sigwart’s view that judgements combine or separate presentations.120 It is not clear to whether the mere acts of combining and separating presentation belongs within the class of Vorstellen, but that seems to be what Brentano implies since he understands the fundamental class of judging (Urteilen) to have a different function—that of affirming or denying. If this is the case, then Brentano is already allowing for something akin to ‘passive synthesis’ in perception, which Husserl will see as operating already at the level of sensuous apprehension. Brentano speaks of a ‘presentation of original association’.121 Certain patterns or formations simply are presented as belonging together, and Brentano’s discussion undoubtedly influenced early followers such as Ehrenfels and later the Gestalt psychologists. Thus, in Descriptive Psychology, Brentano speaks of certain colours as being perceived as similar to one another and not just placed beside one another. Brentano was careful to distinguish or disentangle different elements of sensory experiences which are often found together. Thus, he discusses the case of looking at an electric light and have a sensation of beauty as well as a sensation of pain: “Looking into an electric light, for example, produces simultaneously a “beautiful,” i.e. pleasant, color phenomenon and a phenomenon of another sort which is painful.”122 Sensations from different modalities fuse together—those hot food tastes differently from cold and smell can influence taste and vice versa, and touch can at the same time deliver smoothness and cold sensations. Brentano even speculates: It is not surprising, then, if we do not always distinguish precisely between a phenomenon which is a temperature sensation and another which is a tactile sensation. Perhaps we would not even distinguish between them at all if they did not ordinarily appear independently of one another.123

This is an interesting observation, we can identify elements in a composite because we are familiar with them as individuals. Thus, similarly, Brentano thinks that the pleasure experienced on hearing a harmonious sound is not pleasure in the sound but pleasure in the hearing of the sound.124 Brentano here does discuss the ­physiological claim that the same nerve endings communicate both sense of touch and the feeling of warmth. In Aristotelian manner, he concludes that sometimes it is  OKRW, p. 50.  DP, p. 21. 122  PES, p. 83. 123  Ibid., p. 84. 124  Ibid., p. 90. 120 121

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language itself that obfuscates: ‘Experience shows that equivocation is one of the main obstacles to recognizing distinctions’.125 Furthermore, building on the work of earlier psychologists such as Fechner, Brentano is aware that presentations have to hit a certain threshold in order to be distinguishable. In addition, apprehensions that are closely connected may not be distinguished by the subject. Brentano rejects the idea that presentations have (as Descartes thought) clarity and distinctness. This kind of ‘evidence’ or ‘insight’ (Einsicht) belongs not to appearing but to judging.126 Presentations themselves are not evident or blind, only judgments are. Yet there is, for Brentano as for Husserl, an acceptance character found in perception—what Husserl calls ‘belief-in-being’ (Seinsglaube). As Brentano writes in Descriptive Psychology: ‘Man has the innate tendency to trust his senses. He believes in the actual existence of colours, tones and whatever else may be contained in a sensory presentation’.127 Much that is found in Husserl’s phenomenological account on perception can already be found in Brentano.

4.9  Brentano on Mental Content and Intentional Object Notoriously, in his discussion of intentionality in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, Brentano tended to identify the content and the object of the intentional act. Brentano thought of the ‘content’ of a psychic act as what is psychologically available for inspection. He acknowledges a certain depth in mental content however, when he distinguishes between the explicit and implicit content in Descriptive Psychology.128 The explicit content is the whole that is presented: when I see a tree, the tree is the explicit content but the leaves are also implicitly given as content.129 I see a face as a totality, but perhaps also can later recall that the person has blue eyes. Brentano tended to think that this implicit content can be made explicit in inner perception or thematic reflection. Very early on, among his students, Brentano was criticised for failing to make a distinction between the content and the object of an intentional act, for not recognising that objects are given under a description, for not recognising something like a Fregean Sinn. Probably the first such intervention came in 1890, when Brentano’s students, Alois Höfler and Alexius Meinong,130 in their Logic handbook, pointed out  Ibid., p. 84.  ORW, p. 51. 127  DP, p. 17. 128  This is different from Dennett’s distinction of ‘explicit’ and ‘implicit’ in The Intentional Stance, Cambridge, MA: MIT 1987, p. 216. For him, whatever is implied logically from an explicit representation is ‘implicit’ in that representation. There is another notion of ‘implicit’ mentioned by Dennett where it means what someone or system is capable of extracting from the explicit representation. Many discussions of content do not make the implicit/explicit/tacit distinction clear. 129  DP, p. 160. 130  Höfler, Alois/Meinong, Alexius (1890), Logik, Tempsky: Prag, Wien, 1890, p. 7. 125 126

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that a distinction must be made between the mental content, on the one hand, and the actual existent thing on the other. In 1894 Twardowski, in his The Content and Object of Presentations,131 similarly distinguished between the immanent content (or mental picture) and the extra-mental object:132 ‘What is presented in a presentation is its content; what is presented through a presentation is its object’.133 The content, according to Twardowski, is purely a vehicle to the real object. Eventually, Husserl came to offer a much more complicated and tiered account of ‘content’ that distinguished between the ‘real’ and ‘ideal’ intentional contents of acts.

4.10  H  usserl’s Emerging Concept of Phenomenology and His Rejection of Descriptive Psychology Husserl was particularly taken with Brentano’s project for a descriptive analysis of the essential features of consciousness as given in his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. In a note [added in a later edition?] in PES Brentano writes that psychology can ascend to general laws without induction and is as ‘a priori as mathematics’. He continues: But while psychology never leaves the domain of concepts based directly on perception, mathematics and geometry immediately turn to the most complicated conceptual constructions. For example, a concept of an ideal geometrical solid, which is never formed by simple abstraction but already involves a process of conceptual attribution not directly based on perception, belongs to such a class of concepts. This is, of course, even more true of a concept such as “3+n dimensions.” Mathematics, on the other hand, is dependent upon descriptive psychology insofar as a clarification of its basic concepts and ultimate axioms is impossible without analysis of consciousness; hence, of course, we also speak of “philosophy of mathematics.”134

Even mathematics is dependent on descriptive psychology. This was surely the stimulus to Husserl’s initial forays into philosophy with his Philosophy of Arithmetic (1891). Husserl’s first book Philosophy of Arithmetic. Logical and Psychological Investigations,135 which contained his Habilitation thesis, aimed, following Brentano, at the clarification of arithmetical concepts by elucidating their ‘psychological origin’. Here Husserl applied Brentanian descriptive psychology to arithmetic by identifying the essential mental acts involved in the formation of the concept  Twardowski, Kasimir, On the Content and Object of Presentations. A Psychological Investigation, trans. R. Grossmann, The Hague: Nijhoff 1977). 132  Twardowski, op. cit., p. 7. 133  Twardowski, op. cit., p. 16. 134  PES p. 29 n. 1. 135  Husserl, Edmund, Philosophie der Arithmetik. Mit ergänzenden Texten (1890–1901), ed. L. Eley, Husserliana XII, The Hague: Nijhoff 1970, trans. Dallas Willard, Philosophy of Arithmetic, Husserl Collected Works series vol. X, Dordrecht: Kluwer 2003. Hereafter ‘PA’ followed by English pagination and Husserliana volume and page number. 131

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of number. Brentano had distinguished generally between what he termed ‘genuine’ or ‘authentic’ (eigentlich) presentations, where the object is directly given, and non-­ genuine, ‘inauthentic’ or ‘symbolic’ (uneigentlich, symbolisch) presentations, where the object is referred to in some kind of indirect, empty, or symbolic manner. According to Brentano, large numbers and irrational numbers as well as concepts like God are given in such inauthentic presentations. Husserl took over this distinction in his Philosophy of Arithmetic, which is divided into two parts: Part One, ‘The Genuine Concepts of Unity, Plurality, and Number’; Part Two, the symbolic or inauthentic intuitions of higher numbers. Authentic or genuine presentations present the object as it appears directly in the intuition (Husserl’s example is the house I actually see before me), in the flesh, as it were, whereas I have a merely symbolic or inauthentic intuition of a house described to me as the house on the corner of such and such a street.136 Husserl’s basic principle, which was also Brentano’s, was that ‘no concept can be thought without a foundation [Fundierung] in a concrete intuition’.137 He was seeking the ‘origin’ (Ursprung) or ‘source’ (Quelle) of ‘mathematical presentations [Vorstellungen]’, as he later put it in the Foreword to his Logical Investigations, based on the testimony of ‘inner experience’,138 for instance, in regard to the manner certain kinds of relations are intuitively apprehended. According to Husserl, the concept of number is derived from the concept of ‘collective combination’139 that is a fundamental relation of a new kind, which he will call— following Brentano—a ‘mental’ relation. Husserl is invoking a modified version of Brentano’s distinction between the ‘physical’ and the ‘mental’ (PA, p. 70 n. 1; Hua XII 68). As he puts it, his descriptive psychology seeks to gain insight from the experienced phenomena themselves,140 Many years later, in his Formale und transzendentale Logik (Formal and Transcendental Logic, 1929),141 Husserl described his early efforts in the Philosophy of Arithmetic as follows: … presented an initial attempt to go back to the spontaneous activities of collecting and counting, in which collections (‘sums’, ‘sets’) and cardinal numbers are given in the manner characteristic of something that is being generated originaliter, and thereby to gain clarity [Klarheit] respecting the proper, the authentic, sense of the concepts fundamental to the theory of sets and of cardinal numbers. It was therefore, in my later terminology, a phenomenologico-constitutional investigation.142

Husserl is now rewriting ‘descriptive psychology’ as ‘phenomenological constitutional investigation.  PA, p. 205; Hua XII 193.  Ibid., p. 83; Hua XII 79. 138  innere Erfahrung, PA, p. 69; Hua XII 66. 139  kollektive Verbindung, PA, p. 21; Hua XII 20. 140  PA, p. 23; Hua XII 22. 141  Husserl, Edmund, Edmund, Formale und transzendentale Logik, ed. Paul Janssen. Husserliana XVII, The Hague: Nijhoff 1974; trans. Dorion Cairns. Formal and Transcendental Logic, The Hague: Nijhoff 1969. Hereafter ‘FTL’ followed by English pagination and Husserliana volume and page number. 142  FTL, pp. 86–87; Hua XVII 90–91. 136 137

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4.11  H  usserl’s Departure from Descriptive Psychology (c. 1902) In the Second Volume of the Logical Investigations (1901) Husserl makes devastating criticisms of Brentano. In the Fifth Investigation, he lists his ‘deviations’ from Brentano,143 his ‘departures’ (Abweichungen) both from his master’s ‘convictions’ and from his technical ‘vocabulary’. Husserl specifically challenges Brentano’s fundamental notion that ‘presentations’ (Vorstellungen) are a distinct class of psychic acts on which all other acts are founded. Instead, he argues that each class of ‘objectivating acts’ has its own kind of object-intending and ‘mode of givenness’ of the intentional object. He rejects Brentano’s immanentist understanding of ‘intentional inexistence’. In the Sixth Investigation, he separates ‘what is indubitably significant in Brentano’s thought-motivation from what is erroneous in its elaboration’.144 In a very late letter written to Marvin Farber, 18 June 1937, Husserl claimed that Brentano was blind to his own discovery and failed to see what was really at stake in the intentionality: ‘the proper problems of intentionality never dawned on him. He [Brentano] even failed to see that no given experience of consciousness can be described without a description of appertaining an “intentional object as such” (for example, that this perception of the desk can only be described, when I describe this desk as what and just as it is perceived). Brentano had no inkling of intentional implication, of intentional modifications, of problems of constitution, etc. …’145 The mature Husserl similarly remarks in his 1929 Formal and Transcendental Logic that Brentano’s discovery of intentionality ‘never led to seeing in it a complex of performances, which are included as sedimented history in the currently constituted intentional unity and its current manners of givenness – a history that one can always uncover following a strict method’.146 Husserl challenges Brentano’s account of the intentional object and also the intentional ‘relation’. The intentional object is never a component piece of a lived experience; rather lived experiences are essentially self-transcending, i.e. pointing beyond themselves. Later, in Ideas I §36, Husserl reiterates that intentionality is neither a real relation with an existent object nor a ‘psychological’ relation between consciousness and its internal ‘content’, rather intentionality is inherently disclosive of objects that transcend it. In fact, for Husserl, all objects of thought, including those of fantasy and memory, are mind-transcendent. He writes in Ideas (1913): “… as a matter of absolutely unconditional universality or necessity, a thing cannot be

 LU II: 353 n.1.  LU II, p. 340. 145   See Cho, Kah Kyung (1990), ‘Phenomenology as Cooperative Task: Husserl-Farber Correspondence during 1936–37,’ in: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 50, Supplement, pp. 36–43, esp. p. 37. 146  FTL, p. 245. 143 144

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given in any possible perception, in any possible consciousness at all as immanent to it in a real [reell] manner.”147 Intentionality is better understood not as object-targeting but as investing something with a sense, ‘sense-giving’, or ‘sense-bestowal’ (Sinngebung), or ‘sense-­ explication’ (Auslegung), since, in many cases, including the primal case of perception, the constituted object simply appears or manifests itself in a meaningful manner to a seemingly passive perceiving subject. In his Introduction to the Investigations, Husserl explicitly identifies phenomenology with epistemological critique and ‘descriptive psychology’: “Phenomenology is descriptive psychology. Epistemological criticism is therefore in essence psychology, or at least capable of being built on a psychological foundation.”148 Husserl writes in the First Edition: Phenomenology represents a field of neutral researches, in which several sciences have their roots. On the one hand, it serves as preparatory to psychology as an empirical science. It analyses and describes - in the specific guise of a phenomenology of thinking and knowing – the experiences of presentation, judgement and knowledge, experiences which should find their genetic clarification, their investigation according to empirical lawful connections.149

In 1902 Husserl was already conceiving of phenomenology in opposition to descriptive psychology, a move more clearly underscored in the Second Edition of the Logical Investigations, when descriptive psychology is seen as inescapably linked to naturalism and to the modern psychological tradition since Locke. In his 1902/1903 lectures on epistemology, Husserl was already clarifying the distinction between descriptive psychology and phenomenology, which he characterises as a ‘pure theory of essences’ (reine Wesenslehre).150 In 1903, in his Bericht über deutsche Schriften zur Logik in den Jahren 1895–1899, he explicitly repudiated his initial characterisation of the work as a set of investigations in ‘descriptive psychology’.151 Repeating the language of the Introduction to the Logical Investigations, he calls for an ‘illumination’ (Aufklärung) of knowledge independent of metaphysics and of all relation to natural, real being, suggesting he is already moving towards the reduction:

 Ideas I § 42, pp. 73–74; Hua III/1 76.  LU, I, Intro., p. 176; Hua XIX/1 24. 149  LU, I, Intro. § 1, p. 166; Hua XIX/1 7. 150  Two quotations (Ms. F I 26/83b and F I 26/12a) from the manuscript of Husserl’s lectures on Erkenntnistheorie are reproduced in the Editor’s Introduction to Hua XIX/1, pp. xxx-xxxi. 151  Husserl, Edmund (1903/1904), “Bericht über deutsche Schriften zur Logik in den Jahren 1895–1899,” in: Archives für systematische Philosophie Vol. 9, and Vol. 10, reprinted in Edmund Husserl, Aufsätze und Rezensionen (1890–1910), ed. B.  Rang, Husserliana XXII, The Hague: Nijhoff 1979, pp. 162–258, trans. D. Willard, ‘Report on German Writings in Logic From the Years 1895–1899’, in: E. Husserl, Early Writings in the Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics, trans. Dallas Willard, Collected Works V, Dordrecht: Kluwer 1994, pp.  207–302. Hereafter ‘Early Writings’ and English page number; followed by Husserliana volume and page number. 147 148

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This illumination requires a phenomenology of knowledge; for the lived experiences of knowing, wherein the origin of the logical Ideas lies, have to be fixed upon and analysed in the illumination, but in removal from all interpretation that goes beyond the real (reellen) content of those lived experiences.152

Husserl continues: Phenomenology therefore must not be designated as “descriptive psychology” without some further qualification. In the rigorous and true sense it is not descriptive psychology at all. Its descriptions do not concern lived experiences, or classes thereof, of empirical persons; for of persons – of myself and of others, of lived experiences which are “mine” and “thine” – it knows nothing, assumes nothing. Concerning such matters it poses no questions, attempts no definitions, makes no hypotheses. In phenomenological description one views that which, in the strongest of senses, is given, just as it is in itself.153

Husserl goes on to say that phenomenology aims to arrive at a clear and distinct understanding of the essences of the concepts and laws of logic through “adequate abstraction based on intuition”, a conception of ideating abstraction which will be sharpened over the years (in Ideas I, for instance). In the Second Edition of the Investigations Husserl added the following paragraph: Assertions of phenomenological fact can never be epistemologically grounded in psychological experience, nor in internal perception in the ordinary sense of the word, but only in ideational, phenomenological inspection of essence. The latter has its illustrative start in inner intuition, but such inner intuition need not be actual internal perception or other inner experience, e.g. recollection: its purposes are as well or better served by any free fictions of inner imagination [in freiester Fiktion gestaltende Phantasie] provided they have enough intuitive clarity.154

As we have seen Husserl’s phenomenology moved far beyond Brentano’s descriptive psychology. But Brentano’s descriptive psychology itself evolved considerably in the twenty between 1874 and 1895 (when he began publicly to use the term ‘psychognosy’). In the end, both Brentano and Husserl were committed to a non-­ reductive sui generis exploration of the ‘life of consciousness’ (Bewusstseinsleben) understood as a dynamic complex of essential features that can be apprehended by reflective analysis.

 Early Writings, p. 251; Hua XXII 206.  Ibid., p. 251; Hua XXII 206–7. 154  LU V § 27, II p. 607; Hua XIX/1456. 152 153

Chapter 5

Brentano on Phenomenology and Philosophy as a Science Guillaume Fréchette

Abstract  I argue in this paper that Brentano’s grand project of philosophy as a science remained constant throughout his lifetime, from his habilitation thesis of 1866 to his last published writings. I suggest that this project has two main domains of application, namely, metaphysics and psychology. I focus on the application of the programme to psychology. According to my account, the project is based not only on the 1866 thesis that the method of philosophy is nothing other than the method of natural science (Thesis 4), as the standard reading of Brentano’s project suggests, but also on the thesis that philosophy should reject the distinction between speculative science and exact science (Thesis 1). I argue that the interplay between these two theses is present not only in Brentano’s early works, but also in his later lectures on descriptive psychology given in Vienna at the end of the 1880s. Not only does this explain why the grand project of philosophy remained constant, it also offers a more faithful account of the kind of investigation actually conducted by Brentano in the late 1880s – and later under the label of ‘phenomenology’, or descriptive psychology – than the one offered by the standard reading. Keywords  Brentano · Phenomenology · Descriptive psychology · Genetic psychology · Exactness

5.1  The Grand Project of Philosophy as a Science The first book of Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint was published on May 7, 1874, almost coinciding with his appointment in Vienna.1 Initially, Brentano planned to write six books dealing with a variety of issues pertaining to  See Brentano’s letter to Stumpf of May 4, 1874, in Brentano (2014), pp. 126–7.

1

G. Fréchette (*) Department of Philosophy, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria e-mail: [email protected] © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano and Austrian Philosophy, Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40947-0_5

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the main features of the mental, and to the psychology of presentations, judgments, emotions, and the nature of the soul. The project was abandoned halfway – detailed sketches of the second part of book 2 and of book 3 exist as manuscripts – around the end of 1883.2 Already at the outset, Brentano had doubts about the success of the enterprise: psychology was not well-developed enough at that time to allow for such comprehensive handbooks, or so he seems to have believed even before the publication of the first book in 1874.3 It is tempting to believe that Brentano’s increasing interest in the descriptive part of psychology after 1874, and even more from 1887 onwards, was motivated by these doubts about the original project of a six-volume handbook of psychology from the empirical standpoint. Perhaps Brentano was looking for a way to restrict the scope of his investigations, but other factors may also have played a role in his later focus on descriptive work.4 However, it would be wrong to think that the importance of descriptive analysis in his conception of psychology emerged only in the late 1880s: as we will see, it was in fact already central in the conception of philosophy as a science that Brentano championed in his habilitation theses of 1866. Even in the logic lectures given in Würzburg in 1868–1869, Brentano mentions the distinction between descriptive and explicative sciences. At about the same time, he read Comte, Mill, and Whewell, and was much influenced by positivism.5 In one of the later versions of the metaphysics lectures first held in Würzburg in 18676 he introduced the term ‘phenomenology’ to name a subdiscipline of metaphysics, one that precedes ontology but follows ‘transcendental philosophy’ (i.e. that part of metaphysics dealing with skepticism and the arguments against it). Phenomenology so understood was considered an “investigation into the contents of our presentations,”7 dealing with the ways substance appears, as opposed to the ways substance is. Given the context in which the term and the concept were introduced, it is likely that Brentano took them from Whewell’s History of Inductive Sciences (1847), where Whewell distinguishes between explicative-causal (aetiological) and descriptive (phenomenological) sciences. Such a conception of phenomenology was still present in Brentano’s later lectures on metaphysics in the late 1870s.8

 See Stumpf’s letter to Brentano of October 20, 1883, in Brentano (2014), p. 227.  See his letter to Lotze shortly after his appointment in 1874, published in Falckenberg (1901), p. 112. In a diary from 1904 (Ps 25, pp. 50326–50327), reflecting on this letter, he expands on the reasons behind these doubts. See Fréchette (2012) for more details on this. 4  Brentano’s own autobiographical reflection on his work on psychology in Vienna in Meine letzten Wünsche für Österreich (Brentano 1895) suggest that the reluctance of the ministry of education to subside a psychological laboratory in Vienna was responsible at least in part for the lack of genetic psychological investigations conducted in Vienna under Brentano’s supervision. 5  See for instance Brentano (1869). 6  See Brentano (1867), p. 31739. The exact date of this version is unknown. 7  Ibid. 8  See Masaryk’s notes on Brentano’s metaphysics lectures in Masaryk (1877–1878), where phenomenology is described as a “part of metaphysics.” 2 3

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The context in which the term and concept of phenomenology were introduced to refer to a descriptive science of the contents of our presentations is revealing. Not only metaphysical investigations should be conducted according to scientific methods – that is, according to the methods developed by the empirical sciences of that time, much in line with the conceptions of philosophy defended by Mill, Whewell and Comte – but phenomenology too, as a part of such investigations, should follow these principles. This may be seen as a direct application of the basic principle formulated by Brentano in his fourth habilitation thesis: Thesis 4: The true method of philosophy is nothing other than the one of the natural science.

If one considers the fourth thesis in isolation from the other theses stated in the habilitation, it is hard to see the implications of it for description and phenomenology. Thesis 4, however, is closely related to another thesis, namely the first one: Thesis 1: Philosophy should reject the distinction between speculative and exact sciences; this rejection is its condition of existence.

Why are these theses closely related? After all, Thesis 1 seems to be merely a negative thesis against Schellingian speculative philosophy: one should not, as Schelling does, isolate philosophy as a “speculative” science from the “exact” sciences and thereby introduce two different criteria for what counts as science, and with them different standards, methods, and domains of investigation.9 This would amount to a dogmatism of philosophical methodology which is characteristic of Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy, an attitude which otherwise has caused a lot of harm in philosophy.10 This is more or less the understanding of Thesis 1 which Brentano’s student Oskar Kraus proposed, and which has been just about the only reading proposed of this thesis.11 There might well be something true behind the negative reading of Thesis 1, but it would have been quite unwise for Brentano to directly argue for the negative reading. After all, the only philosopher in the habilitation committee was Franz Hoffmann, a student and fierce defender of Schelling’s speculative philosophy. From the report of the habilitation defence, it also appears that Hoffmann was not much interested in Thesis 1, for he attacked Brentano solely on Theses 4, 5, and 8.12

 The positive reading fits with the critique of Schelling’s view that philosophy should cut itself off from all domains of “ordinary knowledge” (gemeines Wissen), as programmatically announced in the first issue of his New Journal for Speculative Physics (Schelling 1802/1859, p. 34; 1859, p. 262). This passage was often quoted in the school of Brentano as the example par excellence of the dangers of speculative idealism in philosophy. See Brentano (1929), p.  104 or Stumpf (1908), p. 17. 10  See also Brentano’s own philosophy of the history of philosophy for a fuller picture of the nature of the flaws of this period in the history of philosophy. 11  Two important exceptions are worth noting: Werle (1989) and Sauer (2000). 12  See Freudenberger (1969), p.  136. The two other members of the committee were Urlichs (a philologist) and Hettinger (a priest). 9

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Moreover, arguing for the negative reading of Thesis 1 would hardly fit Hettinger’s enthusiastic report of the disputation.13 It is more likely that Brentano argued for the positive reading of this thesis. Of course, this does not rule out that he might have wanted to attack Schelling and his opponent examiner indirectly, but focusing only on this possible motivation, as Kraus and most of Brentano’s readers do, blurs what I take to be an important element of Brentano’s philosophical programme: opposing the distinction between exact and ‘speculative’ sciences (here in the sense of ‘theoretical’ sciences, as the Latin scientia speculativa used in the original Latin text of Brentano’s habilitation suggests) does not necessarily mean a rejection of speculation so understood, and an overall acceptance of ‘exact’ sciences as necessarily excluding speculation. Opposing the distinction between ‘exact’ and ‘speculative’ may also mean accepting cases where a science can be both exact and speculative. Following the positive reading, rejecting this distinction is the ‘condition of existence’ of philosophy because philosophy as a science is both exact and ‘speculative’, or ‘theoretical’, in the Latin sense of the term. Before going further, one last historical remark on this use of ‘speculative’ might be helpful: Brentano’s Latin habilitation text was translated into German only later by Kraus in 1929. Since Kraus reads Thesis 1 as simply expressing a rejection of Hegelian and post-Hegelian German speculative philosophy, it is understandable that he translated speculativa as spekulative. However, one has to keep in mind that the German adjective spekulativ was reintroduced into German philosophy by Hegel with a new meaning according to which a ‘speculative philosophy’ aims at grasping the totality of thought and being as a unity. Schelling’s speculative philosophy follows this Hegelian understanding of spekulativ, but it has not much in common with the traditional Latin use of speculativus, as in Aquinas, for instance, where scientia speculativa means ‘theoretical science’, following Boethius’s translation of Aristotle’s adjective theôrêtikos as speculativus. Similar uses were common in medieval philosophy – for example, what the Modists called grammatica speculativa, that is, a grammar that does not describe the structure of a particular language, but the nature and organization of language in general. As we will see below, further reasons speak for this understanding of speculativus in Thesis 1. However, in order to avoid confusion, I will use the term ‘theoretical’ as a synonym of ‘speculative’ and as a translation of speculativus in the Latin text of Brentano’s habilitation thesis. In my view, these two theses taken together, following the positive reading of Thesis 1 proposed here, express what I would call the ‘principle of philosophy as a science’. According to this principle, philosophy must oppose the distinction between exact and theoretical sciences, since this opposition is its condition of  “During the one and a half hours of the disputation, the defendant has been sufficiently given the opportunity to expose the perspicaciousness of his mind, the clarity and precision of his concepts, his ease in the discussion of the ideas of others, the assurance of his developments, the scientific character of his method, and last but not least the many-sidedness of his knowledge in the fields of philosophy and exact research.” Quoted in Freudenberger (1969), p. 136.

13

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existence (Thesis 1) and the method of philosophy is nothing other than the method of natural science (Thesis 4). Following the positive reading of Thesis 1, we should reject a restricted understanding of the “exact” sciences as consisting only of studies involving quantitative measurements.14 Brentano’s ideal of philosophy as a science so conceived combines the idea that there is a sense of ‘speculation’ according to which metaphysics is a speculative (theoretical) enterprise, but nonetheless an exact one  – even more so than “exact physics” (in a sense akin to Comte’s method of ­positive speculation)15 – with the idea that true science must also allow for this kind of “theoretical exactness,” and not only for the alleged exactness required by quantitative measurements. Given this reading of Thesis 1, it is easier to understand the sense in which Brentano holds that philosophy should be understood as a science, and his claim that it shares its method with natural science. Like natural science, philosophy uses a method involving procedures such as observation, deduction, and induction, insofar as they are applicable to the objects of their investigation. As Kraus remarks (1929, 168) Brentano bases his defence of Thesis 4 (to the extent that it is possible to reconstruct it from the marginal notes in Brentano’s personal copy) on the idea that many great thinkers used the method of natural science in their metaphysical investigations, giving examples of such applications and thereby providing an indirect proof of its soundness as compared with alternative methods. These marginal notes give the impression that Brentano’s point was basically to show that philosophy does in fact use the method of natural science, and since it does, that there is no point in distinguishing between theoretical and exact science, if natural science is what is meant by ‘exact science’. In this sense, philosophy is truly scientific; however this does not imply the much stronger thesis that philosophy is reducible to natural science, which would amount to a kind of naturalism, which Brentano forcefully rejects. Stumpf, who attended the disputation, notes correctly (1922, p.  70) that Brentano “of course did not mean that the realm of facts (Tatsachenkreis) of natural science should be the only basis of philosophy […]. He only wanted to see the general tenets of the inductive method transposed into philosophy.” If the realm of facts of philosophy only overlaps partly with the realm of facts of natural science, and given the positive reading of Thesis 1, then philosophy shares with mathematical sciences the same kind of exactness, and with natural sciences its reliance on empirical methods. In other words, philosophy combines the method of natural science with the exactness of other sciences such as mathematics, and it is this particular position in the realm of science in general that gives philosophy its privileged role, as stressed also in the metaphysics lectures of 1867: “A speculative and exact science is not a contradiction.”16 Therefore, there is a sense in which philosophical investigations can be speculative (theoretical) and yet exact and

 See Brentano (1987), p. 6 and Oberkofler (1989), p. 5.  See Brentano (1929), p. 127 and Sauer (2000), p. 124. 16  Brentano (1867), p. 31820. 14 15

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scientific in the true sense.17 The principle of philosophy as a science therefore allows for a unitary sense of science by virtue of the identity of method between philosophy and natural science (insofar as they deal with the same objects, i.e. physical phenomena), while leaving room for a kind of exactness in philosophy which makes it scientific in a broader sense than that implied by the strict identity of method referred to in Thesis 4.18

5.2  T  heoretical Exactness and Empirical Research in Psychology As mentioned in passing in the previous section, we find a first version of Brentano’s project of philosophy as a science in the 1867 lectures on metaphysics in Würzburg, but also in other texts from the late 1860s.19 Especially in the parts of the lectures on cosmology, Brentano deals at length with ways of taking into consideration the results of thermodynamics and proposes an application of the entropy principle in cosmology. Metaphysics according to Brentano is the first of the two branches of philosophy, the other being psychology. As is the case in metaphysics, the two elements of the principle of philosophy as a science – theoretical exactness and empirical research – are equally present. This comes to light in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint: Our most urgent need in psychology is not the variety and universality of the tenets, but rather the unity of the doctrine. Within this framework we must strive to attain what first mathematics and physics, chemistry, and physiology have already attained, i.e. a core of generally accepted truths capable of attracting to it contributions from all other fields of scientific endeavor. We must seek to establish a single unified science of psychology in place of the many psychologies we now have.20

Some specifications are needed in order to see how the principle applies to psychology as well. First, the “psychologies” that Brentano has in mind are numerous: first of all, there is Herbartian psychology, which dominated much of nineteenth-century psychology, and which defended the idea that psychological hypotheses should be verified by measures of magnitudes and mathematical calculus in the context of a larger metaphysical conception which would include the laws of psychology. This idea inspired Fechner in his defence of psychophysiological parallelism, but also

 See Brentano (1987), p. 303.  See also Haller (1993) for a similar reading, which makes it possible to draw a direct connection between Brentano’s fourth thesis and the Vienna Circle’s project of a unitary science. In his introduction to the philosophy of sciences, which is much influenced by the Vienna circle, Richard von Mises (1939/1951) quotes Brentano’s Thesis 4 as an epigraph. On exactness as a method in descriptive psychology, see Mulligan (1989). 19  See for instance Brentano (2016). 20  Brentano (2015), p. xix. 17 18

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inspired many researchers in physiology, in particular Johannes Müller, Emil du Bois-Reymond, and Hermann Helmholtz. Second, Brentano also has in mind in particular one strong competing account of psychology at this time: the Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie of Wilhelm Wundt, of which the first instalment was published in November 1873. Wundt’s Grundzüge, which Brentano read as soon as they came out,21 basically followed Helmholtz’s hopes of founding psychology on physiology. Like Kant, Wundt believed that psychology as such cannot become a science, but that it might become one if physiology can provide it with exact measures of psychical phenomena understood as “intensive magnitudes”. Here again, Brentano’s stance against Wundt and the physiologists is in line with his principle of philosophy as a science: the exactness of psychology does not come from its use of quantitative measurements, but can only come from exact speculation (or exact theoretical investigation). This principle is in the background of many of his attacks on Wundt in the Psychology. One of his main targets is the idea that exactness is to be obtained only by quantitative measurements: I cannot in any way regard the existence of [Wundt’s] so-called second dimension of mental phenomena as the condition which makes possible the scientific exactness of psychology. On the contrary, I think that it will be a great handicap to psychology and will make it completely impossible for the time being.22

Already in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, Brentano isolates the exactness of the measurement of magnitudes from the type of exactness that psychology as a science should seek to attain. If we want to distinguish between mental and physical phenomena for instance, the kind of approach needed should provide us with theoretical (speculative) exactness. This kind of exactness is what we get from the use of arguments based on the data obtained in inner experience. By innerly perceiving our mental phenomena, Brentano suggests, we can get exact facts (or better: psychological laws) about their nature – for instance, that they all have an intentional object, that they also involve a consciousness of themselves, that they lack extension and localization, etc. These facts are exact insofar as their exactness is warranted by the self-evidence of inner perception, which admits of no exceptions. This kind of exactness is accessible only in inner experience and has an epistemological superiority over the so-called exactness of quantitative measurements. This superiority, and only this superiority, is able to serve as the foundation of a unified psychology understood as a science. The application of the principle of philosophy as a science to psychology in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint therefore seems already to involve a distinction which will be dealt with in more detail only in Brentano’s later lectures on psychology – namely, the distinction between genetic psychology and descriptive psychology. These two subdisciplines of psychology correspond to the two tenets of the principle of philosophy as a science, that is, theoretical (speculative) exactness, 21 22

 See Brentano’s letter to Stumpf from November 15, 1873 in Brentano (2014), p. 113.  Brentano (2015), pp. 73–74.

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which is nothing other than what descriptive psychology aims to do, and empirical research based on the method of natural science, which is the task of genetic psychology. The fact that Brentano abandoned the grand project of a treatise of psychology that would encompass empirical research into the causes of mental phenomena, as well as exact investigations into their nature, in no way implies, I suggest, a rejection of the applicability of the principle of philosophy as a science. The significance of this abandonment lies most obviously in the fact that empirical research in psychology (or genetic psychology for short) involves investigations that simply cannot be conducted with the limited means of a traditional department of philosophy. Given the obstacles faced by Brentano in his attempts to secure a psychology laboratory in Vienna, the preconditions for the grand project were not available. Thus, although the introduction of the adjectives ‘descriptive’ and ‘genetic’ is indeed to be traced back to around the beginning of the 1880s, their introduction does not express a change of perspective in the nature of psychological research, contrary to how it has often been presented.23

5.3  T  he Complementarity of Descriptive and Genetic Psychology As we have already seen, the term and concept of phenomenology were introduced as early as 1877–1878, but perhaps even earlier. The original characterization of phenomenology as a preliminary part of metaphysics does not call into question its role in the psychological part of the project of philosophy as a science: an investigation into the nature of mental contents involves the same kind of theoretical exactness in psychology as in metaphysics. Furthermore, the investigation of part-whole relations, which holds a central position in the architecture of Brentano’s metaphysics, should start with the investigation of the relations, as they are given in inner experience, between mental contents, if these contents are to be theoretically exact. What changes in 1887 is the more explicit discussion of the distinction between descriptive (or theoretical) and genetic (or empirical) psychology. Descriptive psychology is compared to an anatomy of the elements of the mental, while genetic psychology is compared to a physiology of its functions. This distinction between elements and functions is one important innovation in Brentano’s phenomenology in 1887. While the analysis of the elements of the mental can be carried out exclusively by descriptive psychology, the analysis of their function involves “psychophysical investigations”, which have to be carried out by genetic psychology. That there must be some kind of priority of descriptive psychology over genetic psychology becomes clear when one takes literally the analogy with the relation between anatomy and physiology suggested by Brentano. That is, in order to 23

 For instance, Bergmann (1966), Kamitz (1988), and more recently Antonelli (2008).

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explain certain functions of the mind, we need to identify first what they are functions of: physiology needs anatomy in the same sense as genetic psychology needs descriptive psychology. This is what Brentano seems to have in mind in the 1887 lectures: If it were so easy to do descriptive psychology, the difficulty would have been solved long ago, whereas we rather have to begin from the very start. Signs of disagreement and divergence of views. Indeed, in important aspects the prevalence of such views which, as we shall see, reveal the most decisive errors. On the other hand, many points that are of the greatest interest have not yet at all become an object of attention. Everything is rudimentary, unfinished, chaotic. Of course it is a special obstacle, indeed the greatest one, for more significant advances of genetic psychology – which has to fulfill such challenging tasks. Sad labyrinths of many psychophysicists.24

What kind of priority is at stake here? What Brentano seems to suggest is that one should first clean up theoretical problems in descriptive psychology if one wants to get good results in genetic psychology. If this is the case, the kind of priority involved seems merely procedural, in the sense that it relates to the ordering of the steps necessary for successfully conducting the overall project of philosophy as a science. But there is more to the relation between descriptive and genetic psychology. For if genetic psychology involves at least some preliminary descriptive psychology, the converse seems to be true as well, at least in some cases: This part [i.e. the descriptive part of psychology, GF] is not psychophysical, but rather purely psychological. Although perhaps consideration of the body, e.g. for repetition of the same experiment and for fixation.25

While there is a procedural priority of descriptive phenomenology over genetic psychology, the two domains in fact seem to be complementary. If this is the case, then it makes sense to say that phenomenology (or descriptive psychology) was not conceived as a stand-alone project, but rather as one of the two elements of the overall project of philosophy as a science. This would explain both its propaedeutic role in the architecture of metaphysics in the 1877–1878 lectures and the kind of complementarity between descriptive and genetic investigations in the 1887 lectures. In order to understand what this complementarity might mean, it would be useful to take a closer look at Brentano’s characterization of genetic psychology. Unfortunately, Brentano himself did not write much on genetic psychology; however, his student Anton Marty did, and it is reasonable to believe that what he has to say on the topic conforms with Brentano’s views. For Marty, genetic psychology needs physiology, and a fully developed genetic psychology would be built on psychophysical laws: The fundamental genetic laws of mental phenomena will be psychophysical laws, i.e. laws which are in part physiological. To find such laws is the task of genetic psychology. As long as one doesn’t discover them, they remain psychical laws in the strict sense. They affirm something about the regularity of succession and co-existence of mental states simply on

24 25

 Brentano, forthcoming.  Brentano, forthcoming.

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What are the laws of genetic psychology? They must have a psychophysical nature, according to Brentano and Marty, and it is the task of genetic psychology to discover them. But the actual development of psychology poses a problem for both descriptive and genetic psychology. For since we currently have only a limited knowledge of the laws of genetic psychology, we still have to rely on psychical laws like the laws of the succession or coexistence of mental states. The situation is similar in this respect, as Marty suggests following Brentano,27 to the situation of Kepler, who had only empirical laws of the movement of planets, until Newton was able to deduce the laws of their movement from the laws of gravitation. In some sense, it seems that inexact empirical laws are only the second-best thing, since, for the time being at least, we do not have exact psychophysical laws from which we could simply deduce genetic psychology. In fact, neither Brentano nor Marty really believes that such exact psychophysical laws are obtainable. Rather, exact psychophysical laws should be seen as an ideal of genetic psychology, although such an ideal is in principle unattainable for the simple reason that exact measurements of intensities are impossible: But even if an exact treatment of genetic psychology only lies in a distant, almost unforeseeable future, such a treatment should be seen as an ideal. One day, thanks to the advances of physiology, we will be able to get a better knowledge of the psychical laws of our mental life. A perfect knowledge of these laws is perhaps not possible, maybe simply because measurements of intensities would be necessary. But such direct measurements will never be possible in an exact manner; and even indirect measurements will only be possible in an imperfect way.28

In other words, genetic psychology seems to be doomed to have only inexact laws and to be limited to empirical research. But descriptive psychology, although it has the theoretical exactness that genetic psychology cannot reach, also has intrinsic limitations: Like descriptive psychology, which will never attain its ideal because there is always something that remains unnoticed in description, genetic psychology will too remain always inexact, even on its highest level.29

While the basic shortcoming of genetic psychology lies in the impossibility of making exact measurements of intensity, the basic shortcoming of descriptive psychology lies in the limits of discernibility: description always leaves something out. Here, it seems that Brentano and Marty are pointing to the kind of complementarity between descriptive and genetic psychology mentioned above. That is to say, a complete description of our experience is an ideal which is in practice unattainable, Marty and Brentano suggest, because the description itself is constrained by the  Marty Q10, p. 9.  The very same point is made in Brentano (2015), p. 79. 28  Marty Q 10, p. 10. 29  Marty Q10, p. 10. 26 27

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limits of discernibility. These limits are obviously physiologically determined; there are, for example, physiological limitations (both cognitive and sensory) to my ability to discern the various shades of colour in the visible spectrum. This is where a better knowledge of genetic psychology could improve phenomenological descriptions by, for example, training or perfecting certain uses of our sensory and cognitive functions in a way that would improve our ability to describe.30 While the laws of descriptive psychology are themselves exact, our knowledge of these laws is constrained, and can be gained or perfected only by a better description, which is itself constrained by physiological limitations. In other words, the intrinsic limitations of genetic psychology come from the fact that exact measures of intensities in the psychical domain are in principle impossible. But Brentano does believe that a relative exactness in this domain is possible, although it will never attain the level of exactness that inner perception can offer. In this sense, while descriptive psychology has exact laws, our knowledge of these laws is a matter of faithful description, which itself is an ideal which has practical limits. And while genetic psychology does not face this difficulty – the functions of the parts of the brain and the nervous system can be studied with basically the same tools as those of natural science – it has the limitation that measuring phenomenal acts and contents is in principle not able to produce the same exactness that inner perception of these acts (and contents) can offer. It is also for this reason that genetic psychology studies such phenomena as the narrowness of consciousness (the fact that we can only have a limited number of presentations at a time), exhaustion (Ermüdung), habit and self-encouragement, but also the laws of genetic psychology. These are the laws of acquired association, the laws of repetition through association, but also a significant number of laws governing physical phenomena.

5.4  Some Cases of Complementarity The complementarity of descriptive and genetic psychology as described above offers quite a different picture of the nature of descriptive psychology from the one often drawn in the literature. Kraus (1919) for instance suggested that the distinction between descriptive and genetic psychology emerged only in lectures after 1887; Kamitz (1988) believes that descriptive psychology has a “much more important role in [Brentano’s] philosophy” than genetic psychology, suggesting some kind of methodological priority of the former over the latter. Bergman (1966) even suggests that descriptive psychology has nothing to do with Thesis 4. I do not deny  In some passages, Brentano describes such techniques, such as widely opening the eyes (see below). Better observation may be obtained by carrying out experiments, and therefore by using external means, and of course by using indirect measures (measuring reaction times, compiling statistics, etc.). This was put into practice by many students of Brentano, for instance Stumpf (1883/1891). 30

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that there is some truth to this picture: after all, one could defend a descriptive psychological programme in philosophy without entering into genetic considerations. While this seems more akin to Husserl’s idea of phenomenology (or ‘pure phenomenology’), I think that it does not do justice to Brentano’s conception of phenomenology as a part of his general project of philosophy as a science. A quick look at his description of the tasks of descriptive psychology (or phenomenology) in the 1887 lectures confirms this. One notices that these tasks make more sense if the complementarity stressed above is granted. Brentano’s phenomenology aims to fulfil the following four tasks (Brentano 1982, 130): description of (a) the objects of our sensations, (b) the originary associations, (c) superposed presentations, and (d) presentations of inner perception. It is hard to see how descriptive psychology, if it has the kind of methodological and systematic priority presupposed by the usual picture (to the extent that it could even be conducted as a stand-alone project), could ever succeed in fulfilling the first two tasks, since, strictly speaking, the objects involved in these tasks do not belong to the realm of the mental: objects of sensations are physical phenomena, while originary associations are dispositions, and dispositions do not belong to the realm of the mental. If descriptive psychology were to fulfil the first two tasks, then it seems that it would depend to an important extent upon the data provided by genetic psychology. The 1887 and 1888–1889 lectures confirm this impression. In the case of the objects of sensation for instance, Brentano takes great pains in these lectures to account for the distinction between veridical perception and illusion. Such a distinction makes sense only if one believes that one has some kind of more or less reliable access to the external world. Brentano often calls this access ‘external perception’ (äußere Warhnehmung), in opposition to inner perception, which is the only kind of perception that is self-evident. Now, if descriptive psychology has anything to say about perceptual illusions, then it must also rely on the data provided by external perception. This data is gathered from other disciplines such as physics and physiology, but also, and most importantly, from genetic psychology.31 In the case of dispositions, we face a similar situation. Originary associations for instance (the short-term retention of what we have just perceived in a present perception) do not belong, properly speaking, to the realm of consciousness, but they are essential for Brentano’s explanation of time consciousness and of noticing – you might not be able to discern blue and yellow in your phenomenon of green, but with the proper training you will be able to learn it and thus to train your disposition to a better noticing.32 Moreover, Brentano’s conception of the character of a person is based on dispositions to act in certain ways: Mary’s eccentricity is a disposition she has to particular mental states, a disposition that acts as the cause of certain mental states and the effect of other mental states. Brentano’s conception of aesthetics  I discuss Brentano’s account of perception in more detail in Fréchette (2018).  Compare Brentano (1995), p. 40: “If we are dealing with what is more or less difficult to notice, we will take care to perfect the natural dispositions through practice. This will, in particular, be achieved through practice in noticing. The skills of noticing can be perfected through practice on a general level as well as in the context of specific domains one is interested in.” 31 32

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relies heavily on this conception of dispositions: what characterizes great artists is their capacity or their dispositions to more vivid presentations, which are the particularly vivid traces (in the case of great artists) of past presentations or associations of ideas.33 In short, Brentano needs dispositions in descriptive psychology, but exact theoretical (or speculative) investigation makes no room for it, for they are not acts. Therefore, in order to account for mental dispositions, a complementary use of phenomenology and genetic psychology is necessary. It might well turn out that dispositions are mental after all, if description and techniques of noticing improved by genetic psychology show us that they are. But it might also turn out that they are physical, if physiology shows that they are realized physiologically. Since our actual knowledge of disposition is still too limited, a collaboration between phenomenology and genetic psychology is necessary.

5.5  Final Remarks My account of descriptive psychology differs from the standard account.34 What I call the standard reading is based on the presupposition that descriptive psychology is a stand-alone project, independent of genetic psychology, and gets its justification solely from the self-evidence of inner perception. According to this reading, it is a ‘Cartesian science providing an epistemologically sure foundation for the entire discipline of philosophy, as also for scientific knowledge of other sorts’35. It leads to the view that the mental acts one experiences are given as they are, and that the correctness of the description is experienced as such. Furthermore, it leads to a view of phenomenology according to which the fact that the laws of descriptive psychology are infallibly graspable accounts for the necessity of the laws; in other words, it explains necessity in epistemic terms. The standard reading offers a picture of Brentano’s phenomenology in which it can account only for how our mental contents are related to one another: it can account scientifically for it because inner perception gives access to them infallibly. I see this association of scientificity with inner perception as a direct consequence of the negative reading of Thesis 1, which would require us to view Brentano’s project of philosophy as a science based only on Thesis 4. In my view, an unfortunate consequence of this reading is that the gap between descriptive psychology and the world (including physiological reality) turns out to be unbridgeable. Against the standard reading, I have argued not only that phenomenology, in Brentano’s view, is concerned with our mental acts and the nature and structure of their contents, but also that it is constrained by many other elements which do not clearly fall into one or the other of the categories in Brentano’s concept of the mind.

 See for instance Brentano (1892/2010), pp. 99–128; (1959), pp. 54ff.; Brentano (1995), p. 45.  For example Bergmann 1966; Smith 1994, Mulligan and Smith, 1985. 35  Smith 1994, 26. 33 34

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These are the so-called mental dispositions, outer perception, consideration of one’s own body (perhaps proprioception), and the limits of discernibility. These are in part constraints exerted on the analysis of the mental, but they are also important elements that contribute to the programme of philosophy as a science. Investigating these elements is the task of genetic psychology, which follows the empirical method of natural science. Such a method however, is intrinsically limited: intensities, for instance, cannot be accounted for on the basis of exact measurements. This is one of the reasons why genetic psychology needs descriptive psychology. But descriptive psychology also needs genetic psychology when it comes to accounting for perceptual illusions, noticing, time consciousness, and dispositions, but more generally because in practice there is always something left unnoticed. If my account of Brentano’s project of philosophy as a science is correct, then the theoretical exactness of phenomenology and the empirical methods of genetic psychology are the two essential and complementary elements of this project. This view, I maintain, was held consistently by Brentano from 1866 on.36

References Antonelli, M. 2008. Einführung. In Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, ed. F.  Brentano, ix–lxxxvii. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag. Bergmann, H. 1966. Brentano und Bolzano. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 48 (3): 306–311. Brentano, F. 1869. Auguste Comte und die positive Philosophie. Chilianum 2: 15–37. ———. 1874. Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. English translation (2015), Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. London: Routledge. ———. 1892. F. Brentano, “Das Genie”, reprinted in Brentano (2010), Sämtliche Schriften Band 3: Schriften zur Ethik und Ästhetik, Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, pp. 99–128 ———. 1895. Meine letzten Wünsche für Österreich. Stuttgart: Cotta. ———. 1907. Untersuchungen zur Sinnespsychologie. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. ———. 1929. Über die Zukunft der Philosophie. Leipzig: Meiner. ———. 1959. Grundzüge der Ästhetik. Bern: Francke. ———. 1982. Deskriptive Psychologie, Hamburg: Meiner. English translation, (1995) Descriptive Psychology, London: Routledge. ———. 1987. Geschichte der Philosophie der Neuzeit. Hamburg: Meiner. ———. 2014. In Briefwechsel zwischen Stumpf und Brentano, ed. M.  El-Safti and T.  Binder. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. ———. 2015. Psychology from an empirical Standpoint. London: Routledge.  The views expressed in Brentano (1907) confirm this reading, since the book was a collection of papers written on the basis of the 1887, 1888–1889, and 1890–1891 lectures on descriptive psychology. I thank the audience in Vienna for its input, especially Johannes Brandl, Dagfinn Føllesdal, Wolfgang Huemer, Kevin Mulligan, David W. Smith, and Barry Smith. Thanks also to Evandro Brito, Ernesto Giusti, Gleisson Schmidt, Wojciech Starzyński, and the other participants at the Brentano conference held at the Federal University of Technology of Paraná (Curitiba) for stimulating discussions. This paper was written as part of the research project “Brentano’s Descriptive Psychology” funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF, P-27215). 36

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———. 2016. Die Gesetze der Wechselwirkung der Naturkräfte und ihre Bedeutung für die Metaphysik. Brentano Studien 14: 27–56. ———. forthcoming. Deskriptive Psychologie und Beschreibende Phänomenologie. Vorlesungen 1887/88 und 1888/89. Dordrecht: Springer. Falckenberg, R. 1901. H. Lotze. Das Leben und die Entstehung der Schriften nach den Briefen. Stuttgart: Frommanns. Fréchette, G. 2012. Franz Brentano in Würzburg: Die Anfänge der deskriptiven Psychologie. In Historische Analysen theoretischer und empirischer Psychologie, ed. A. Stock, H.-P. Brauns, and U. Wolfradt, 91–106. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. ———. 2018. Brentano on Perception. Hungarian Philosophical Review 62 (4): 13–33. Freudenberger, T., ed. 1969. Die Universität Würzburg und das erste vatikanische Konzil. Ein Beitrag zur Kirchen- und Geistesgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Neustadt: Degener & Co. Haller, R. 1993. Neopositivismus: eine historische Einführung in die Philosophie des Wiener Kreises. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Kamitz, R. 1988. Deskriptive Psychologie als unerlässliche Grundlage wissenschaftlicher Philosophie? Eine Darstellung und kritische Analyse des Psychologismus Franz Brentanos. In La scuola di Brentano, Topoi Supplement 2, ed. W. Baumgartner, 58–81. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Kraus, O. 1929. “Anmerkungen des Herausgebers”. In Brentano, pp. 144–195. Mulligan, K. 1989. The Expression of Exactness: Ernst Mach, the Brentanists and the Ideal of Clarity. In Decadence and Innovation. Austro-Hungarian Life and Art at the Turn of the Century, ed. Robert Pynsent, 33–42. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Mulligan, K./Smith, B. 1985. Franz Brentano on the Ontology of Mind. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 45: 627–644. Oberkofler, G., ed. 1989. Franz Brentano. Briefe an Carl Stumpf 1867–1917. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlaganstalt. Sauer, W. 2000. Erneuerung der Philosophia Perennis. Grazer philosophische Studien 58: 119–149. Schelling, F. 1802/1859. Fernere Darstellungen aus dem System der Philosophie. In Neue Zeitschrift für speculative Physik, 1. Band (1802), pp. 1–77 (reprinted in Schelling 1859). ———. 1859. Sämtliche Werke, erste Abteilung, vierter Band. Stuttgart: Cotta. Smith, B. 1994. Austrian Philosophy: The Legacy of Franz Brentano. Chicago: Open Court. Stumpf, C. 1908. Die Wiedergeburt der Philosophie. Leipzig: Barth. ———. 1883. Tonpsychologie I. Leipzig: Hirzel. ———. 1891. Tonpsychologie II. Leipzig: Hirzel. ———. 1922. Franz Brentano, Professor der Philosophie, 1838–1917. In Lebensläufe aus Franken, ed. A. Chroust, vol. 2, 67–85. Würzburg: Kabbitzsch & Mönnich. Von Mises, R. 1939. Kleines Lehrbuch des Positivismus. Den Haag: Stockhum. English translation (1951): Positivism: A Study in Human Understanding. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Werle, J. 1989. Franz Brentano und die Zukunft der Philosophie. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Whewell, W. 1847. The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon Their History. Vol. 1. London: Parker.

Archive Materials Brentano, F. 1867. Metaphysik. Vorlesung 1867. Cambridge, MA: Houghton Library, Harvard University. Brentano, Ps25. 1904. Vergleich zwischen Brentano und Wundts Psychologie, Houghton Library, Harvard University. Masaryk, T. 1877/78. Brentanos Vorlesungen zur Metaphysik. Prague: Masaryk Archives. Marty, A. Q10. 1889. Genetische Psychologie. Leuven: Husserl Archives.

Chapter 6

Brentano’s Appointment to the University of Vienna Hans-Joachim Dahms

Abstract  Franz Brentano is seen by many historians of philosophy as a leading representative of Austrian Philosophy. Up to now nobody has cared to answer the question, how he arrived from Würzburg to Vienna. When after the retirement of Franz Karl Lott as Ordinarius for philosophy his chair became vacant, a number of unsuccessful attempts were made by the university faculty to find a suitable successor. But then the minister of Culture and Education made an unusual decision: he appointed Brentano in 1874 without waiting any longer. It seems as if a sort of conspiracy was at work here. In this secret concerted action the Göttingen-based philosopher Hermann Lotze, his former colleague and later on Vienna professor Lott and also the Minister Karl Stremayr himself were all involved. This complicated story is presented on the basis of archival material. Then Brentanos famous inaugural lecture is discussed and its reception by its hearers and the press described. I end with an outlook on Brentano’s successes as an academic teacher in Vienna, which perhaps could have been even more spectacular, when the authorities after Stremayr’s retirement would not have chosen to deprive Brentano of his chair. Keywords  Franz Karl Lott · Hermann Lotze · Karl von Stremayr · Brentano’s inaugural lecture · Brentano’s Achievements in Vienna

I thank Wilhelm Baumgartner (University of Würzburg), Thomas Binder (Franz Brentano Archive of the University of Graz) and Guillaume Frechette (University of Salzburg) for valuable information, without which this contribution would be incomplete and faulty. Binder will publish a book “Franz Brentano and his Philosophical Estate” (with a longer biographical essay about him) at de Gruyter, Frechette (University of Salzburg) and Dennis Fisette (Montréal) prepare a scientific biography of Brentano. H.-J. Dahms (*) Independent Scholar, Berlin, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano and Austrian Philosophy, Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40947-0_6

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6.1  Introduction The following remarks are to be understood as a contribution to the biography of Franz Brentano as well to the history of Vienna’s philosophy and university history. After presenting some details regarding Brentano’s life in the second section – I will describe the extremely complicated processes that led to Brentano’s call to Vienna in the third section. In the fourth section I will then discuss how his university career began there, namely with his inaugural address. The fifth section will focus on its response among the attending public and how the event was covered in the press. I will conclude by taking a brief look at Brentano’s subsequent work in Vienna, which, despite considerable restrictions, produced some quite unusual successes. This paper is mostly based on unpublished material from the Vienna university archive, the Austrian head state archive (Hauptstaatsarchiv) in Vienna and the Brentano papers held in the Brentano-Archive in Graz.

6.2  Brentano’s Background Brentano hailed from an old famous Italo-German aristocratic family, which was mentioned in Lombardia (Italy) already in documents from the thirteenth century.1 Some branches of this clan settled in the old German trading town Frankfurt am Main in the seventeenth century. The German Romantic poets and writers Clemens Brentano and Bettina von Arnim (née Brentano) belonged to the generation of Franz Brentano’s parents. His younger brother Lujo became well known as an economist and  – as one of the so-called Kathedersozialist  – an academic champion of the social issue (Sozialfrage). Even in the twentieth century there were well-known members of the family such as the West-German Christian Democrat foreign minister Heinrich von Brentano (who served in this capacity from 1955 to 1961) under the first German chancellor after the Second World War Konrad Adenauer, or the Berlin-based philosophy professor Margherita von Brentano. Franz Brentano himself was born on the 16th of January 1838 in Boppard on the Rhine into a very Catholic family, which also took great interest in new cultural and political developments. During his student years in Munich, Würzburg, Berlin and Münster Brentano was influenced by the Berlin philosopher Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg and placed special emphasis on a thorough knowledge of Aristotle. His dissertation is an interpretation of a central piece of Aristotelian metaphysics,2 and his habilitation thesis was dedicated to the psychology (de anima) of Aristotle.3

 The articles collected in the Heidenreich (2000) volume deal mainly with the German branch of the family – including Franz and Lujo Brentano – and end with Heinrich von Brentano. 2  Brentano (1862). 3  Brentano (1867/1967). 1

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Right after completing his doctorate, Brentano, who had also studied Catholic theology, was ordained as a priest and was about to enter the Dominican order.4 Arguments and his struggle with the Catholic hierarchy were to mark his public and private life for a long time. It started when the Catholic church declared at its first Vatican Council in July 1870 (only a few days before the beginning of the French-German War)  the dogma of infallibility of the Pope in matters of the Christian faith. German (and Austrian) cardinals and bishops, however, joined together in opposing this impending move. In August 1869 they even ordered a memorandum ahead of the Fulda bishops’ conference, which was to offer an expert opinion on the envisaged dogma. The author of this memorandum “reverentially dedicated to the reverend archbishops and bishops”, which at that time was deliberately left unpublished and “under no circumstances was to be handed over to the press”5 (and then was not published until a century after its reimbursement in 1969) was now Brentano!6 In this detailed text he expressly declined from commenting on theological issues; everything on that aspect had already long been said. Instead the paper intended to investigate “whether it is timely to establish such a dogma”. The conclusion is stated immediately before the detailed discussions: After careful and all-round discussion of this question, the authors of the present work came to the firm belief, that at the present moment nothing would be more injurious and more detrimental to the church than the establishment of such a dogma, and that it would be a big mistake and a big misfortune, when even the question about it would be put to the council.7

The details of the memorandum cannot and need not be discussed in detail here. Brentano’s reasons for rejecting the dogma first of all emphasize the feared deepening of the already existing division of Christianity (namely, the Orthodox, Protestants and Anglicans). Even the structure of the Catholic Church itself would be damaged: the Pope would then become “the only witness” and the “single teacher”, leaving the councils ultimately superfluous. In short: Some say: Peter is everything. No, he is the rock, but he is not the whole church. He is the foundation, but not the whole edifice. The building without the foundation would collapse. The foundations without a building would be a foundation for nothing.8

Negative reactions could be expected as well in the secular realm in Catholic governments “in Germany, Austria, Bavaria, the Rhine and elsewhere”, where one would be “by no means inclined to accept everything kindly”.9 In other words: Brentano already forecasted the church battle (“Kirchenkampf”) following the proclamation of the dogma and the founding of the German Empire shortly thereafter.  Thomas Binder (Graz) informed me that in 1862 he was only a few weeks a novice in Graz and then left the monastery disappointed. 5  Brentano (1869/1969) 403. 6  Brentano (1869/1969). 7  Brentano (1869/1969) 409. 8  Brentano (1869/1969) 424. 9  Brentano (1869/1969) 415; The German unification was then still 2 years ahead. 4

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At their synod in Fulda in August 1869 the expert opinion convinced all the 19 German bishops present at the gathering. But that was not enough: when the Central European clerics were defeated by the majority of the southern European and Latin Americans, they had to give in, whether they liked it or not. Brentano however did not bow: he took off his cassock. That he also relinquished his academic teaching position at the University of Würzburg, had – at least in part10 – also to do with his protest against the dogma of infallibility. Given this background, it is necessary to explain how Brentano was able to obtain a philosophical chair in Catholic Austria a few years later.

6.3  Brentano’s Call to Vienna If one looks more closely at what led up to this call one quickly realizes that in the 1870s Austria was no longer as strictly Catholic as before. That applies especially to the University of Vienna and its philosophical faculty on the one hand and the minister for Culture and Education (Cultus and Unterricht) on the other. Philosophy had become an independent university subject only following the Thun-Hohenstein university reforms after 1848.11 At that time it was dominated in Vienna by Herbartarianism, a philosophical movement imported from Göttingen. This philosophical school was strongly geared to pedagogics and psychology. In addition, Herbartianism was seen widely as a doctrine subservient to the authorities – especially in light of the submission of its founder to the King of Hannover after the dismissal of the famous “Göttingen seven” who had protested against the cession of a more democratic constitution introduced only 4  years earlier. This strain of philosophical thought stood in stark contrast to enlightened Kantianism which later gained more traction, especially in the last third of the century in Germany.12 Now both chair-holders in Vienna, Robert Zimmermann and Franz Karl Lott, were Herbartians. Lott had even climbed all the rungs up to the position of professor extraordinarius in Göttingen13 under Herbart, before he returned to Vienna to take on a philosophy chair. There he developed, among other things, a special interest in musicology. When Lott, who had attended a session of the philosophical faculty in May 1871 for the last time, went on leave for the winter semester 1881/1872 for health reasons14 and finally asked for his retirement in 1872, both the personal succession for  Thomas Binder has pointed out to me that conflicts at the university also played a role here, such as the refusal to award him a full professorship in spite of his extraordinary teaching success. 11  See (also for the following) Dahms and Stadler (2015) 80 ff. 12  The competition between Herbartianism and Kantianism in the nineteenth century is examined in Köhnke (1986) 109 ff. 13  Ebel (1962) 124 lists Lott among the associate professors (Extraordinarien) until 1848 as No. 89; ibid. 138 – from 1842 to 1845 – with No. 161 – as lecturer (Privatdozent). 14  Sitzungsprotokolle Phil. Fak.: I. Session of 8th of October 1871. 10

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his philosophical chair and the question of a possible reorientation of Viennese philosophy was on the agenda. The minister, so it seems, had called on 12th of January 1872 for a nomination of a successor for the vacant chair in philosophy.15 The minutes of the third faculty meeting, where these proposals where decided on, are unfortunately missing in the protocol-book of the faculty. But as can be seen from the discussion at the fourth meeting, the following list must have been made: 1 . Eduard Zeller (Berlin) 2. Julius Baumann (Göttingen) 3. Wilhelm Dilthey (Berlin). The first one, Eduard Zeller, was an expert in classical Greek philosophy and one of the leading representatives of neo-Kantianism. He had accepted a call to Berlin in the same year and was therefore unwilling to move to Vienna so shortly afterwards. The faculty thus had to put together a new list. One member of the faculty commission entrusted with the task suggested asking the other candidates beforehand (namely Baumann or Dilthey). But in the end something completely different happened. Ludwig Strümpell (Leipzig) was unanimously nominated unico loco. He, too, was a Herbartian (Lott supported him in a written vote). Apparently that strategy was meant to ensure the continuity of Herbartian dominance in Vienna. In the faculty a counter-proposal was made, namely, Wilhelm Wundt (at the time still in Heidelberg) (“so as to represent a scientific direction”), which was turned down. In the end as a sort of compromise Strümpell ex aequo with the earlier proposals – Baumann and Dilthey – was sent to the ministry. But it did not stay that way. At the last meeting of the faculty on June 18, 1873, before the definitive decision about the succession was reached, a completely new list was made after renewed consultations and deliberation. There were only two names, who were agreed upon with a large majority: 1 . Friedrich August Lange (Marburg) 2. Carl Stumpf (Göttingen). Lange was well-known as the author of a “History of Materialism” and as a co-­ founder of the Marburg branch of Neo-Kantianism.16 The young Göttingen lecturer (Privatdozent) Stumpf had studied under Brentano, who had sent him to Hermann Lotze in Göttingen for his dissertation. Stumpf went on to pursue a career in empirical psychology in Berlin. The naming of the first placed neo-Kantian and also socialist Lange indicates that the faculty no longer wanted to bother with religious or political conservative considerations. It also shows (as had already the nomination of Zeller on the first list) that the much later invented construct of an “Austrian Philosophy” (coined by

 This is apparent from the minutes of the IV.  Session of 16th of March 1872, in which the Ministerial decree is quoted. 16  Köhnke (1986) 233 ff. 15

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Otto Neurath who declared “Austria had been spared the interlude with Kant”17) needs to be provided with question marks. Correctly phrased it should read (at least, when it comes to the times of Brentano and his school) as follows: Austria (or the Viennese philosophical faculty) would have been keen to have a Kantian in the early 1870s, but it could not get one. Be that as it may, the faculty would not have been terribly pleased with Lange, if he had been appointed. He died a short time later on the 21th of November 1875 in Marburg. It seems that the young Carl Stumpf was not asked to come to Vienna. Frustrated by the long vacancy and no longer motivated to wait for more – perhaps similarly hopeless – nominations of candidates, the minister of Culture and Education Karl von Stremayr (from the 30th of October 1823 to the 22nd of June 1904), minister from 1870–79, took an extraordinary step: He decided to call the then only 38-year old unemployed private scholar Franz Brentano to Vienna, without asking the faculty for its opinion. This was a forced decision indeed: the faculty was only informed of it being taken by ministerial decree at its meeting on the 14th of February 1874. The ministerial decision is remarkable in view of the political and ideological situation at that time in Austria, but given the background of the minister, it is not as astonishing as it may seem. This background merits a brief description. Stremayr had studied law. More importantly he had served as a deputy for the Graz constituency of the Frankfurt National Assembly in 1848 at the very young age of 24. There he served  – as the youngest member!  – as youth secretary (Jugendschriftführer) and on one occasion he also gave a speech. Surrounded by all the legendary figures of intellectual life and literature he previously had only known from books and articles and who had now become his colleagues he experienced this time as a kind of “practical internship in statesmanship”. He writes about his early beginnings: Borne by enthusiasm for Germany’s unity and greatness, filled with the aspiration to make Austria’s millennial union with the motherland as intimate as possible, led by the youthful drive to see the ideas of freedom and progress become reality, I grasped the task of being a member of the constitutional National assembly with all seriousness and greatest conscience.18

These hopes were frustrated by the decision of the assembly to adopt the “small German” (kleindeutsche) solution, excluding Austria. When the left-liberal Stremayr returned to Graz after the sessions of the parliament – with a long detour through Belgium and the Netherlands – he was welcomed by a superior with the words: “So you dare come back to Austria after your behaviour in St. Paul’s church?”19 From around 1851, according to Stremayr, “the time of the worst reaction”20 started in Austria which was reflected in his view especially in the conclusion of the “unfortunate concordat” with the Holy See of 1855. Stremayr commented on it as follows:  Neurath (1936/1981) 676 ff.  Stremayr (1899) 19. 19  Ibidem, 20. 20  Ibidem, 29. 17 18

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The work of the immortal Emperor Joseph II was destroyed with a pen stroke and before all of Europe the Austrian Empire got the stigma of sinister reaction pressed on its forehead. Instead of the nothing less than un-Catholic provisions of the General Civil Code the canonical marriage law was instated; the school was handed over to the church, science was bandaged by faith, and the church was called as an equal power for the common servitude of the minds.21

As Stremayr wrote in his Memories, he found great satisfaction in being able to “lay the last ax on that same concordat” 15 years later.22 In fact he had to deal in his very first months as minister of culture (he served – with brief interruptions due to cabinet reshuffling in the beginning – from 1870 to 1879) with an issue that had also occupied Brentano, namely the Papal dogma of infallibility. Stremayr took the introduction of the dogma as an opportunity to cancel the concordat with the Holy See, as he writes: because of a “change in the nature of the Papal power”.23 In his memoirs he describes in detail how he managed to ensure that the Emperor finally agreed to that step. It seems that this whole development helped to avoid a church struggle (Kirchenkampf) in Austria or at least made sure that it took not such acrimonious forms as in the newly founded German Empire.24 Stremayr’s other activities as minister of culture fill less space in his memories. He just tells summarily that he had helped to contribute to bring the universities of Vienna and Prague to “blossom so beautifully”, not without “calls of excellent forces from Germany”.25 He almost frames the founding of the university of Czernowitz in a German national context, when he talks of an “outpost of German culture in the eastern part of the monarchy.”26 Names of these “excellent forces” appointed to those universities are not cited, not even that of Brentano. But the letter in which Stremayr proposed Brentano to the Emperor is a true masterpiece of diplomacy, comparable – although on a smaller scale of course  – to Stremayr’s diplomatic effort to abolish the concordat. In his appeal to the Emperor he points to an expert statement on the suitability of the candidate made by the Göttingen philosopher Hermann Lotze, whom he considered the “leading representative of philosophy at the German universities”. The now somewhat forgotten Lotze was at the time in fact not only well-known in German-­ speaking countries, but also an internationally respected capacity. That fact has recently been highlighted again in a series of publications.27 Since the mid-1860 he was also “an outspoken authority among ministers of culture and university

 Ibidem, 33.  Ibidem, 34. 23  Ibidem, 35. 24  Pfleger (1997); on Stremayr, especially 145 ff. 25  Stremayr (1899) 55. 26  Ibidem. On the other hand, Stremayr resisted in vain the division of Prague University into a German and a Czech one. As a result, according to him a “nursery of national zealots” had been created. 27  See Lotze’s biography: Woodward (2015) and the extensive re-releases, including his major work “Microcosm.” 21 22

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management”,28 which meant that he was often asked for advice when it came to appointments to philosophy chairs and thus functioned as a sort of gate-keeper. Nevertheless we should perhaps explain how Lotze came into play in Vienna with Brentano’s call. First of all, Lotze had probably already been made aware of Brentano’s precarious situation by Stumpf, one of his doctoral students whom Brentano had sent from Würzburg to Lotze in Göttingen.29 Lotze apparently invited Brentano to come to Göttingen and explain his situation.30 Then Lotze contacted the just retired Franz Lott in Vienna, whom he knew personally from their time together in Göttingen. Lotze arrived there in 184431 as successor to Herbart, who had died in 1841.32 Lott had served as associate professor for 4 years as a colleague to Lotze in the faculty of philosophy. Lott now had only little control up to that time over his succession, and his suggestion (Strümpell) had not led to any tangible result either. In this situation Lotze suggested that Lott should help to give the call to Brentano who was the scientifically best trained but, unfortunately, unemployed and inquired at the same time about his appointment prospects in Vienna.33 Lott’s response on the 22nd August of 1872, addressed to “most revered sir and friend!” shows that he relied blindly on Lotze’s expertise in his initiative on behalf of Brentano: “Not knowing Mr. Br., my belief in his declarations is based solely on your own belief in him.”34 Since Lott’s influence on the bureaucracy of the ministry was diminished because of his frequent absence from Vienna and because of the changing ministers, he suggested a concerted action: Lotze should write a “sufficiently detailed expert opinion about the man as a teacher and a scholar” and send it to him; Brentano himself was to write “a statement that he expected of him” (probably with a promise about political neutrality in the future). Brentano was also to confirm that he would accept a possible call to Vienna. Endowed with these two documents Lott would then go to the minister “with the emphasis I can command”. Unfortunately, it is not possible to ascertain whether these apparently missing documents ever found their way into the Vienna university files or the ministry files.35 In any case the documents seem to have made a lasting impression on Stremayr, the minister. He brought the two factors, namely the scientific appreciation of Brentano on the one hand and the commitment to a decidedly apolitical attitude on the other, together in his vote to the Emperor on the 14th of January 1874. In this very polished long letter some delicate points in Brentano’s vita were elegantly  Pester (2003) 18, Woodward (2015) 225.  See Lotze’s almost enthusiastic report on the Stumpf’s dissertation “On the Relationship of the Platonic God to the Idea of Good”, July 1868, and the description of Stumpf’s doctoral examination in his essay “On Lotze’s Memory” in Lotze (2003) 486 f. 30  See text to footnote 39. 31  Ebel (1962) 108, no. 90. 32  Ebel (1962) 107, no. 78. 33  This letter apparently no longer exists. 34  Lotze (2003); see (also for the following quotes) 572 f. 35  In those files in the UAW and in the HStAW, which concern Brentano, they are certainly not to be found. 28 29

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defused.36 Brentano is described there as “world priest” (Weltpriester) stemming “from the well-known Catholic patrician family of this name” originating from Frankfurt am Main. His departure from the university of Würzburg is then described as follows: ... in March 1973, personal circumstances, which threatened to diminish his academic field of activity, caused him to ask to be released from his professorship, which was granted by the Bavarian government with an explicit recognition of his excellent achievements as a scholar as well as an academic teacher.37

Brentano would in the future “keep far from any political activity” and devote his life entirely to science. Finally to him, who would long for the resumption of the magisterial activity, the call to the University of Vienna would serve ... very well..., since he as a Catholic priest would not find a position at the northern German universities, especially under the present circumstances.38

Brentano was thus almost described as an asylum seeker, because he would invariably be discriminated in Germany. The Emperor was impressed by Stremayr’s application: Brentano was appointed full professor in Vienna on the 14th of January 1974. He began his office by first expressing his appreciating to Lotze for his decisive help in the call: In this way your benevolent efforts, though only after year and day, have truly been crowned with happy success. Thank you again very much for that. I will never forget how you took up the one, who set in moments of great distress the still strange foot for the first time to your threshold, with a kindness and a confidence that otherwise would only be handed to a friend of years, how you followed with sympathy the description of disgustingly confused circumstances, and, where everything seemed unrestrained, gave advice and offered vigorously help for its execution.39

6.4  Brentano’s Inaugural Lecture: Its Content... Brentano began his office in Vienna on the 22nd of April 1974 with his famous inaugural address “On the cause of discouragement in the philosophical field”.40 This inaugural speech cannot be discussed here in detail. It consists of two parts: a diagnosis of the state of philosophy and – since it is so devastating – the proposal of a therapy. Brentano’s diagnosis starts with a comparison of the prestige of philosophy at the beginning of the nineteenth century with its renomée in the present time: “In the first decades of our century, the lecture halls of German philosophers were

 See for the following also Dahms and Stadler (2015) 84 f.  Underline in the original, otherwise emphasis added. 38  Emphasis added. 39  Brentano to Lotze, 18th of January 1874, in: Lotze (2003) 595 f. 40  Brentano (1874/1929) 36 37

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overcrowded; in our times, the tide has followed a deep ebb.”41 As causes for the crash he names mainly two: on the one hand the chaos of conflicting systems of philosophy and the associated battling schools, which flourished in German idealism, and their lack of practical usefulness. Brentano summarizes the situation when he moves from the critical discussion of the causes to the suggestion of a therapy: There are the chief causes from which the mistrust against philosophy as a science springs forth: lack of generally accepted propositions; complete upheavals, which philosophy suffers again and again; unattainability of the desired goal by way of experience; and impossibility of practical use.42

In order to overcome this situation Brentanos offers two proposals: one must abandon the systems philosophy based on individual ideas altogether and orientate instead methodically to the collectively operating and through mutual criticism progressing natural sciences. He had already expressed this recommendation in his fourth habilitation thesis: “The true method of philosophy is none other than that of the natural sciences.”43 As far as the lack of practical use of philosophy is concerned, his argument takes a longer detour through the history of science. In his account, the natural sciences had been developing for millennia or at least for centuries one from the other, whereas philosophy found itself in a relatively new stage. For example, mathematics and static mechanics, as part of physics, had already developed in classical Greece; all other parts of physics and chemistry had only joined in modern times.44 Philosophy, on the other hand, was forced to await the development of physiology in order to build a scientifically respectable foundation for its most important branch, psychology.45 This endeavor needed to be actively launched now. Afterwards one could approach the scientific foundation for sociology. And when that happened, one could also reap the practical fruits of this scientific work. In particular, the solution of social questions could expect many benefits from philosophy. Therefore, there is no reason for resignation; rather, philosophy still has its great time ahead when the “German youths (Jünglinge) of Austria... do not want to lag behind their brothers in other districts (Gaue)”.46 There was apparently no talk of women’s studies at that time. Especially the last part concerning the state of development of philosophy in comparison with the other sciences and its future practical use gives rise to critical remarks and inquiries. First of all, it is surprising that philosophy is supposed to be such a new science: as Brentano himself notes, is has existed for some 2500 years, starting with Thales.47 Even if one admits that at that early time it contained many natural-philosophical speculations, one would have to acknowledge that at least  Ibidem, 86.  Ibidem, 92. 43  Brentano (1866/1929) 137. 44  Brentano (1874/1929) 93. 45  Ibidem, 94. 46  Ibidem, 100. 47  Ibidem, 87. 41 42

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since the time of Aristotle some of philosophical sub-disciplines such as metaphysics or logic could aspire to a claim of scientific tenability, as Brentano, he himself an expert in Aristotlean studies knew well enough. Why he represents the development of human knowledge differently, namely, as a progression from mathematics to physics, chemistry and physiology, can only be assumed: we have here the (slightly modified) pyramid of the sciences before us, which had been presented by the positivist philosopher Auguste Comte 50  years earlier.48 Despite some deviations in the details49 the description of the structure of this pyramid suggests that Brentano was still influenced by Comte, whose writings he had learned to appreciate since his early days before lecturing and teaching in Würzburg, above all, as a contrast to the speculative philosophy that was so predominant in Germany.50 The last stage of the pyramid named in Brentano’s inaugural address, namely sociology, also comes, of course, from Comte’s sphere of ideas: it was the latter who had brought the concept of sociology into the debate. But it may well be that Brentano was also inspired by his brother Lujo, the economist and social reformer, to place special emphasis on social issues. To be sure, philosophy cannot be reduced to psychology and sociology. If one only traces the later development of psychology (and also of sociology) it is noteworthy that Brentano had hoped for the practical benefits of these disciplines which were established towards the end of the nineteenth century (in the case of psychology) or (in the case of sociology) at the beginning of the twentieth century at some universities. But the content as well as the organization of those disciplines moved further and further away from philosophy, until they were established as independent subjects. Whether this speaks for or against Brentano’s arguments cannot be discussed here.

6.5  ... and Its Reception There is a very personal source, stemming from Brentano’s own hand, in which he describes the reception of his inaugural address. On the 22nd of December 1875 (that is: 2 days before Christmas) he penned a letter to the theologican and reform Catholic Herman Schell51 (who had attended Brentano’s lectures in Würzburg) detailing the accompanying circumstances and the reception by different groups of the audience at his inaugural lecture. He reports that (unnamed) enemies from those Würzburg times had launched hateful fake news about him and thereby tried to incite his future students in Vienna. He continues:

 A concise version of his system can be found already in its first draft: Comtes (1822/1914).  Unlike Comte, Brentano does not mention biology as a layer of the science pyramid, perhaps to avoid commenting on Darwin’s contemporary teachings. 50  Fisette and Frechette (2017) 462 ff. 51  See Hasenfuss (1978). For the reference to this letter I thank Guillaume Frechette. 48 49

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... probably 4-500 filled the hall, in which also the Minister and other celebrities had appeared, and the arrangement was to cause a hell of a scandal, which should in turn deprive me of the opportunity to stay at the university. Indeed after some words that I spoke, quite a few began to make noise. But the majority, which at least wanted to wait for a reason for disapproval, did not join. And I continued talking without even taking note of the naughtiness. And behold! It happened that during the lecture I was so happy to win more and more the sympathy of the audience. Utterances of applause grew loud repeatedly and the hour, which was meant to prepare the most barbarous Pereat for me, ended with such an applause from the young audience, that a section chief assured me that no new teacher was greeted with such an applause. That’s how the spell was broken.

The reports in the Viennese newspapers mention neither any rumours against Brentano’s in advance nor any initial expressions of disapproval during the inaugural address itself. However, they make it very clear in which ambience the speech took place, how Brentano was introduced, who was sitting in the auditorium and whether it met with a positive, neutral or negative reaction. The report in the liberal “Neue Freie Presse” describes these circumstances at the same time most extensively and positively.52 According to it, the lecture hall was “frequented by the academic youth in great numbers, and many professors and lecturers had also showed up.” The college of professors had appeared in such number that the three benches usually reserved for them were not sufficient and all accessible chairs from other faculties had to be brought in. The event was given a special note by the fact that the Minister of Cultural Affairs and Education Karl von Stremayr himself did not miss the opportunity to attend the ceremony in person and have the chance to listen to the presentation of “his” candidate. After dean Eduard Suess and Brentano’s future philosophy colleague Robert Zimmermann introduced the keynote speaker, he was able to climb the pulpit and begin his inaugural address. After a lengthy presentation of the lecture’s content, the report concludes with comments on the audience’s response to the speech: The auditorium’s continued applause rewarded this highly interesting lecture, which was more than rich in brilliant apercus and furthermore stood out for its extraordinary clarity.

So here one sees a clear sympathy with the newcomer, which incidentally was also confirmed two decades later, when Brentano was able to publish his very critical “Last wishes for Austria” also in the “Neue Freie Presse”.53 Another Vienna newspaper, “Die Presse”, limited itself to a very neutral, but nevertheless clear and concise report on the inaugural lecture.54 It was the short-lived “Neues Fremdenblatt” (founded after a split from the “Fremdenblatt”) that dealt much more critically with Brentano’s speech.55 The author of the article correctly describes the reasons given by Brentano for the descent of philosophy, namely its “practical infertility” and the “division of the philosophical schools”. But then a negative criticism follows, when the author  The following quotes are from “Neue Freie Presse”, 23rd of April 1874, p. 5.  See Brentano (1894) 2. 54  „Die Presse“ 23rd of April 1874, p. 3. 55  Neues Fremden-Blatt, 23rd of April 1874, p. 2 f. 52 53

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writes that the lecture had “few new points of view” and revealed no great depth of thought: “We have often heard the topic in the philosophical lecture halls in a more eloquent and convincing manner.” At least the lecture was “beautifully spoken”, “clear and transparent”. The report concludes with the advice – perhaps more appropriate to the performance of a piece of music – “that a heightening of the tone must be recommended for the future”. One wonders whether it was rather the volume or the pitch of the speaking voice, which were meant.

6.6  A Brief Look at Brentano’s Work in Vienna Whether Brentano took this friendly advice to heart when he began his teaching in Vienna we do not know. In any case he started his lectures in the summer semester of 1874 with “History of the philosophy of Antiquity” (five times a week).56 This was in line with what one would expect from Brentano, as well as his announcement of a lecture “Psychology” (four times a week) in the following semester.57 The next semesters brought alternating historical themes from the broad store of his knowledge of classical Greek philosophy or those questions with which he was currently occupied with (like his contribution to logic, i.e., his theory of judgment). But what stands out (there was no other professor in the philosophical faculty who offered anything similar) was a seminar he held already in his first semester “in community with students: reading, explanation and critical review of selected philosophical writings” (once a week, free of charge) where perhaps even the selection of these writings may have been negotiated between Brentano and his students. In the following winter semester 1874/75 such private seminars were to take place in Brentano’s apartment in Beatrixstraße 19 “in the evenings”. It seems that he was eager to gather a group of students around him who then could become a circle of his followers. A lecture announcement for the summer semester of 1876 is also noteworthy, because it raises the question, whether Brentano always stuck to his promise of political austerity. Its title was: “Sophisms and their application in the political field”.58 Brentano certainly seems to have taken up his activity in Vienna with great verve. This includes the writing of a memorandum for the minister immediately after his arrival, in which he detailed the situation of philosophical studies in Vienna and a program for initiatives in the future. This memorandum, which seems to have survived for some time in his estate in Prague after his death, is no longer available today59 (as well as his personal file as full professor at the university, which, by the way, disappeared mysteriously). One can, however, deduce the approximate content

 Vorlesungsverzeichnis Sommersemester 1874, 30.  Vorlesungsverzeichnis Wintersemester 1974/75, 32. 58  Vorlesungsverzeichnis Sommersemester 1976. 59  Information from Thomas Binder. 56 57

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of the memorandum by looking at a similar piece about “the needs of the philosophical studies at our university”, which he sent to Stremayr’s successor Paul Gautsch von Frankenthurn at the latter’s request in 1886.60 Gautsch is described today as a “representative of the Catholic reaction and an opponent of German nationalism (Deutschnationalismus)”61 – in both respects the exact opposite of his forerunner Stremayr. Why Gautsch ever requested the statement from Brentano in the first place, must remain an open question. In the memorandum to Gautsch, Brentano advocated a complete reconstruction of philosophy in Vienna“, because “participation in these noble studies” could otherwise never match that of German universities in Berlin, Leipzig, Göttingen, Tübingen or “even very small German universities”. The belief in “philosophy as a science in the true sense of the word” was “completely extinguished” on his arrival in Vienna. For a “visible improvement of conditions” it would be necessary 1 . to train a narrow esoteric circle from a younger generation of specialists, 2. to exert influence also outwards to a wider, exoteric circle, 3. to enable the progress of the research activities of a professor, without which “a prosperous, especially esoteric teaching activity” was impossible. Both for the first and third task it would be necessary to set up a philosophical seminar (at the time no more than a class room with a specialized library). Since much of the philosophical research in recent times was done in the field of empirical psychology, the establishment of a psychological laboratory was also essential for experiments. For the fulfillment of the second task Brentano thought above all of philosophical instruction offered to secondary school teachers, but also of a “true influence of philosophical teaching activity on further circles”. With regard to his own research Brentano once again referred to the need for a psychological laboratory the necessity of which he had underlined for years (probably since Stremayrs times as minister). The absence of such a facility had “put a stop to important psychological investigations”. Also the opportunity to gain a lead over German universities in this regard, which had in the meantime received appropriate institutions, had been wasted. His proposals, especially the possibly costly establishment of a psychological laboratory, went unheard in Brentano’s time as an academic teacher in Vienna. It was not until 1922, decades after his retirement in 1895 and 5 years after his death in 1917, that a psychological institute with the right equipment was founded in Vienna.62 In Brentano’s time, philosophy in Vienna experienced a first boom. This was partly due to Brentano’s extensive research activities. It is well known that he

 Brentano to Gautsch, 1886 (without exact date); the following quotes refer to this document.   See the Wikipedia entry “Paul Gautsch von Frankenthurn”, retrieved on the ninth of December 2018. 62  Benetka (1990, 1995) and Dahms (2017) 24–26. 60 61

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focused initially mainly on empirical psychology63. He pursued a peculiar mixture of experimental and neo-Aristotelian thought. His best-known theorem, which continues to be much discussed up to the present day, is intentionality (that is, the relation to a real or mental object) with which Brentano sought to establish a criterion of psychic (in contrast to physical) phenomena. As an academic teacher, he was also successful in Vienna. The various ministers, in whose times Brentanos served as a professor and lecturer in Vienna, could not prevent him from establishing that “narrow, esoteric circle... of a younger generation of experts”, of whom he had written at the beginning of his memorandum to Gautsch. His extraordinary success is illustrated by the fact that many chairs in the Austrian Empire (with Alexius Meinong in Graz, Anton Marty and later Oskar Kraus in Prague) and Kazimirz Twardowski in Poland and later Kazimierz Adjukiewicz (in Warsaw) and in Germany (Edmund Husserl in Göttingen and later on in Freiburg) were filled by his former students.64 Even Czechoslovak President Tomas Masaryk had been a student of Brentano’s. In Vienna, a “Philosophical Society” had been founded by his students, which exerted an important influence on Vienna’s university and cultural life.65 Brentano’s influence went beyond philosophy in the usual sense of the word as well: in his student years Sigmund Freud was among the enthusiastic attendees of his lectures.66 Brentano succeeded in spite of exceptionally unfavorable circumstances. In 1880 he was degraded to lecturer (Privatdozent) status due to his marriage to Ida Lieben, a Jewish banker’s daughter, for whom he gave up his acquired Austrian citizenship and accepted the Saxonian one. This move – seen as a mere formality by Brentano and all those involved at the university – proved irremediable: all the periodically submitted applications (the first one organized by the dean Adolf Lieben, the chair holder of chemistry and also, incidentally, the brother of Brentano’s wife, Ida) for the restitution were steadfastly ignored by the administration after Stremayr.67 As a result, Brentano’s former chair remained vacant for a full 15 years. An immediate application (Immediateingabe) by Brentano’s brother Lujo,68 who briefly held a chair for economics in Vienna, before he went back to Munich, did not change this situation, although the application was prepared in agreement with the Emperor’s private secretary (Braun). Lujo even had the impression that Gautsch, the minister of Culture and Education, had not transmitted the application to the Emperor, for which he had thanked Lujo effusively: “I had not thought that the enthusiastic thanks might have another reason. Instead of proceeding according to the conversation I had with him, he (Gautsch) thwarted the application.”69

 See Brentano (1874).  See for an overview Spiegelberg (1994). 65  Fisette (2011). 66  Baumgartner (2000). 67  See the numerous petitions in the faculty file Brentano (now as lecturer) in the UAW. 68  See his biography Kraus (2000). 69  Lujo Brentano (1931) 145. 63 64

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Franz Brentano thus could only remain active with significant restrictions in the following years in the faculty. He was, for instance, not able to bring doctoral students through their examinations without the help of other members of the faculty. When he left the university of Vienna in 1895, he looked back at his Viennese activities with mixed feelings: in his “Last wishes for Austria” he complained about the campaign against him staged by Catholic circles and also lamented that the psychological laboratory had not been established despite promises by the administration. He left the site of his successful work in the direction of towards Italy and died on the 17th of March 1917 in Zürich. It was not until after the Second World War that, before his bust was erected in the courtyard of the main university building.70

Unpublished Sources Universitätsarchiv Wien (UAW) Personal file Franz von Brentano. Personal- und Vorlesungsverzeichnisse 1872–1876. Prof. Coll. Sitzungsprotokolle 1870/71–1884/85 (Ph 31.6) (cited as „Sitzungsprotokolle Phil. Fak.“).

Haupstaatsarchiv Wien (HstAW) Karl von Stremayr to the Emperor (österr. Kaiser), 14th of January 1874. ÖstA, AVA, UMin., Universität Wien, Professoren BI-BR (Bibl-Brunswik), Ktn. 664, Sign. 4.

Franz Brentano-Archiv Graz Brentano to Paul Gautsch von Frankenthurn, 1876.

References Baumgartner, Wilhelm. 2000. Franz Brentano (1838–1917) Philosoph und Lehrer Sigmund Freuds. In Heidenreich (2000), pp. 117–130. Benetka, Gerhard. 1990. Zur Geschichte der Institutionalisierung der Psychologie in Österreich. Die Errichtung des Wiener Psychologischen Instituts. Wien/Salzburg: Geyer-Edition. ———. 1995. Psychologie in Wien. Sozial- und Theoriegeschichte des Wiener Psychologischen Instituts. Wien: WUV-Universitätsverlag.

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 See for the long history of this honouring the faculty file “Brentano” in the UAW.

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Brentano, Franz. 1862. Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles. Herder Verlag: Freiburg im Breisgau. ———. 1866/1929. Die Habilitationsthesen. In Brentano (1929) 133–141. ———. 1867/1967. Die Psychologie des Aristoteles, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. ——— (unter Mitarbeit von Moufang im Auftrag von Bischof Ketteler). 1869/1969. Einige Bemerkungen über die Frage: Ist es zeitgemäß, die Unfehlbarkeit des Papstes zu definieren. In Freudenberger, Theobald (1969), Die Universität Würzburg und das erste vatikanische Konzil: Ein Beitrag zur Kirchen- und Geistesgeschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts, 1. Teil, Neustadt a.d. Aisch: Verlag Degener & Co., pp. 407–437. ———. 1874/1929. Über die Gründe der Entmutigung auf Philosophischem Gebiete (= Wiener Antrittsrede am 22. April 1874). In ders. (1929), pp. 85–100. ———. 1874. Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt. Leipzig: Dunker und Humblot Verlag. ———. 1894. Meine letzten Wünsche für Österreich. Neue Freie Presse, 2nd/5th/8th of December 1894. ———. 1929. Über die Zukunft der Philosophie. Hrsg. Oskar Kraus. Leipzig/Hamburg: Verlag Felix Meiner. Brentano, Lujo. 1931. Mein Leben im Kampf um die soziale Entwicklung Deutschlands. Jena: Eugen Diederichs Verlag. Comte, Auguste. 1822/1914. Entwurf der wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten welche für eine Reorganisation der Gesellschaft erforderlich sind. Leipzig: Verlag Unesma. Dahms, Hans-Joachim. 2017. Der Neubeginn der Wiener Philosophie im Jahre 1922. Die Berufungen von Schlick, Bühler und Reininger. In Karl Bühlers Krise der Psychologie. Positionen, Bezüge und Kontroversen im Wien der 1920er/30er Jahre, ed. Friedrich, Janette, 3–32. Cham: Springer. Dahms, Hans-Joachim, and Friedrich Stadler. 2015. Die Philosophie an der Universität Wien von 1848 bis zur Gegenwart. In Universität – Forschung – Lehre. Themen und Perspektiven im langen 20. Jahrhundert (= 650 Jahre Universität Wien – Aufbruch ins neue Jahrhundert), eds. Katharina Kniefacz, Elisabeth Nemeth, Herbert Posch, and Friedrich Stadler, 77–131. Göttingen: Vienna University Press. Ebel, Wilhelm. 1962. Catalogus Professorum Gottingensium 1734–1962. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Fisette, Denis. 2011. L’histoire de la philosophie autrichiennes et ses institutions: Remarques sur la Société philosophique de l’Université de Vienne (1888–1938). Philosophiques 38: 71–101. Fisette, Denis and Guillaume Fréchette. 2017. Brentano et la France. Revue philosophique de la France et de l’Étranger 142 (4): 459–469. Hasenfuss, Josef, ed. 1978. Hermann Schell als Wegbereiter zum II. Vatikanischen Konzil. Sein Briefwechsel mit Franz Brentano und Nachschriften seiner Vorlesungen über Friedrich Nietzsche, über christliche Kunst und über Fundamentaltheologie. München/Paderborn/Wien: Schöningh. Heidenreich, Bernd, ed. 2000. Geist und Macht. Die Brentanos. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Köhnke, Klaus Christian. 1986. Entstehung und Aufstieg des Neukantianismus. Die deutsche Universitätsphilosophie zwischen Idealismus und Positivismus. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag. Kraus, Hans-Christof. 2000. Lujo Brentano (1844–1931) Nationalökonom und bürgerlicher Sozialreformer. In Heidenreich (2000), 131–158. Lotze, Hermann. 2003. Briefe und Dokumente. Zusammengestellt, eingeleitet und kommentiert von Reinhardt Pester. Mit einem Vorwort herausgegeben von Ernst Wolfgang Orth, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Neurath, Otto. 1936/1981. „Le developpement du Cercle du Vienne et l´ avenir de l´ Empirisme logique, Paris“; deutsch: „Die Entwicklung des Wiener Kreises und die Zukunft des Logischen Empirismus“. In ders. (1981) Gesammelte philosophische und methodologische Schriften (2 Bände), Hrsg. Rudolf Haller and Heiner Rutte, 673–792. Wien: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky.

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Pester, Reinhardt. 2003. Einleitung. In Lotze (2003). Pfleger, Peter. 1997. Gab es einen Kulturkampf in Österreich? München: Verlag V. Florentz. Spiegelberg, Herbert. 1994. The Phenomenological Movement. A Historical Introduction, Third revised and enlarged edition. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. von Stremayr, Carl. 1899. Erinnerungen aus dem Leben, Wien (als Manuskript gedruckt). Woodward, William R. 2015. Hermann Lotze. An Intellectual Biography. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter 7

Intentionality in the Vienna Circle Thomas Uebel

Abstract  Austrian philosophy is not monolithic and the question of the relation between its different branches sometimes arises somewhat dramatically. One instance is the treatment—or apparent non-treatment—of Franz Brentano’s concept of intentionality by members of the Vienna Circle. What grounds are there for a challenge to the widely held view that they had no truck with intentionality and that their logical behaviourism represented a radical break with the insights gained a generation before them? It will be argued that the grounds are strong enough to establish a greater continuity within Austrian philosophy than long suspected— while still leaving lots of room for divergence between naturalists and their opponents. Keywords  Intentionality · Moritz Schlick · Rudolf Carnap · Otto Neurath · Thesis of extensionality

It is a truism that the Vienna Circle is not well-remembered for its philosophy of mind. My claim is that it is a truism of unsuspected ambiguity. To be sure, we don’t think of philosophy of mind as its finest hour. But do we remember its members correctly as hapless behaviorists with eliminativist intentions? That, I think, is to misremember them badly. While this matter is not one likely to affect current thinking in philosophy of mind (though it may prompt reassessment of how we got to where we are), it is one that the ongoing revision and correction of the “received view” of logical empiricism has not yet confronted fully. Of the different issues to be raised in this connection I will focus here on the Vienna Circle’s reception of Franz Brentano’s well-known doctrine of intentionality. Given that the Circle’s attitude as often characterized sits very badly with it, a “Vienna Circle Lecture” at a centenary conference in Brentano’s honor would appear to be an appropriate

T. Uebel (*) School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano and Austrian Philosophy, Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40947-0_7

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occasion to address the question whether there really exists what would be a vast rift within Austrian philosophy itself.1

7.1  Cautionary Remarks About Two Received Views If there is some doubt as to whether the logical positivists really were suspected of committing intentionality-denial, let me revisit first the frontline of the anti-­positivist revolution of the 1960s (where exaggerations maybe expected and perhaps excused). Hilary Putnam ascribed to “[t]he Vienna positivists in their ‘physicalist’ phase … the doctrine that just as numbers are (allegedly) logical constructions out of sets, so mental events are logical constructions out of actual and possible behavior events” which “implies that all talk about mental events is translatable into talk about actual or potential overt behavior”.2 Finding the falsehood of this view to be “not very interesting”, he reformulated it as the somewhat weaker view that “[t]here exist entailments between mind-statements and behavior-statements; entailments that … follow (in some sense) from the meanings of the mind words”.3 Likewise, Jerry Fodor characterized the logical positivists as holding as a “necessary truth” that “[f]or each mental predicate that can be employed in a psychological explanation, there must be at last one description of behavior to which it bears a logical connection”.4 So what Putnam called “logical behaviorism” is a semantic thesis that, in either version, rests on necessary meaning relations (“analytical entailments”) and that, in its radical version at least, spells wholesale dispensability for the intentional idiom.5 Needless to say, arguments that showed the failure to preserve not only the full meaning of mentalist descriptions in behavioral terms but also of merely select analytic entailments from mental to behavioral

 For the thesis of Austrian philosophy and its history, see numerous papers by Rudolf Haller but especially his (1986). Note that in trying to narrow the perceived rift between its two branches I will, on the one hand, stop short of Barry Smith’s claim that logical positivism was merely “a part of the exact or analytic philosophical legacy of Brentano” (1994, 29), and, on the other hand, try to counteract the effect of Dale Jacquette’s otherwise highly informative Cambridge Companion to Brentano (2004b) which suggests little if any connection by featuring no reference to the Vienna Circle but one which notes that its members “went considerably beyond Brentano in identifying not only the methods, but also the positive content, of natural science and philosophy, so that for [them] there remained only the negative task of showing that beyond the limits of science there was nothing to be known (Schuhmann 2004, 295). 2  Putnam (1965/1975, 326). 3  Ibid., 327. 4  Fodor (1968, 51). 5  To be sure, dispensability does not necessitate elimination but only allows for it, yet fully defined in purely behavioral terms mentality has no essential role to play as such. In this psychological and logical behaviorism agree despite their differences—unlike the more recent form of teleological behaviorism (see Stout 2006). 1

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terms—typically by reference to “Super-Spartans” who are in pain but suppress all pain-behavior6—put an end to this charade.7 That was in the heat of the battle. More recently we find Dermot Moran (whom I will follow in matters Brentanean) recalling that Rudolf Carnap proposed the elimination of psychological terms, or at least the reduction of all psychological sentences to physical sentences, defending the thesis that ‘all sentences of psychology are about physical processes, namely about the physical behavior of humans and other animals’. Carnap believed that future science would translate sentences involving psychological language (‘A is excited’) into sentences employing exclusively physical language (‘A’s body is physically excited, his heart is beating fast…’). W.V.O. Quine has a more sophisticated view but nevertheless retains elements of Carnap.8

Evidently the envisaged reductions count as attempts at elimination by other means —and one can see why. After all, the elimination of propositional attitudes from the “canonical notation” employed for “limning the true and ultimate structure of reality” was precisely what Quine proposed.9 The quotations adduced are emblematic, I think, for how logical positivist philosophy of mind is commonly viewed, namely as aiming for the dismissal of intentionality by eliminationist hook or translational crook.10 Needless to say, there are passages by logical positivists one can hang such a diagnosis on, but I want to question how representative they are by looking at what Schlick, Carnap and Neurath really made of intentionality in their considered conceptions. When questioning the standard views of Vienna Circle philosophy of mind we must also note that the standard view of Brentano’s thesis has been called into question.11 Despite his pioneering role from the 1950s onwards in drawing the attention of analytic philosophers to Brentano’s intentionality thesis, Roderick Chisholm  Putnam (1965, 9).  This analysis was upheld in Putnam (1969, 216–217). In this later paper Putnam also drew the distinction within logical positivism between its “early years (1938–1936)” characterized by a “wholesale and simplistic” verificationism and a “much more sophisticated analysis” of “recent years (1955 to the present)” (ibid., 211) which, however, he likewise rejected. 8  Moran (1999, 92); the quotation is from Carnap (1932b). 9  Quine (1960, 221). 10  If there is still doubt, note that John Haugeland made this implicit assumption fully explicit when he spoke of “neo-behaviorists” like Quine and Dennett who are “suspicious of determinate (concrete) mental states” but, “unlike paleo-behaviorists, … take intentional ascription very seriously” (1990, 395, emphasis added). Since he was discussing only philosophers the italicized phrase must refer to the so-called logical behaviorists, i.e. the Vienna Circle. 11  Here, for the record, is Brentano’s much-quoted central passage on the matter: “Every mental phenomenon is characterised by what the Scholastics of the middle ages called the intentional (and also mental) inexistence of an object, and what we might call, though not wholly unambiguously, reference to a content, direction toward an object (which is not to be understood here as meaning as something real), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phenomenon includes something as an object within itself, although they do not all do so in the same way. In presentation something is presented, in judgement something is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hate hated, in desire desired and so on. This intentional inexistence is characteristic exclusively of mental phenomena. No physical phenomenon exhibits anything like it. Thus we can define mental phenomena by call6 7

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c­ annot be wholly absolved from having distorted its reception somewhat.12 Chisholm held that we may “re-express Brentano’s thesis—or a thesis resembling that of Brentano—by reference to intentional sentences”.13 Chisholm, in other words, put Brentano through the linguistic turn and reworked his thesis into the diagnosis of an irreducible difference of the mental from the physical based on the fact that any description of mental states involves ineliminable intensional contexts. (Propositional attitude sentences are not truth-functional and their that-clauses allow neither existential generalization nor substitution of co-extensional expressions.) Rendered in this fashion Brentano’s thesis became central to post-positivist analytic philosophy of mind. However, as Moran has shown convincingly, Brentano did not argue that intentionality constituted a mark of the mental that distinguished mind as irreducible to body or that it was to be analyzed as a person’s relation to a proposition—nor was he, as others have argued, much concerned with the mind’s relation to non-existent objects.14 In consequence, Brentano’s interests do not wholly converge with post-positivist concerns and positivist cognisance of Brentano’s thesis does not amount to concern with the issues raised by Chisholm. Chisholm also distinguished an “ontological thesis” and a “psychological thesis” of Brentano’s, the former concerned with the status of objects of thought, the latter with directedness of thought towards objects.15 That “relation to a content” and “directedness towards an object” were but alternative formulations for Brentano who “never separated his account of the intentional object from the notion of intentionality as a relation” was also well argued by Moran,16 but one can still distinguish between the ontological and the psychological aspects of Brentano’s thesis without implying their sharp separability for Brentano. All of Brentano’s students agreed with the descriptive psychological claim; their disputes arose with regard to the ontological thesis. It seems natural, moreover, to associate at least some of the ontological aspects of Brentano’s views on intentionality with Chisholm’s logico-­linguistic focus insofar as they concern the logical form of statements of propositional attitudes. For present purposes I distinguish, within the general complex of ideas designated by “Brentano’s thesis”, a psychologically descriptive thesis from a logical thesis. My main concern lies with the psychological thesis which asserts the directedness towards objects of mental states, their “aboutness”. All of the members of the Vienna Circle here considered engage with this form of the intentionality thesis. The logical thesis asserts that sentences about intentional states possess a distinctive logical form. Nowadays questions of logical form are treated in philosophy of language, but as questions concerning the relata of the intentional relation were not

ing them phenomena that intentionally contain an object within themselves” (1874/1973, 88–89, trans. tweaked, paragraph break omitted). 12  See, e.g., Chisholm (1955/56, 1957, 1967). 13  Chisholm (1957, 172); note the qualifier long overlooked. 14  See Moran (1996) and, for the third point, McAlister (1974) and Crane (2006). 15  Chisholm (1967, 7). 16  Moran (1996, 5).

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alien to Brentano either, this issue cannot be neglected here, especially as it also exercised Carnap and featured in his mature view. I begin with some observations about the so-called First Vienna Circle’s relations to the Brentano school, then review Schlick’s endorsement of the intentionality thesis early and late, and then turn to Carnap’s Aufbau, the issue of logical behaviorism and his mature conception of psychological terms, before closing with Neurath. (The Appendix discusses how Carnap’s endorsement of the thesis of extensionality bears on his acceptance of Brentano’s psychological thesis of intentionality.)

7.2  R  elations of First Vienna Circle Members to the Brentano School We may take the older Viennese members of the Circle (the so-called first Vienna Circle with Hans Hahn, Philipp Frank and Otto Neurath) to have been fully apprised of Brentano’s philosophical status and informed about the disputes among Brentano’s students. The Circle’s later unofficial manifesto—the historical part of which was written by Neurath who later expanded it into a small monograph17— gives a very prominent place to Brentano and his school in its account of the Austrian philosophy that preceded their own movement and also mentions Alexius Meinong’s Gegenstandstheorie and even Ernst Mally. To be sure the manifesto does not mention the conflicts Brentano’s thesis occasioned or the interpretative difficulties in Brentano’s work from which they start.18 But Hahn, Frank and Neurath are bound to have learnt all about these, at the latest, when they participated with lectures of their own from 1906 onwards in the Philosophische Gesellschaft an der Universität Wien, led a the time by the former Brentano-student and Meinong-associate Alois Höfler whose impetus for philosophy of science the manifesto also explicitly mentioned.19 Yet they did not comment on the intra-Brentano-school disputes in their publications, presumably at least in part because as early followers of Russell they took themselves to be leaving Meinongian complexities behind.20  See “Carnap, Hahn, Neurath (1929/2012, §1.1) and Neurath (1936a)”.  Brentano himself has been charged—by friendly critics no less: see, e.g., Chisholm (1967), Moran (1996), Jacquette (2004a), Margolis (2004), Crane (2006)—with muddying doctrinal waters with his talk, first, in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint of the “intentional inexistence” of objects of thought (1874/1979, 88–89) and, many years later in the Preface to its second volume, with his less than clear denial of precisely this claim (1911/1973, xxvi; cf. 1911/1973, 271–274). 19  Meinong’s “[Über die Stellung der] Gegenstandstheorie [im System der Wissenschaften] (1907)” is mentioned in Carnap, Hahn, Neurath (1929/2012, 79) and Neurath (1936a/1981, 690). On the Philosophische Gesellschaft an der Universität Wien see Reininger (1938), on Hahn’s, Frank’s and Neurath’s participation see Uebel (2000, 140–142), also Fisette (2014). Hahn also added comments to Höfler’s edition of Bolzano’s Paradoxien des Unendlichen (1851/1910). 20  As early as 1907 Hahn and Neurath planned a seminar on Russell’s Principles of Mathematics (see Uebel 2000, 70). Precisely when they became aware of Russell’s theory of descriptions (1905) has not been determined yet, but Neurath’s phrase (at 1936b/1983, 390) that Meinong’s 17 18

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Delving further into their background, an even earlier influence of the Brentano school must be noted. In their penultimate years at the k.u.k. Staatsgymnasium im XIX. Bezirk, Hahn and Neurath had, in the subject of Philosophical Propaedeutics, as their logic textbook the second edition of Höfler’s Grundlehren der Logik the text of which was extracted from the larger Logik which was written in cooperation with Meinong (1890a).21 In these Grundlehren, Höfler laid out some very basic psychological distinctions before developing not only the principles of syllogistic logic but also the basics of epistemology and philosophy of science. These topics were customary for Austrian textbooks on the subject ever since Robert Zimmermann’s textbook of 1852, commissioned by the government to accord with the educational reforms of 1848/49 but written under the secret guidance of Bolzano who had been banned from teaching and publishing by the self-­same government.22 What distinguished Höfler’s textbook was that in place of Herbartian psychological categories he introduced Brentanian distinctions and determinations. Students are introduced early on23 to the anti-Herbartian distinction of judgements (Urteile) from mere presentations (Vorstellungen) so that only judgements but not presentations are capable of truth and falsity.24 Equally importantly we find in §6 the distinction of the “act” of judgement or presentation from its “object or content”. Interestingly enough, the highly divisive further distinction between “content” and “object” which was first drawn by Höfler in §6 of the 1890 Logik with Meinong—later elaborated by Kazimierz Twardowski and Meinong on their own but always rejected by Brentano25— was not drawn in the corresponding paragraph of the Grundlehren (even though the later §15 and §17 use the perhaps not wholly unrelated Bolzanean notions of “Begriffsumfang” and “Begriffsinhalt”).26 But never mind this subtlety: what Hahn and Neurath did learn already in high school was a principle which their textbook printed in bold: “To every [act of] thinking there corresponds something thought” (“Jedem Denken entspricht ein Gedachtes”).27 This, of course, was nothing other than Brentano’s thesis of intentionality—helpfully

“Gegenstandstheorie has always been stimulating for advocates of logical empiricism” in the section “How the Viennese atmosphere developed” of his mid-1930s history of logical empiricism suggests that it was around this time (Meinong 1907 defends himself against Russell 1905). 21  See Höfler (1890b/1896) and Meinong (1890a) and, for documentation, Uebel (2000, 135–136). 22  See Winter (1975) for a comparison of Zimmermann’s textbook with Bolzano’s Wissenschaftslehre of 1837; for a comparative assessment of Höfler’s, see Uebel (2000, 110–134). 23  Höfler (1890b/1896, §5). 24  Ibid., §10. 25  See Jacquette (2004a, 105–106) where a translation of the relevant passage—quoted by Twardowski (1894, §1) who made this distinction the subject of his book—is also given. 26  A remark in Höfler’s “Selbstdarstellung” suggests an explanation of this omission: he allowed a personal intervention by Brentano to dissuaded him from “holding on to and working out his distinction” of content and object (1921, 17). Evidently the elision of this distinction in the schoolbook version of his Logik was the first result of Brentano’s intervention. The distinction was finally (re-)introduced ever so gently into the textbook’s third edition (1902, 4). 27  Höfler (1890a/1896, 5).

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shorn of all talk of intentional inexistence of the objects of thought and focused squarely on the directedness of thought on to an object.28 So Hahn and Neurath (and Frank)29 were long acquainted with Brentano’s thesis—and early on were spared its ontological consequences (metaphysics was not dealt with in Höfler’s textbook). Now to be sure, it is by no means unheard of for philosophers to reject doctrines they learnt in school, however familiar or commonsensical they may appear. So it’s not inconceivable that Hahn, Neurath and Frank should have denied intentionality at a later age. But it is at least equally likely that philosophical doctrines taken on board early on are so much taken for granted later that they rarely if ever even get mentioned—unless they get rejected explicitly. I will argue that the psychologically descriptive thesis of intentionality was not rejected by them in the case of Neurath after having reviewed the positions of his later colleagues Schlick and especially Carnap (it is against the background of the latter’s conception of psychological terms that Neurath’s position is best understood).30

7.3  Schlick on Intentionality Moritz Schlick was long familiar with Brentano’s writings and that of some his students, yet already in his pre-Vienna Circle days he argued for a significantly selective (and later characteristic) acceptance of the teachings of this school. In the chapter “Knowing by Means of Concepts” of his General Theory of Knowledge of 191831 we read: In the thinker’s consciousness, thinking of a concept takes place by means of a special experience that belongs to the class of contents of consciousness which modern psychology in the main calls ‘intentional’. This term is applied to experiences that not only are there in consciousness but also contain a reference to something outside themselves. Consider, for instance, my present memory of a song I heard yesterday. Not only is a mental image of the sounds present in my consciousness; I am also aware that it is the image of sounds perceived yesterday. And this awareness—the fact that the sounds mean or intend the object of the ideas or images, their being directed toward it, their ‘intention’ toward it—is something different from the image itself. It is a mental act, a psychical function. … One such ‘act’ or function is thinking of a concept, being directed toward it. It is thus the conceptual function that is real, not the concept itself.32

 The distinction of the not further differentiated content and object of thought from the act of thinking remained basic also in Höfler’s Grundlehren der Psychologie (1897)—extracted from his larger Psychologie published in the same year—which served as Neurath’s textbook in the second year of instruction in Philosophical Propaedeutics in his final school year. 29  Frank at the Maximiliansgymnasium had a different textbook for Philosophical Propaedeutics but it did not differ much in the respects relevant here; see Uebel (2000, 136–137). 30  I believe that a similar conclusion is indicated for Frank and Hahn but the paucity of writings on mind and psychology by them makes this difficult to document. 31  2nd ed. 1925. 32  Schlick (1918/1985, 22–23). 28

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Clearly, Schlick here endorsed the notion of intentionality, indeed he explicitly lauded Carl Stumpf, Edmund Husserl and Oskar Külpe for advancing the understanding of such acts. Later Schlick also endorsed in passing Twardowski’s distinction of content and object of thought,33 but he never discussed the issue of intentionality in depth. What is notable is that for Schlick such appreciation of the facts of descriptive psychology sat easily with his sharp criticism of the conceit, as he saw it, of founding a whole new way of doing philosophy on their recognition. Schlick’s criticism focused not only on Brentano’s claims for self-evidence34 but particularly on Husserl’s claims for “philosophical intuition” to provide for “a science that, without all indirect symbolical or mathematical methods, without the apparatus of premises and conclusions, still attains a plenitude of the most rigorous and, for all future philosophy, decisive conclusions”.35 For Schlick, such claims give evidence of “the great error” of “confusing acquaintance with knowledge. We become acquainted with things through intuition … [b]ut we come to know things only through thinking, for the ordering and coordinating needed for cognition is precisely what we designate as thinking.”36 Likewise for attempts to understand the mysterious act of “grasping” ideal objects as “an act of ideation grounded in intuition”.37 The only sense that Schlick could make of the distinction between empirical intuition, as in perception, and Wesensschau, as the intuiting of essences, was by relating it to the distinction between “what something is and that it is”38. Whether Schlick’s diagnosis of a confusion of acquaintance with knowledge did get to the bottom of Husserl’s difficult reasoning may be doubted, but his demand for an explanation of ideal intuition seems justified.39 This criticism in the first edition of Erkenntnislehre sparked off a heated debate with Husserl about the nature of intuition required for the pursuit of phenomenology which led to minor revisions but not essential retractions in Schlick’s second edition.40 Since our concern here lies elsewhere, however, we can leave this highly contentious matter aside and simply note again that Schlick took for granted, indeed explicitly endorsed, the intentionality thesis in its psychologically descriptive version.

 Ibid., 136.  Ibid., 86–87. 35  Husserl (1911/1965, 147). 36  Schlick (1918/1985, 82–83). 37  Husserl (1900), §39, 128, tr. TU. 38  Schlick (1918/1985, 139, orig. emphasis); see also Schlick (1913). 39  On the one hand Husserl rejected Brentano’s and Höfler-Meinong’s conception of truth as a property of judgements and their conception of logic as related to the theory of evidence as psychologistic (1900, §49, 181–182), while on the other hand he insisted—also with regard to ideal objects, i.e. logical laws—that “evidence consists in the experience of the correspondence of belief and its intended object, of the present sense of a statement and the given state of affairs” and that “truth consists in the idea of this correspondence” (ibid., §51, 191–192, tr. TU). Once again a crucial difference remains unexplained. 40  See Schlick (1918/1985, 139, Fn. 37) and Shelton (1988). The sentences I quoted in the previous paragraph were all retained from the first edition. 33 34

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What does require a brief comment is how Schlick’s position in 1918 relates to the one he took in the later Vienna Circle. Even though Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre was written prior to his time as a Viennese neopositivist, the general outlines of his epistemology remained consistent in large part with the views he held in the 1920s and 1930s. Neither the changes he made to the second edition of 1925 nor the ones he did not make but wished he had, impinge on the matters that concern us here.41 To be sure, Schlick’s central distinction of knowledge and acquaintance was restated forcefully and given an explicitly anti-metaphysical edge soon after.42 But none of this endangered his appreciation of the psychologically descriptive thesis of intentionality which remained basic to his dissolution of the mind-body problem as a relation between two languages (but which, for all of its intrinsic interest, also lies outside the brief of this paper).43

7.4  Carnap’s Aufbau on the Intentional Relation To get the full measure of Carnap’s philosophy one must consider both early and later works. I begin with his Der logische Aufbau der Welt,44 a work of considerable logico-mathematical complexity that furthermore exhibits philosophical syncretism of the highest order: different forms of positivism, neo-Kantianism, phenomenology, conventionalism are amalgamated in ways difficult to disentangle.45 The variety of interpretations that are at least partially supported counsels against one-dimensional readings of the Aufbau, for none of these individual influences alone were meant to carry the day. And importantly too, not all of its lines of inquiry were continued in Carnap’s later work. (For instance, the methodological solipsism so prominent here was dropped tentatively by the end of 1932 and conclusively by 1936.)46 As regards Carnap’s views on intentionality as a psychologically descriptive thesis, three issues must occupy us here: his understanding of the intentional  Feigl reported that after his study of Wittgenstein’s and Carnap’s writings Schlick regretted the only limited revisions to the second edition of Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre mainly because they left in place the “somewhat naive” discussion of “the whole quarrel between the philosophies of immanence and transcendence” (1936/1979, xxviii). Any embarrassment the logical positivist Schlick may have felt about his earlier recourse to the transcendental apperception of the unity of consciousness in order to refute scepticism about the possibility of a priori knowledge (1918/1985, §17) apparently was minor: the argument against Brentano’s and Husserl’s epistemology, which he upheld, only appealed to empirical apperception. Likewise, Schlick’s later conception of affirmations (1934, 1935b) appealed only to empirical intuition, not ideal intuition. Consequently it is not the case that Schlick “presupposed precisely the views that he had earlier criticized” (Smith 1994, 33), for so-called empirical intuition was not what Schlick had castigated. 42  See Schlick (1926, 1932). 43  See, e.g., Schlick (1918/1985, §32, 1935a); compare Feigl (1938). 44  Carnap (1928a). 45  Like Schlick, Carnap was acquainted with the work of Husserl but did not polemicize against it. 46  See Carnap (1932c, 1936–1937). 41

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relation in the Aufbau, the so-called logical behaviourism he is said to have adopted in the physicalist phase, and his mature view of psychological terms as theoretical.47 It has been noted repeatedly that Carnap’s title (literally: “The Logical Construction of the World”) is misleading: it is not the objects making up the world that are constructed or “constituted” (to use Carnap’s term)48 but our concepts of these and other objects —all of them on the basis of the immediate given regarded as whole, as yet unanalyzed experiential Gestalt. So, first of all, Carnap was engaged in the logical construction of objects of thought. Second, Carnap’s epistemological stance of starting from the “given”, his “methodological solipsism”, shows clear parallels to Brentano’s “methodological phenomenalism” and Husserl’s “phenomenological reduction” —albeit without taking recourse to a self or transcendental ego. Third, Carnap’s “rational reconstruction” of cognition had no ambition to capture the qualitative nature of phenomenal experience or to represent the full intuitive content of thought. And fourth, whenever he spoke of “essence” (Wesen) Carnap did not mean “metaphysical essence”, which spells out “what an object is in itself”, but he meant “constructional essence”, which spells out “the constructional context of this object within the system, especially how this object can be derived from the basic objects”.49 Consider now the section “The Nature (Wesen) of the Intentional Relation”: The intentional relation holds between a content-possessing psychological process and its content, for example between my present representation of the cathedral of Cologne and this building as the content of my representation, or that which is ‘intended’. Thus, the domain of the relation comprises the ‘intending’ psychological process, such as perceptions, representations, emotions (if they are related to something), etc., which are directed toward something. We leave open the controversial question whether all psychological processes belong to this category, that is, whether they are all ‘intentional’. Now, if the intention relation holds, for example, between a given perceptual experience of a tree and the intended tree, then by the ‘intended tree’ we mean first of all the tree ‘as it is represented in the perception’: thus it could also be a tree in a dream or a hallucination. Now, whether it is such an unreal tree or whether there is a real tree that corresponds to the intended tree, is a secondary question which is of no concern for the immediate character of the experience.50

So Carnap, like Schlick, granted as indisputable the psychologically descriptive thesis of intentionality as aboutness, though he registered reservations concerning its scope. Moreover, Carnap identified the intentional relation with the relation between the perceptual experience and the object “as it is represented in the perception”— where perception is clearly understood non-factively. (In other words, Carnap concentrated on the immanent objects of consciousness.)

 There is also a fourth issue which concerns the logical thesis of intentionality: his endorsement of the thesis of extensionality throughout his career. This is dealt with in the Appendix. 48  In this paper I go with Rolf George’s translation as the Kantian overtones of Carnap’s original term introduce nuances that are irrelevant to my concerns here. 49  Carnap (1928a/2003, §161, 256). 50  Ibid., §164, 261–2. 47

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Notably, Carnap also appears to have disputed, in ways that need clarifying, the claim that intentionality represented an exclusive mark of the mental. Now the customary conception of the intention relation holds that such intending psychological events refer, in a peculiar way, to something beyond themselves, namely, to their ‘intended’ or ‘meant’ object, which is different from them. It is consequently held that that the relation is of a special sort and cannot be reduced to anything else. What is correct in this conception is only that the experience and its intended object are not identical. But the intention relation is not of a unique kind which can be found nowhere but between a psychological entity and that which is represented in it.51 (orig. emphasis)

I take Carnap’s talk of non-reducibility to refer to the idea of an intentional relation as a primitive and unanalyzable concept uniquely characterizing mental states.52 Carnap discussed the mental as consciously experienced and disputed that something like the intentional relation only obtains there or that it is unanalyzable. Thus he wrote: [I]f one says that it lies in the essence of an experience to refer intentionally to something … then it must be replied that, from the viewpoint of construction theory, this holds quite generally; it is essential to each object that it belongs to certain order contexts; otherwise it could not even be constructed, that is, could not exist as an object of cognition.53

All of Carnap’s objects—being objects of thought—exhibit a very broadly similar constructional essence: they are constructed as elements of out larger wholes such that the location within the latter makes for the identity of the element. [T]he intention relation holds generally between an experience and an order of experiences, if the following two conditions are fulfilled: first, the experience must belong to this order; second, this order must be one of those constructional forms in which real-typical objects are constructed. (‘Real-typical objects’ are those objects for which a distinction between real and non-real is meaningful, even before this distinction is [effectively drawn] …).54

Carnap’s claim was that intentional mental states are not distinguished due to their internal relations from other structures in which “real-typical objects” are constructed.55 The relation between an element and a relational structure of a certain sort in which it has a place is one of the most important relations of the applied theory of relations. The intention relation is nothing but a subclass of this relation, namely, the relation between an experience (or constituent of an experience) and an order which has a real-typical structure.56

 Ibid., §164, 262.  Such a claim can be found in Husserl (1913, §84, 168) which talks about intentionality as the “Wesenseigentümlichkeit der Erlebnissphäre überhaupt” and as what characterizes “Bewusstsein im prägnanten Sinne”. Notably, the metaphysical claim that Chisholm attached to this is absent here. 53  Ibid., §164, 263. 54  Ibid. 55  Elsewhere Carnap noted that “Meinong, in his theory of objects, calls the real-typical objects ‘real’” (1928a/2003, §172). 56  Ibid. 51 52

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For Carnap intentional mental states are just like other representational systems in this respect: all of their contents exhibit a similar kind of relation to the larger structures within which they are embedded. However puzzling it may appear to us, it was for good reason Carnap declined to reconstruct transcendent objects of mental states: given methodological solipsism as starting point, they remain out of reach for the construction system of the Aufbau.57 (This is no different from what an analysis of experience employing Brentano’s early methodological phenomenalism or, given the epoché, Husserl’s analysis of the noema of intentional acts would deliver—at least as far as the latter’s then published Ideas were concerned.)58 But note that Carnap’s immanent objects were not created out of thin air either, for the single primitive relation of the Aufbau comes with an “inventory list” which “contains pairs of terms of the relation extension”.59 In other words: the Aufbau presupposes pre-existing, non-constructed reference relations—albeit intra-psychic ones to remembered experiences, to the basic objects presupposed in the Aufbau, on the basis of which Carnap then provided his structuralist reconstruction of all objects of thought.60 So Carnap stayed within the rules of the game he had designed for himself. Whether we approve of them or reject them as mistaken, the point to stress is this. Far from denying

 The objectivity Carnap aimed to constitute consisted of “intersubjective correspondences” that allowed the construction of an intersubjective world (1928a/2003, §146). The intersubjective correspondences consisted in the far-reaching structural agreement between a constructional system as a whole (which holds for me and represents my experience of the world, call it “CSself”) and the constructional systems which are ascribed to others within this all-embracing constructional system (call them “CSother”) such that on this basis intersubjective objects, properties and statements can be constructed, i.e. objects correspondingly constructed in CSself and CSother. This intersubjective world then allowed for the construction of physics. All along, what this process of “intersubjectivizing” provides, however, are constructions that “do not consist in a hypothetical inference or fictitious postulation of something that is not given, but they consist merely in the reorganisation of the given” (Ibid., §148, orig. emphasis). Carnap’s reconstruction of the intentional relation and its directedness never reaches real world objects. 58  When Husserl declared, contra the different ideas of early Brentano and Meinong, that when thought concerns a nonexistent object, there is no object to which the subject is related, he reverted to speaking from the “natural attitude”—again, at least as far Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology (1913) is concerned. This qualification is important. André Carus pointed to the fact that in late 1923 and early 1924 Carnap attended Husserl’s seminar and a discussion group with Husserl’s students, where the conceptions only much later published in Ideas II were discussed according to which the intentional relation aimed at transcendent objects and that given this reference frame, Carnap’s analysis “would fundamentally subvert Husserl’s entire approach” (2016, 156). See also Fn. 32 below. 59  Ibid., §108, 179. 60  Thus Carnap’s explicit reference to §36 of Husserl (1913) at the end of (1928a/2003, §164, 263). Whether this supports Carnap’s somewhat loose suggestion (ibid., §3, 9) that his construction theory may be regarded as a Husserlian “mathesis of experiences”, is another matter; see Mayer (1992), Roy (2004), Ryckman (2007). 57

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intentionality Carnap fully recognized it in the Aufbau and even tried to reconstruct its immanent objecthood.61

7.5  Carnap’s “Behaviorism”: Its Precursors and Its Meaning In the early 1930s, after a transitional period, Carnap embraced physicalism, the metalinguistic thesis all the languages of science are translatable into the physical language. Here we need some background that is often forgotten. Already in the Aufbau, just after referencing the “traditional theory of intentionality” of Brentano as “continued by Husserl” in Ideas, Carnap had noted: “Our position agrees essentially with that of Russell [Mind]”.62 This may raise alarm bells: didn’t Russell endorse a self-confessedly behaviorist position there? How does that sit with the acceptance of intentionality in a descriptive capacity? In the Aufbau he clearly was not a behaviorist, but perhaps as a physicalist Carnap had become one? This suspicion can be allayed. Carnap pointed to Russell’s non-traditional, namely naturalistic conception mind which, importantly, did not reject intentionality either. Early on in Analysis of Mind Russell quoted the famous passage from Brentano in his own translation (“Every psychical phenomenon…”) and also cited Meinong’s threefold distinction of “act, content and object”.63 The notion of a mental “act” was rejected as “unnecessary and fictitious” alongside that of “consciousness as an entity” as the last residue of the self.64 Russell also held that “the reference of thoughts to objects is not … the simple direct essential thing that Brentano and Meinong represent it as being” and that it seemed to be “derivative and to consist largely in beliefs: beliefs that what constitutes the thought is connected with various other elements which together make up the object”.65 The relation to an object, in short, was a construction in thought that could misfire; by contrast, the directedness of thought towards an object was intrinsic to the complex that constituted content. (The Aufbau’s analysis of the intentional relation agrees with this.) Russell’s own

 That this diagnosis of §164 is compatible with Rosado Hassock’s assertion that “Carnap wanted to show that the tools of the theory of relations could be especially fruitful to systematize Husserl’s constitutional theory” (2008, 70) does not support Rossado Hassock’s further claim that Husserl was the—moreover, the intentionally hidden—inspiration of the Aufbau: too many other elements are in play in that book. Thus it must be stressed with Ryckman that “Carnap departs from both [Brentano and Husserl] in maintaining that the intentional relation has no special or privileged status, deconstructing the relation of intentionality in particular” (2007, 98). In fact we may add that this “deconstruction” was a legitimate reconstruction of that relation within the parameters of the Aufbau project. Pace Rosado Hassock, here was nothing “ambivalent” or dissembling about it (2008, 69). For the refutation a still more recent plagiarism claim, see Damböck (2018). 62  Carnap (1928a/2003, §164, 263). 63  Russell (1921, 14–16). 64  Ibid., 17, 25. 65  Ibid., 18. 61

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“modification”66 of Meinong’s tripartite taxonomy replaced the act and the content with “present occurrences in the believer” and the object with “the objective”. Thus “believing is an actual experienced feeling”, while “what is believed … the content of a belief … is always a complex” which “may consist of words only, or of images only, or of a mixture of the two or of either or both together with one or more sensations. It must contain at least one constituent which is a word or an image and it may or may not contain one or more sensations as constituents”. Finally, “the objective reference of a belief is, in general, in some way derivative from the meanings of the words or images that occur in its content”.67 For Russell, propositions now were no longer abstract objects but contents of beliefs expressed in words or images.68 Moreover, all mental occurrences and the use of words are keyed to appropriate external circumstances. But Russell’s self-­ confessed behaviourism—“We may regard knowledge, from a behaviourist standpoint, as exhibited in a certain kind of response to the environment”69—was far from reductive and he did not reject introspection either. Russell’s position is best understood as an attempt to naturalize intentionality.70 This must be remembered when we turn to apparent Vienna Circle behaviorisms like Carnap’s. Two preliminary points are to be made on this. The first is that in the Vienna Circle in the late 1920s there was much talk of “behaviorism”. Typically understood as referring to the radical and near-eliminativist ideas of Watson, it is better understood as referring to a conception like that of Russell’s Analysis of Mind: only this makes plausible that these discussions in the early 1930s morphed imperceptibly into discussions of “physicalism”. Here it is important to remember also that Vienna Circle physicalism, unlike theories of that name nowadays, was not a metaphysical theory but a metalinguistic doctrine about the relation of the languages of science and a methodological prescription, much like “methodological materialism”— indeed, Neurath proposed it as an overdue replacement of the methodological solipsism of the Aufbau. After some resistance Carnap conceded the case in mid-to-late 1932.71 The second point is that the translation of propositional attitude talk into talk of behavioral dispositions already featured in the Aufbau, when it came to the  Ibid., 17.  Ibid., 233–237. 68  Ibid., 240–241. 69  Ibid., 254. 70  Moreover, Russell was far from granting the mind only epiphenomenal status: “A mental occurrence of any kind—sensation, image, belief, or emotion—may be a cause of a series of actions, continuing, unless interrupted, until some more or less definite state of affairs is realized” (1921, 75). But like Wittgenstein much later, Russell warned against an intellectualist conception of cognitive competence: “Understanding language is more like understanding cricket: it is a matter of habits, acquired in oneself and rightly presumed in others. To say that a word has a meaning is not to say that those who use the word correctly have ever thought out what the meaning is: the use of the word comes first, and the meaning is to be distilled out of it by observation and analysis” (Ibid., 197). 71  See Uebel (2007a, Chs. 6–8). 66 67

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construction of other minds (as we saw). Behaviour was taken as indicator for psychological states or objects.72 Like all other “definitions” and “translations” given in the Aufbau, the constructional definitions of mental states also only aimed for extensional adequacy.73 Importantly, this extensionalism carried over from the Aufbau to the papers of his syntacticist-physicalist period when the possibility of behavioral analysis was extended to all mental states. Now what diagnoses of Carnap as logical behaviourist typically miss, as has recently been pointed out, is precisely this extensionalism.74 Any of the physicalist translations provided for psychological terms were neither adequate to give the full meaning of terms nor were they meant to do so. Carnap’s argument for the indispensability of physicalistic translations for protocol sentences75 and attributions of mental states to others76 makes clear that there was no concern to preserve the full sense (above the cognitive one) of psychological expressions.77 So the attribution of logical behaviorism to Carnap begins to look strained. Now ask whether his behavioral translations would be justified a priori—as they would have to be if they spelt out meaning relations. In a typical passage Carnap wrote: The viewpoint which will here be defended is that [the psychological sentence ‘Mr. A is now excited’] P1 has the same content as a sentence P2 which asserts the existence of a physical structure characterized by the disposition to react in a specific manner to specific physical stimuli. In our example, P2 asserts the existence of that physical structure (microstructure) … of Mr. A’s body (especially of his central nervous system) that is characterized by a high pulse and rate of breathing, which on the application of certain stimuli, may even be higher, by vehement and unsatisfactory answers to questions, by the occurrence of agitated movements on the application of certain stimuli, etc.78

Clearly, the applicability of the conditions adduced, simplistic as they appear, cannot be justified a priori. Note also the reference to the “central nervous system”: any behavior cited is clearly regarded as grounded in the “microstructure”.

 The construction of other minds depended on the expression relation between “almost all motions of the body and its members” and “psychological objects” (i.e. mental states) (1928a/2003, §19, 33), as supplemented by the reporting relation, typically via “speech motions” or “other sign-giving” (ibid., §57, 93). 73  The Aufbau’s constructional method “is concerned exclusively with logical, not with epistemic value; it is purely logical, not psychological” (1928a/2003, §50, 84). 74  See Crawford (2013, 2015); see also Kim (2003) where, however, this observation is mixed up with a misleading metaphysical interpretation of Carnap’s physicalism; for a still earlier challenge to the logical behaviourism diagnosis see Cirera (1993). I should note that the remainder of this section corrects as mistaken also the attribution of attenuated logical behaviourism in Uebel (2010, 205–206). 75  Carnap (1932a/1934, §6). 76  Carnap (1932b/1959, §4). 77  To be sure, by characterizing the meaning of psychological terms according to the “formal mode of speech” in terms of the class of sentences deducible from it, Carnap also helped himself to statements of physical law (1932a/1934,§6, 91; 1935, §7, 90), but for Humeans like the logical positivists this does not amount to meaning-defining intensionality. 78  Carnap (1932b/1959, 172). 72

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Reference to behavior seems but a place-holder for future neurophysiology. The “translations” specified represent what was thought to be the best empirical knowledge at the time. It follows that Carnap was not a logical behaviorist. The translation program was based on empirical hypotheses. Vienna Circle physicalism was an empirical thesis —supported no doubt by verificationist assumptions, but it did not rely on these alone.79 Only a few years later, as has also been noted recently,80 Carnap anticipated Putnam’s later famous super-spartans objection against logical behaviorism: If for anger we knew a sufficient and necessary criterion to be found by a physiological analysis of the nervous system or other organs, then we could define ‘angry’ in terms of the biological language. The same holds if we knew such a criterion to be determined by the observation of the overt, external behavior. But a physiological criterion is not known. And the peripheral symptoms known are presumably not necessary criteria because it might be that person of strong self-control is able to suppress these symptoms.81

Like Putnam, Carnap’s criticized that mental states are not identical with behavior but are its causes: Anger is not the same as the movements by which an angry organism reacts to the conditions of its environment, just as the state of being electrically charged is not the same as the process of attracting other bodies. In both cases that state sometimes occurs without these events which are observable from the outside: they are consequences of the state according to certain laws and may therefore under suitable circumstances by taken as symptoms for it; but they are not identical with it.82

Now both of these passages are from the period after Carnap had given up attempting to define dispositions by observational terms and had switched to characterizing their meaning by non-eliminative reduction sentences (as in his 1936/37). So it might be thought that Carnap’s improved understanding of the logic of disposition statements makes all the difference.83 But all along Carnap considered psychological attributions to others to be fallible even when they were based on appropriate protocol sentences about observed behavior.84 (An affirmation of radical fallibilism and confirmational holism for all  It might be objected that being excited counts only marginally as an intentional state. My response is that while Carnap’s example may appear ill-chosen as far as intentionality is concerned—there are many thoughts that do rate set the heart racing and induce heavy breathing—it is clearly meant give the general direction of the “translations” to be pursued. Thus note that the reference to the bodily microstructure of the nervous system can encompass neurophysiological characterizations of brain states, just as that to behavioral dispositions can encompass scholarly dispositions to verbal stimuli. (Thanks to Kevin Mulligan for prompting this clarification.) 80  See again Crawford (2013, 2015). 81  Carnap (1938, 56–7). 82  Ibid., 59. 83  For instance, assuming translatability of disposition into observational terms Hempel met the objection that “men can feign” by answering that it would be “absurd” to claim that a person’s behavior could satisfy all the test sentences for the attribution of a psychological predicate but that the predicate would still not be true of that person (1935/1949, 379). 84  See Carnap (1928b/2003, §5, 320 and 1932b/1959, 171). 79

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knowledge claims was issued later in Logical Syntax.)85 As yet Super-Spartans had not yet been considered, but already regular Spartan behavior was accepted to present complexities that made logical behaviorism untenable. What may look like behavioral definitions of types of psychological states were but defeasible characterizations aiming for partial operationalization. In sum, looking at the details of Carnap’s physicalist translation proposals suggests that what looks like logical behaviorism was instead an attempt to capture by means of somewhat handwavy stop-gap characterizations some partial and fallible criteria that ensure the empirical significance of mental talk and thereby to obviate the obfuscations of Geisteswissenschaft that populated the intellectual landscape at the time. The intentional characterization of mental states was not endangered.

7.6  C  arnap’s Later Position: Psychological Terms as Theoretical Terms To appreciate the advance made by the later Carnap, consider what made his early physicalism heavy-handed. To start with, there is his over-optimistic expectation of what translation of psychological terms into (among other things) descriptions of dispositions to behavior may accomplish: this expectation did not square with the difficulties of the analysis of disposition terms which he did not recognize until 1935. But even afterwards, his application of the apparatus of non-eliminative so-­ called reduction sentences (which he discontinued only when he recognized psychological terms as theoretical in the mid-50s) failed to spell out explicitly what had been his practice all along: occasionally to retain or reject an intentional ascription on the basis of concomitant information contrary to what the dispositional indicator says.86 Matters changed with Meaning and Necessity (1947) where Carnap developed an intensional logic for semantical meaning analysis which allowed the logical form of belief sentences to be specified in a way that recognized and made sense of their nonextensional nature. Importantly, Carnap noted right away that belief sentences create contexts that are neither extensional nor intensional since neither extensionally equivalent expressions nor logically equivalent expressions are interchangeable within their that clause without changing the truth value of the belief sentence. To remedy the matter Carnap developed the concept of intensional structure. Two sentences have the same intensional structure, are “intensionally isomorphic”, iff they are logically equivalent as a whole and also consist of an equal number of parts each of which is logically equivalent to its corresponding part such that they have the same intension. Carnap’s self-declaredly “not yet final”, “first step” toward the analysis of

 Carnap (1934/1937, §82, 318).  See Carnap (1936b, 1936/37) for the issue of dispositions and reduction sentences and (Carnap 1956a, §§ IX–XI) for his considered resolution of the matter. 85 86

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“John believes that D” (in semantical system S) was this: “There is a sentence Si in a semantical system S′ such that (a) Si in S′ is intensionally isomorphic to ‘D’ in S and (b) John is disposed to an affirmative response to Si as a sentence of S′.”87 Analogous renditions are said to hold for the other propositional attitudes. Even though intensions and intensional contents were now available to him, Carnap had to go beyond them since the intensional analysis alone was not fine-grained enough. The point was to circumvent the possibility of a belief-attribution failure due to the substitution of logical equivalent expressions (which would preserve the identity of propositions) whose logical equivalence was not appreciated by believers. The question for Carnap was whether the notion of intensional isomorphism was “tight” enough to narrow down the content of the belief sufficiently, but critics asked whether the behavioral criterion was adequate to an analysis of belief and whether responses to sentences could really replace relations to propositions. For instance, the trouble with employing sentences was that it was difficult to fix the identity conditions of the object of belief: how was the content to be characterized so as to be shareable among speakers of different languages?88 By 1954 Carnap had resolved to escape the difficulties by dropping explicit references to behavioral dispositions in the specification of the logical form of belief sentences: It seems best that terms like ‘temperature’ in physics and terms like ‘anger’ and ‘belief’ in psychology are introduced as theoretical constructs rather than as intervening variables of the observation language. This means that a sentence containing a term of this kind can neither be translated into a sentence of the language of observables nor deduced from such sentences, but at best inferred with high probability.89

 Carnap (1947/1956b, 62).  Alonzo Church (1950) objected that Carnap’s specification faced the problem that when the belief attribution “D” in S was translated into yet another language S′ there was no guarantee that the intensional isomorphism between D in S and Si in S′ was preserved. (Another objection was that such a secondary translation would leave the content of the belief unintelligible to somebody who spoke neither S′ or S′’, but satisfied Carnap’s analysis.) Benson Mates (1950) objected that Carnap’s condition illegitimately ruled out doubt as to whether somebody who believes D (“Greeks are Greeks”) would also believe an intensionally isomorphic D’ (“Greeks are Hellenes”). Hilary Putnam (1954) rejected the demand that intentional isomorphism should obtain among secondary translations, as it were, and instead strengthened Carnap’s condition by the additional demand for identity in logical structure between the sentence believed and its translation so as to rule out Mates’s counterexample (they differ like “a  =  a” and “a  =  b”). Wilfrid Sellars (1955) rejected Putnam’s response (as well as Mates’ objection) for overlooking that the imagined doubt presupposed the language of belief ascription to be relative to possibly deviant idiolects of believers (only somebody who did not agree to the synonymy of “Greek” and “Hellene” could entertain such doubt). Church (1954) rejoined the discussion, having noted Carnap’s partial agreement (1954) with Putnam; like both of them he rejected Mates’ criticism but on the grounds that the doubt he imagined could only pertain to the sameness of the linguistic expressions of belief but not to synonymous meaning themselves—having first restored these to their proper place on the analysis of belief sentences as helping to constitute the concept of “synonymous isomorphism” which paralleled Carnap’s proposal within the semantical system of extension and intension within his own Fregean system of a logic of sense and denotation. 89  1954/1956b, 230. 87 88

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To see Carnap’s reasoning here note, to begin with, that providing a translation into an observation language here would have meant spelling out reduction sentences. Treating belief as an intervening variable (or as a “pure disposition”) meant that if the specified antecedent test condition obtains but the prescribed reaction does not, then the variable in question does not fall under the dispositional description and the description—the belief—in question cannot be ascribed. But as Carnap noted, “the interpretation of scientific terms as pure dispositions cannot be easily reconciled with certain customary ways of using them”, for “a scientist, when confronted with a negative result of a test for a concept, will often maintain that it holds, provided he has sufficient positive evidence to outbalance the one negative result”.90 Such an attitude was appropriate only for theoretical terms. In contrast to this, the interpretation of a psychological concept as a theoretical concept, although it may accept the same behavioristic test procedure based on S and R, does not identify the concept (the state or trait) with the pure disposition DSR. The decisive difference is this: on the basis of the theoretical interpretation, the result of this or of any other test or, generally, of any observations, external or internal, is not regarded as absolutely conclusive evidence for the state in question; it is accepted only as probabilistic evidence, hence at best as a reliable indicator, i.e., one yielding a high probability for the state.91

Considering a concept to be theoretical allowed its continued ascription in the face of behavioral counter-indications provided there were good enough countervailing reasons. (Here Carnap made explicit what had been his fallibilist practice all along.) In consequence, “John believes that the earth is round” was analyzed as John has the relation B to ‘the earth is round’ as a sentence in English

without implying that John knows English or any other language but where “the reference to an English sentence … may be replaced by a reference to any other synonymous sentence in any other language” and where synonymy is explicated as intensional isomorphism.92 And “having the relation B” was recognized as a theoretical term: beliefs and other intentional phenomena were accepted a bona fide theoretical constructs of scientific psychology.93 To see the importance of this, consider a final exchange. In “Meaning and Synonymy in Natural Languages” Canap set out to answer Quine’s skepticism with regard to the existence of explicanda for semantic concepts like analyticity. “The purpose of this paper is to clarify the nature of the pragmatical concept of intension in natural languages and to outline a behaviouristic operational procedure for it.”94 Having outlined an empirical procedure for testing, by observations of their linguistic behavior, hypotheses concerning the intension of given predicates for given speakers, Carnap provided the following rough characterization of the general  Carnap (1956a, 68).  Ibid., 71. 92  Carnap (1954/1956b, 231–2). 93  As late as the mid-1970s Carnap’s views on the analysis of belief sentences were discussed by leading linguists and theorists of cognitive science: see Partee (1975), Fodor (1978), Wilson (1980). 94  Carnap (1955a/1956b, 235). 90 91

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concept of intension: “the intension of a predicate ‘Q’ for speaker X is the general condition which an object y must fulfill in order for X to be willing to ascribe the predicate ‘Q’ to y”.95 By return publication Chisholm argued that Carnap’s meaning analysis “requires the addition of a psychological, or semantical, term which cannot be defined in the terms which Carnap allows himself”.96 Chisholm was wary of philosophers trying to “describe psychological attitudes in terms of linguistic behavior”, for he suspected an eliminative behaviouristic agenda behind such a methodology. Thus he adduced counterexamples to Carnap’s proposed definition and suggested the following amendation. “The intension of a predicate ‘Q’ for a speaker X is the general condition which X must believe an object to fulfill in order for X to be willing to ascribe the predicate ‘Q’ to y.” Chisholm added: “But if we thus define ‘intension’ in terms of ‘believe’, we can no longer hope, of course, to define ‘believe’ in terms of ‘intension’.”97 As he put it elsewhere at the same time: “even if we can describe a man’s believing in terms of language, his actual use of language or his dispositions to use language in certain ways, we cannot describe his use of language, or his dispositions to use language in those ways, unless we refer to what he believes, or knows, or perceives.”98 Thus Chisholm believed he had struck a blow against behaviorist reductionism—as proposed, he thought, by Carnap99—and so to have refuted one way in which one “might try to show that Brentano was wrong”.100 Carnap responded by reaffirming his view of psychological terms as theoretical.101 Most importantly, he also provided a first sketch of the theoretical system that was to provide “a more thorough analysis of intension, belief and related concepts” by means of a “conceptual framework of pragmatics”.102 Carnap sketched sentence forms meant to define the concepts of (1) belief, (2) holding true a sentence and (3) intension such that “(2) can presumably be inferred from (1) and (3) (either deductively or inductively), and (1) from (2) and (3)” (ibid., 249). With definitions of the two additional concepts (4) assertion and (5) utterance in place, along with the ability to identify types of audible sounds as sentences and so as utterances, he claimed,

 Ibid., 242.  Chisholm (1955, 87). 97  Ibid., 89 (orig. emphasis). 98  Chisholm (1955–56, 143–4). 99  Elsewhere Chisholm claimed that “Carnap tried … to analyze the semantics or pragmatics of natural language in the physicalistic vocabulary of a behavioristic psychology with no undefined semantical terms and no reference to thoughts” (Chisholm and Sellars 1958, 523). 100  Chisholm (1957, 177). 101  “I think today that the basic concepts of pragmatics are best taken, not as behavioristically defined disposition concepts of the observation language, but as theoretical constructs in the theoretical language, introduced on the basis of postulates and connected with the observation language by rules of correspondence.” Carnap (1955b/1956b, 248). 102  Carnap (1955b/1956b, 248). 95 96

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it may be possible to infer inductively, with the help of suitable auxiliary premises concerning the ‘normality’ of the situation and previously confirmed facts about X including (3), first (4), then (2), and finally (1).103

This was a remarkable step forward. Carnap sketched a system of interrelated definitions of belief, holding true, intension, assertion, utterance, which clearly recognized that what a person believes his words mean is not independent of what she believes the world to be like. Just as it has been noted in the literature that already Carnap’s analysis of psychological terms of the late 1930s anticipated their causal-­ functional analysis in the empirical psycho-functionalism vein,104 so it seems to me that Carnap’s outline of a “system of theoretical pragmatics” moves strongly in the direction of interpretation theory. Not only was the circle of semantical intensional notions (decried by Quine) non-reductively embraced, but also intentional mentalist notions (fretted over by Chisholm) were joined to them. Shorn of metaphysical mystery mongering, intentionality was safe with Carnap.105 It might be wondered whether a sharp dividing line ought not to be drawn between this Carnap and the Carnap of the Vienna Circle. Clearly the details of his views at different stages were very different. But I would stress not only the continuity of practice that all along had him employ dispositional characterizations of psychological states or traits as defeasible indicators only, but also a motivational continuity that links the later and the Vienna Circle Carnap. Even the early physicalist misadventure into dispositional reductionism was propelled not by metaphysical ambition—an ontologist’s desire for desert landscapes, say—but by the aim to bring phenomena into the purview of scientific reason and its laboratories that had for too long languished in the sterile studies of Geisteswissenschaft. The point of even of the crudest behavioral criteria dreamt up by the logical positivists was not to limit and shut away intentional phenomena—to sanitize ontology of “disorderly elements”—but instead to make them accessible to investigation. The literal point, in other words, of any of their operationalizations of concepts was to put them to work.

7.7  Neurath on Intentionality The plural form of my last three sentences was intentional: I take myself not just to describe the methodological or metaphilosophical attitude of the cerebral Carnap, but also that of the ruffian Neurath—notorious for the invention of “physicalism” and “social behaviorism” and the relentless pursuit the programs so designated

 Ibid., 249–50.  See Kim (2003, 275), Patterson (2008, 531) and Crawford (2013, 638). 105  Carnap now even thought of combining his sentential approach to believing with Church’s propositional approach to holding true. Carnap promised to show elsewhere that an intensional language “can be completely translated into an extensional one” (1955b/1956, 249). For Carnap’s peace with the extensionality thesis, see the Appendix. 103 104

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(armed even with an “Index Verborum Prohibitorum”).106 You may agree that Schlick and Carnap were, after all, no intentionality-deniers—but what about Neurath? That his behavioristic bark was worse than his physicalistic bite can only be shown here by a couple of quotes.107 There is no longer a special sphere of the ‘soul’. From the standpoint advocated here it does not matter whether certain individual tenets of Watson, Pavlov or others are maintained or not. What matters is that only physicalistically formulated correlations are used in the description of living things, whatever is observed in these beings.108

Behaviourism simply meant the limitation to statements speaking of events in space and time. (From 1933 onwards he preferred the term “behavioristics”.) While he did not stress this enough early on, this included talk of many of the intervening variables that for the psychologists mentioned had become illegitimate. For instance, while his own theory of protocol sentences—a multi-level theory of acceptance conditions for scientific testimony109—spoke of “speech-thinking”110 what was meant was “that the scholars made these observations ‘consciously’”. Neurath explained: One can use this term ‘conscious’ always if, for example, one makes the hypothesis that the scholar, if asked, would have said: ‘I have made the following observation…’ We then say: the scholar has formulated: ‘I have made the following observation.’ That is, this statement is ‘coordinated’ to him to characterize his state of consciousness..111

Likewise he noted: “While avoiding metaphysical trappings it is in principle possible for physicalism to predict future human action to some degree from what people ‘plan’ or ‘intend’ (‘say to themselves’).”112 Clearly, no elimination of the intentional paradigm was intended and what reductions were contemplated were in the service of making the mental serviceable for science. Indeed, Neurath evidently took it for granted that humans “act out of their beliefs”, that mentality is not a mere epiphenomenon. To be sure, he would not have put it this way, but given that from early on in his publishing career as a historian-economist he was keen to draw attention to the phenomenon of reflexive predictions it is clear that the causal efficacy of the mental is what he was committed to.113 Finally, note that while Neurath was not shy to criticize the most varied schools of psychology for their metaphysical language—including Gestalt-psychology and  See, e.g., Neurath (1933/[1981, 596]) and (1944, 51).  For a related discussion of the bearing of his “radical physicalism” on the pursuit of social science see Uebel (2007b). 108  Neurath (1932a/1983, 73). 109  For discussion and elaboration of his proposal see Uebel (2007a, Ch. 11, 2009). 110  Neurath (1932b/1983, 93). 111  Neurath (1936b/1983, 162–3 (orig. emphasis)). 112  Neurath (1936c/1981, 714). 113  See, e.g., Neurath (1911/1998, 517, 1919/1973, 152, 1921/1973, 160, 1931/1973, 404–405, 1932a/1983, 88, 1944, 28). 106 107

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Karl Bühler114—he did not cast aspersions on the notion of intentionality as a characteristic of mental states anywhere. As could be shown also with reference to far more loaded terms of the mentalists’ dictionary like Verstehen, Neurath as a terminologist was well able to sort scientific substance from merely incidental metaphysical accretion.115 Like Frank and Hahn, Neurath rejected German Schulphilosophie—sometimes more loudly than was necessary—but he positively built on the Austrian Philosophische Propädeutik.

7.8  Summary For the Vienna Circle as whole—provided that the relevant views of its leading figures Schlick, Carnap and Neurath, who disagreed about much else, are representative—the following diagnosis seems apt. Its theorists happily agreed with Brentano’s rediscovery of intentionality as a psychologically descriptive thesis. Unlike Brentano and his school who explored intentional phenomena on their own terms, however, members of the Vienna Circle sought to naturalize them whenever they came across them in their own rather differently oriented philosophical inquiries.

 ppendix: Carnap, Intentionality and the Thesis A of Extensionality Recognizing intentionality and seeking to do it justice in one’s psychological theories is one thing, giving the logical form of sentences specifying intentional states is another. One may be happy to accept the phenomenon of intentionality but unable to give a satisfactory account of propositional attitudes from a logical point of view. Just that was Carnap’s position until the late 1940s. His full appreciation of intentionality was obstructed by the thesis of extensionality. This appendix chronicles Carnap’s troubles and their solution. In the Aufbau, the introduction of classes and relations at a new, higher level of the construction proceeds on the basis of specifications given in terms defined for the lower level. As Carnap noted, such definitions cannot be explicit definitions of names of objects but must be definitions in use which give rules for the translation of the sentences in which the terms to-be-defined feature. Definitions in use cannot provide synonyms, they can only define their meaning extensionally. For the Aufbau to work then, it must be the case that “in every statement about a concept, this concept can be understood extensionally” and that “in every statement about a 114 115

 See Neurath (1933, 604).  The promise concerning Neurath on Verstehen is redeemed in Uebel (2019).

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propositional function, the latter be replaced by its extension symbol.”116 Thus Carnap arrived at the thesis of extensionality: “all statements about any propositional functions are extensional (i.e., there are no intensional statements)”.117 Now typical counterexamples to the thesis of extensionality are statements expressing propositional attitudes: “I believe that all humans are mortal.”118 So the thesis of extensionality seems to impinge on the thesis of intentionality—at least in the version according to which intentionality is a mark of the mental as expressed in irreducibly intensional sentences. On the one hand Carnap accepted intentionality, on the other he seems to have ruled it out. But did he really? First note which or whose thesis of intentionality the demand for extensionality rules out: only a version which ties intentionality inextricably to intensionality. As noted in the text above (§1), this was Chisholm’s but not Brentano’s thesis. So the mere adoption of the extensionality thesis by Carnap in the Aufbau—or indeed by Wittgenstein in the Tractatus or by Russell on various occasions119—did not imply any stance against intentionality as characterized simply by object-directedness and aboutness. That’s the good news. To see how bad news arises let’s consider Carnap’s defense of the extensionality thesis. Carnap distinguished between statements about signs (e.g., propositional functions), statements about the senses of signs, and statements about the nominatum (reference) of signs. For Carnap, nominatum statements allow substitution of coextensive propositional functions, whereas sense statements do not. Belief statements, he noted therefore, are statements about the sense of signs. Carnap then drew the remarkable conclusion that the distinction between intensional and extensional statements about propositional functions is not valid, because the statements in question “are not about the same object. Only those statements which we have called extensional are concerned with the propositional function itself. The so-­ called intensional statements deal with something altogether different (e.g., a concept as the content of a representation or thought).” And he concluded that “the

 Carnap 1928a/2003, §43, 72. Statements are defined as extensional if and only if they can be transformed into statements about classes or relations; statements about a propositional function f are extensional if and only if one “can replace f by any coextensive propositional function without changing the truth value of the statement” (Carnap 1928a/2003, §43, 72). 117  Ibid., 73. There clearly is an unspoken qualification attached to the parenthesis: there are no intensional statements about propositional functions. The importance of this point will become clear later. 118  In the parlance of the day belief statements are composed of propositional functions of propositional functions (in the example given “x believes that” takes the functions “x is human” and “x is mortal” as its arguments). Truth-functionality fails because the content of the that-clause, “x is human”, cannot be replaced with the content “x is a rational animal”, for the belief that all humans are mortal does not entail the belief that all rational animals are mortal (a believer may not believe humans to be rational animals). 119  See Wittgenstein (1922, 5.54–5.542), Russell and Whitehead (1910/1925/62, 74–76 and Appendix C), Russell (1919, Ch. 18; 1922, xvii–xx), (1925/1962, Appendix C). These passages are referred to by Carnap (if not always precisely), but that of Russell ( 1918, 224–226), where puzzlement about how to deal with belief statements is openly discussed, is not. 116

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thesis of extensionality is valid: there are no intensional statements about propositional functions; what were taken to be such were actually not statements about propositional functions but statements about their sense.”120 Note that when they are interpreted as sense statements, the extensionality thesis does not rule belief statements illegitimate, but merely requires their separate categorization. Left in such a separate category, however, belief statements are barred from extensional constructional systems like the Aufbau. That is why the extensionality thesis appears to cast a shadow over the bona fide recognition of intentional states in the Aufbau, after all. It might be thought that any threat to their bona fide recognition can be averted by a more or less plausible suggestion of how intentional states can re-described in non-intensional ways. Indeed, just such a supplementation seems to be contemplated by Carnap’s concluding defense of the extensionality thesis: Since every statement about a propositional function can be brought into the form of an extensional statement, the possibility of making statements about propositional functions is not restricted in any way if we introduce for them merely their extensions. Thus the extensional method of construction is justified.121 (orig. emphasis)

The idea seems straightforward: find an extensional surrogate for intensional belief sentences and the truth-functionality of discourse is restored. Just that was, after all, what Wittgenstein and Russell did whose hopes for the retention of truth-­ functionality in logico-linguistic system like Principia or the Tractatus turned on the possibility of an extensional transformation of belief sentences.122 But whether this suggestion gives the right interpretation of Carnap’s conclusion, given his own determination of belief statements as sense statements, is highly questionable: it cannot be them that Carnap’s conclusion speaks of as “being brought into the form of an extensional statement” for he had determined them not to be about propositional functions in the first place. Might Carnap have thought that the problem can be solved by recourse to an altogether different type of translation? Consider that the Aufbau held other minds to be constructible from behaviorial indicators. [E]very heteropsychological process is in principle recognizable, that is, it can either be inferred from expressive motions or else questions can be asked about it. (It can be reported.) Thus, every statement about a psychological object can be transformed into a statement about these indicators.123

 Carnap (1928a/2003, §45, 77).  Ibid. 122  Russell and Whitehead suggested using “derived extensional functions” in the first edition of Principia (1910/1962, 74–75; cf. Russell 1919, 186–188) and an inadequately explained straight extensionalization of belief sentences in Appendix C of the second edition, which presumably sought to implement Wittgenstein’s dark ruminations in the Tractatus (1922, 5.54–5.5421) and Russell’s attempted explication in his Preface for it (1922/1961, xviii–xx). 123  Carnap (1928a/2003, §57, 93). 120 121

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The problem with the suggestion that these behaviorial translations serve as the type of extensional translations for belief sentences is that in the Aufbau Carnap was able to outline such translations only for statements about other minds: given his solipsistic starting point he was unable to render first-person belief sentences behaviorally. Any extensionalization of belief talk along these lines would remain frag mentary and incomplete. The conclusion to draw, I think, is that Carnap’s treatment of intentional sentences in light of the extensionality thesis in the Aufbau is not satisfactory. In fact, the best reading we can give of Carnap on this issue is that he had given up on dealing with the issue of the logical form of propositional attitude ascriptions in the Aufbau at least at this point.124 It must have come as a relief to Carnap that Logical Syntax afforded an opportunity to revisit these matters. Logical Syntax, of course, effected a significant change of perspective on what rational reconstructions can do due to his acceptance of the principle of logical tolerance. Referring to Wittgenstein, Russell and his earlier self, he wrote that we all overlooked the fact that there is a multiplicity of possible languages. … From the point of view of general syntax, it is evident that the thesis [of extensionality] is incomplete, and must be completed by stating the languages to which it relates. In any case it does not hold for all languages, as the well-known examples of intensional languages show.125

The new formulation of the extensionality thesis stated that “for every given intensional language S1, an extensional language S2 may be constructed such that S2 can be translated into S1.”126 Carnap now also addressed the difference of his own view of belief sentences from Wittgenstein’s (in the Tractatus) and Russell’s (in the second edition of Principia)—according to whom their intensionality was “only apparent”—by stating them to be, by contrast, “genuinely intensional but … translatable into extensional ones”.127 Carnap’s “less ambitious” formulation of the extensionality thesis was meant to indicate, first, that such translatability was established to hold only for the intensional languages “so far known” and that the universality claim was held “only as a supposition”.128

 This is not the only notable theoretical lacuna in the Aufbau bearing on the relation of psychological to non-psychological expressions: there also is the (just mentioned) failure to execute the postulated translational symmetry between physical and phenomenal languages in the case of the auto-psychological language. Ryckman once noted that in the Aufbau “[f]irst-person experience is not itself explicable in terms of empirically confirmed psycho-physical laws” (2007, 95); likewise Kim noted that questions about the physical status of Elementarerlebnisse “cannot even be formulated within the constructional system” and so “make no sense” in this context (2003, 269). For an independent elaboration of this physicalist lacuna, see Uebel (2014). 125  Carnap (1934/2002, §67, 245). 126  Ibid. 127  Ibid., §67, 246. 128  Ibid., §67, 247. 124

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So how were intensional sentences to be translated now? In Logical Syntax Carnap suggested that belief sentences represent instances of “the autonymous mode of speech”—a mode of speech that runs rough shot over the use-mention distinction—and thus can be translated into extensional syntax sentences.129 Thus “Charles thinks (asserts, believes, wonders about) A” becomes “Charles thinks (asserts, believes, wonders about) ‘A’.” Needless to say, standard objections apply. Carnap added if anyone prefers not to ascribe [belief sentences] to the autonymous mode of speech, he is at liberty to do so; the sentence in question will then belong to the material mode of speech. The essential points are: (1) these intensional sentences are quasi-syntactical; and (2) they can (together with all other sentences of the same language) be translated into extensional sentences, namely, into the correlated syntactical sentences.130

Here the idea is as follows. The material mode sentence “[15a] Charles said (wrote, thought) Peter was coming tomorrow (or: that Peter was coming tomorrow)” becomes the formal mode sentence “[15c] Charles said [wrote, thought] the sentence ‘Peter is coming tomorrow’ (or a sentence of which this is a consequence)”131 Again, standard objections apply, for it is simply not the case that, as Carnap averred, that “sentence 15a, as opposed to sentence 15c, gives the false impression that it is concerned with Peter, while in reality it is only concerned with Charles and with the word ‘Peter’.”132 This is one of the cases where Carnap’s attempt to capture meaning in syntactic terms badly misfires. But luckily, there is mental life beyond these horrors—albeit unofficially. Note again that in Logical Syntax Carnap officially accepted what already the Aufbau tolerated beyond its boundaries: that there are genuinely intensional languages (like Frege’s logic of sense). This means that we can wholeheartedly deplore Carnap’s hamfisted extensionalizations without ascribing to him the view that he abjured intentionality: endorsing extensionality in Logical Syntax only meant a rather bad account of it. So Carnap avoided specifying the logical form of belief-attributing sentences in the Aufbau (he did not endorse Russell’s proposals) and gave an inadequate analysis in Logical Syntax. The demand of either work’s theoretical framework that its statements observe the strictures of extensionality made an adequate analysis of belief sentences impossible. Sooner or later Carnap had to own up to his Frege-inspired recognition, already in the Aufbau, that intentional sentences were sense statements. In Meaning and Necessity (1947) where Carnap developed an intensional logic for semantical meaning analysis he finally grasped the nettle. As explained above (§6) Carnap developed the concept of intensional isorphism and with its help provided this proposal for the logical form of belief sentences structure, for the analysis of “John believes that D” (in semantical system S): “There  Ibid., §68, 248.  Ibid., §68, 248. 131  Ibid., §75, 292. 132  Ibid. 129 130

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is a sentence Si in a semantical system S′ such that (a) Si in S′ is intensionally isomorphic to ‘D’ in S and (b) John is disposed to an affirmative response to Si as a sentence of S′.”133 How Carnap developed this proposal further is dealt with in the text above. Here I must return to the question that appeared bothersome ever since the Aufbau: how was the appreciation of intentionality, given the recognition that it created non-­ extensional contexts (the explication of which required the notion of intensional isomorphism), to be reconciled with the thesis of extensionality? On the face of it the new logical form of belief sentences seems as incompatible with that thesis. In Meaning and Necessity Carnap again expressed sympathy for the extensionality thesis as demanding that “for any nonextensional system there is an extensional system into which the former can be translated” but noted that “whether it holds or not is still unsolved”.134 And Carnap also stressed that even if it were to hold, it would not show that only extensional languages should be used for it had to be shown that “an extensional language for the whole of logic and science is not only possible but also technically more efficient than nonextensional forms of language”.135 That set the bar for an exclusive use of the extensional languages very high indeed. (As is well known, Carnap vigorously defended the use of intensional languages in “Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology” of 1950.) Yet Carnap also gave examples of where he deemed the required translation possible. One instance concerned logical modalilities: here the leading principle was that “any simple modal sentence is L-equivalent to a semantical sentence in an extensional metalanguage using L-terms”.136 Thus “(N)A”—in words, “It is necessary that A”—becomes “‘A’ is L-true”. Now as I asked about intensional isomorphism, so I must ask about the concept of L-truth: is this supposed to be extensional in nature? (And is an “extensional metalanguage using L-terms” still an extensional language?) Note that Carnap conceded: “It does not seem possible to define intensions themselves in terms of extensions. However, the class of all designators L-equivalent to a given designator might be taken as a representative of its intension.”137 He explained: it is possible … to define in terms of classes certain entities which stand in a one-one relation to properties and other intensions and therefore may represent them for many purposes. We defined earlier the L-equivalence class of a designator in S as the class of all designators in S L-equivalent to it. It is easily seen that there is a one-one correlation between the L-equivalence classes in S and the intensions expressible in S. Therefore the L-equivalence class of a designator in S may be taken as its intension or at least as a representative for its intension.138

 Carnap (1947/1956b, 62).  Ibid., 141. 135  Ibid., 142. 136  Ibid., 141. 137  Ibid., 145. 138  Ibid., 152. 133 134

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The translations that now preserve Carnap’s extensionality thesis must replace talk of intensions by talk of their representatives. Which expressions count as representatives is determined by means of L-terms (like L-equivalence) or the representation may be effected by using L-terms directly. Accordingly, an acceptable replacement for an intensional term could be a statement of its semantical rules, for instance, “the rule of ranges” (which specifies the class of state-descriptions, of assignments of truth values to all atomic sentences of a language, in which a sentence containing that term holds).139 For Carnap then, “L-truth” counts as suitably extensionally explicative term because it figures in an extensional metalanguage with L-terms— indeed it is one of the L-terms with which the extensional metalanguage is enriched. Carnap provided the same explanation of why only a “weak” translation of intensional sentences can be given—namely, “a transformation of every sentence into an L-equivalent one”—in his “Replies” in the Schilpp volume when he explained his latest thinking on semantics. But there he also noted explicitly that such a translation “may contain semantical terms like ‘model’, ‘value assignment’, ‘variable’, ‘substitution instance’, ‘true’, ‘L-true’ and the like” but again insisted that this “is a translation into an extensional language”.140 Clearly, by now the extensionality thesis was considerably “liberalized”. What follows for the notion of intentionality? In Meaning and Necessity Carnap had stated concerning “nonextensional contexts with psychological terms” that an extensional translation was “presumably likewise possible although it is not yet clear how it can best be made”.141 His intensional isomorphism proposal then just put forward was as yet only judged a possible candidate for a solution. In his “Replies” he affirmed the view stated in his response to Church, namely that either of two ways of reconstructing the logical form of belief sentences was “acceptable”: as designating a relation between “a person and a non-linguistic entity (usually called ‘proposition’)” and as relation between “a person and a sentence”.142 As in Meaning and Necessity, in Carnap’s final understanding of the thesis of extensionality the reference to the proposition, an intensional entity, would be replaced by a suitable “representative”, i.e. its class of L-equivalent sentences. The demand in either of the two versions of the logical form of belief sentences for “intensional isomorphism” would be spelled out as truth in all state-descriptions plus specifications of the logical structure of the class of L-equivalent sentences. In sum, adherence to the thesis of extensionality, once its understanding was suitably refined, provided no obstacle to the acceptance of intentionality and the use of the intentional idiom. What allowed Carnap to take this attitude was a liberalization in what he took the thesis of extensionality to demand. By the time he had actually developed intensional languages he no longer took that thesis to demand the required translations into a purely extensional language: this allowed for the manoeuvers just

 Ibid., 172.  Carnap (1963, 894). 141  Carnap (1947, 141–142). 142  Carnap (1963, 898; cf. 1954, 129–130). 139 140

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reviewed. Whether an extensionalist like Quine would have been happy with them is highly questionable, of course. What matters for us here, however, is that Carnap’s mature understanding of the thesis did not threaten to undermine his acceptance of intentionality and the intentional idiom in any way.

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———. 1926. Erleben, Erkennen, Metaphysik. Kantstudien 31: 146–158. Trans. Experience Cognition, Metaphysics. In Schlick 1979, pp. 99–111. ———. 1932. Gibt es ein materiales Aporiori?. In Wissenschaftlicher Jahresbericht der Philosophischen Gesellschaft an der Univerisität Wien für das Vereinsjahr 1931/32, 55–65. Vienna. Trans. Is There a Factual A Priori? In Schlick 1979, pp. 161–170. ———. 1934. Über das Fundament der Erkenntnis. Erkenntnis 4, pp.  79–99. Transl. The Foundation of Knowledge. In Ayer 1959, pp. 209–227, and in Schlick 1979, pp. 370–387. ———. 1935a. De la relation entre les notions psychologiques et les notions physiques. Revue de la Synthese 10: 5–26. Trans. On the Relation Between Psychological and Physical Concepts. In Feigl and Sellars 1949, pp. 393–407, and Schlick 1979, pp. 419–436. ———. 1935b. Sur les ‘Constatations’. In Sur le Fondament du Conaissance, ed. Moritz Schlick. Paris: Hermann & Cie. Trans. On ‘Affirmations’. In Schlick 1979b, pp. 407–413. Schuhmann, Karl. 2004. Brentano’s Impact on Twentieth Century Philosophy. In Jacquette 2004, pp. 277–296. Sellars, Wilfrid. 1955. Putnam on Synonymity and Belief. Analysis 15: 117–120. Shelton, Jim. 1988. Schlick and Husserl on the Foundations of Phenomenology. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 48: 557–561. Smith, Barry. 1994. Austrian Philosophy. The Legacy of Franz Brentano. Chicago: Open Court. Stout, Rowland. 2006. The Inner Life of a Rational Agent. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Twardowski, Kazimier. 1894. Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand der Vorstellungen. Eine psychologische Untersuchung. Vienna: Hölder. Repr. in Twardowski, Gesammelte deutsche Werke. Edited by A. Brozek, J. Jadacki, and F. Stadler. Dordrecht: Springer, 2017, pp. 39–122. Trans. On the Content and Object of Presentations. The Hague: Nijhof, 1977. Uebel, Thomas. 2000. Vernunftkritik und Wissenschaft. Otto Neurath und der erste Wiener Kreis. Vienna: Springer. ———. 2007a. Empiricism at the Crossroads. The Vienna Circle’s Protocol-Sentence Debate. Chicago: Open Court. ———. 2007b. Philosophy of Social Science in Early Logical Empiricism. The Case of Radical Physicalism. In The Cambridge Companion to Logical Empiricism, ed. A.  Richardson and T. Uebel, 250–277. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2009. Neurath’s Protocol Statements Revisited: Sketch of a Theory of Scientific Testimony. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 40: 4–13. ———. 2010. Opposition to ‘Verstehen’ in Orthodox Logical Empiricism. In Historical Perspectives on Erklären und Verstehen, ed. U. Feest, 291–310. Dordrecht: Springer. ———. 2014. Carnap’s Aufbau and Physicalism: What Does the ‘Mutual Reducibility’ of Psychological and Physical Objects Amount to? In European Philosophy of Science, ed. M.C. Galavotti, E. Nemeth, and F. Stadler, 45–56. Dordrecht: Springer. Uebel, Thomas. 2019. Neurath on Verstehen. European Journal of Philosophy 27, 912–938. Wilson, Deidre. 1980. Intentional Isomorphism and Natural Language Sentences. In Intention and Intentionality. Essays in Honour of G.E.M. Anscombe, ed. C. Diamond and J. Teichman, 179–193. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Winter, Eduard. 1975. Einleitung. In Robert Zimmermanns Philosophische Propädeutik und die Vorlagen aus der Wissenschaftlehre Bernard Bolzanos, ed. Eduard Winter. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1922. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. London: Routledge. Repr. trans. D.F. Pears and B.F. McGuinness, 1961.———. 2004b. Brentano’s Concept of Intentionality. In Jacquette 2004, pp. 98–230.

Chapter 8

(Dis-)Similarities: Remarks on “Austrian” and “German” Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century Christian Damböck

Abstract  In this paper, I re-examine Barry (Smith B. Austrian philosophy. The legacy of Franz Brentano. Open Court, Chicago, 1994) list of features of Austrian Philosophy. I claim that the list properly applies only in a somewhat abbreviated form to all significant representatives of Austrian Philosophy. Moreover, Smith’s crucial thesis that the features of Austrian Philosophy are not shared by any German philosopher only holds if we compare Austrian Philosophy to a canonical list of German Philosophy II. This list, however, was established in twentieth century as a result of historical misrepresentations. If we correct these misrepresentations, we obtain another list of hidden representatives called German Philosophy I. German Philosophy I is fundamentally identical to Austrian Philosophy, whereas German Philosophy II is entirely different from both Austrian Philosophy and German Philosophy I. Therefore, a slightly modified version of Smith’s Austrian Philosophy account still makes sense as a tool to position the proscientific and rational currents of Austrian Philosophy and German Philosophy I against the tendentially anti-­scientific and irrational current of German Philosophy II. Keywords  Austrian philosophy · German empiricism · Barry Smith · Rudolf Carnap · Wilhelm Dilthey

Although Austria and Germany1 were independent nations in the nineteenth century, there are many aspects that overlap between the countries. Austria and Germany share the same language, and the borders between Austria and Germany were  This paper benefitted greatly from various discussions with Hans-Joachim Dahms, Christoph Limbeck-Lilienau, Michael Schorner, Friedrich Stadler, Thomas Uebel, and Bastian Stoppelkamp, as well as critical remarks by Kevin Mulligan and Barry Smith after my talk at the Brentano Centenary Conference in Vienna and specific comments on a previous version of this paper by 1

C. Damböck (*) Institut Wiener Kreis, Universität Wien, Wien, Austria e-mail: [email protected] © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano and Austrian Philosophy, Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40947-0_8

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always more or less open for academics to move from one country to the other.2 Religious differences do exist, but they do not coincide with national borders. Whereas Austria is mainly Catholic and Germany is mainly Protestant, important parts of (southwestern) Germany are mainly Catholic as well. People in Catholic parts of Germany often speak an idiom that is closer to the Austrian dialect than to the idioms in Berlin or Hamburg. Additionally, many famous Austrians were native Germans and vice versa. Some Austrian philosophers (viz. Bolzano, Mach, Meinong) were indeed “real” native, catholic Austrians who probably also spoke an Austrian idiom; others deviated from that scheme in that their religious affiliation was either Protestant (Schlick, Carnap) or Jewish (Neurath, Popper, Wittgenstein) and their native country was Germany (Brentano, Schlick, Carnap). To more closely examine the topic, let us now pick a list of names that consists of philosophers who are both reasonably called Austrians and who are important enough to be chosen as paradigmatic examples. To be reasonably called Austrian, we may require that a person spent important parts of her or his intellectual career in Austria. We include Brentano, Schlick, and Carnap here, because they were not native Austrians but spent important parts of their career in Austria. We do not include Husserl though, because his intellectual career almost exclusively took place in Germany.3 We also do not include a philosopher like Tarski here, because he was a member of the Lvov-Warsaw School, which certainly was in part an Austrian undertaking (Lvov belonged to the Habsburg Empire) but this connection is extremely weak because: (1) Warsaw never was Austrian; and (2) even Lvov was no longer Austrian during the time when the Lvov-Warsaw School flourished. Furthermore, to be important enough to be chosen as a paradigmatic example, one should be a key figure for subsequent developments in the history of philosophy and should be important mainly as a philosopher. For that reason, we do not include philosophers like Zimmermann, Riehl, Ehrenfels, Kraus, Mally, Zilsel, Frank, Kaufmann, Waismann, Gustav Bergmann, and Kraft because they were not that influential and we do not include people like Freud, Musil, Menger, and Gödel because their main influence lies in fields outside of philosophy. Finally, we restrict

Bastian Stoppelkamp. First ideas on the points developed in this paper are formulated in (Damböck 2017, pp. 39–42). 2  See (Dahms and Stadler 2015), where the situation in Vienna is described. German philosophers and psychologists who moved to Vienna included Brentano, Jodl, Schlick, Bühler, and Carnap. 3  Cf. (Damböck 2017, pp. 16–22) and (Mayer 2009, pp. 17–36). Husserl was born in Moravia in 1859, then a part of the Habsburg empire. He studied in Leipzig and Berlin and attended lectures by Franz Brentano during his stay as a one-year volunteer at the Austrian military in Vienna in 1886. He became privatdozent in Halle in 1887 and spent the rest of his intellectual carrier in Germany (Halle, Göttingen, and Freiburg). Given our geographical criterion, there is no sufficient basis to call him an Austrian Philosopher. Additionally, although Husserl was a student of Brentano, he hardly ever shared the latter’s scientific attitude. Rather, he tried to develop phenomenology as a method that is disconnected from science in general and psychology in particular, to provide science a basis that was otherwise missing. In our framework, Husserl, rather than an Austrian Philosopher, is one of the key representatives of what we call German Philosophy II.

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ourselves to a period between the beginning of the nineteenth century and the dawn of the First Republic. Our list of Austrian Philosophers is as follows: Bolzano, Mach, Brentano, Meinong, Twardowski, Neurath, Schlick, Carnap, Wittgenstein, and Popper. The list might be divided into four relatively independent groups: (1) Bolzano and (2) Mach, as somewhat unique figures; plus (3) the Brentano and Meinong School; and (4) the Vienna Circle with the inclusion of its periphery.4 Bolzano, in turn, might be considered a figure somewhat close to the Brentano and Meinong School, Mach as a forerunner of the Vienna Circle of some kind. As a result, we obtain two main camps in Austrian Philosophy: the Bolzano-Brentano-Meinong camp and the Mach-­ Vienna Circle-Vienna Circle periphery camp. Based on the above list, we now may ask whether there are any criteria that are shared by all members on the list. Barry Smith developed a now-classic approach to our topic, which includes the following criteria5: Smith’s features – entire list: Austrian philosophy, it is held, is marked by: i. The attempt to do philosophy in a way that is inspired by or is closely connected to empirical science (including psychology): this attempt is associated also with a concern for the unity of science. In the work of some of the Vienna positivists it is manifested in the extreme form of a physicalistic or phenomenalistic reductionism. In the work of Brentano and his followers it relates rather to a unity of method as between philosophy and other disciplines. ii. A sympathy towards and in many cases a rootedness in British empiricist philosophy, a concern to develop a philosophy ‘from below’, on the basis of the detailed examination of particular examples. iii. A concern with the language of philosophy. This sometimes amounts to a conception of the critique of language as a tool or method; sometimes it leads to attempts at the construction of a logical ideal of language. In many cases it manifests itself in the deliberate employment of a clear and concise language for the purposes of philosophical expression and in a sensitivity to the special properties of those uses and abuses of language which are characteristic of certain sorts of philosophy. iv. A rejection of the Kantian revolution and of the various sorts of relativism and historicism which came in its wake. Instead we find different forms of realism and of ‘objectivism’ (in logic, value theory, and elsewhere  – illustrated by Bolzano’s concept of the proposition in itself and in Popper’s doctrine of the ‘third world’). v. A special relation to the a priori, conceived not however in Kantian terms but in terms of a willingness to accept disciplines such as phenomenology and Gestalt theory which are, as Wittgenstein expressed it, ‘midway between logic and physics’. (The question as to how such apriorism can be consistent with a respect for empirical science will be one of the issues addressed below.) vi. A concern with ontological structure, and more especially with the issue as to how the parts of things fit together to form structured wholes. In some cases this involves the recognition of

 See (Stadler 1997, pp.  660–920). The “core” of the Vienna Circle comprises 19 philosophers, among them Gustav Bergmann, Carnap, Feigl, Frank Gödel, Hahn, Kaufmann, Kraft, Neurath, Schlick, Waismann, and Zilsel. The “periphery” comprises 18 philosophers, among them Ayer, Bühler, Hempel, Kelsen, Morris, Popper, Quine, Ramsey, Reichenbach, Tarski, and Wittgenstein. 5  See (Smith 1994, pp. 2–5). Smith’s list of names (p. 2) contains every name from our proposal and additionally Ehrenfels, Husserl, Mally, Waismann, Gustav Bergmann, and Gödel. 4

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differences of ontological level among the entities revealed to us by the various sciences and consequent readiness to accept a certain stratification of reality. vii. An over-riding interest in the relation of macro-phenomena (for example in social science or ethics) to the mental experiences or other micro-phenomena which underlie or are associated with them. This need not imply any reduction of complex wholes to their constituent parts or moments. Certainly a reductionism of this sort is present in Mach and in some of the Vienna positivists, but it is explicitly rejected by all the other thinkers mentioned.6

Smith also grants that “it is far from being the case that all the given features are shared in common by all the thinkers mentioned” (p. 3). However, it seems to me that Smith’s features are somewhat too much focused on the Bolzano-Brentano-­ Meinong camp. Although it is fair not to require that everybody in Austrian Philosophy share every feature of a specification of typical features, it seems to be necessary for a feature to be reasonably called typical, that it is shared by significant parts of both camps. Thus, we may reject any candidate for a specification of typical Austrian Philosophy features if none of the paradigmatic members of one camps share it. Based on this clarification, Smith’s list can be re-evaluated. We keep the essential parts of features i to iii. These three features are something that almost everyone shares in Austrian Philosophy, although the third point is certainly shared in very different ways and to very different extents so that it makes sense to formulate it less specifically. The rest of Smith’s features are less uncontroversial, when the second camp is examined. To start with feature iv, it appears that what almost all Austrians share is a critical attitude towards (if not a rejection of) the Kantian revolution. However, not all Austrians reject “the various sorts of relativism and historicism which came in its [the Kantian revolution’s] wake”. Paradigmatic Austrians such as Mach and Neurath are relativists and historicists of some kind, and similar things can be said even for Carnap (although these accounts are rather implicit in his case). Moreover, the conventionalism of various philosophers in the sphere of the Vienna Circle is not just a reference to French philosophers such as Poincaré and Duhem, but it also involves a variety of post-Kantian philosophy.7 Thus, we cannot include the second part of Smith’s feature iv here and we also cannot claim that Austrian Philosophers generally reject Kant. Moreover, core members of the Vienna Circle do not share features v to vii. This is especially the case for vi and vii, because these two features are inevitably connected to a specifically “mereological” reasoning, which is crucial for most or all thinkers of the first camp but is not shared by any of the thinkers of the second camp.8 However, even feature v cannot reasonably be ascribed to the second camp, because it is too specific. Although most members of the second camp also share a certain non-Kantian (viz. analytical) variety of aprioricism (at the level of formal logic or other ways of tautological reasoning), it is not the case that these features have much to do with either phenomenology or Graz style

 Smith 1994, pp. 2–3.  Thanks to Bastian Stoppelkamp who stated this point in a personal communication. 8  Cf. (Smith 1982) for an overview of the mereologically centered picture of Austrian Philosophy as developed by Barry Smith, Kevin Mulligan, and Peter Simons. 6 7

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Gestalt theory.9 Thus, we may reformulate feature v in some way, restricting it to an affinity toward a non-Kantian way of reasoning a priori. The resulting abbreviated and slightly reworked list of Smith’s features is as follows: Smith’s features – abbreviated list: Austrian philosophy, it is held, is marked by: i. The attempt to do philosophy in a way that is inspired by or is closely connected to empirical science (including psychology) […] ii. A sympathy towards and in many cases a rootedness in British empiricist philosophy, a concern to develop a philosophy ‘from below’, on the basis of the detailed examination of particular examples. iii. A concern with the language of philosophy. […] iv. A rejection of [or at least a critical attitude toward] the Kantian revolution. […] v. A special relation to the a priori, conceived not however in Kantian terms [but rather in the realm of analyticity]”

This list does not add anything new to Smith’s proposal, but it removes certain aspects that appear to be peculiarities of the first camp. As already indicated, it is not Smith’s claim that Austrian Philosophy is characterized positively, in the sense that everybody in Austria shares the features of his definition. Rather, his account ascribes these features to Austria in a specific negative way. The point of Smith’s account is simply that “the features mentioned have played almost no role at all in German philosophy”.10 Rather, German philosophy is determined primarily by its orientation around epistemology: attention is directed not to the world but to our knowledge of the world. […] This is sometimes connected further with what we might call the romantic element in German philosophy, a mode of thought which, in stressing the ultimate unintelligibility of the world, is often inimical to scientific theory.11

Smith holds that, despite the differences among Austrian philosophers who do not all share the features mentioned above, the main definitory feature for Austrian Philosophy is that almost no German philosopher shares any of these features. There are exceptions, Smith grants—he mentions Frege, Hilbert, Bauch, Natorp, and Cassirer—but these are “thinkers outside the mainstream of German philosophy” who were influential as philosophers outside of Germany. Thus, more specifically, Smith holds the following: None of the mainstream philosophers in Germany ever shared any of the features of Austrian Philosophy, as mentioned by Smith. (my paraphrasis, CD)

To reevaluate Smith’s account, we first need to have a list of names again, covering paradigm cases of what one might call mainstream philosophy in Germany. To provide such a list appears to be considerably more difficult than in the case of Austrian  Carnap, Bühler, Reichenbach, and other members of the Vienna Circle and its periphery were influenced to some extent by Berlin style Gestalt psychology which is different from Gestalt theory of the Austrian Philosophy fashion. Thus, to include Austrian style Gestalt theory here would rule out the Vienna Circle in its entirety. 10  Smith 1994, p. 3. 11  Ibid., p. 4. 9

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Philosophy. The latter scenario is rather homogeneous, if we restrict ourselves to the time until 1933. There are two camps that diverge in numerous respects, but apart from that, there is no fundamental break that might entirely change the evaluation criteria that define philosophical mainstream. The reason for that homogeneous appearance is simply that philosophical mainstream in Austria always was built by a partly non- or semi-academic avantgarde that was often not even noticed by the wider intellectual public. Paradoxically, philosophical mainstream in Austria was never mainstream at all. In Germany, however, there always have been extremely important and famous philosophical figures who were widely known by the public and therefore represented a real mainstream. Of note, the German public intellectuals were also considered mainstream in Austria. The wider (nonacademic-­ philosophical) public in Habsburg and interwar Vienna hardly ever considered Bolzano, Brentano, Mach, Wittgenstein, or Schlick as philosophical mainstream, but instead favored such figures of German philosophy as Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche.12 To be “mainstream”, in the sense usefully adopted here, involves being very important for certain historically crucial philosophical currents. In other words, to be mainstream means to play an important role in the world history of philosophy, either during the life time of a philosopher or later or both. However, who is mainstream in Germany, given that definition? On the one hand, we have the usual suspects, and the big list that starts with Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling, and also includes Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer, Adorno, and Habermas. However, since the 1980s, it has been continuously claimed by historians of philosophy such as Klaus Christian Köhnke, Herbert Schnädelbach, and, recently, Frederick Beiser, that the aforementioned official list is in part a product of historical misrepresentation of nineteenth century philosophy in Germany that became influential in the interwar period.13 Philosophers such as Heidegger and Löwith started to ignore almost every important academic philosopher from the time after about 1830 and highlighted only non- and semi-academic figures such as Nietzsche and Schopenhauer as being important or mainstream.14 This led to the adoption of a wrong picture about historical influences that remained important until recently. If we correct this, we obtain roughly the following picture. Nietzsche and Schopenhauer were important, but first more as public intellectuals and only after 1900 as role models for academic philosophy. Other figures played the most important roles in the academic philosophy scene in the nineteenth century. These philosophers form a somewhat hidden current, which we here call German Philosophy I.  Cf. “Cultural History of Modern Times [Kulturgeschichte der Neuzeit]” of the Viennese intellectual Egon Friedell (Friedell 1976). The book that was published between 1927 and 1931 has broad space for a discussion of philosophical topics. However, among the Austrian philosophers on our list, only Mach is briefly mentioned (as an example of an “impressionist thinker”, pp. 1385–1388). This is contrasted by very broad coverage of the usual suspects of German philosophy Kant (on 70 pages), Hegel (34 pages), Schopenhauer (49 pages), and Nietzsche (84 pages). 13  See (Köhnke 1986; Schnädelbach 1983) and (Beiser 2011, 2013, 2014a, b). 14  For the details and references see (Damböck 2017, pp. 2–9). 12

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Key figures in German Philosophy I were Herbart, Beneke, Lotze, Trendelenburg, Lazarus, Steinthal, Wundt, Dilthey, Lange, Cohen, Windelband, Rickert, Bauch, Frege, Natorp, and Cassirer. They are to be considered mainstream in a fourfold sense. First, they—or some of them—were among the crucial philosophers of the nineteenth century, and they influenced philosophical developments outside of Germany no less significantly (and in some respects even more significantly) than Comte, Whewhell, Mill, Spencer, or Peirce. In the second half of the nineteenth century, everybody studied not only German science but also German philosophy.15 Second, these philosophers had crucial influences on subsequent developments in the field of the human sciences, from psychology to sociology and history.16 Third, these philosophers also were crucially important for subsequent developments in German and central European philosophy, although this importance became hidden as a consequence of the aforementioned historical misrepresentations. Fourth and finally, these philosophers were also crucially important for the development of Logical Empiricism and Analytic Philosophy, a fact that became appreciated by the wider public of historians of philosophy since the 1980s.17 In addition to and partly in connection with these different ways of being mainstream, this variety of German philosophers had important influences on paradigmatic Austrian philosophers. Herbart played an important role in Austrian Philosophy in various respects.18 Mach was influenced by Beneke and historicism as well as Fechner’s psychophysics19; Brentano was a student of Trendelenburg20; Neurath studied in Berlin and also was deeply influenced by the historicist tradition21; Schlick also studied in Berlin and his views always remained close to certain Neo-Kantian ideas22; and Carnap studied in Jena and Freiburg, with Frege, Nohl, Rickert, Cohn, Husserl, and his philosophy was deeply influenced, not only by Frege, but by Marburg and—to a lesser extent— Southwest German Neo-Kantianism and the Dilthey school.23  Hermann Lotze, for example, was one of the most published, read, and quoted philosophers in nineteenth century, who also had an enormous influence in the English-speaking world. See (Beiser 2013, p. 127). It was quite common among nineteenth century intellectuals of US, French, or British origin not only to read German philosophers but also to move to Germany for some time and study there. 16  On the role of the human sciences in German philosophy of the nineteenth century see (Damböck 2017, pp. 22–30). 17  See, for example, (Friedman 1999) for a now classic account that highlights the importance that Neo-Kantianism had for Logical Empiricists such as Schlick, Carnap, and Reichenbach. 18  See (Stadler 1997, pp. 96–106). 19  On the influence of Fechner on Mach see (Heidelberger 1993, pp. 202–216, 271–282). Mach also seems to have studied Beneke’s writings, which he found in his father’s library. Hajo Siemsen, personal communication. 20  See (Huemer 2007). 21  See (Sandner 2014, pp. 42–53). Neurath developed a close friendship with Ferdinand Tönnies. On Neurath’s relationship on historicism and hermeneutics see (Damböck to appear; Uebel unpublished manuscript). 22  See (Neuber 2012). 23  See (Damböck 2016, 2017, pp. 172–190). 15

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Our list of paradigm examples of German Philosophy I also shows interesting sociological similarities with our list of Austrian philosophers. In both cases, we have figures who did not receive wide public fame during their life time. This holds, in comparison with the German scene, for all Austrian philosophers (until 1933 at least); and it holds, on the German side, for Beneke, Lazarus, Steinthal, and Frege, and, after the First World War, for all Neo-Kantians, whose public fame subsequently strongly decreased. There is also another sociological feature that almost all philosophers on both lists share. With the partial exception of Lotze (for the nineteenth century) and Popper and Wittgenstein (for the twentieth century), none of these philosophers belong to the list of nineteenth and twentieth century public intellectuals, being public because everybody with an academic education read them. Everybody read Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Adorno, Habermas, and, with restrictions, even Heidegger and Husserl.24 However, Bolzano, Brentano, Carnap, and Neurath were never read by a wider public, and the same holds for Trendelenburg, Steinthal, Dilthey, Cohen, Rickert, and Frege. All these philosophers, either mainly or exclusively, addressed a specialized community of intellectuals. This sociological feature is important for our discussion, because one aspect of Austrian Philosophy is to take it as a forerunner of Analytic Philosophy. At least sociologically speaking, German Philosophy I is no less a forerunner here. The parallels between Austrian Philosophy and German Philosophy I are shown here to go far beyond mere influences and sociological similarities. For that purpose, let us re-consider our abbreviated list of Smith’s features of Austrian Philosophy. Feature i: “The attempt to do philosophy in a way that is inspired by or is closely connected to empirical science (including psychology).” This is something that holds for every paradigmatic member of German Philosophy I.  They all reject Hegel’s unscientific treatment of philosophical problems and try to develop philosophy exclusively inside of the scientific world view. This comprises, on the one hand, the adoption of the state of the art methods of philology and history. However, it also comprises, in most cases, the adoption of state-of-the-art methods of psychology and physiology. Lotze, for example, was a physician who was always up to date about the latest developments in medicine and psychology. Beneke, Lazarus, Steinthal, Lange, Dilthey, and Cohen also studied the latest scientific developments and followed the writings of Fechner, Helmholtz, and other recent scientists in the fields of psychology, physiology, and psychiatry.25 This also connects with: Feature ii. “A sympathy towards and in many cases a rootedness in British empiricist philosophy, a concern to develop a philosophy ‘from below’, on the basis of the detailed examination of particular examples.” Both sub-features are also

 Heidegger and Husserl never made it to become Suhrkamp authors. However, they were heavily cited by real public intellectuals such as Derrida or Sartre. Here, the canon was the three capitol Hs: Hegel, Husserl, and Heidegger. 25  See (Dilthey 1914ff, vol. XXI, p. XVIII etc.). Similar things can be said about the other authors mentioned. 24

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characteristics of German Philosophy I.26 Beneke was a pioneer of the German reception of British empiricism and French positivism. Even more explicitly and sustainably, the writings of the respective British and French authors were studied and followed by the philosophers of the “new era”, such as Lazarus, Steinthal, Lange, Dilthey, and Cohen.27 Whether one is willing to go so far as to call these philosophers “German Empiricists”—as I did in my habilitation thesis—is certainly a matter of opinion.28 What is striking here is the fact that these authors—and Dilthey above all—were by no means accidentally called “positivists” by later critics in the continental philosophy camp such as Misch, Heidegger, Gadamer, or Habermas.29 We, as positivists, only have to flip these verdicts from the negative to the positive. Feature iii. “A concern with the language of philosophy.” Philosophy of language does not only have its roots in Austrian Philosophy. In Germany, there is at least Steinthal and the method of “Völkerpsychologie”, which developed an extremely interesting linguistic approach toward philosophical problems.30 Besides that, however, it seems that many nineteenth century approaches toward hermeneutics as developed and followed by Trendelenburg, Boeckh, Dilthey, and Cohen and also the Völker-psychologists were related to what was later called ordinary language philosophy.31 Feature iv. “A rejection of [or at least a critical attitude toward] the Kantian revolution.” Here, it is not only in Austria where the so-called breakdown of German idealism32 led to the development of a thoroughly critical attitude toward both the absolute idealists and Kant. Rather, this breakdown and the resulting decidedly scientific climate first took place and flourished in Germany, not in Austria. The rejection of the pathologies of Hegel’s philosophy was widespread in Germany until the end of the nineteenth century, but it also was not the case that, against the background of the rejection of Hegel’s alleged anti-scientific attitude, Kant might have automatically been considered a pro-scientific alternative. Rather, critics such as Beneke, Trendelenburg, or Dilthey considered the entire idealist movement with the inclusion of Kant to be overcome. As Beneke once put it, it is not enough only to overcome Hegel:

 This is a major point of (Köhnke 1986, part I and II).  The “new era” was the time between the revolution of 1848 and the constitution of the German Reich in 1871. See (Nipperdey 1998, I, pp. 697, 715). 28  See (Damböck 2017, pp. 31–37, 116–118). 29  For references see (Damböck 2017, p. 73). 30  See (Steinthal 1972). 31  This is possible, because in sharp contrast to twentieth century Gadamer style hermeneutics that was developed in an entirely irrationalist and subjectivist setting, nineteenth century hermeneutics was decidedly objectivist and empirically minded. See (Boeckh et al. 1886). Boeckh was the hero of this nineteenth century hermeneutic movement, and he deeply influenced the “positivist” spirit of philosophers such as Trendelenburg, Steinthal, Cohen, and Dilthey. 32  On this narrative cf. (Schnädelbach 1983, p. 15). Before the historical misrepresentation of postidealist philosophy took place and turned the whole time after 1830 into a “dark age”, almost nobody in Germany received this “breakdown” with regret. 26 27

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“If we do not want to expose ourselves to the danger that the ulcer [of German Idealism] that was cured at one place might break even more dangerously at another place, we do not have to focus on criticism of a daughter or grandchild philosophy but on Kantian philosophy in itself, in order to identify in it the root of all evil and to clog the source of the stream which threatens to flood Germany with intellectual barbarism.” (Beneke 1832, p. 11)33

Even those philosophers who committed themselves to a variety of what was sometimes called “Neo-Kantianism” from the 1870s onward34 were by no means uncritical followers of Kant. They also did not carry on what we today would call Kant “scholarship”, i.e., the attempt to restore Kant’s own opinions (on the neutral level of philology). Rather, the (so-called) Neo-Kantians committed themselves to Kant because they, on a rather political level, accepted him as a national hero.35 This did not hinder them, on the other hand, to think that Kant’s philosophy was overcome, in substantial respects. Windelband, for example, a philosopher who like Rickert has surprisingly little to say about Kant, famously stated the motto “To understand Kant means to go beyond him.”36 Windelband’s philosophy following that motto was “Kantian” in a similar sense as the “Wittgenstein award” of the Austrian Science Fund is Wittgensteinian.37 Cohen, who wrote several long books on Kant was neither an uncritical follower nor a mere Kant scholar. His account of (what he, Cohen, called) “Kant’s theory of experience” amounted to a radical criticism of Kant.38 To conclude, feature iv holds for each single philosopher in our list of German philosophers. Feature v. “A special relation to the a priori, conceived not however in Kantian terms [but rather in the realm of analyticity].” None of the philosophers in our list committed themselves to the synthetic a priori as initially intended by Kant. They either rejected the idea of the synthetic a priori in its entirety or at least developed a highly non-classical reading (like in Cohen’s “transcendental method”39). Thus, a

 “Wollen wir uns aber nicht der Gefahr aussetzen, daß das an der einen Stelle geheilte Geschwür [des deutschen Idealismus] an einer anderen nur um so gefährlicher wieder aufbreche, so müssen wir unsere Kritik nicht auf eine der Tochter- oder Enkelphilosophieen, sondern auf die Kantische Philosophie selber richten, um wo möglich in dieser die Grundwurzel allen Uebels zu entdecken, und den Strom, welcher Deutschland mit einer intellektuellen Barbarei zu überschwemmen droht, an der Quelle zu verstopfen.” 34  See (Holzhey 1971). The term “Neo-Kantianism” was used for the first time around 1875. Note also that most so-called Neo-Kantians never actually called themselves by this name. This holds, in particular, for the members of the Marburg-school. Therefore, Dieter Adelmann calls the term a “rumor [Gerücht]”. See (Adelmann 2010, pp. 258–259). 35  On the political side of the appreciation of Kant and Plato after 1872 see (Köhnke 1986, pp. 404–433). 36  (Windelband 1921, vol. I, p. IV): “Kant verstehen, heißt über ihn hinausgehen.” 37  The Wittgenstein award is given to outstanding scientists. To date, it has never been given to a philosopher or to a Wittgenstein scholar. 38  On the extremely critical attitude toward Kant that Cohen developed during his life, see (Damböck 2017, pp. 151–162). 39  See (Cohen 1918, pp. 93–110). 33

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more restrictively analytical or at least non- or semi-Kantian reading of the a priori became important for most of the philosophers in our list. To conclude, the features of our abbreviated list do not only apply to all paradigmatic Austrian philosophers, they also generally hold for representatives of German Philosophy I.  In this sense, Smith’s Austrian Philosophy thesis that (almost) no German philosopher ever shared any feature of Austrian Philosophy is straightforwardly untenable. However, this does not imply that there is no way in which one could make sense of Smith’s thesis. Rather, we need to qualify his claim differently, not to apply it to German Philosophy I but to the other, the official list of those philosophers who were mainstream Germans according to the picture that was developed in twentieth century. If we take this official list of what we might call German Philosophy II —Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer, Adorno, and Habermas—then Smith’s Austrian Philosophy thesis can be immediately and unequivocally restored. Even Smith’s diagnosis of a particularly hostile attitude toward science becomes correct, as soon as we restrict ourselves to those people on the list who belong to the twentieth century. To overcome irrationalism and anti-scientific world conceptions, Smith’s narrative is unbrokenly useful and important. However, it is also important to improve that narrative to identify the real enemy and to do justice to post-idealist academic philosophy in Germany, which did not start to go astray from science until 1900.

References Adelmann, D. 2010. “Reinige dein Denken”. Über den jüdischen Hintergrund der Philosophie von Hermann Cohen. Aus dem Nachlass herausgegeben, ergänzt und mit einem einleitenden Vorwort versehen von Görge K. Hasselhoff. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Beiser, F.C. 2011. The German Historicist Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2013. Late German Idealism: Trendelenburg and Lotze. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2014a. After Hegel. In German Philosophy 1840–1900. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 2014b. The Genesis of Neo-Kantianism, 1796–1880. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Beneke, F.E. 1832. Kant und die philosophische Aufgabe unserer Zeit: Eine Jubeldenkschrift auf die Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Berlin: Mittler. Boeckh, A., E. Bratuscheck, and R. Klußmann. 1886. Encyklopädie und Methodologie der philologischen Wissenschaften. 2nd ed. Leipzig: Druck und Verlag von B. G. Teubner. Cohen, H. 1918. Kants Theorie der Erfahrung. 3rd ed. Berlin: Bruno Cassirer. Dahms, H.-J., and Stadler, F. 2015. Die Philosophie an der Universität Wien von 1848 bis zur Gegenwart. Kniefacz, Katharina et al. (Hrsg.), 77–131. Universität – Forschung – Lehre. V & R Unipress. Damböck, C., ed. 2016. Influences on the Aufbau, Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook. Dordrecht: Springer. ———. 2017. . Studien zur Philosophie im deutschsprachigen Raum 1830–1930, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts Wiener Kreis. Dordrecht: Springer. ———. to appear. Dilthey and Historicism. In Routledge Handbook of Logical Empiricism, ed. Thomas Uebel. London: Routledge. Dilthey, W. 1914. Gesammelte Schriften. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rupprecht. Friedell, E. 1976. Kulturgeschichte der Neuzeit. München: C.H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung.

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Friedman, M. 1999. Reconsidering Logical Positivism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heidelberger, M. 1993. Die innere Seite der Natur. Gustav Theodor Fechners wissenschaftlich-­ philosophische Weltauffassung. Frankfurt/Main: Vittorio Klostermann. Holzhey, H. 1971. Neukantianismus. In Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, ed. Joachim Ritter and Karlfried Gründer, vol. 6, 747–754. Basel: Schwabe. Huemer, W. 2007. Franz Brentano. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Köhnke, K.C. 1986. Entstehung und Aufstieg des Neukantianismus. Die deutsche Universitätsphilosophie zwischen Idealismus und Positivismus. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. Mayer, V. 2009. Edmund Husserl. München: Verlag C.H. Beck. Neuber, M. 2012. Die Grenzen des Revisionismus. Schlick, Cassirer und das ‘Raumproblem’. Vienna: Springer. Nipperdey, T. 1998. Deutsche Geschichte 1800–1918. München: C. H. Beck. Sandner, G. 2014. Otto Neurath. Eine politische Biographie. Wien: Zsolnay. Schnädelbach, H. 1983. Philosophie in Deutschland 1831–1933. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. Smith, B. 1982. Parts and Moments. München: Philosophia Verlag. ———. 1994. Austrian Philosophy. The Legacy of Franz Brentano. Chicago: Open Court. Stadler, F. 1997. Studien zum Wiener Kreis. Ursprung, Entwicklung und Wirkung des Logischen Empirismus im Kontext. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. Steinthal, H. 1972. Abriss der Sprachwissenschaft. Erster Teil: Die Sprache im Allgemeinen. Einleitung in die Psychologie und Sprachwissenschaft. Hildesheim: Olms. Uebel, T. unpublished manuscript. Neurath on Verstehen. Windelband, W. 1921. Präludien. Aufsätze und Reden zur Philosophie und ihrer Geschichte (Zwei Bände in einem). 8th ed. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck).

Chapter 9

Learning from Lasaulx: The Origins of Brentano’s Four Phases Theory Richard Schaefer

Abstract  Throughout his career, Franz Brentano argued that philosophy underwent regular, and somewhat necessary, cycles of rise and fall that could be analyzed according to four relatively discrete phases. This theory of the ‘four phases of philosophy’ was a decisive factor motivating him to believe in his own role as the herald of a new phase of scientific philosophy at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century. This essay explores how and whether Brentano’s four phases theory might have been inspired, in part, by the work of his teacher Ernst von Lasaulx, a classicist at the University of Munich. Brentano attended Lasaulx’s lectures in 1856–57, and he spoke positively about the experience throughout his life. Though limited by what the historical sources contain, this essay suggests that there is warrant to think that Lasaulx encouraged Brentano’s concern for the possibility of recurrent patterns in history, and reinforced his desire to revive philosophy in his own day. Keywords  Franz Clemens Brentano · Philosophy of history · Ernst von Lasaulx · History of philosophy

In April 1888, Franz Brentano delivered the inaugural address of the fledgling Philosophical Society at the University of Vienna. Titled Zur Methode der historischen Forschung auf philosophischem Gebiete, it was one of six talks he delivered to the Society before he left Vienna in 1895. In it, Brentano outlined a series of methodological considerations for doing good work in the history of philosophy. First, one must always consider the part in light of the whole, and evaluate otherwise confusing or opaque propositions in light of a thinker’s entire corpus of writings. Second, one should put specific notions into context by comparing them with their philosophical predecessors and successors, and look for the grounds that motivated them. Third, one must also “open oneself, to a certain extent, to the spirit of R. Schaefer (*) Plattsburgh, NY, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano and Austrian Philosophy, Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40947-0_9

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the philosopher whose work one is studying.” Especially when it came to understanding the connection between otherwise disparate elements of a philosopher’s work, Brentano argued that one had to be ready to “transform a bit of my subjectivity into his” and allow oneself to be “baptized in the idiosyncrasies of a particular thinker.” And finally, for Brentano, perhaps the most important of all considerations when undertaking historical research was that “only a philosopher can be a suitable historian of philosophy.”1 After all, only one who understood the demands of philosophical research could give proper shape to the ebb and flow of philosophical ideas in both their distinctness and relative connection to each other. Only a philosopher was capable of casting a probing look at what remained unresolved or unclear in a given work, and of laying bare the hidden premises of an investigation. Though I think it only fair to state at the outset that I am not a philosopher but a historian, I can think of no reason to disagree with any of Brentano’s methodological injunctions. Indeed, I propose to take them as my guide as I seek to add to our understanding of the origins of Brentano’s theory of the four phases of philosophy. I will, as Brentano counselled, consider parts in light of the whole, compare notions with their philosophical predecessors, and look for the grounds motivating them. But most important, perhaps, I will try to be “baptized in the idiosyncrasies of a particular thinker.” For this seems to me to be absolutely prerequisite to any attempt at tackling Brentano’s famous theory of the four phases of philosophy, a view that certainly counts as “idiosyncratic.” Throughout his career, Brentano promoted a theory according to which philosophy underwent regular, and somewhat necessary, cycles of rise and fall that could be analyzed according to four relatively discrete phases. Philosophy enjoyed an ascendant phase when it was rigorous and scientific, that is to say, when it pursued a pure theoretical interest and adopted a method appropriate to nature, consisting above all in careful empirical observation and analytic precision. Philosophy began to decline however, when, from a state of pure theoretical interest it was made to serve practical applications. This first stage of decline produced a reaction among those who, as a result, became skeptical of philosophy’s dedication to truth. And this second stage of decline, in turn, inspired valiant but misguided efforts to arrive at truth by unnatural and mystical means that distorted philosophy’s natural inclination to clarity and logical rigor. These phases were each, in their turn, driven by what Brentano called “quite simple considerations of cultural psychology,” and showed the degree to which philosophy was influenced by external social factors. The cycle was evident in the ancient, medieval, and modern periods, and according to his students, Brentano invoked the theory in his various lectures on the history of philosophy throughout his life. The theory appeared for the first time in print in his contribution to Möhler’s Kirchengeschichte and his essay on Comte, both published in 1867. He referred to it obliquely in his Ueber die Gründe der Entmuthigung auf philosophischem Gebiete in 1874 and in his lecture Über die Zukunft der Philosophie in

 Brentano, Franz (1987), Geschichte der Philosophie der Neuzeit, Meiner Verlag, pp. 81–94.

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1893. It appeared in its fullest and most mature form in his Die vier Phasen der Philosophie und ihr augenblicklicher Stand in 1895. Scholarly investigations into the origins of the theory have, not surprisingly, yielded a mixed bag of potential influences. For example, Balász Mezei and Barry Smith point to other cyclical histories of the nineteenth-century, and suggest similarities between Brentano’s theory and those proposed by Johann Joachim Winckelmann, J.M. De Gérando, and even Immanuel Kant, who had a three phase theory of the history of philosophy. They also suggest that he was influenced by Karl Windischmann, the Catholic theologian whose diagnosis of the sickness besetting contemporary philosophy paralleled Brentano’s dim view of German idealism. Others, like Josef Werle and Hugo Bergmann, point to the influence of Adolf Trendelenburg, whose sharp critique of Hegel no doubt made a strong impression on Brentano. And in a pair of essays, I have tried to show how Brentano was influenced by Franz Clemens, and was part of a broader attempt to validate the neoscholastic investigation into Aristotle and Aquinas.2 One influence that all these researchers point to, of course, is Auguste Comte, whose three stage history of scientific progress Brentano reviewed positively in an article in 1867. Of course, it must also be remembered that Brentano faulted Comte for not sufficiently grasping the almost inevitable recurrence of decline in the history of science, making Comte perhaps as much a negative influence as a positive one on the development of the four phases theory. Another thing these researchers agree on is that Brentano was shaped, in his youth at least, by his teachers and his Catholicism.3 This fact makes it all the more remarkable that no one has tried yet to explore the degree to which Brentano might have been influenced by the historian Ernst von Lasaulx. Officially a professor of philology and aesthetics, Lasaulx taught at the University of Munich between 1844 and 1861, specializing in ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. The nephew of Joseph Görres, Lasaulx was one of the leading lights of the nineteenth-century Catholic revival in Bavaria, taking his place alongside figures

 Calling Brentano a ‘neoscholastic’ is tricky. He certainly did not affirm a slavish adherence to any particular thinker or endorse subordinating oneself to any particular system of philosophy, such as Thomism. On the contrary, he advocated a productive exchange with ancient and medieval philosophy to the extent that these might supply resources for overcoming the problems of modern philosophy, idealism in particular. What needs to be stressed, however, is that this was not uncommon among the first generation of neoscholastics, especially in Germany, and that the later tendency to insist on a timeless set of truths to philosophical questions is ill-suited to understanding this strand of the neoscholastic movement. Schaefer, Richard (2007), “Infallibility and Intentionality: Franz Brentano’s Diagnosis of German Catholicism”, in: Journal of the History of Ideas 68, no. 3, pp. 477–499. 3  For more no Brentano’s Catholic background, see: Baumgartner, Wilhelm (2004), “Brentano und die Österreichische Philosophie,” in: Phenomenology and Analysis. Essays in Central European Philosophy, Frankfurt: ontos. Münch, Dieter (2004), “Franz Brentano und die katholische Aristoteles-Rezeption im 19. Jahrhundert”, in: Arkadiusz Chrudzimski/Huemer, Wolfgang (Eds.) (2004), Phenomenology and Analysis. Essays on Central European Philosophy, Lancaster: ontos 2004. 2

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like Ignaz von Döllinger and Johann von Ringseis.4 Though largely unknown today, he exerted an important influence on the young Lord Acton and on the Swiss ­historian Jakob Burkhardt.5 In this essay, I would like to explore the possibility that he may also have exerted an influence on Brentano. Brentano attended Lasaulx’s lectures as a young student when he went to Munich for three semesters between 1856 and 1857. Unfortunately, there is no concrete evidence telling us what specifically Brentano may or may not have read or heard from Lasaulx, and at no point does he cite Lasaulx in his works. The only evidence we have that he was influenced by him at all comes to us from Carl Stumpf, who reports on how Lasaulx’s “lectures and personal appearance left a lasting impression” on Brentano.6 We do know that Brentano and his brother Lujo visited Lasaulx sometime in the fall of 1859 at his retreat in Schloss Lebenberg in the Tyrol. Lasaulx subsequently referred to the meeting in a letter to a friend written in 1860, and reported that he found Brentano “a sensitive person whom I like very much.”7 Though there is scant biographical evidence beyond this to indicate a deep and lasting relationship between the two men, I will nevertheless try to show how we might see Brentano’s theory of the four phases as bearing the stamp of Lasaulx’s influence. There is no denying that my account can only be suggestive, given the absence of direct evidence. Nevertheless, I think that a careful comparison of certain aspects of their approach to history is revealing, and helps contextualize Brentano’s four phases theory more fully than if we neglect Lasaulx altogether. Lasaulx worked throughout his career to forge a theory of the rise and fall of civilizations. Drawing together ideas from biology, medicine, history, philosophy and aesthetics, he proposed that each civilization was an organism imbued with its own unique inner potentiality but exhibiting a “common morphology shared by individual, race and humanity.”8 Like every organism in nature, each civilization passed through a clear life-cycle of birth, growth, flourishing, and then demise and death: “[w]hen the development is finished and the goal achieved, when a people has

 Nipperdey, Thomas (1996), Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck, 1800–1866, Princeton: Princeton University Press. 5  Little has been written on Lasaulx. For a biographical treatment, see: Stölzle, Remigius (1904), Ernst von Lasaulx (1805–1861): Ein Lebensbild, Aschendorffsche Buchhandlung. Scholarly analyses include: Engel-Janosi, Friedrich (1953), “The Historical Thought of Ernst von Lasaulx”, in: Theological Studies 14, no. 3, pp. 377–401. Tonsor, Stephen J. (1964), “The Historical Morphology of Ernst Von Lasaulx”, in: Journal of the History of Ideas 25, no. 3, pp. 374–92. There are also the various references to Lasaulx by Lord Acton, who studied with him in Munich and praised him as one of the most insightful philosophers of history. John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton (1907), Historical Essays & Studies, Macmillan and Company, Ltd. p.  331. Also of interest: Holland, Hyacinth (1861), Erinnerungen an Ernst von Lasaulx, Fleischmann. 6  Stumpf, Carl (1922), “Franz Brentano,” in: Lebenslaufe Aus Franken, vol. 2, Würzburg: Kabitzsch Verlag, pp. 67–85. Oskar Kraus reiterates the observation in his: Oskar Kraus (1976), “Biographical Sketch of Franz Brentano,” in: The Philosophy of Franz Brentano, London: Duckworth Press, pp. 1–9. 7  Stölzle, Ibid. 1904, p. 231. 8  Tonsor, Ibid. 1904, p. 384. 4

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produced what it was destined to produce, then…its inner energy necessarily exhausts itself. The juices cease, potency begins to ebb, life declines, and its forms collapse…”9 History thus repeated itself in a pattern of birth, growth, decline, and death, and this pattern was reflected in all aspects of a society’s culture. And knowing this pattern gave the historian penetrating powers of insight, for to the scholar who understood his own place in time was granted “the ability to understand entirely the natural path of the development of human peoples. And to him who looks at how things have come to be and how they cohere, the past, which we usually consider foreign and self-contained, will appear before his soul warm and illuminated as part of our own being, a part of the evolution of the whole of which we ourselves are a part.”10 History should not therefore merely seek to establish how events might resemble one another in some vague fashion. According to Lasaulx, understanding history was possible precisely because the historian was subject to the same recurring patterns about which he could learn through “the law of analogies.”11 At the same time, Lasaulx was careful to stress that history was not reducible to natural laws. Every civilization unfolded according to its own unique potential, and though it did so according to a natural, uniform and basic life cycle, its specific contents were unique and could not be reduced to nature. This led Lasaulx to talk about this life-process as much in psychological terms as in biological ones, comparing the unfolding of history to a great drama: “In every act, like in an Aesychlean tragedy, a new person appears, who comes into conflict with the one already on stage; every development brings something new that has yet to appear, and opens a new and richer individual life.”12 In sharp contrast with the Enlightenment focus on balance, harmony and reason, Lasaulx joined with other exponents of Romanticism who sought to illuminate the darker “night aspect” of Greek and Roman civilization, and shift attention from Greek art to religion.13 In a series of essays collected and published in 1854 as Studien des classischen Alterthums, he undertook a cultural history of Greek and Roman prayers, the legends of Prometheus and Oedipus, and the history of marriage in Greece. He also wrote on the social role of curses and oaths, and on burial rituals. Lasaulx was especially interested in how the Greeks had “been subjected to severe suffering,” and proposed that the “insufficiency of the pagan gods in the face of death” constituted the “world-historical prelude to Christianity.”14 This brings us to another key element one finds in Lasaulx’s work, namely, his stress on the world-­ historical significance of religion and Christianity in particular. If Lasaulx was convinced that repetition was an essential element of the historical process, he was far

 Lasaulx, Ernst von (1856), Neuer Versuch einer alten auf die Wahrheit der Thatsachen gegründeten Philosophie der Geschichte, München: Cotta, pp. 140–141. 10  Lasaulx, Ernst von (1854), Studien des classischen Alterthums, Munchen: Cotta, IV. 11  Lasaulx, Neuer Versuch 1856, p. 10. 12  Ibid., p. 22. 13  Engel-Janosi, Ibid 1953, p. 381. 14  Engel-Janosi (1953), p. 382. 9

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from thinking that this foreclosed the possibility of historical development. On the contrary, he was convinced that history as a whole was the story of God’s desire to reveal himself most fully in Christianity. And he argued that the best religious achievements of ancient civilizations were never fully cancelled but passed on in various ways to successor civilizations. This motivated Lasaulx to see in earlier ages the archetype of later developments, as illustrated in his assertion that Socrates be considered the “verus typus Christi.”15 For Lasaulx, the ancients were never very far away. Though dead as civilizations, they lived on as part of a stock of historical patterns that repeated themselves, and, as such, provided a wellspring for understanding the historical process. This was never more important since, according to Lasaulx, European civilization was on the brink of a collapse similar to the collapse of Greece and Rome. The tendency of nationalism to want to restore the former glory of a bygone age and to seek the roots of vitality in history was one of the surest signs of that decay. So too was the proliferation of revolution and political turmoil, and what he saw as the undeniable decline of Christianity: “Is it really still, among priests and the people, the way it originally was, a matter of living conviction, the world-conquering religion of active love among the majority of its adherents?”16 But though he was convinced that Europe was beginning its inevitable decline as a civilization, Lasaulx was not despondent. He expressed hope that the seeds of a new civilization—perhaps to appear among the Slavic peoples, or in the New World—would once again take another small step toward the fulfillment of God’s plan. In his view, the death of one civilization was always accompanied by a process of transition that preserved the best of what had been, and passed it on to the newly evolving civilization.17 It was thus possible to “hope” that “the history of our species would not just repeat what had happened,” but might experience a kind of spiritual progress, in the sense of more nearly knowing God’s will.18 What does this cursory outline of Lasaulx’s thought tell us about the possibility that Brentano might have been influenced by him? In general terms, both men shared a fascination with ancient Greece, and considered it vital for understanding the course of civilization in their own day. Both men also shared a respect for the natural sciences and considered them instructive, though Brentano certainly did not share Lasaulx’s penchant for viewing history or philosophy in biological terms. They were also both Catholic, at least at the time of their acquaintance, and

 Lasaulx, Ernst von (1857), Des Sokrates Leben, Lehre und Tod: Nach den Zeugnissen der alten Dargestellt, J.G. Cotta. 16  Lasaulx, Neuer Versuch, p. 154. 17  Lasaulx, Ernst von (1854), Der Untergang des Hellenismus: und die Einziehung seiner Tempelgüter durch die Christlichen Kaiser, München: Cotta. 18  Lasaulx, Neuer Versuch, p.  162. Though it was unclear what the future would look like, he expressed faith that the ultimate shape of history might confirm those medievals who prophesized three major eras of history: an age of the Father as revealed in the Old Testament, an age of the Son as revealed in the New Testament, and a future age of the Holy Ghost, whose Gospel had yet to be revealed. Engel-Janosi (1953), “The Historical Thought of Ernst von Lasaulx,” p. 399. 15

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interested in how Catholicism fit into history—though it should be stressed that Lasaulx preferred to speak generally about Christianity and avoided a narrowly confessional point of view. In their approach to history, both men were also very much ‘presentists,’ and motivated to study the past because of what they believed it would tell them about the course of history in their own day. On a more specific level, both men were convinced that history exhibits recurring patterns, and saw cycles as a way to draw nearer to history. Whatever else it did, Brentano’s four phases theory helped him overcome the chasm between past and present so that he could stand in close and direct proximity to his essential interlocutors, Aristotle and Aquinas; to make them contemporary, so to speak. Both men also considered the recurring cycles they diagnosed to be historical “laws,” and considered analogy to be a powerful instrument of historical discernment. And finally, both men considered it viable, methodologically, to see the life of the individual and life of a society as mutually illuminating, and comparable in terms of development. According to Lasaulx, “what develops…in the life of an individual according to psychological laws manifests itself in the exact same way in the developmental life of peoples, indeed of humanity itself, since both are nothing more than the selfsame expression of an original human impulse.”19 And in his Vier Phasen, Brentano affirms that “[t]he childhood of mankind…[is] very similar to the childhood of each individual,” though he cites Lavoisier and not Lasaulx in support of this idea.20 The stress on repetition, “psychological laws,” the parallel between individual and society, and the centrality of skepticism to the historical cycle are all suggestive here of themes that might have made an impression on Brentano. Both men also took seriously God’s providential role in history. They drew optimism from their belief in God, and their conviction that God was the ground of history. As Brentano put it, in his Vier Phasen: “Without knowing the essence of the first cause of the material world, still we must work through to a rational conviction that the world is determined for the best—by this cause. By this means also we shall have gained an answer to the question of optimism in a way that truly corresponds to the needs of our nature.”21 Likewise Lasaulx: “No-one can know in detail how and when the dissolution of the past that has already been foreordained will take place, or how and when the simultaneous transition to a new future—also foreordained—will take place. Only the very beginning and final purpose of all that is created is indubitably certain: the first cause of all things from God, their continued temporal maintenance through God, and their eventual return to God.”22 Of course, sharing a faith in the power of a providential God is not in itself strong evidence that Brentano was influenced in any particular way by Lasaulx. Indeed, on that score, Brentano cited the influence of Leibniz, not Lasaulx.

 Lasaulx, Neuer Versuch, 112.  Brentano, “The Four Phases of Philosophy and Its Current State,” 87. 21  Brentano, Franz Clemens, “The Four Phases of Philosophy and Its Current State”, in: Balázs M. Mezei/Barry Smith (Eds.) (1998), The Four Phases of Philosophy, Atlanta GA: Rodopi, 108. 22  Lasaulx, Neuer Versuch, 164–5. 19 20

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What about philosophy specifically? Is there evidence that Lasaulx may have shaped how Brentano thought about philosophy in history? Two texts help us answer that question. The first is Lasaulx’s Neuer Versuch einer alten auf die Wahrheit der Thatsachen gegründeten Philosophie der Geschichte, published in 1856. Once again, there is no evidence that Brentano read the work, but it seems likely that its main tenets were part of the stock of lectures Lasaulx would have delivered in 1856–57 when Brentano attended his classes at Munich. In it, Lasaulx presents in its fullest form his idea that history reflected the same biological life-cycle discernible in the individual.23 As “one organic unity” humanity manifested but “one life-­ process,” reflected in every era of history and arena of society: language, religion, politics, science, art, architecture, and philosophy.24 In the case of philosophy, the individual was first introduced to philosophical thinking through learning the traditions and religion of his or her elders. This was followed by a period when the individual sought to stand independently, and to subject these inherited ideas to questioning by “the discursive thought of understanding.”25 And this inner struggle, in turn, resulted either in a thorough repudiation of one’s religion and tradition in the name of skepticism, or in a reconciliation between religion and philosophy based on the inner harmony of their mutual striving for truth. This same cycle was evident in society, as every civilization evinced a period when “old inherited religious traditions [were] attacked and doubted, and in place of the older theological way of grasping human and heavenly things there appears a self-fashioned philosophical solution to the puzzle of life and the world.”26 Lasaulx did not judge the turn to skepticism in itself to be a sign of decay however, as Brentano did, since he did not think it was inevitable that skepticism should turn to mysticism. On the contrary, it was just as likely that skepticism might be resolved by seeing the essential harmony of what religion and philosophy were trying to do, namely, explore the ultimate nature of truth, life, and the interaction between God and man. The second text in which Lasaulx addressed the historical fortunes of philosophy is his final lecture as Rector of the University of Munich, which he delivered on November 29, 1856. I do not know, at this juncture, whether Brentano was in the audience for Lasaulx’s lecture. I am tempted to think he was. He was, after all, a student of philosophy, and more specifically, a student of Lasaulx’s, and one would guess therefore that he would have been in attendance. What is certain, however, is that its theme would have resonated strongly with the young Brentano. Titled Über die theologische Grundlage aller philosophischen Systeme it defended the mutual compatibility between philosophy and religion, as Lasaulx called on students to resist the growing lure of skepticism and stay true to the Christian faith of their

 Ibid., 20.  Ibid., 14. 25  Ibid., 111. 26  Ibid., 113. 23 24

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fathers.27 He reminded them that all learning was, in principle, directed toward understanding the order of creation, and that humans were possessed of a powerful and seemingly inborn drive to know the grounds of things beyond mere appearances. Drawing heavily on neo-Platonism and the early Church fathers, Lasaulx insisted that the act of knowing the truth was really to use the divine in oneself to think along with God.28 But though this might be ‘natural,’ that didn’t make it easy, and indeed the great majority of people were too caught up in the distractions of day to day life to cultivate the habit of mind necessary for apprehending the divine order. Philosophy was thus only for “the few, the aristocracy of humanity, the truly free…who strive for the sun, and whose eye is strong enough to endure the sun.”29 Only those with an especially rigorous and pious devotion to knowledge would be successful, and there was no shortage of critics eager to point out the faults of philosophy. Acknowledging the “fact of the striking and rapid changes in modern philosophy from Descartes to Hegel, and that none of these recent philosophers seems to be able to construct a system that outlives him,” Lasaulx exhorted those interested in taking up philosophy not to be discouraged, but to take solace in the long view.30 There was, after all, nothing new in the wild proliferation of systems, and history showed that this happened in all societies that had attained a certain amount of affluence. Indeed, it was Aristotle who first observed how the pace of philosophical speculation, as of life generally, increased in proportion to a society’s increase in affluence and leisure. That this repeated itself in history was not however cause to despair over the vocation of philosophy. One can only wonder how this might have been received by the young Brentano: keen to pursue philosophy, despairing over German idealism, and eager to live a life in tune with his Catholic faith. Lasaulx’s affirmation of the compatibility of philosophy and religion, his attack on the poverty of contemporary philosophy, and his use of history (including a reference to Aristotle) to allay the problem of being trapped in the present were seemingly tailor-made for him.31 Most importantly, perhaps,

 It is worth noting that nowhere in the text does Lasaulx discuss Catholicism specifically, or draw a line between Catholicism and the other confessions. He thus did not participate in the confessional polemics that were otherwise quite common during the period. Blaschke, Olaf (2000), “Das 19. Jahrhundert: Ein Zweites Konfessionelles Zeitalter?” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 26, no. 1, 38–75. 28  Lasaulx, Ernst von (1856), Über die theologische Grundlage aller philosophischen Systeme, München: Cotta, 13–14. 29  Ibid., 12. 30  Ibid., 23. The cadence of this observation very nearly resembles Stumpf’s account of Brentano’s concern over rapid proliferation of philosophical systems characteristic of German idealism in his day. Carl Stumpf, carl (1919), “Erinnerungen an Franz Brentano,” in: Franz Brentano. Zur Kenntnis seines Lebens und seiner Lehre, München: Beck, 90. 31  I am thus convinced that Brentano’s reference to a meeting with “one of the most well-known historians of our time,” who described the history of philosophy as a graveyard full of monuments but with no future, could not have been to Lasaulx. Brentano, Franz (1974), Ueber die Gründe der Entmuthigung auf philosophischem Gebiete: ein Vortrag gehalten beim Antritte der philosophischen Professur an der k.k. Hochschule zu Wien am 22. April 1874, Wilhelm Braumüller, 7. 27

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Lasaulx showed that no matter how much philosophy was a product of its age, or in an abject state, a true grasp of history could reveal alternative possibilities. And he did so, moreover, precisely to reassure those who were worried about whether it was worthwhile to dedicate themselves to a career in philosophy. I like to think that Lasaulx might have looked directly out at Brentano when he issued the following call: I don’t think it would be very difficult, and it certainly would be a very welcome task, if one were to show with respect to the chief problems of life, all those questions that have always captivated and preoccupied nobler souls at their deepest level: about God and his relationship to the world, about nature and humans as the unifying conjunction between God and nature, about human freedom, morality and immortality, about good and evil, and about the final destiny of both—in short, about all the most important fundamentals of life—if one were to show precisely how there reined much greater agreement between all the great philosophers of all eras and peoples than is suspected by those who, instead of rebutting false philosophy with truth, remain curiously deluded about possessing the truth when they possess nothing.32

Who exactly Lasaulx considered the “great philosophers” is left open here, and nowhere in his work is Lasaulx really concerned to distinguish bad philosophy from good in any specific way. But that only underscores how, for someone in the audience, this might have sounded like a call to come up with a formal schema for isolating and comparing specific philosophical “highpoints” as essentially the same, and hence as a suitable point of departure for philosophy today. Is this how Brentano heard it? Did he consider himself the one to fulfill this charge? We know that, as a young man, Brentano despaired over the possibility of a career in philosophy, and that the four phases theory was the remedy he hit upon to cure him of his doubts. Was it Lasaulx who enabled him to envision different historical trajectories, and emboldened him to argue for the contemporaneity of Aristotle and Aquinas? According to Stumpf, it was Easter of 1860 when Brentano reported hitting upon the idea of the four phases as a way to overcome his pessimism over the state of philosophy, almost three and a half years after Lasaulx’s rectoral address. Is that perhaps too long to make the case for a direct influence? Is it perhaps just the right amount of time to make the case for an indirect one? Was Lasaulx the impetus for him to think about how key figures during comparable ascending phases of healthy philosophical development were substantially in agreement, if not about key issues, then at least about the correct method? The question of method was central to Brentano’s four phases theory, of course, method being the determining factor in whether or not philosophy was able to pursue its vocation in the proper, scientific way. It is intriguing therefore that in his lecture, Lasaulx stressed that “the difference in method between all philosophers of the first rank was generally less than” what most people assumed. It is also significant that he stressed induction as essential to proper method, and denied that Leonardo da Vinci, Tycho Brahe and Francis Bacon were the first to see induction as the correct method for the natural sciences, since this was already so important 32

 Lasaulx, Über die theologische Grundlage aller philosophischen Systeme, 24.

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for the Greeks and Aristotle in particular.33 This stress on induction is echoed in his Neuer Versuch where he argued that all human understanding proceeds by induction only, since it is ultimately God alone who can know things outside of time and ­history, that is, deductively. Of course, there is no denying that Lasaulx himself hardly pursued a careful inductive method, and that his brand of system-building contrasts starkly with Brentano’s careful, empirical approach to questions. This is perhaps nowhere better reflected than in their different judgment with respect to Plato and Aristotle. Though Lasaulx did not dismiss Aristotle, and in fact cited him quite a bit—especially his observation on the occurrence of cycles in politics and elsewhere in history—he preferred Plato and dubbed Aristotle “an insufferable pedant.”34 This fact notwithstanding, it is still the case that Brentano and Lasaulx at least agreed on what the proper method should be. There is one final area where I see Lasaulx potentially having influenced Brentano’s four phases theory, and it has to do with how we understand the vexing problem in Brentano’s scheme of the return to an ascendant phase of healthy philosophical progress. How exactly, given the scale and scope of decline in philosophy, does philosophy return to the sound path of inductive, empirical research? This is no small problem, when one considers Brentano’s insistence on the ways philosophy as a whole tends to follow the three cycles of decline. What is it that finally turns things around? According to Mezei and Smith, the transition from one phase to the next is rooted in a “reaction to previous phases,” and in the stages of decline, at least, consists largely of a “game of challenge and answer.” They offer no substantial insight into how philosophy escapes from the fourth phase except to respond to the seeming determinism of the Brentanian scheme by affirming that “we are always…capable of finding the right way in our philosophy….”35 According to Josef Werle, the return to a healthy ascending phase consists “merely in a correction of the cognitive means.”36 The cycle plays itself out insofar as alternative philosophical methods prove themselves to be bankrupt, and this then liberates the otherwise natural desire for knowledge. As Brentano himself put it in his Vier Phasen lecture, each ascending phase of healthy development was marked by “[t]he powerful yet unmingled desire for knowledge” that propelled the “return…to a natural method.”37 And yet, the matter is not as simple as all that. In Brentano’s own account of the transition from the third to the fourth phase, it is the “natural longing after truth” that “forces its way through with a violence” and leads people to “invent entirely unnatural means of gaining knowledge.”38 Hence, the natural desire for knowledge is itself no  Ibid.  This characterization was reported by Lord Acton. Tonsor, “The Historical Morphology of Ernst Von Lasaulx,” 381. 35  Brentano, Franz, “The Four Phases of Philosophy”, in: Balázs M Mezei/Barry Smith (Eds.) (1998), Atlanta: Rodopi, 31–2. 36  Werle, Josef M. (1989), Franz Brentano und die Zukunft der Philosophie: Studien zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte und Wissenschaftssystematik im 19. Jahrhundert, Rodopi, 54. 37  [theol GL 2]. Brentano, “The Four Phases of Philosophy and Its Current State,” 97. 38  Ibid., 86. 33 34

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guarantee that one will pursue a healthy method, and just how philosophy finally recovered from its errant pathways to a healthy mode of philosophy, remains unclear. In his Comte essay, Brentano observed merely how “[i]n our days it is reserved to us to return to a scientific treatment of philosophy. The demand for it has made itself heard, and one has already begun here and there to make a good start, partly by reconnecting with the highpoints of the past, partly by using the progress of the natural sciences.”39 And in his Vier Phasen, he simply affirmed that “[t]he conviction that the most recent systems have no value whatsoever, leads quite naturally to attempts to return to older thinkers, and to find a more fruitful starting point in their works, of just the sort which in the Middle Ages was found in Aristotle.”40 One might, of course, attribute the return to an ascending phase to the rise of the natural sciences, which certainly was a factor in Brentano’s day, but he doesn’t say this in any uncertain terms, nor does he stress this factor in his account of other epochs. Indeed, as Mezei and Smith points out, Brentano was “forced to admit that the history of philosophy…resembles the development of the arts rather than the sciences.”41 No, what seems to stand out here, above all, is Brentano’s stress on a need to return to the past. Whatever else it might involve—and I am not for a moment excluding the many possible concomitant factors—a return to the ascendant phase involved re-reading forgotten texts, and learning from a specific set of predecessors who served as exemplars. As Brentano concluded in his Vier Phasen, “[l]et us seek to join up with the achievements of the first ascending phase of development. What we find there is real groundwork as well as that same sound, healthy method which will make it possible for us to continue successfully the work of our ancestors.”42 What is worth considering then is how Brentano’s own vision of philosophy as an inductive, empirical approach, whose method was “none other” than that of the natural sciences was contingent, or so it seems, on a return to the past; a return underwritten, or so it seems, by a distinct vision of how the historical wheel turned, and re-turned. In order for this re-immersion in past texts to bear fruit, after all, one had to overcome the distinct historicist tendency of the nineteenth-­century to encapsulate the past in its own distinct time and place, a tendency that drove a sharp wedge between past and present, and that was the source of Brentano’s youthful despair at the possibility of philosophy. Did his encounter with Lasaulx’s unique philosophy of history help him imagine ways to overcome this wedge? Did it enliven his sense for the possibility of alternatives to historicism, which, consisted in treating the unique ineffable development of each individual person, thing or event as locked in time?43 I propose that it did, for it seems to me otherwise inexplicable just how Brentano could so firmly recommend the re-reading of past texts as something

 Brentano, “Auguste Comte und die positive Philosophie,” 37.  Brentano, “The Four Phases of Philosophy and Its Current State,” 102. 41  Franz Brentano, The Four Phases of Philosophy, eds. Balázs M Mezei and Barry Smith (Atlanta: Rodopi, 1998), 9. 42  Brentano, “The Four Phases of Philosophy and Its Current State.”, 105. 43  Meinecke, Friedrich (1936), Die Entstehung des Historismus, R. Oldenbourg. 39 40

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akin to an introductory primer in the proper philosophical method. To my way of thinking, at least, this hinged on a firm conviction that doing so was part of the natural course of things, of the fabric of history conceived of in terms of recurring patterns. And yet, this alone does not solve the problem of what specifically motivates the return to healthy philosophizing. It just raises the question of when—and why—the desire to re-learn from past masters appears at one time and not another. Here again, it seems we might benefit from considering how Lasaulx may have exerted a significant influence on Brentano, especially with regard to the role of religion in society. Brentano was convinced that philosophy declined in regular ways according to what he termed “simple considerations in cultural psychology,” to wit: a desire to find practical applications for philosophy, followed by skepticism, followed by a strong reaction to secure the truth by unnatural means.44 This pattern repeated itself in each of the major periods of history, and it set philosophy apart from those sciences that enjoyed slow, steady, and cumulative progress. That Brentano refers here to “cultural”-psychological factors signals just how he thought the phases were contingent on broader social, cultural and political circumstances and not on intra-­ philosophical forces alone. And when we look at the circumstances Brentano cites, it is clear that the decline of “popular religion” was the decisive factor that caused a broader dissolution of culture and tradition, and triggered the turn to the practical in philosophy, in both the ancient and modern periods.45 In the medieval period, the first stage of decline set in with the decision to make Thomas’s philosophy requisite for the Dominican order. This blunted its vitality by making it a practical tool for ensuring conformity, and encouraged a jealous reaction by Duns Scotus and the Franciscans who then challenged this hegemony by seeking to make philosophy even more practical. Though religion itself was not on the wane in the medieval period, Brentano considered these intra-ecclesiastical disputes as detrimental for promoting the faith in society.46 A concern for the social function of religion was something Brentano shared with Lasaulx, who considered religion to be the heart and soul of every civilization. For Lasaulx, when religion began to erode, it was always the beginning of the end for that particular civilization. As the “common point of departure and shared foundation for every new development in national life,” religion “accompanies the peoples through every stage of life,” and when it ceased to nourish the various things to

 Brentano, “The Four Phases of Philosophy and Its Current State,” 97.  Ibid. 46  In the Kirchengeschichte he points to the balkanization of the university into faculties and national groups as the factor that helped promote religious decline: “As much as the universities themselves offered hope for science, they soon showed their bad side as well. With the great coming together of students…there emerged the most abominable chaos, and not a few showed that scientific gain was bound up with an even greater loss for their religious and spiritual development.” Möhler, Kirchengeschichte, 545. 44 45

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which it had given birth, they begin to die.47 For both men, then, religious decline was a factor of decisive importance in the life of a society. Did Brentano thus also share with Lasaulx a sense that an ascendant phase of philosophy needed to be rooted in healthy social, cultural—and religious—circumstances? Lasaulx insisted that the decline of religion was simultaneously a positive as well as a negative development, for it served as the progenitive factor in the transition to a new civilization. Religions were, after all, the primary vehicle for passing along the essential starting points for the new civilization taking root. As he saw it, in the historical unfolding of peoples, religions always take root there when one culture goes under and another establishes itself on its ruins. Just as what a people possesses is only a small fraction of what they themselves have built, and the greater portion is inherited from their ancestors, so religions are a holy inheritance that is saved from the shipwreck of time, delivering the best of past generations, and serving as the point of departure for a new development of life.48

Did Brentano share Lasaulx’s notion that culture and religion rose and fell together? As a young man, Brentano was keen to pair his philosophical and decidedly Catholic aspirations, and was heralded by many as a rising star in the Catholic revival movement of the third quarter of the nineteenth-century. Was he inspired by Lasaulx to view this movement as a propitious context for promoting philosophical revival? To be sure, this would have involved transposing Lasaulx’s vision of the transition between civilizations into a different context, but might the general idea have served him as an impetus? Could the early Brentano have taken what he learned from Lasaulx as grist for imagining the positive civilizational implications of religious (and more specifically Catholic) revival? What about when Brentano lost his faith, and left the priesthood and then the Church? Surely, if the theory of the four phases rested on this kind of supposition about the power of religion, it would have prompted Brentano to radically revise it or jettison it altogether. Perhaps, but the case I am trying to make is not about the specific role of Catholic belief in how he conceived of the four phases. My claim is that the theory was shaped by distinct ideas about the twists and turns of history that he may (or may not) have learned from Lasaulx. In this context, what is more important than anything specifically Catholic they had in common was their shared sense for the social and historical function of religion as such. Whether that insight was a function of their experience in the Catholic revival movement at that time, I cannot say.49 What I can say, however, is that, whatever his later views on Catholicism and the Church, Brentano maintained a keen appreciation for the social power of  Lasaulx, Neuer Versuch, 100. Lasaulx makes the same point in: Lasaulx, Der Untergang des Hellenismus. 48  Ibid., 99. 49  Catholic intellectual life in Germany was especially fecund in the mid-nineteenth-century, giving rise to numerous and varied efforts to chart a course between the Scylla of modernity and the Charybdis of fidelity to Church authority. Lasaulx himself, though he remained a Catholic until the end of his life, had four of his books placed on the Index posthumously. For more on German Catholic intellectual history, see my: Richard Schaefer, Richard (2007), “Program for a New 47

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religion.50 Even after he had left the Church, there is evidence that the four phases theory was perhaps still being nourished by a vision of the social fortunes of religion. I am referring here to the concluding paragraphs of his Vier Phasen lecture where Brentano offered a cursory summary of his evolving ideas about the onset of a new Christianity. By the time of its writing, in 1895, Brentano had moved considerably beyond his earlier Catholic faith, of course. Nevertheless, he remained convinced of the continuing providential power of God and of the salutary moral example of Christ. And like Lasaulx, he saw the transition away from Christian culture as a process that would preserve the best in it. According to Brentano: The religion of our people, with its doctrine of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent Father of all, is essentially optimistic. Only under the banner of optimism was it able to win for itself the world, or rather, that part of humanity which has become the bearer of world-­ history. Admittedly, there are signs that this victory might not be a permanent one. However, even if this greatest of all cultural phenomena should disappear, still this would not happen in such a way that its place would be left simply vacant; still less could it be replaced with a pessimistic world-view. Whatever replaces it, whatever achieves an enduring victory over it, must be explicitly optimistic, and must be in a position to give a better account of the world than that which was given by Christianity with its doctrine of original sin and redemption by the Savior. This revolution will be a similar one to that which gave rise to the Christian epoch, when the existing ritual law, which had hitherto been considered the essence of religion, fell. And behold: the real essence was preserved intact and emerged in a purified and clarified form. In this way, too, much may fall away again which is at the moment regarded as essential.51

In a vision of history strikingly like Lasaulx’s, Brentano here outlines a world-­ historical process in which the best of religion is preserved and forms the core of a whole new civilization. This has typically been seen as an argument about the dissolution of religion and the transfer of its functions to philosophy, but what strikes me as especially important in this context is how the transition is envisioned in a manner resembling the “rise of the Christian epoch.” Like Lasaulx, this was a case for optimism, not pessimism. From the perspective of world history, the transition might just be one more sign of God’s providence. In the absence of more concrete evidence, it is impossible to say for sure just how Lasaulx might have influenced Brentano’s thinking, and so I offer what I think is an account that is strongly suggestive, but certainly not strong. In 1856–57, Brentano was 18–19 years old. By all accounts, he was very intelligent and gifted in a wide variety of areas. But he was young, and perhaps maybe just a little bit impressionable, more open perhaps than at any other time to having someone like Lasaulx make a big impression by discussing big ideas about the course of ‘H’istory. Coinciding as it did with Brentano’s initial articulation of the four phases theory, did this impression help Brentano forge the theory and then outlive its usefulness and so fade? Might Brentano have forgotten about Lasaulx, but retained some of his Catholic Wissenschaft: Devotional Activism and Catholic Modernity in the Nineteenth Century” in: Modern Intellectual History 4, 433–62. 50  Brentano, Franz Clemens (1954), Religion und Philosophie, Meiner Verlag. 51  Brentano, Franz, ‘Four Phases’, 111.

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lessons? In the end, of course, Brentano didn’t cite him because he wasn’t worth citing. Lasaulx was not a significant philosopher, and I don’t think Brentano ever thought of him as such. But was he a significant personality? Was he someone whose approach to history helped Brentano see himself in a certain historical light? Given the comparison of some of their ideas presented here, it seems to me that there is more than a little reason to think that Lasaulx left more than a passing impression on his former pupil.

Chapter 10

Franz Brentano and the Lvov-Warsaw School Anna Brożek

One of Brentano’s students was Kazimierz Twardowski. Thanks to him, Brentano’s views gained extensive influence in Polish philosophy of the beginning of the 20th century, much more extensive than in the philosophy of other countries. Władysław Tatarkiewicz [1950].

Abstract  The Polish branch of analytic philosophy, the Lvov-Warsaw School, was initiated by Kazimierz Twardowski, a student of Franz Brentano. Twardowski’s aim was to vaccinate Brentano’s spirit into Polish philosophy. He succeeded and Brentano’s impact on Polish philosophy was deep and versatile. Moreover, for few decades, Brentano’s ideas were much more popular among members of the Lvov-­ Warsaw School than in other centers of analytic philosophy. The paper provides an overview of Brentano’s direct and indirect impact on representatives of the Lvov-­ Warsaw School. Various spheres of influence, including the conception of philosophy, logic, methodology, ontology, and ethics as well as teaching philosophy are taken into considerations. This overview is preceded by some distinctions on the concept of influence. Keywords  Franz Brentano · Kazimierz Twardowski · Lvov-Warsaw School · Analytic philosophy · Influence

This paper is a part of the project number 2015/18/E/HS1/00478 financed by the National Science Center, Poland. A. Brożek (*) Instytut Filozofii UW, Warsaw International Studies in Philosophy, Warszawa, Poland © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano and Austrian Philosophy, Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40947-0_10

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10.1  Introduction Roman Ingarden, a student of one of the most famous of Franz Brentano’s students, Edmund Husserl, wrote: [Kazimierz Twardowski] caused many of Brentano’s theses to become something like go-to ideas in Poland, sometimes even hackneyed. Brentano’s views were very often repeated in Poland, and one became so used to these theses that the author’s stamp was eventually erased from them. With the flow of the time, they gradually became a useless opinio communis.1

Izydora Dąmbska, a favourite of Twardowski’s students and his last academic assistant answered: In one of his studies in the history of contemporary philosophy, Ingarden wrote that in Poland the popularity of Brentano’s philosophy was so great that many of his theses became something like opinio communis, but that Brentano’s output is known only partially and Brentano is treated first of all as psychologist. […] The second claim is not true but the first claim, emphasizing the role of Brentano in Polish philosophical thought, is fully justified.2

Ingarden’s words are followed by his detailed study of some elements of Brentano’s psychology which were to show the “true face” of Brentano’s views. However, even if Ingarden was right that Polish philosophers did not know some details of Brentano’s philosophy, the fact is that Brentano was pervasive in Polish philosophical thought, probably much more than in any other country.3 Dąmbska confirms it fully. The present paper contributes to the study of the Brentanian tradition in Poland by providing an overview of Brentanian resonance in philosophers of the Lvov-­ Warsaw School through the prism of some methodological analyses of various forms of influence (of one philosopher on another). The structure of the paper is the following. I start with conceptual distinctions concerning the phenomenon of influence (§§ 2–5). That provides a useful conceptual tool to characterize Brentano’s influence on Polish thinkers. The area of Brentano’s influence on Polish philosophical thought, as well as personalities of his successors and followers in Poland, will be presented in the second and crucial part of the paper (§§ 6–11). Getting acquainted with the first part will certainly facilitate proper understanding of the second part, but it also has a certain intrinsic value.

 Ingarden 1936, p. 197.  Dąmbska 1979a, p. 1. 3  Among others, Tatarkiewicz draws attention to this fact in his well-known History of Philosophy (Tatarkiewicz 1950a, p. 163). 1 2

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10.2  Contact Between Philosophers Some analyses of the phenomenon of influence are necessary, given that even philosophers accepting the postulate of accuracy use very loose language when they speak of influences. As an example, one may take the following Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz passage: Scholasticism was the point of departure of Brentano, one of philosophers that influenced contemporary philosophy to the greatest degree. […] The Aristotelian-scholastic spirit left a permanent stamp on Brentano’s philosophy and mostly through him the elements of this spirit penetrated into […] contemporary philosophy.4

By stating that something “left a permanent stamp” on somebody’s philosophy or that “this spirit” of somebody’s philosophy “penetrated” something, Ajdukiewicz speaks metaphorically. Such statements can and must be expressed more clearly. Let us assume that A and B are philosophers. In order for the influence of A on B to occur, A and B have to have contact with each other. Not every contact results in influence but a contact is at least a necessary condition of influence. Philosopher B may have contact with philosopher A in many ways. Let us consider a situation in which philosopher B is a student of philosopher A. In such a situation, B not only reads A’s papers but also puts questions to A, presents his own results to A, is examined by A, prepares theses under A’s supervision etc. Let us call this kind of contact of philosophers – “an active contact of philosopher B with philosopher A”. The relation teacher-student may be active to a different degree. The most intensive example of active relation is being apprenticed to the (scientific) mentor. Such a process starts from realization of simple exercises assigned by the mentor, then achieving more and more complicated tasks and becoming gradually more and more independent. An active contact of philosophers should be distinguished from a passive one. Philosopher B passively has contact with philosopher A when B gets to know the works of A but B enters into no active relations with A. Active and passive relations between philosophers may be also called, respectively: “having contact with philosopher A” vs “having contact with A’s philosophy” Let us now distinguish oral contact from written contact. Oral contact consists in oral conversation of philosophers (active oral contact) or just listening to live or recorded lectures (passive oral contact). Written contact consists in exchanging written messages (for instance, correspondence) and passive written contact is just getting to know the philosopher’s output.

 Ajdukiewicz 1937, p. 252.

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10.3  Direct Influence Let us repeat, once again, that the contact of one philosopher with another is only a necessary condition of the influence of one philosopher on another (or mutual influence). An influence of philosopher A on philosopher B takes place only if the contact of A with B results in some actions or convictions of B. For instance, as a result of contact with philosopher A, philosopher B starts to accept a certain thesis, takes a certain problem into account or applies a certain research method. The influence of A on B may take place on different levels, including that of personal life. In what follows, I will limit myself to the substantive influence which I call shortly “resonance”.5 What may the substantial influence of A on B consists in? In the sphere of the teaching of any philosopher, one may distinguish: –– “the spirit” of teaching (I leave aside the question of the operationalization of this concept); –– didactic methods; –– contents of teaching. In the beliefs of philosopher A, one should distinguish: –– –– –– ––

the conceptual scheme and terminology which A uses; questions that A poses (problems); ways of how A answers these questions (and justifies them) – namely methods; answers given by A – namely theses and systems of theses which are accepted by A.

Shortly speaking, A’s influence on other philosophers may concern at least terminology, problems, methods or theses. The question of influence becomes even more complicated when we realize that it may consist in the approval, non-approval or even disapproval of elements of somebody’s thought. Approval takes place when B accepts A’s concepts/terminology, problems, methods or theses. Non-approval occurs when B modifies A’s concepts/terminology, problems, methods or theses. Finally, disapproval occurs when B rejects A’s concepts/terminology, problems, methods or theses. If B’s reception of A’s philosophy is favourable, then we say that B is an adherent, follower or epigone of A. If B’s reception of A’s philosophy is not favourable (and consists in modification or disapproval), then B is called “a critic” of A. Let us add that B may be more or less aware of A’s influence on him. Sometimes B follows A consciously: repeats, develops or criticizes elements of A’s philosophy knowing exactly whose philosophy it is. However, it may happen that B discusses A’s theses or problems not being aware whose theses or problems they are.

5  Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between these two spheres: the substantial and the personal. For instance, it happens that someone’s contact with a mentor motivates important decisions concerning professional life. In this sense, Jan Łukasiewicz’s contact with Twardowski motivated the former to resign from law studies and to take up philosophical studies.

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Finally, influence seems to be gradable. The more the concepts/terminology, problems, methods and theses of A are accepted by B, the bigger A’s positive influence on B is. The more A’s concepts/terminology, problems, methods and theses are modified or rejected by B, the more A’s negative influence on B is.

10.4  Indirect Influence Assume that philosopher A was a teacher of philosopher B and that philosopher B was a teacher of philosopher C. In such a situation, it is sometimes said that C is A’s “philosophical grandson”.6 I would prefer to say in such a situation that B is a direct and C is an indirect successor of A. In this sense, Aristotle, as a student of Plato, was an indirect successor of Socrates, and Twardowski’s students were indirect successors of Brentano. Let us assume that philosopher A influenced philosopher B (in such a way that B adopted (or accepted) thesis T (or a concept/term, a problem or a method) of A. Let us assume, further, that B influenced C in such a way that C adopted the thesis T (or a concept/term, a problem or a method) from B. In such a way, A influenced C indirectly, through the philosopher B. It is worth noting that the thesis T may be presented by B as A’s thesis or as B’s thesis. In the second case, C may not even be aware of the existence of A’s influence. Not every successor of a given philosopher was influenced by that philosopher but of course, succession is a favourable condition of influence. On the margin let us note that the existence of direct and indirect succession as well as direct and indirect influences in a given group of philosophers is a necessary condition of calling such a group “a (philosophical) school”. One may formulate this condition as follows: If philosopher B belongs to the school of philosopher A, then B is a direct or indirect successor of A and B is under the direct or indirect influence of A.7 The above partial characteristics of the components of a philosophical school do not give any sufficient condition of belonging to such a school. For instance, it does not answer the question of whether the influence inside the school has to be positive or may be also negative. It seems that in some philosophical schools – and Brentano’s school is a good example – many members modified and developed the initial ideas and results of the founder.

 Cf. the following phrase of Arianna Betti: “If the Lvov-Warsaw School has a grandfather, it is Brentano” (Betti 2006, p. 56). Jan Woleński uses a similar phrase: “Łukasiewicz and Leśniewski, Tarski’s main teachers, studied with Twardowski; began their work as philosophers and can arguably be regarded as Brentano’s grandsons at least in their early academic careers” (Woleński 2006, p. 223). 7  The similar concept of school, in the context of Brentano, is accepted by Luigi Dappiano. However, he limits himself to direct relationships: “I shall use the expression ‘Brentanian School’ in a restricted sense where it only comprises Brentano and those with whom he had a direct theoretical and personal relationship which is historically ascertainable” (Dappiano 1996, p. 378). 6

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10.5  Identification of Influence Looking at distinctions made in the previous paragraphs, on may easily notice that the concept of influence is quite complicated: there are many genres and kinds of influence. The same is true for manifestations of influence and that brings us to the following problem: How can we know that one philosopher influenced another? The question is not too easy to answer.8 In order to identify succession in the domain of philosophers, it is necessary to know the appropriate facts about their lives. From biographies of philosophers, we ascertain whether there was any contact between philosophers and what kind of contact it was (active or passive, oral or written etc). In the case of passive relations and various kinds of influence, there are more possible resources. One may learn about A’s influence on B, on the basis of: (a) B’s declaration (i.e., B’s stating that B was influenced by A); (b) quotations of A’s works (or other references to A) in B’s works; (c) the occurrence of concepts/terms/problems/methods/theses used by A (or their modifications etc.) in B’s works. Let us strongly emphasize that conditions (a), (b) and (c) are only favourable conditions of the influence: they are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions of it. Let us consider condition (a). Is the declaration of B sufficient to assume that the influence occurred? It seems that it is not. Firstly, the philosopher B may be not be sincere in such a declaration. For instance, B may declare to be under the influence of A because A is a fashionable or popular philosopher or because it is demanded from B to be under the influence of A.9 Secondly, the philosopher B may be mistaken in his claim that he is influenced by A. In order to be influenced by a given philosopher (in a positive of negative way), one has to at least understand the content of A’s work. And it often happens that the influence is only apparent due to a lack of understanding. On the other hand, the lack of declaration of B about the influence of A is not a testimony of a real lack of influence. Firstly, B may be not aware of the existence of A’s influence. Secondly, B may not want to confess (also to himself) that s/he is under the influence of somebody. Look at condition (b). Quotations may be but are not necessarily testimony of the existence of influence. Expressions of the form “see Smith 2015” often appear in the text not only because its author accepts Smith’s thesis but also when the quoting  A separate issue is the question of identifying a given philosopher. As we know, many philosophers have changed their views over time – sometimes into opposite positions – and when we say that they have influenced someone, we need to indicate which phase of their views we have in our minds. This is also the case with Brentano. His views have evolved to the point that some authors suggest distinguishing at least between “early” and “late” Brentano. Some also add a “middle” phase. In order to avoid misunderstandings, one should always be aware as to which Brentano phase he or she refers. 9  See the example of duty to quote Karl Marx in communist countries during the period of Stalinism. 8

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author had formulated similar theses or posed similar questions independently from Smith. We cite a given philosopher not only in order to refer to his views but also because we know that it is demanded from, for instance, the reviewers of our paper. Let us finally analyse condition (c). To an even greater degree, the sole presence of A’s theses (or their negations, or modifications) in the works of B is not a sufficient condition of A’s influence on B. It may happen that B reached the same theses as A independently, not having had contact with A. This sketched conceptual scheme is a proposal of how to make order in the area of the influence of one philosopher on another. In the next sections, I will characterize the contact between Brentano and Polish philosophers and the main areas of his influence.

10.6  Brentano’s Contact with Other Philosophers There are some specific features of Brentano’s personality which left and impression on other philosophers with whom he had contact. Let us start with personal contact. Brentano was a charismatic teacher that a had strong and multilayer impact on his students. He had to be extremely inspiring if his students took his ideas in so many interesting directions. We know that he met and discussed with his students not only at university within regular courses but also at private meetings at home. Brentano did not limit his active relations with students to oral contact. He corresponded very intensively with some of them (there are, for instance, hundreds of letters with Anton Marty), presenting them some new ideas and explaining some of his standpoint. Liliana Albertazzi et al. wrote: Brentano’s emphasis on oral teaching and the scantiness of his published work compared with the enormous quantity of his manuscripts and correspondence – are also of theoretical importance because they are rooted in Brentano’s method of “doing” philosophy.10

This statement certifies Brentano’s emphasis on active contact with other philosophers. It also emphasizes that passive contact with Brentano was stigmatized by the fact that Brentano did not publish a lot and the works he published during his lifetime are only a small part of his output in general.11 For many years, those who only read Brentano’s published works could know only a part of his philosophy. (The situation is different now, for a great part of Brentano’s manuscripts have now been published.) One of the puzzles around Brentano is that he did not like to talk about his school.12 However, the connections between Brentano and his students as well as his  Albertazzi et al. 1996, p. 5.  As I noted in (Brożek 2011, p. 17), the same concerns Twardowski. 12  “Brentano rejected the notion of a school of Brentanists and his relationships with pupils were often difficult” Albertazzi et al. 1996, p. 8. 10 11

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indirect successors are so strong that presently we have no doubts that the School of Franz Brentano existed. By the use of conceptual regulations proposed in §6, one may say that there were many direct and indirect successors of Brentano who accepted or developed his ideas.

10.7  Twardowski’s Case Ingarden, an indirect successor of Brentano asked: How did Brentano influence his students? By his character, his pedagogical talent or the originality of his thought, its unusual profundity and range? […] He undoubtedly influenced many outstanding thinkers who never ceased to admit they were affected by Brentano, despite the fact that they already had had their own, great output, and even though they were more original thinkers and had more profound intellectual impact.13

One of these highly original thinkers who never “stopped to admit” the impact of his Viennese mentor was Twardowski, often characterized as the last Viennese student of Brentano. Among Polish philosophers, Twardowski was the only one whose contact with Brentano was active, intensive and long-lasting. Twardowski met Brentano for the first time at the 5th semester of his studies at Vienna University. It was also the moment in Twardowski’s life when he really could devote himself to philosophy. (Earlier he had been enrolled in a law faculty and later had worked in Count Wojciech Dzieduszycki’s house in Jezupol). We know for sure that he attended Brentano’s classes in descriptive psychology in the 5th and 7th semester of his studies. He met many other great thinkers at that time but the impression Brentano made on him cannot be compared with anything else. This is how Twardowski wrote about it in his autobiography: My studies at the University of Vienna […] bore the mark of […] Brentano. The form and content of his lectures made the deepest impression on me. His personality kindled in me a feeling of the most sincere awe and veneration, and I listened to his lectures with the utmost attention. As one of his more intimate students, I was also able to visit him at home. The relationship between teacher and student gained in this fashion an especially personal character. […] Brentano became for me the model of a philosophical researcher who is relentless in his quest for knowledge of the truth, and of a teacher of philosophy in the spirit of antiquity who gathers students around him as younger friends. From him I learned how to strive relentlessly after matter-of-facts, and how to pursue a method of analysis and investigation that, insofar as it is possible, guarantees that matter of factness. He proved to me by example that the most difficult of problems can be clearly formulated, and the attempts at their solution no less clearly presented, provided one is clear within oneself. The emphasis he placed on sharp conceptual distinctions that did not lapse into fruitless nit-picking was an important guideline for my own writing.14

13 14

 Ingarden 1936, p. 198.  Twardowski 1926, p. 20.

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Since Brentano was a Privat-dozent that time, Twardowski could not prepare his PhD thesis under his supervision. The role of official supervisor was played by Robert Zimmerman but his thesis has some evident stamps of Brentano. It is even more visible in Twardowski’s habilitation book, namely On the Content and Object of Presentation (Twardowski 1894) which is now considered one of the most important books prepared in Brentano’s school.15 Brentano and Twardowski left Vienna the same year (1885). Brentano was disappointed after many years of holding the position of Privatdozent. Twardowski was full of hope, for his dreams had just come true: as a 29 year old docent he was given a chair of philosophy in Lvov – one of two universities where he could teach philosophy in Polish, his mother tongue. After 1895, Twardowski and Brentano contacted each other actively in written form; a part of their exchange of letters is available in the Twardowski Archives in Warsaw (there are 6 letters from Brentano to Twardowski, the first from Vienna, 1890, and the last from Florence, 1908). Of course, Twardowski knew, studied and referred to all of Brentano’s published works (including those published after Brentano’s death). All of Twardowski’s students may be called (making use of distinctions presented in the first part of the paper) – “indirect successors of Brentano”. What were the features of indirect contact of Polish philosophers with Brentano? Were they aware of Brentano’s heritage? Let me start answering this question with another quotation from Twardowski’s aforementioned autobiography: I felt a calling to disseminate among my countrymen the style of philosophizing that I had learned from Brentano, and in particular to initiate the academic youth into the spirit and method of his philosophy. […] The University of Lvov became at the same time the source of a definite movement of philosophical thought in Poland, and I can declare with true satisfaction that ever since then it has become customary to speak in this sense of the Lvov School of Polish philosophy.16

Twardowski’s project was large-scale and perfectly realized. The “spirit and method” of Brentano’s philosophy became something typical for the Polish philosophical school established by Twardowski and called today “the Lvov-Warsaw School”. Twardowski not only taught “in the spirit” of Brentano, but he also, from the very beginning of his career in Lvov, presented to his students elements of Brentano’s views. Twardowski taught about Brentano during his first lectures in Lvov, namely in the academic year 1895–1896. He enriched the programme of lectures in logic presented in Vienna 1  year earlier with elements of Brentano’s logic. The  Twardowski confessed that Brentano advised him to analyze another problem in his habilitation thesis: the question of classification of sciences by Aristotle. As Woleński (2006) suggests, it could be one of the possible reasons of the cooling relations between the philosophers. However, Twardowski was interested in the problem of classification of sciences. For instance, cf. his article (Twardowski 1923). 16  Twardowski 1926, p. 26. 15

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significance of Brentano’s ideas in the content of Twardowski’s teaching has not decreased in time. Dąmbska, one of Twardowski’s youngest students, wrote that in the last years of his pedagogical activity Twardowski also “analysed Brentano’s views in his papers and presented them to his students.”17 Before getting into some details of Brentano’s influence on Polish philosophers, let me mention one more fact. It is interesting to note that despite the fact that Twardowski and his students prepared many translations of classic philosophical papers, none of Brentano’s books was translated into Polish by them. The first Polish translations of Brentano were published in the end of the twentieth century18 and were an important impetus of recent interest in Brentano’s thought in Poland.

10.8  Direct and Indirect Successors of Brentano in Poland In the part of the autobiography quoted above, Twardowski stressed that Brentano became a double paragon for him: a paragon of “philosophical researcher” as well as a paragon of “a teacher of philosophy”. Let us first focus at the latter: let us look more closely at successor-relations in the Polish branch of Brentano’s school, namely at teacher-student relations among Polish philosophers. Brentano emphasized that his task was to teach his students to think critically, in a scientific way; he wanted his students to get rid of superstitions and seek the truth without accepting any axiom in advance.19 However, it is also known that Brentano did not like when his students disagreed with him and criticized his standpoint. He did not discuss his controversies with his students, and when they tried to attack his standpoint, he reacted very defensively. Twardowski followed his teacher in his own teaching activity, trying to show his students how to think independently and clearly. He was nevertheless much more tolerant towards those with different standpoints. He wrote: I have always considered independence of thinking, as well as an appropriate method and a pure love for the truth, the most reliable guarantee of successful scientific work. […] Since, most of all, I intend to show the students devoting themselves to philosophy the right way, simultaneously allowing them to find their own way even when it is totally inconsistent with my vision.20

 Dąmbska 1979b, p. 19.  Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis was translated only in 1989, and Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt – only in 1999. Cf. (Brentano 1889) and (Brentano 1874) respectively. It is so important that in the second half of the twentieth century, German is not such a commonly known language in Poland as it was before World War II. 19  Comp.: “The distinguishing feature of his philosophy was its empirical bias, its insistence on rigorous and partial answers rather than on the construction of a system by self-definition, coherent and self-sufficient” (Albertazzi et al. 1996, p. 5). Brentano instilled in his pupils the conviction that philosophy should be rigorous, scientific, exact and clear (Albertazzi et al. 1996, p. 9). 20  Twardowski 1926, p. 30. 17 18

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This self-characteristic is fully confirmed by his students who stressed that Twardowski never imposed any particular views on them. He only took care of strict formulation of theses, detailed analysis of problems and sufficient justification of the results. Tadeusz Kotarbiński wrote: He propagated neither materialism, nor spiritualism, nor determinism, nor indeterminism, nor any metaphysics. He gave conceptual and methodological tools to his students, and each of them had to build a shelter independently.21

Twardowski’s students, just like Brentano’s, were not linked by any specific metaphysical ideas and especially not by worldviews. There were dualists and ontological monists; absolutists and axiological relativists; followers and opponents of multivalued logic; conservatives and socialists; priests and atheists. It seems that Twardowski not only adopted Brentano’s ideal of a philosophy teacher but also realized it to a greater degree than his Austrian mentor. That is why Twardowski became one of the most influential teachers in the first half of the twentieth century philosophy). This is how Twardowski’s direct students presented Twardowski’s didactic attitude: The principal commandments [of solid scientific work] can be summarized as follows: think in a way that makes you realize exactly what you are thinking about; talk in a way that not only makes you know what you are talking about but also makes you certain that the one you are talking to will be thinking the same thing while carefully listening to you; whatever your statement is, state it as firmly as the logical power of your arguments allows you. […] The teaching work of Twardowski consisted in freeing oneself from cloudiness in order to see through the clear stream whether the nub of the matter constitutes the depths or the shallows, in triggering the need for clear thinking and repulsion towards a cliché, posing as the depths, in students.22 [The] requirement of clarity […] can be applied not only to written or printed texts but also to oral statements. Thus […]: help each other to philosophize by having enlightening discussions and by forcing each other to make oneself clear with the mutual requirement of unequivocal statements.23

Didactics became Twardowski’s main professional activity. By devoting himself to teaching, he consciously resigned from his own brilliant carrier. He confessed that it was enough to know that his ideas lived on in his student’s minds. Twardowski’s rigidness, dutifulness and observance of all rules became legendary. However, Twardowski was also just, fully devoted to his work and always a good example of what he demanded from others. In short, Twardowski’s didactics were characterized by hard-line discipline, strictness in expressing thoughts and the highest requirements (from his students and from himself). After World War I, Twardowski’s School spread to other Polish philosophical centres; first of all, the Warsaw branch joined the Lvov wing. This happened because the chairs of the departments of philosophy and logic in Warsaw were mostly filled  Kotarbiński 1959, p. 4.  Ajdukiewicz 1959, pp. 31–32. 23  Kotarbiński 1959, p. 4. 21 22

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by the first generation of Twardowski’s students. Thus, the Lvov-Warsaw School was established. The attitudes instilled in the students – and handed down to subsequent generations by them – turned out to be Twardowski’s most durable result. Let us quote Ajdukiewicz again: The seed he sowed in the souls of his followers, who conveyed it further, endured. Strict observance of principal rules of solid scientific work in philosophy and in any other science is a quality of Twardowski’s students and the students of his students.24

Among the direct successors of Twardowski and indirect successors of Brentano, there were many significant teachers, touched by the spirit of both philosophers. Not all of Twardowski’s talented students were talented teachers. In order to be a good teacher, not only talent but also inner vocation is needed. Let me mention three talented teachers in the first generation of the Lvov-Warsaw School. The first is Kotarbiński. His talent to infect other people with philosophical passions was similar to that of Twardowski. The circle of his Warsaw students is sometimes called the “school of Elements” (from the title of Kotarbiński’s main textbook).25 Kotarbiński wrote about another great teacher, Ajdukiewicz, that “he was a master of subtle and deep criticism and thanks to this criticism and thanks to excellent advice was very helpful for students.”26 Ajdukiewicz used to say about himself that for all his life, he tried to write a good logic textbook. His posthumously published Pragmatic logic27 is a great inspiration for (not only) Polish logicians and logic teachers. A female philosopher with unusual didactic dispositions and with great didactic passion was Dąmbska. The tragic element of her life was that she was twice denied the possibility to teach at university because of political reasons. Paraphrasing the words of Dąmbska on Twardowski, Jerzy Perzanowski, one of Dąmbska’s students, wrote about her: Her great heart, full of deep emotion, from which we all drew, made Dąmbska a hunter of souls similar to Socrates. This heart created inseparable relations between the student and the master and between one student and another; a relation of friendship. And this is the reason to call Dąmbska a master of our times.28

 Ajdukiewicz 1959, p. 35.  Kotarbiński 1929. 26  Kotarbiński 1970, p. 40. 27  Ajdukiewicz 1974. 28  Perzanowski 2009, p. 22. 24 25

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10.9  B  rentano’s Followers and Critics in the Lvov-Warsaw School Now, we are turning from the area of teaching to the area of transition of ideas. The direct and indirect influence of Brentano on Polish philosophers may only be sketched here. Particular cases require separate detailed analyses. Outlining these Brentano-Polish connections, I refer to and continue the studies of other researchers in this area.29 What makes it difficult to follow this transition of ideas is the fact that, not counting texts devoted separately to Brentano or some aspect of his thought, Brentano did not have a high “impact factor” in Poland, as we would call it today. Namely, his works were rather rarely quoted in works of the representatives of the Lvov-Warsaw School.30 Fortunately, Brentano’s influence may be identified by taking into account, instead of Brentano’s name, the presence of his conceptual apparatus, the problems he raised and the results he achieved. And this presence – let us repeat – may consist not only in acceptance but also development or refutation (see general remarks on this topic – above). Not all of Brentano’s views were accepted in the LWS and the accepted theses that found acceptance were often approved only partially. Dąmbska noted:

29  Among others: (Dąmbska 1979a, b; Ingarden 1936; Łukasiewicz 2006, 2017; Rojszczak 2005; van der Schaar 2015) and Woleński (1989, 2017). I also take as the point of departure my characteristics of Brentanism and its realization in Twardowski’s philosophy, presented in Brożek (2011). Recently, Betti prepared and very suggestively commented on a list of four agreements in the “Brentano-Twardowski’s doctrine” (as she called it after Jerzy Giedymin). These four components are: (1) descriptive psychology as the foundation for the whole of philosophy; (2) the method of descriptive analysis as a main philosophical method; (3) descriptive psychology as a core of the whole of psychology (experimental psychology being only a supplement for descriptive); (4) emotional experience as a cognitive basis of ethics (Betti 2017, pp. 335–336). 30  However, a certain note in Ruch Filozoficzny, the main Polish philosophical journal in the first half of the twentieth century, is a good certificate of the interest of Polish philosophers in Brentano’s thought. The editorial board answered the readers who had asked what the correct declination of the name “Brentano” is in Polish; in particular, whether the genitive form of “Brentano” is “Brentana” or “Brentany”. The author of the answer (probably Twardowski) referred to the following rule: Polish names ending in “o” (for instance “Fredro”) end in genitive with “y” (for instance, “Fredry”) whereas foreign names ended in “o” (for instance “Tasso”) end in genitive with “a” (for instance “Tassa”). However, “the border between Polish and non-Polish names is not clear, since the former category contains not only names that are Polish in etymological or national sense but also names connected with Poland (Twardowski 1930–1931, p. 271a). Thus, some scholars use the form “Brentany” “either because it is a philosopher close to the Lvov School [sic!] or because of the tendency for unification”. The authors suggest that the name “Brentano” can also be not declined at all (Twardowski 1930–1931). Nota bene. This instability in declination of the name “Brentano” in the Polish language may be observed to the present day. The dictionaries list the form “Brentana” however some researchers of Brentano’s tradition continue to use the form “Brentany”.

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In his lectures in various domains of philosophy, not only in psychology, but especially in logic, epistemology and ethics, Twardowski referred to Brentano’s views, developed them and polemicized them. In many cases […] he held a different position than his teacher.31

It is not surprising that Twardowski’s students followed in his footsteps. Practically all of Brentano’s main ideas were minutely analysed and often carefully and deeply criticized. Sometimes this led to optimization and sometimes to complete refutation. Brentano’s views  – in Twardowski’s interpretation  – were a solid basis for original ideas developed by representatives of the LWS.32 Let’s first put things in general. Twardowski inherited from Brentano the conception of methods of performing philosophy, the research problems and some particular solutions. He was Brentano’s follower, first of all, in the methodological postulates. He accepted fully the postulate of scientific philosophy. He cared about precision and clarity of philosophical style. He also accepted the thesis of the basic role of psychology in philosophy. However, he modified this thesis stressing that there are two basic philosophical disciplines: psychology and logic. Twardowski’s focus on logic bore fruits in the appearance of the Warsaw School of Logic. How did it look in detail?

10.9.1  Conception of Philosophy: Various Interpretations For Twardowski, just like for Brentano, philosophy is based on analysis of objects given in inner experience, analysis of the data of consciousness. Generally, Twardowski did not withdraw from this methodological psychologism despite the fact that he refuted metaphysical psychologism (namely the belief that some objects such as values, the content of judgments, etc. are mental). Recently, this joint programme of Brentano and Twardowski was very accurately portrayed by Maria van der Schaar as a task of building “a universal philosophical grammar in Leibniz’s sense, whose elements are obtained by combination of psychological, linguistic and logical analysis.”33 Ingarden noted that at least two points of Brentano’s methodological programme, already contained in his habitation thesis prepared in 1866 entitled Über die Zukunft der Philosophie34 were adopted by Twardowski. Firstly, philosophy has to be a science. Moreover, it has to be a strict science.35 Secondly, philosophy has to be  Dąmbska 1979a, p. 2.  Brentano’s interpretation of traditional logic was presented by Twardowski in his lectures “On Brentano’s theory of reasoning” and “On attempts to reform traditional logic”. There is no doubt that Twardowski’s lectures inspired Łukasiewicz, Leśniewski and Czeżpwski (Cf. Dąmbska 1979a, p. 5). 33  van der Schaar 2015, p. 161. 34  Brentano 1929. 35  Ingarden 1936, p. 200. 31 32

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separated from theology.36 The latter was even strengthened by Twardowski – and also by Brentano in the “Foreword” to Psychologie37 – by the condition that philosophy should be separated from any worldview which may not be framed as a theory. The idea of scientific philosophy was developed by indirect Polish successors of Brentano. The tradition of treating philosophy as a strict science was well-­established in the Polish tradition (Jagiellonian University, eighteenth century enlightenment, Warsaw positivism etc.), but Brentano-Twardowski’s interpretation and realization of this ideal became especially fruitful and efficient. Among Twardowski’s students, the vision of scientific philosophy soon received two interpretations. The first, more traditional interpretation, took natural language as the point of departure. This path of the development of Brentano’s idea was represented by Władysław Witwicki, one of Twardowski’s first students, as well as that of Bronisław Bandrowski, Mieczysław Kreutz, Dąmbska and others. The second interpretation consisted in the replacement of natural language with the artificial language of mathematical logic. The turning point here was Łukasiewicz’s program of logicism.38 Łukasiewicz, just like Brentano and Twardowski, was a declared supporter of scientific philosophy and just like Brentano  – he highly esteemed Aristotle.39 Łukasiewicz considered logicism a radical version of another Brentano postulate: the postulate of returning to Aristotle. He wrote to Twardowski in 1904: I start to believe that the right direction of philosophy lays in what Brentano had started with and only could not distinguish this factor from contemporary philosophical movements. It seems to me that the true philosophy lays in the direction of Aristotle and scholastics. […] It is not surprising that Brentano was a Dominican and wrote monographs on Aristotle.40

Łukasiewicz’s programme was adopted and realized by other Polish logicians: Zygmunt Zawirski, Stanisław Leśniewski, Alfred Tarski, Jan Salamucha etc. Kotarbiński, Tadeusz Czeżowski, Ajdukiewicz and many other prominent representative of the Lvov-Warsaw School successfully balanced between these two paths: psychological and logical. Their position, which was a characteristic feature of the philosophy of the Lvov-Warsaw School, was called by Ajdukiewicz “anti-irrationalism”.

 Ingarden 1936, p. 201.  Brentano 1874. 38  Janina Kotarbińska wrote a penetrating paper about these two interpretations. Cf. (Kotarbińska 1964). 39  Dąmbska 1979a, p. 7. 40  Łukasiewicz 1998, pp. 469–470. 36 37

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10.9.2  Analytic Method Brentano is considered one of the founders of the modern analytic movement. Twardowski took the style of analysis from him and successfully applied the method of analysis of concepts in every domain of philosophy. As performed by Twardowski, the analysis became more linguistically oriented, since his point of departure was often a linguistic problem. This became a standard for his students. Twardowski’s application of the analytic method was not accompanied by systematic study of the method itself. Such a study was provided by Czeżowski in his series of articles on Brentano-like analysis. According to Czeżowski, such analysis is a universal method of providing a conceptual scheme for any discipline,41 since in any discipline, description should precede any kind of explanation or experiments. As a founder of this kind of analysis, he mentions Galileo Galilei and just Brentano. Czeżowski presented the general idea of research prosecuted under Brentano’s banner as follows: This research provides assumptions of the definitional character and construct abstract models of mental phenomena, representations, judgments, feelings, desires and the relations between them. These models are then verified on concrete empirical material.42

He called this method which he considered to be crucial for Brentano and his school an “analytic description”. He characterized it in a series of his writings as a procedure composed of many elements of different characters: empirical, intuitive and inferential. He strongly emphasized the difference between analytic description and induction and compared the former to the hypothetico-deductive method applied after Galileo in all empirical sciences: Descriptive psychology applies the method of analytic description. […] [The general theses that it formulates] are not inductive generalizations. Sometimes one sees an act of intuition here like that which Aristotle had in mind when he distinguished between catching what is common by induction and, based on this approach but a different act of catching, what is general. This intuition is, however, only a heuristic way of achieving theses; it does not justify the result and does not guarantee its truthfulness. […] Psychic phenomena which one talks about in descriptive psychology are (correctly and incorrectly) created abstracts from experiences given in introspection, not these experiences themselves. The slipped contact with experience is newly established in another way, by interpretation in the domain of experience definitional statements and their consequences in order to decide whether it is a semantic model of these statements.43

According to Czeżowski, Brentano-like analysis has the following elements (in my simplifying interpretation): Aim: to indicate a thesis which is an accurate description differentiating the species S; Stages of procedure:  In particular, descriptive psychology should precede experiential psychology.  Czeżowski 1969, pp. 190–191. 43  Czeżowski 1968, pp. 231–232. 41 42

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(i) The indication of the genre which is a natural superset of S; Stage (i) leads to formulation of the hypothesis of the form: (1) G is a genre for the species S. (ii) The choice of s, which is a typical element of S. Stage (ii) leads to formulation of the hypothesis: (2) s is a typical element of S. (iii) The preparation of free description of s indicated in (ii). Stage (iii) leads to the formulation of the thesis: (3) s has properties P1, …, Pi (iv) The indication of these properties from among P1, …, Pi which are species-­ properties (or essential properties) of s with respect to species S; Stage (iv) leads to formulation of a hypothesis of the form: (4) s, as every member of S and differently from other members of G, is Pg. Note that stage (iv) is simply a species-description of s. Such a description may be also considered a differentiating description of the species-universal G and then the hypothesis (4) reads: (4′) S is such R, which is Pg. The verification of the hypothesis (4) – or (4′) – on the grounds of experiences, in particular: checking whether all and only other members of S are Pg. If hypotheses (4) and (4′) are confirmed by experience, they are accepted as an accurate species description of members of S or, in other words, as an accurate differentiating description of the species S. In such a way, the aim indicated in (i) is achieved. (vi’) If hypotheses (4) and (4′) are falsified by experience, all stages (i)-(vi) have to be repeated (Brożek 2017: 13–14). Let us emphasize that Twardowski and Brentano had the same point of departure: analysis of concepts. Soon after, their paths diverged. Tatarkiewicz summarized: Brentano, starting from such an analysis, opened perspectives for the whole of philosophy, while Twardowski stopped at these somehow introductory analyses […]. [In such a way] Brentano-Twardowski’s philosophy, free from maximalist and minimalistic extremes, gave […] a great frame [for didactic work].44

Many of Twardowski’s students located themselves consciously somewhere between these two extremes. A great example of such an introductory analytical work which did not lead to any all-pervasive system (as Bocheński45 used to call it) are the works of Maria Ossowska in the domain of ethics and metaethics.

44 45

 Tatarkiewicz 1950b, p. 377.  Bocheński 1989, p. 37.

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10.9.3  E  lements of Bretano’s Thought in the Logical Branch of the Lvov-Warsaw School Peter Simons wrote: Of all the intellectual successors of Brentano, it was the Polish students of Twardowski and Łukasiewicz, including Leśniewski, Tarski, Lindebaum and others, who were the most active and innovate in logic, and it was the Brentanian Geist imparted to the School by Twardowski.46

How did it look in detail? 10.9.3.1  Idiogenic (or Existential) Conception of Judgments Twardowski’s starting point in the investigations on theory of judgement was Brentano’s idiogenic conception. Twardowski had reservations regarding the conception of his teacher in this respect. Firstly, he did not accept the whole argumentation for Brentano’s thesis and was aware of some of its disadvantages. Secondly, already in his manuscript prepared in 1894/5 (notes to lectures on logic), he proposed a modified conception with two basic types of judgements: existential and relational: In his Logik 1894/5 he states that there are two types of judgements, existential judgements and relational judgements; most of our judgements are relational ones. The terms ‘existential judgement’ and ‘relational judgement’ may be misleading, because the term ‘existential’ is derived from the content, whereas the term ‘relational’ is derived from the object of the judgement. A judgement is either the affirmation or denial of an object, or else the affirmation or denial of a relationship (Verhältnis).47

Finally, in 1907, he emphasized that his own conception “differs from Brentano’s theory of judgement and has aroused on the basis of the conception of Sigwart whose position is somewhere in between idiogenic and allogenic theories of judgement.”48 Bogdan Nawroczyński, one of Twardowski’s direct students, suggested that Brentano’s conception of judgement as a kind of “relations between consciousness to the object” may be used to catch the essence of the act of judgement but not to the essence of judgement-product which was more interesting for logicians.49 Rejecting the Brentanian understanding of “existence” (see below), Leśniewski rejected his idiogenetic conception of judgement, namely the thesis that all sentences may be reduced to existential ones.50 He argued as follows: Suppose that a

 Simons 1996, p. 319.  Betti and van der Schaar 2004: 8. 48  Twardowski 1907, p. 306. 49  Nawroczyński 1913, p. 496. 50  In fact, Brentano wrote about judgements; whereas Leśniewski wrote rather about sentences. This significant transition is too broad a problem to be described in detail here. The problem was 46 47

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reduction is permissible  – and consider sentence (1) “Paris in not in China”. Sentence (2) “Paris, which is in China, does not exist” would be synonymous to sentence (1). According Leśniewski, sentence (2) states that: (3) “The entity, which is Paris, which is in China, is not a being”. Sentence (3) is of course internally contradictory, and so – false. Meanwhile, sentence (1) is a true sentence. If it is so, then neither sentence (2), nor sentence (3) is an adequate paraphrase of sentence (1). He concluded sarcastically: The representation of various contents in existential propositions which are inadequate to these contents, accounts for one of the inadequacies that are both ‘typical’ […], and harmful: harmful in that out of such inadequacies […] grow […] various mistaken theories of propositions, e.g. the […] theory based on the insights of the ‘Austrian School’ (Brentano).51

Brentano (and Twardowski) would probably not accept the paraphrase of the sentence “Paris is not in China” proposed by Leśniewski, as they refuted the thesis that existence is a predicate.52 Brentano in his Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis criticized Sigwart’s view that the object of a denial judgement is always some affirmative judgement. He was convinced that affirmative and denial judgements are equal categories.53 One of Twardowski’s female students, Irena Jawicówna-Pannenkowa, noticed that “Brentano […] in his criticism did not touch any of Sigwart’s arguments […] of a cognitive nature.”54 She wrote that “denial judgements do not increase our knowledge. They only state our lack of knowledge in the areas in which we suspect that we possess it.”55 According to Jawicówna, “in our knowledge, […] denials do not play any independent and positive role. However, their indirect cognitive importance is by no means great. […] This is the probable reason why [Sigwart] assigned priority to affirmative judgements.”56 One of Brentano’s arguments for the idiogenetic theory of judgements – referring to Brentano’s “mereology” – was minutely analyzed by another woman in the LWS: Daniela Tennerówna-Gromska. Her interpretation of Brentano’s reasoning may be reconstructed as follows. Assume that (1) A is composed of B and C, in other words that B and C are A’s parts. Assume further that (2) to accept/affirm X means to be convinced that X exists. Now, one of theses of Brentano’s “mereology”57 states that (3) if person P affirms A, then P also affirms (resp. or should affirm) B and C. Let us make another assumption – that (4) existence of X is a composition of

analyzed from both a systematic and historical perspective by, among others, Smith (1996), Betti and van der Schaar (2004) and Rojszczak (2005). 51  Leśniewski 1911, p. 19. 52  van der Schaar 2015, p. 49. 53  Brentano 1889, pp. 65–74. 54  Jawicówna 1905, p. 214. 55  Jawicówna 1905, p. 213. 56  Jawicówna 1905, p. 215. 57  The second of Brentano’s “mereological” theses (“It is not the case that if X rejects A, then X rejects (or should reject B and C”) may be skipped here for the sake of brevity.

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existence and X. On the basis of (3) and (4) we get: (5) if P affirms the existence of X, then P affirms existence and P affirms X. However, from (2) we get that (7) to affirm the existence means to be convinced that existence exists. The expression “existence of existence” (as Twardowski noted in one of his lectures) is “strange”. However, according to Brentano, (8) affirmation of X is identical to affirmation of the existence of X. Thus, Brentano rejected assumption (4). According to Gromska, there is an equivocation in Brentano’s reasoning. The expression “affirmation” is ambiguous: it possesses general sense (a) and then it means simply “affirmation in general”58 and particular sense (b) in which it means “affirmation of existence”. So, in (8), in the expression “affirmation of X-a” the term “affirmation” occurs in sense (b), whereas in the expression “affirmation of the existence of X-a” – in sense (b). It is this equivocation and not the unity of the object of existential sentences that causes difficulties in application of thesis (3). However, Gromska has a reservation: In confuting Brentano’s argument, I did not mean to criticize his thesis […] which is also justified in other ways [Gromska 1920: 108], [with reference to the thesis that] existence is reflexive with respect to the act of judging (nb. affirmative act of judging) and that one cannot use the concept of existence to characterize judging.59

Contrary to Leśniewski and Gromska, Wacław Radeck60 and Piotr Pręgowski61 accepted Brentano’s idiogenetic conception of judgement without reservations. Łukasiewicz noted that adding the operator of denial to the operator of affirmation in one of his logical systems he “followed Brentano”,62 however it is not evidence for his acceptance of Brentano’s whole theory. 10.9.3.2  Syllogistics Twardowski appreciated the value of Brentanian reinterpretation of syllogistics and compared it with an algebraic conception of logic. He had objections to both of them (not all judgments may be reduced to existential ones). Twardowski inspired Kotarbiński’s and Ajdukiewicz’s presentations and analyses of Brentano’s logic. None of them accepted the ideas of Brentano but it seems that Brentanian undermining of the axioms of Aristotelian logic encouraged Polish logicians to create their own original logical systems. Czeżowski analysed “Brentanian reform of syllogistic” and indicated the common points of Brentano’s criticism of Aristotelian syllogistic with some ideas of mathematical logicians such as Giuseppe Peano, Gottlob Frege and Bertrand  Gromska did not explain what “affirmation in general” means but, based on examples, one may conclude that affirmation in this sense covers not only affirmation of existence but also affirmation of truthfulness, of rightness, etc. 59  Gromska 1920: 99. 60  Błachowski 1921–1922. 61  Pręgowski 1928–1929, p. 176a. 62  Łukasiewicz 1920, p. 89. 58

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Russell. He proposed, namely, an axiomatization of syllogistic on the basis of propositional calculus but also on the theses of functional calculus (of one variable). He interpreted categorical sentences as some expressions of the latter. This way, he presented clearly existential assumptions of traditional syllogistic.63 10.9.3.3  Theory of Truth and its Criteria Brentano’s influence on the Polish interest in the problem of truth is often emphasized.64 I shall add some comments to the discussion. The Aristotelian-Brentanian conception of truth was accepted by Dąmbska. She interpreted it as follows: In the case of affirmative sentences: they are true when the state of affairs associated with these sentences occurs. In the case of negative sentences: they are true when the state of affairs associated with these sentences does not occur.65

However, some passages of Brentano’s lecture Über den Begriff der Wahrheit66 suggest a departure from alethic absolutism at least in the case of judgements “whose truthfulness has a direct reference to something real (direkter Bezug ihrer Wahrheit zu et was Reale)”. In such circumstances, “the same judgement, initially true, may become false when this real object is changing.”67 Twardowski objected to this view several times, the most emphatically in the study “On the so-called relative truths” (O tak zwanych prawdach względnych),68 probably in connection to Brentano’s arguments presented in the aforementioned lecture. Brentano considered evidence as a criterion of truthfulness but characterized it not as a certain kind of intuition but as an immanent feature of some judgements.69 Either one “sees” this feature or is blind to it. From among judgements on facts, only judgements about one’s experiences and principles of logic, which are judgements on relations, are evident.70 Tatarkiewicz seemed to accept such a conception, for he formulated its consequences in a very suggestive manner. He stated that “not every man is a measure of all things, only a man that issues evident judgements.”71

 Czeżowski 1950, p. 23.  Cf. for instance: (Woleński and Simons 1989; Poli 1996; Smith 1996; Rojszczak 2005). 65  Dąmbska 1931, pp. 157–158. 66  Brentano 1889. 67  Dąmbska 1979a, p. 5. 68  Twardowski 1900. 69  Tatarkiewicz 1950a, p. 159. 70  Tatarkiewicz 1950a, p. 159. 71  Tatarkiewicz 1950a, p. 162. 63 64

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10.9.3.4  Definition vs Verdeutlichung Another of Brentano’s solutions which Tatarkiewicz sympathised with is the distinction between classical and “alternative” definitions. Brentano called alternative definitions “clarifications” (Verdeutlichung).72 This clarification consisted in listing kinds or examples of designates of defined terms. It seems that here is the source of original Tatarkiewicz’s definitions of aesthetic artefacts (see for instance his definition of “work of art”).

10.9.4  B  rentanian Elements in the Psychological Branch of the Lvov-Warsaw School 10.9.4.1  Descriptive Versus Physiological Psychology Twardowski, just like Brentano, considered psychology a part of philosophy. This was, however, empirical psychology, concerning physical phenomena, not rational psychology that (concerning soul).73 However, early Twardowski occupied himself with the problem of the metaphysics of the soul, including the immortality of the soul. One argument for the indivisibility of soul,74 is repeated by Twardowski after Brentano who writes in Psychologie75 that any comparison of, for instance, colour and sound is possible only if they are presented within one real unity.76 It is known that Brentano’s descriptive psychology was at first an opposition to Wundt’s physiological psychology. Wundt and Brentano shared a position against metaphysical speculations but Brentano referred to Aristotle and scholastics and did not oppose intellect and experience.77 Wundt was interested in external experiments and Brentano in analysis of inner experience. In Poland, the controversy between Wundtism (represented, first of all by Władysław Heinrich from Jagiellonian University in Cracow) and Brentanism (represented by Twardowski and his students originally in Lvov) also existed, however Twardowski’s students did not see any sharp conflict between these two approaches to psychological research. Twardowski recommended that his students visit the centres of physiological psychology in Germany and France, he himself visited “Wundtian” Leipzig after achieving his Ph.D.78 This may be explained by the fact that: “Twardowski does not agree with Brentano that there is a strict distinction between empirical and experimental psychology, or between descriptive and genetic psychology, as Brentano calls it.”79  Ingarden 1936, pp. 223–224.  Rechlewicz 2015, p. 70. 74  Twardowski 1895b. 75  Brentano 1874, pp. 230–231. 76  Cf. Rechlewicz 2015, p. 465. 77  Rzepa 1997, p 18; see also van der Schaar 2015, p. 16. 78  Rzepa 1997, p. 15–22. 79  van der Schaar 2015, pp. 21–22. 72 73

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Let us add that among members of the LWS there were even active psychoanalytics (for instance Stefan Baley), despite the fact that Freud’s doctrine, accepting unconscious psychical acts, could not be considered a branch of scientific psychology. Twardowski’s students took through Twardowski a Brentanian interest in psychology, but they developed it in two directions. Some of them (as Witwicki, Bandrowski and Baley) undertook psychological research in Brentano’s style but usually without Brentano’s philosophical ballast. Some others, like Dąmbska, reformulated some psychological problems into the language of semiotics. In such a way, the problem of types of psychological phenomena was transformed into the analysis of language categories (for instance, the semiotic functions of names). Such tendencies existed already in Twardowski. Taking from Brentano the thesis that there are no objectless presentations, he presented in Zur Lehre an analysis of the word “nothing” stating that it is a syncategorematic expression.80 10.9.4.2  P  sychic Phenomena: Their Specifics, Classification and Regularities The Polish successors of Brentano accepted his thesis of intentionality but modified his theory of mental phenomena. Twardowski developed the conception of presentation by sharply distinguishing the content and the object of presentation. He generalized this distinction to the distinction action-product. Twardowski exchanged Brentano’s three-part classification of psychical phenomena with a four-part division into the following classes: presentations, judgements, emotions, desires/resolutions. According to Brentano, “emotions and desires together with all symptoms of will belong to one class.”81 Twardowski commented on this view critically: There are many arguments for Brentano’s view but it is not fully clear and convincing. The relation of emotions to acts of will is not clarified. […] Thus, what standpoint should we take? Well, all of Brentano’s argumentation seems to show that, primo, emotions and acts of will have something basically in common, and secondo, that they cannot be coordinated. After all, we feel it evidently that emotions on the one hand and desires, acts of will on the other are different. And among desires and acts of will we have, further, desires on the one hand and resolutions on the other.82

In what follows, Twardowski showed that “admittedly emotion is the essential core of desires, but at the same time they may not be situated one next to anther as coordinated; rather the relation of part and whole occurs here.”83

 Dąmbska 1979a.  Twardowski 1903–1904, p. 212. 82  Ibid., pp. 222–223. 83  p. 235. 80 81

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The division proposed by Twardowski was accepted i.a. by Salomon Igel.84 Bandrowski noticed that “if convictions never occur independently but always together with presentations”, then they could be defined as “quality characteristics of presentations.”85 Whereas Witwicki argued that desires may be reduced to emotions and judgements accompanying them. He also questioned the distinction of resolutions as a separate kind of psychical phenomena arguing that they may be defined as judgements about future actions.86 Finally Baley, referring to so-called naïve consciousness, defended the view that not every emotion has its object and in this way he objected to Brentano’s view.87 Igel’s criticism led in the same direction. He was convinced that Brentano’s characteristics of emotions (at least as presented in Psychologie) bear serious problems, because they do not distinguish emotions based on presentations from those based on judgements. According to Igel, pleasure and disgust are not phenomena of an intentional character. Still this does not means that they are unintentional psychical phenomena. They are rather similar to colours and sounds – namely physical phenomena – and not seeing colours, hearing sounds etc. He argued that surely pleasure and disgust is felt, so they are “objects of some acts which we called emotions.”88 Igel also criticized Brentano’s view that acts of judging are gradable (in fact, this view of Brentano’s, presented in Psychologie…, was refuted also by himself in Ursprung…). Igel was convinced that: The bases […] of assigning the intensity of psychical facts referring to objects are respective sensual objects. Since neither presentations not judgements have their counterparts in the sensual sphere, there is no basis for assigning intensity to them.89

Twardowski’s students were also interested in regularities in the domain of psychical phenomena described by Brentano. For instance, the psychological law formulated by Brentano, namely the law of original association was analysed and considered accurate by Henryk Mehlberg: The law, according to which a continuous series of memories must accompany any psychological phenomenon, has been formulated by Brentano under the title of “principle of primitive associations” […]. One may thus say that, within the limits of the validity of Brentano’s law, the succession of two psychological states can be defined by the asymmetry of their structure.90

 Igel 1919, p. 358.  Bandrowski 1907, pp. 125–127. 86  Witwicki 1904, pp. 119ff. 87  Baley 1916, p. 57, 72–73. 88  Igel 1919, p. 401. 89  Igel 1919, pp. 395–396. 90  Mehlberg 1937, p. 118. 84 85

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10.9.5  Ontology According to Ingarden, the most important results of Twardowski’s Zur Lehre are: (1) a precise distinction between the content and object of presentation; (2) the first sketch of a general theory of object from scholasticism and Wolff; and (3) effective “vindication” of presentations and general objects in ontology.91 Result (1) was a generalization of what Benno Kerry did in the domain of numbers. It is Kerry that inspired Twardowski’s contact with Bolzano’s work.92 Leopold Blaustein claimed that in his habitation thesis Twardowski provided a synthesis of Brentano’s and Bolzano’s views.93 For Brentanism as a whole, Twardowski’s distinction between content and object was important since even though Brentano and his students were aware of the distinction, they often muddled both concepts. Result (2) became the impetus for other theories of objects, among others of Meinong and, in Poland, of Leśniewski and Kotarbiński.94 Thanks to result (3), the problem of the universal was vividly discussed and analysed by members of the LWS. According to Ingarden, the distinction between acts and products,95 also had some antecedences. However, Twardowski’s merit was to present it clearly and to use it to refute psychologism in logic96 and in the humanities. 10.9.5.1  Conception of Existence The ontological views of Brentano were accepted by some representatives of the LWS and refuted by others. A certain modification of Brentano’s conception of existence was proposed by Eugeniusz Hłuszkiewicz. He wrote: According to […] [Brentano] there “exists” everything that may be accepted (anerkannt) in a true affirmative judgement […]. This view requires modification, namely the concept of “existence” should be connected not only with affirmative true judgements but with affirmative judgements in general. Everyone considers reality, or a set of existing objects, as that which is stated in affirmative judgements, for judgements which one issues are considered true.97

On the other hand, Leśniewski sharply criticised Brentano’s conception of existence as not natural and leading to misunderstandings. He wrote:

 Ingarden 1938, p. 256.  Ingarden 1938, pp. 256–257. 93  Blaustein 1938. 94  Ingarden 1938, p. 260. 95  Twardowski 1912. 96  Ingarden 1938, pp. 263–264. 97  Hłuszkiewicz 1914. 91 92

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Various philosophers, constructing their diverse ‘philosophical’ systems, often attach quite different meanings [to the word ‘to exist’]: ‘to exist’ means ‘to be perceived’ (e.g., Berkeley), […] in still other cases  – the same as ‘to be able to be justly accepted’ (e.g. Brentano, Marty and other representatives of the so-called ‘Austrian School’, etc. It is clear that not all which is ‘conscious’ is necessarily ‘perceived’, in other words  – that which ‘exists’ in one sense of the word ‘to exist’ does not also necessarily exist in another sense of that word.98

10.9.5.2  Ontic Categories Leśniewski’s definite criticism of the Brentanian concept of existence was accompanied by his acceptance of ontological reism in Kotarbiński’s style. Reism was categorically rejected by Twardowski,99 whose ontological views were poli-­categorial, as contrasted to Kotarbiński, a monist, and Brentano, a dualist. Twardowski was followed in this domain by, among others, Borowski and Ajdukiewicz. It was Twardowski that brought Kotarbiński’s attention to the similarities between his reism and Brentano’s late views.100 However, Kotarbiński noticed that Brentano’s published works could not be interpreted unambiguously as reistic. The relation between the terms “thing” (Ding) and “something real” (Reales) is not clear.101 The ontological character of Brentano’s reistic statements is also questionable: he does not state that not-things do not exist but only that “it is not possible to think anything that is not a thing.”102 From Brentano’s other statements, one may infer that he refuses only “sentences stating the existence of contents of images, towards the existence of only things.”103 Besides, as Kotarbiński stressed, even if Brentano was a reist, he was only a dualistic reist and not a somatist (as Kotarbiński was), since he accepted the existence of God [Kotarbiński 1949, p. 428]. It is worth mentioning that Twardowski (in his study On actions and products [O czynnościach i wytworach]) continued “the early” (non reistic) Brentano. But he already knew about “the second” (late) Brentano if he had informed Kotarbiński about it.104 Kotarbiński stressed many times that his reism was not intentionally borrowed from Brentano. However, when one reads Brentano’s writings and Twardowski’s lectures which refer to them, one has an impression that some ideas of these two great teachers were absorbed and internalized by Twardowski’s students. Let me quote Simons:

 Leśniewski 1913, p. 88.  Twardowski 1997. II, p. 216. 100  Kotarbiński 1930–1931, p. 10. 101  Kotarbiński 1930–1931, p. 11. 102  Kotarbiński 1931, p. 19. 103  Kotarbiński 1935–1937. 104  Kotarbiński 1967. It seems that Brentano contrasted objects/things with contents of mental acts or fictions and not with abstract entities. 98 99

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There is little evidence of direct influence of the former on the latter. Leśniewski did interact with Brentano’s views but only at the very beginning of his career, and unsuccessfully. Later parallels are just that, parallels, and we are unlikely to come upon significant new evidence as to whether there was any direct influence, positive or negative. […] The parallels are real, interesting and revealing.105

10.9.6  Ethics Twardowski accepted Brentano’s conception of emotions as the basis of moral cognition. The thesis on intuitive and emotional cognition of values was also accepted and developed by Kotarbiński (partially), Czeżowski and Ajdukiewicz. Brentanian ethics is one of the sources of Kotarbiński’s independent ethics of the reliable protector. The most mature ethical conception in the Brentanian spirit (among the direct students of Twardowski) was proposed by Czeżowski. To the ethical intuition, he assigned a status similar to that of perception, he also made use of Brentano’s idea of analogy between accepting something as existing and accepting something as good. This analogy served him as a basis for quasi-existential reinterpretation of sentences of the type “The fact that p, is good” to the form “It is good that p” – analogously to “There exists [the fact] that p”. This way, the term “good” lost its predicative character and became a propositional operator. That, in turn, led Czeżowski to the construction of “propositional ethical calculus”. The second component of Brentano’s ethics was objectivism. The synthesis of ethical objectivism of Brentano was issued by Tatarkiewicz, in a clear and accurate manner typical for his writings. It is worth quoting the core of this synthesis: In ethics, Brentano took the standpoint which he accepted also in any other discipline of science: the empirical standpoint. He wanted to establish facts and practice descriptive science. […] Acts of love which we consider right (die als richtig charakterisierte Liebe), for instance, love of knowledge, are analogous to evident judgements.106

His theory is a MINIMAL form of ethical objectivism. We do not have – he says – any guarantee that ANY GOOD evokes love in us, accompanied by the feeling or rightness. In particular, when it comes to choice and recognition of what is better, then this feeling appears rarely. According to Brentano, it occurs only in three situations: of oppositions, of lack and of summation. That means that we know that: (a) every good is better than any evil; (b) existence of some good is better than its inexistence; (c) a sum of goods is better than any components of it. Our feeling of what is better ends at these three formal cases. Who can estimate, Brentano argues, whether knowledge is better than gentle love or gentle love is better than knowledge. A general decision would be absurd in such a matter:

105 106

 Simons 2006, p. 83.  Tatarkiewicz 1936, p. 110.

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love and knowledge are finite goods, and when we multiply the amount of finite goods, then their sum will exceed all other finite goods.107 Such a version of ethical objectivism was accepted by Tatarkiewicz as well as Twardowski and Czeżowski. The third component of Brentano’s ethics was ethical perfectionism. On the ground of it, the only moral imperative is to increase the amount of good in the world.108 Perfectionistic ethics based on this imperative was developed by Twardowski109 whereas Kotarbiński weakened this imperative. He was convinced that the proper aim of our life is to limit the amount of evil. The imperative of increasing good stays in conflict with egoism. Ingarden noted that Twardowski accepted a certain descriptive thesis which occurred in Brentano’s habitation, stating that man is not essentially egoistic.110 The detailed analysis of the problem of egoism is presented by Twardowski in the article “Does man always act egoistically?” [“Czy człowiek zawsze postępuje egoistycznie”111].

10.9.7  Historiosophy Just after Brentano’s Die vier Phasen der Philosophie und ihr augenblicklicher Stand was published 1895, the conception presented there was analysed by young Twardowski. Brentano formulated there a certain postulate in the domain of the methodology of history and a certain hypothesis in the domain of the history of philosophy. Brentano’s methodological postulate was: in history (understood as a science) a constructive method should be applied. The task of a historian is to formulate general laws according to which historical processes occur. Brentano’s hypothesis was: every epoch of the history of philosophy has four phases: a phase of blooming, a phase of spreading, a phase of scepticism and a phase of recognition of new methods112; mostly of an irrational character (mysticism was a remedy for scepticism). The three last phases are together the phase of decline. Generally, Twardowski accepted Brentano’s postulate but with some reservations. He wrote: Historical laws lay no claims to place exactly the localization of any particular fact or to cover all of them. The tasks of the history of philosophy will always be to define the general course of events and to indicate laws according to which the main features of historical development proceed.113

 Tatarkiewicz 1936, p. 111.  Tatarkiewicz 1950a, p. 161. 109  Dąmbska 1979a. 110  Ingarden 1936, p. 203. 111  Twardowski 1899. 112  Twardowski 1895a, p. 230. 113  Twardowski 1895a, pp. 237–238. 107 108

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In reference to Brentano’s hypothesis Twardowski noted that the phases distinguished by Brentano are very well suited to ancient European philosophy but they do not describe medieval or modern philosophy in an equally adequate way. Twardowski explained this with the use of additional “historical laws”, stating that “every subsequent epoch is influenced by the former”114 and that the views of some philosophers differ from the standpoint typical for the given phase. The first law explained disturbances in the course of the phases, and the second one – the material heterogeneity of a particular phase. In his book, Sześć wykładów o filozofii średniowiecznej [Six Lectures on Medievel Philosophy] (1910), Twardowski modified Brentano’s proposal and distinguished three phases in the history of this epoch: phases of development, of blooming and of decline. Another modification of Brentano’s proposal was provided by Tatarkiewicz, the most prominent historian of philosophy in the orbit of the LWS. In his History of Philosophy, he presented antiquity, the middle ages and the modern era as follows: “In spite of all differences between these epochs, one thing is common: each of them had […] four periods: a period of development, a period of criticism and edification, a period of systems and a period of schools.”115 The identification of the phase of scepticism as a separate phase that repeats in the history of philosophy was questioned by Dąmbska. This is her argument: Brentano’s historical concept contains an apt observation that irrationalism is one of the forms of overcoming scepticism; yet, his theory of phases seems wrong. Historically speaking, scepticism occurs in parallel to the great philosophical systems or follows them closely, rather than after the period of schools. […] It even seems that one might venture the following claim when searching for a certain regularity: scepticism dominates in peak phases and at the close of the spiritual development of a given époque. The phases of decline of great spiritual cultures and the birth of new ones are characterized by increased dogmatism.116

10.10  B  rentano in the Eyes of Representatives of the Lvov-Warsaw School 10.10.1  General Rating of Brentanism The first, concise and accurate description of the characteristics of Brentano was given just after his death in Poland by Ignacy Halpern (1917) (not connected with the Lvov-Warsaw School). These are the most crucial points of it: He worked in the domains of the history of philosophy, psychology, logic, ethics and aesthetics. Equipped with an analytic mind, similar to that of Bolzano, to whom he brought others’ attention, and that of Aristotle, to whom he devoted [many] studies […], he sought to practice philosophy in a non-metaphysical way. In the domain of psychology, he pub Twardowski 1895a, p. 237.  Tatarkiewicz 1931, p. 16. 116  Dąmbska 1948, p. 124. 114 115

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lished Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte […], where he attributes a practical value to this discipline, even for politics, in a scholastic spirit he understands a psychical phenomenon as containing intentional existence of the object, he denies the possibility of inner observation but accepts direct and evident inner experience, he claims that every psychical act is conscious and as a consequence he refuses the concept of unconsciousness, further he proposes a new division of psychical phenomena into presentations, judgments and emotions together with acts of will and characterizes judgements as affirmations or rejections […]. In the domain of logic which he reformed in his unpublished lectures, he refused modes, accepted quaternio terminorum and emphasized the role of psychology in logic, distinguishing logical value from genetic necessity. In the domain of ethics, he wrote Vom Ursprung der sittlichen Erkenntnis […], where he fought against relativism, and took as a basis, analogically to duality in judgements, emotions of love and hate, to these emotions he ascribed the values of correctness and incorrectness on which good and evil depend. […] Many new beliefs, he presented only in his lectures and conversations, a lot of his writings have never been published.117

In the interwar period, the largest paper on Brentano was prepared by Roman Ingarden – who did not belong to the LWS sensu stricto but to the “orbit” of it, as for many years he kept in touch with Twardowski118 and later was a colleague of Ajdukiewicz in Lvov and Dąmbska in Cracow. His estimation of Brentano, presented in this paper, was not positive. Ingarden admitted that Brentano was a strong personality (that is confirmed by his students) and that he was a great specialist in Aristotle and Descartes.119 However – according to Ingarden – he was not a great thinker and his investigations are often unclear and even mistaken. It is symptomatic that Twardowski and his direct students avoided preparation of a synthetic presentation of Brentano and his view.120 It is all the more important to quote Łukasiewicz’s opinions. At first, Łukasiewicz (in a letter to Twardowski from 1904) wrote on brentanism rather positively: With a great interest, I have learned from Dr. Schmidkunz about many small details concerning Brentano who, as Schmidkunz correctly expressed it, is becoming a more and more legendary personality. I told Dr Schmidkunz, of my understanding and estimation of Brentano’s school, to which I indirectly belong. It seems to me that […] the characteristic feature […] of that school is not psychologism (despite psychology “vom empirischen Stadnpunkte”), but rather formalism and apriorism, and excellent dialectic and ­methodicalness connected with them, which is typical for students and supporters of that school and which is similar to that of the great masters of the 13th century.121

 Halpern 1917, pp. 307–308.  Recently, Ingarden-Twardowski correspondence was published. 119  Let us add that this explains why he chose for his student, Twardowski, the analysis of Descartes’ views as the subject of his Ph.D. dissertation. Ingarden 1936, p. 199. 120  In the Twardowski’s archive in Warsaw, there is a Twardowski manuscript containing the beginning of a synthetic paper about Brentano but Twardowski never finished it. In Twardowski’s diaries, the name “Brentano” occurs only once and in Kotarbiński’s main book “Elementy teorii poznania, logiki I metodologii nauk” it also occurs just once. 121  Łukasiewicz 2013: p. 109. 117 118

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However, 50 years later his assessment was different: Twardowski was a student of Brentano, who was originally a catholic priest, and his recognition of Aristotle is detectable even in works prepared after he left the catholic church. Twardowski highly evaluated the works of another priest, living in the first part of the 19th century, namely Bernard Bolzano. Bolzano was a professor of philosophy of religion in Prague and he was an outstanding mathematician and logician. His logical works are of much greater value than the philosophical palaver of Kant or Hegel. If Twardowski had understood the difference between the scientific method applied by Bolzano from the chaotic and often thoughtless palaver of the German philosopher, he could probably have created a new direction of scientific philosophy, of a value surpassing the views of the Vienna Circle. Nevertheless Twardowski was under the charm of not the Aristotelic period of Brentano but his later works, infected by psychologism. The apparatus of the ideas and problems that Twardowski took from Vienna was extremely idle and modest. One was talking all the time about whether conviction is a psychical phenomenon of a separate kind or is a combination of concepts; one was talking all the time about images, presentations, concepts, about their contents and objects, one was not aware whether analyses of these problems belong to psychology, logic or to grammar.122

One could explain this dramatic change in evaluation by the fact that Łukasiewicz gradually abandoned traditional philosophical problems for formal-logical ones. It would be a rational explanation for this “philosophical apostasy”. However, the example of Czeżowski shows that Łukasiewicz’s direction is not the only one possible. Rojszczak wrote: “Czeżowski can serve as a model sensu stricto for the statement that the heritage of Brentano in the Lvov-Warsaw School should be taken seriously. The most interesting fact distinguishing him from the descriptive psychologists is that he belongs to the logical branch of the Lvov-Warsaw School.”123 One may summarise the comparison of these two scholars with the following statement: Łukasiewicz’s path led from Brentanism to logicism and Czeżowski’s led in the opposite direction.124

10.10.2  Awareness of the Novelty of Brentanism There are some elements in Brentano’s views which were considered innovative by members of the LWS. In the first place, they mentioned the re-introduction of the principle of intentionality to the philosophy and a new classification of mental phenomena based on this principle. Twardowski wrote about it in Zur Lehre: There always corresponds to the mental phenomena of being presented with something, of judging, of desiring, and of detesting something presented, something judged, something desired, and something detested, and the former would be an absurdity without the latter. This fact – mentioned by the Scholastics and even earlier by Aristotle – has recently been  Łukasiewicz 2013: p. 65. Let me note on the margin that contemporary cognitive studies seem to be the return to psychologism in Brentano- Twardowski’s style. 123  Rojszczak 2005, p. 14. 124  Cf. Łukasiewicz (2017). 122

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appreciated in its great importance by Brentano who, among other things, has based the classification of mental phenomena on the kinds of relations which obtain between the presentation and what is presented, etc.125

The second element was idiogenetic conception of judgement. The idiogenic conception of judgement went a step further. It made it possible to consider “judgements, instead of concepts, as elements of knowledge” – noted Bandowski, one of first students of Twardowski [Bandrowski 1905, p. 76]. In Zur Lehre, Twardowski wrote about it: That the essence of judgement is acceptance or rejection was shown by Brentano […]. What is accepted or rejected is the object of judgement. [Twardowski 1894, p. 7]. According to the idiogenic theory of judgement, that is the theory which claims that the essence of judgement is acceptance or rejection of a certain object […], there exist only particular affirmative judgements and universal denial judgements; while so-called universal affirmative and particular denial judgements may be reduced to the first two classes.126

Thirty years later, he added something about the historical background of this novelty: Brentano contributed to the development of idiogenic theory of judgement in a somehow modified form. […] In order to realize what Brentano introduced, let us come from Mill’s viewpoint. […] According to Mill neither a concept nor a combination of concepts is a judgement, only if one adds the conviction about the existence or unexistence of what I present in a combination of concepts, does a judgement appear. Brentano says: why shouldn’t we call a conviction about the existence of what I present in one concept “a judgement”? This occurs in existential judgements of the form “A exists”; whether I think of something with a combination of concepts or with one concept is indifferent for the essence of judgement. What is essential is the acceptance or rejection of the existence of presented object.127

The third contribution ascribed by Twardowski to Brentano in Zur Lehre was a distinction of “attributive or determining adjectives on the one hand and modifying adjectives on the other.”128 The fourth Brentano novelty mentioned in Twardowski’s habilitation thesis are beginnings of the theory later called “mereology” by Leśniewski.129 Twardowski wrote expressis verbis: “The expressions ‘one-sided separability’ and ‘mutual separability’ are Brentano’s (compare Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis).”130  Twardowski 1894, p. 3.  Twardowski 1894, p. 23. A few years after Twardowski, a similar esteem was expressed by Jan Władysław Dawid (1897, p. 73). 127  Twardowski 1925, pp. 206–207. 128  Twardowski 1894, p. 11. 129  The term “a Brentanian mereology” is used by van der Schaar (2015, p. 73). It was, as Rojszczak called it, “his mereological ontology of mind” (Rojszczak 2005, p. 103). It could serve as a prototype for the mereology of bodies that was called for by Kotarbiński and Leśniewski. Woleński even suggested that “Leśniewski’s many ideas become more comprehensible if we consider the fact that he had been influenced by the theory of objects of Brentano, Twardowski, and Meinong. The point is not that he shared all the opinions of those philosophers, but that he always saw the need for a ‘reified’ interpretation of logic” (Woleński 1989, p. 318). 130  Twardowski 1894, p. 61. 125 126

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Bandrowski and Olejniczak, two of Twardowski’s early students, added two positions to Twardowski’s list. The first wrote about the logical idea of a “new, very simple system of inference”131; the second one – added a result from the domain of the history of philosophy, namely the presentation of Aristotle as a theist, creationist and extreme optimist.132

10.11  The Scale of Brentano’s Influences in Poland The scale of Brentano’s indirect influence in Poland may be illustrated by the following juxtaposition. Let us take as a point of departure “The list of philosophers of the Lvov-Warsaw School” added by Jan Woleński to his monograph Logic and Philosophy in the Lvov-Warsaw School.133 This list contains 76 names (if we omit Twardowski and collateral versions of names). All of these names are names of members of the Lvov-Warsaw School but it is not the list of all its representatives. It may easily be supplemented by another 50 names of students of Twardowski and students of his students (even if one would limit the list to scholars active before the World War II). On such a supplemented list, ca. 50 persons would certainly be direct students of Twardowski. From among them, 15 achieved a Ph.D. under Twardowski’s supervision. The further career of Twardowski’s students developed differently in two respects. Firstly, some of them were occupied with philosophy (ca. 25) and others moved to different disciplines (psychology – at least 5, linguistics, history of art, literature); there was also a third group that joined both philosophical and extra-­ philosophical interests in their work (5). Secondly, some of them (25) took academic positions, usually professional chairs, and others worked outside the framework of universities. As far as I know, there is no country with so numerous a group of second-generation Brentanists. Wolfgang Huemer in the Brentano entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy wrote: In the second half of the twentieth century Brentano was often mentioned as the philosopher who had (re-)introduced the notion of intentionality, as “grandfather” of the phenomenological movement, or for his influence on early analytic philosophy, but his philosophical views and arguments were hardly discussed.134 (emphasis A.B.)

It seems to me that the situation was different in Poland. Brentano was not only mentioned: his views were presented at academic lectures, his works were studied, his results were analysed, criticized and developed.

 Bandrowski 1905; Bandrowski 1915, p. 110.  Olejniczak 1911. 133  Woleński 1989, pp. 352–353. 134  Huemer 2015. 131 132

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To sum up: Brentano’s influence, both positive and negative, played an important role in contemporary Polish philosophy. Thanks to that, the Polish branch is an important part of Brentano’s School. Since the branch is so powerful, the trunk from which it grew must also have been powerful.

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———. 1931. Zasady reizmu [Principles of Reism]. Sprawozdanie Poznańskiego Towarzystwa Przyjaciół Nauk V (1): 16–19. ———. 1935–1937. O reizmie w szkole Franciszka Brentana [On Reism in Franz Brentano’s School]. Ruch Filozoficzny XIII (5–10): 127a ———. 1949. On Reistic, or Concretistic, Approach. In Kotarbiński 1929 (supplement), pp. 420–428. ———. 1959. Styl pracy Kazimierza Twardowskiego [Kazimierz Twardowski’s Style of Work]. Ruch Filozoficzny XIX (1–2): 3–4. ———. 1967. Franciszek Brentano jako reista [Franz Brentano as a Reist]. In Szkice z historii filozofii i logiki [Sketches from the History of Philosophy and Logic], Warszawa 1979: PWN, pp. 163–179. ———. 1970. Spostrzeżenia w sprawie sposobów urabiania postawy i uzdolnień młodych pracowników naukowych [Some Reflections on Methods of Creating the Attitude and Abilities of Young Scholars]. In Sprawność i błąd, ed. Idem. Warszawa: PWN. Leśniewski, Stanisław. 1911. A Contribution to the Analysis of Existential Propositions. In Stanisław Leśniewski, Collected Works, Vol. I.  Warszawa/Dordrecht 1992: PWN/Kluwer, pp. 1–19. ———. 1913. Is All Truth Only True Eternally or Is It Also True Without a Beginning. In Stanisław Leśniewski, Collected Works. Vol. I. Warszawa/Dordrecht 1992: PWN/Kluwer, pp. 86–114. Łukasiewicz, Jan. 1920. Two-Valued Logic. In Łukasiewicz, Jan (1970), Selected Works. Amsterdam/Warszawa: North-Holland Publishing Company/PWN, pp. 89–109. ———. 1998. Logika i metafizyka [Logic and Metaphysics]. Miscellanea. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo WFiS UW. Łukasiewicz, Dariusz. 2006. Brentanian Philosophy and Czeżowski’s Conception of Existence. In Chrudzimski & Łukasiewicz (eds.), pp. 183–216. Łukasiewicz, Jan. 2013. Pamiętnik [Diary]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Semper. Łukasiewicz, Dariusz. 2017. Brentanian Inspirations in Tadeusz Czeżowski’s Philosophy. In Brożek et al. (eds.), pp. 79–92. Mehlberg, Henryk. 1937. Essai sur la théorie causale du temps. II.  Durée et causalité. Studia Philosophica II: 111–231. Nawroczyński, Bogdan. 1913. Sąd-wytwór. Wobec teorii czynności i wytworów prof. K.  Twardowskiego [Judgment-Product. In the Face of the Theory of Acts and Products of Professor K. Twardowski]. Przegląd Filozoficzny XVI (4): 495–507. Olejniczak, Tadeusz. 1911. Franz Brentano, Aristoteles und Seint Weltanschaaung (Review). Ruch Filozoficzny III (5): 112a-b. Perzanowski, Jerzy. 2009. Rozum – serce – smak w myśli Profesor Izydory Dąmbskiej [Reason – Heart  – Taste in the Thought of Professor Izydora Dąmbska]. In Rozum  – serce  – smak [Reason – Heart – Taste], ed. Jerzy Perzanowski, 13–22. Wydawnictwo WAM: Kraków. Poli, Roberto. 1996. Truth Theories. In The School of Franz Brentano, ed. Albertazzi et al., 343–355. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Pręgowski, Piotr. 1928–1929. Teoria pojęć Profesora Twardowskiego. Pojęcie, sąd, uwaga [Theory of Concepts of Professor Twardowski. Concept, Judgment, Attention]. Ruch Filozoficzny XI (1–10): 175b–176a. Rechlewicz, Wojciech. 2015. Nauka wobec metafizyki. Poglądy filozoficzne Kazimierza Twardowskiego [Science Towards Metaphysics. Philosophical Views of Kazimierz Twardowski]. Kielce: UJK. Rojszczak, Artur. 2005. From the Act of Judging to Sentences. The Problem of Truth Bearers from Bolzano to Tarski. Dordrecht: Springer. Rzepa, Teresa. 1997. Przedmowa [Forword], to Teresa Rzepa. In Psychologia w Szkole Lwowsko-­ Warszawskiej [Psychology in the Lvov-Warsaw School], 5–63. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. Simons, Peter. 1996. Logic in the Brentano School. In The School of Franz Brentano, ed. Albertazzi et al., 305–320. Dordrecht: Kluwer. ———. 2006. Things and Truths. Brentano and Leśniewski, Ontology and Logic. In Chrudzimski and Łukasiewicz (eds.), p. 83–106.

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Smith, Barry. 1996. Logic and the Sachverhalt. In The School of Franz Brentano, ed. Albertazzi et al., 323–341. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Tatarkiewicz, Władysław. 1931. Filozofia europejska i jej okresy [European Philosophy and Its Periods]. In Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Historia filozofii [History of Philosophy], Vol. I. Warszawa 1968: PWN, pp. 15–16. ———. 1936. Franz Brentano, Vom Ursprung der Sittlichen Erkenntnis (Review). Przegląd Filozoficzny XXXIX (1): 109–112. ———. 1950a. Brentano. In Historia filozofii [History of Philosophy]. Vol. III. Warszawa 1968, PWN, pp. 155–163. ———. 1950b. Kazimierz Twardowski. In Historia filozofii [History of Philosophy]. Vol. III. Warszawa 1968, PWN, pp. 376–377. Twardowski, Kazimierz. 1894. On the Content and Object of Presentation. A psychological Investigation. The Hague 1977: Nijhoff. ———. 1895a. Franciszek Brentano a historia filozofii [Franz Brentano and the History of Philosophy]. In Kazimierz Twardowski, Rozprawy i artykuły filozoficzne [Philosophical Dissertations and Papers], Lwów 1927: Księgarnia S.A. Książnica-Atlas TNSW, pp. 229–242. ———. 1895b. Metaphysics of the Soul. In Twardowski On Prejudices, Judgments, and Other Topics in Philosophy. Amsterdam 2014: Rodopi, pp. 197–209. ———. 1899. Does Man Always Behave Egoistically? In Twardowski On Prejudices, Judgments, and Other Topics in Philosophy. Amsterdam 2014: Rodopi, pp. 323–327. ———. 1900. On So-Called Relative Truths. In On Actions, Products, and Other Topics in Philosophy. Amsterdam 1999: Rodopi, pp. 147–169. ———. 1903–1904. Psychologia pożądań i woli [Psychology of Desires and Will]. In Wybór pism psychologicznych i pedagogicznych [Selected Psychological and Pedagogical Writings], Warszawa 1992, pp. 203–248. ———. 1907. Głos w dyskusji nad własnym referatem “O idio- i allogenetycznych teoriach sądu” [A Voice in the Discussion over the Paper “On idio- and Allogenetic Theories of Judgment]. In Kazimierz Twardowski (2014), Myśl, mowa i czyn [Thought, Speech and Action], Part II. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Semper, pp. 305–306. ———. 1912. Actions and Products. In On Actions, Products, and Other Topics in Philosophy. Amsterdam: Rodopi 1999, pp. 103–132. ———. 1923. A Priori, or Rational (Deductive) Sciences and A Posteriori, or Empirical (Inductive) Sciences. In On Actions, Products, and Other Topics in Philosophy. Amsterdam 1999: Rodopi, pp. 171–179. ———. 1925. Teoria poznania [Theory of Knowledge]. In Kazimierz Twardowski (2013), Myśl, mowa i czyn [Thought, Speech and Action], Part I. Kraków: Copernicus Center Press, pp. 185–253. ———. 1926. Self-Portrait. In Twardowski (1999), pp. 17–31. ———. 1930–1931. W sprawie odmiany nazwisk niektórych filozofów [In the Matter of Declining Names of Some Philosophers]. Ruch Filozoficzny t XII (1–10): 271a-b. ———. 1997. Dzienniki [Diaries]. Vol. I–II. Toruń: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek. van der Schaar, Maria. 2015. Kazimierz Twardowski: A Grammar for Philosophy. Leiden/Boston: Brill/Rodopi. Witwicki, Władysław. 1904. Analiza psychologiczna objawów woli [Psychological Analysis of the Symptoms of Will]. Lwów: Towarzystwo dla Popierania Nauki Polskiej. Woleński, Jan. 1989. Logic and Philosophy in the Lvov-Warsaw School. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publihers. ———. 2006. Brentanism and the Rise of Formal Semantics. In Chrudzimski and Łukasiewicz (eds.), pp. 217–232. ———. 2017. Brentanian Motives in Kazimierz Twardowski and His Students. In Brożek; Stadler; Woleński (eds.), pp. 47–64. Woleński, Jan, and Peter Simons. 1989. The Veritate: Austro-Polish Contributions to the Theory of Truth from Brentano to Tarski. In The Vienna Circle and the Lvov-Warsaw School, ed. K. Szaniawski, 391–442. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Chapter 11

How Many Terms Does a Judgement Have? Jerusalem Versus Brentano Mark Textor

Abstract  Wilhelm Jerusalem proposed a number of arguments against Brentano’s view of judgement. The bone of contention is whether a judgement must have at least two terms, that is, relate one thing to one or some others. On the two-term view a judgement is conceived as a comparison between an unfamiliar thing and things one is familiar with. Brentano denied, while Jerusalem affirmed, the two-term view. Jerusalem’s arguments for the two-term view merit close investigation because they tease out connections between judging and the pleasure of coming to know. However, while Jerusalem enriches our understanding of judgement, he does not refute Brentano’s one-term view of judgement. Keywords  Franz Brentano · August Döring · Wilhelm Jerusalem · Judgement · Ignorance · Pleasure

11.1  Two Conceptions of Judgement How should one think of judgement? Can it be a primitive mental relation to an object and nothing else? Or must it involve a relation between at least two things? Ernst Mach and his contemporary Franz Brentano answered these questions differently. Mach held that a judgement involves at least two things; Brentano’s theory of judgement has room for acknowledgements of objects. Mach’s view of judgement is one of the pillars of his more general view that all cognition serves well-being. If Brentano is right about judgement, there is at least one kind of cognition that does not fit into Mach’s picture. Let us start by outlining the philosophical background of Mach’s view further to see what is at stake here.

M. Textor (*) King’s College London, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano and Austrian Philosophy, Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40947-0_11

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According to Mach, ‘a cognition [Erkenntnis] is invariably a mental experience directly or indirectly biologically promoting [biologisch fördernd]’1 (I have modified the translation). A cognition is a judgement that constitutes knowledge. How can a cognition further our biological needs, or, more generally, serve what Mach called ‘the Will’, the drive to avoid pain and increase pleasure? It can do so, Mach submits, by predicting future events so that positive experiences can be sought out and negative one’s avoided. A comparing or associating one thing with something already known serves this purpose: it allows us to bring past experiences to bear on future behavior. This suggests to Mach that cognition consists in comparing one thing with another. Hence, any judgement must have at least two terms: judgements relate something to something else.2 Brentano disagreed with Mach’s conclusion. He argued that there are judgements that constitute knowledge without ‘relating something to something else’. We think of (have presentations of) objects and acknowledge them in judgement. Both presentations and judgements are conceptually primitive mental acts: the concepts [presentation] and [judgement] are not amenable to conceptual analysis. Their properties and relation to each other can be worked out on the basis of consciousness and memory of judging and thinking: It is […] true that nothing is an object of judgement which is not an object of presentation, and we maintain that when the object of presentation becomes the object of an affirmative or negative judgement, our consciousness enters into a completely new kind of relationship with the object. This object is present in consciousness in a twofold way, first as an object of presentation, then as an object held to be true or denied, just as when someone desires an object, the object is immanent both as presented and as desired at the same time. This, we maintain, is revealed clearly to us by inner perception and the attentive observation of the phenomena of judgement in memory.3

Inner perception is the ultimate source of our knowledge that judgement is like presentation a non-propositional act that differs from the later only in its psychological mode. The psychological mode can be helpfully glossed, but not explained, as acknowledging (denying) an object or ‘taking an object to be real’. One task of the theory of judgement is to illuminate this difference in psychological mode.4 Brentano himself suggests that the distinction lies at least in part in the fact that presentations lack opposites.5 Consider, for illustration, the activities of swimming and running. No one can run and swim at the same time: swimming is an opposite of running. According to Brentano, there is no mental act or activity that stands to presenting an object as swimming stands to running. In contrast, acknowledging an object has an opposite: denial or rejection.

 KE, 84 [115].  See, for instance, M1, 483 [455] and PSL, 238–9 [266]. Pagination of the German text in square brackets. 3  PES, 156 [I, 38–9]. 4  See Kriegel 2015a, 99–100 for one approach to this task. 5  See PES, 172 [II, 65]. 1 2

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According to Brentano, the distinctive character of judgement lies in its psychological mode. Judgement and presentation are distinct in psychological mode, not in what they present. Hence, Brentano’s theory of judgement has room for the idea that in some judgement objects are acknowledged: It is not […] correct to say that there is a combination or separation of presented attributes in all judgements. Acknowledgement and denial are no more always directed toward combinations or connections than desires or aversions are. A single feature which is the object of a presentation can be acknowledged or denied, too.6

He argued that this part of logical space is occupied and opposed the Aristotelian tradition in proposing that in judgement one does not ascribe something to something else; a judgement can be one-termed.7 I cannot argue here in detail that there are such judgements. But I think the following consideration makes Brentano’s conception initially plausible. In order to judge that something a is F one must take a to be. Now, taking a to be cannot, on pain of infinite regress, be judging that a has a property such as existence. If ‘taking to be’ is required for, but cannot itself be, a predicative judgement, what is it? As a first stab, one can say that taking something to be is thinking of it in a particular mode: [On Brentano’s view], to think that Obama exists is to represent-as-existent Obama. The content of the thought is thus exhausted by Obama. Existence does not come into the thought at the level of content, but at the level of attitude.8

Presenting is thinking of an object in one psychological mode, taking to be or acknowledging is thinking of an object in a different mode.9 Hence, both are non-­ propositional, object-directed attitudes. One way to get a better grip on the crucial notion of ‘psychological mode’ is to think about the functional role of the attitude. Someone who acknowledges Obama is disposed to act upon him etc. Someone who has a presentation of him may lack such dispositions. The main point for our purposes is that acknowledging something x is not representing x to be a certain way. A fortiori, acknowledgements have no predictive power. By Mach’s lights such an acknowledgement can’t be beneficial to the judger by furthering their success in coming to grips with the future. If Brentano is right about judgement, Mach’s biological approach to cognition faces a serious difficulty. One should expect that Mach attempted to criticize Brentano’s theory of judgement. However, Mach did not address this or other conflicts between his and Brentano’s philosophy:

 PES, 161 [I, 48–9].  Brentano finds hints of this conception in Aristotle; see PES, 164 fn [II, 54 fn] (thanks to Johannes Brandl for pointing this out to me). If Brentano is right, most authors in the Aristotelian tradition ignored parts of Aristotle’s doctrine. 8  Kriegel 2015b, 87. 9  Both Mill (1878, 413–4) and Brentano take the distinction between judgement and presentation to be primordial. But, writes Mill, ‘I cannot, however, think that one idea is a sufficient prerequisite for a judgment. I cannot see how there can be Belief without both a subject and a predicate’ (Mill 1872, 1767). 6 7

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In spite of the fact that the lives of the two men [Brentano and Mach] were to cross more than once, that they corresponded with each other in later years, and that the philosophical followers and disciples of both men were in frequent conflict with each other, there is no evidence that Mach ever read any of Brentano’s psychology or philosophy prior to 1907. Admittedly, the books were not particularly easy reading, but Mach unnecessarily handicapped himself by not reading them.10

Mach is not completely silent on the issue: Knowledge and Error contains a suggestive remark: I find myself unable to favour the view that belief is a special mental act at the basis of judgement and constituting its essence. Judgements are not a matter of belief, but naïve findings. It is rather that belief, doubt, unbelief rest on judgements about agreement or disagreement between often very complicated complexes of judgements [Urteilskomplexen].11 (In part my translation.)

This seems confused to me. Mill and sometimes, following him, Brentano call ‘belief’ the distinctive psychological mode in which one thinks of something if one takes it to be real or acknowledges it. They don’t hold that a belief is a mental act that is the foundation (in some sense of ‘foundation’) of judgement. In fact, they don’t say much about the mental state of belief at all. Hence, Mach’s comment seems misplaced. I am also not sure what Mach has in mind with ‘naïve findings’. Neither is Brentano who writes in a brief commentary on the passage above: “As expected he [Mach] completely misjudges the nature of belief as distinct from presentation.”12 (my translation.) While Mach did not argue against Brentano, Brentano argued against Mach. Brentano run a seminar a seminar in 1893/4 that covered the Mach’s positivism, especially his remarks about that the distinction between the mental and the physical is not a distinction between two kinds of things. Later he wrote a chapter by chapter commentary on Mach’s Knowledge and Error. The ‘debate’ between Mach and Brentano is not entirely one-sided. Fortunately Wilhelm Jerusalem (1854–1923) stepped in for Mach. He published in 1895 an Anti-Brentano book: Die Urteilsfunktion. Jerusalem’s book was influential and controversial.13 It is worth engaging with because Jerusalem formulated criticisms of Brentano that Avenarius and Mach work left unarticulated.14 For Jerusalem judgement is the philosophically most important mental act: “It seems to me […] that the psychology of the act of judgement is the ground and presupposition of the complete theoretical philosophy.”15

 Blakemore 1972, 61.  KE, 90 Fn. [115, Fn. 2]. 12  On Mach, 54. 13  UF, 2. Both The Philosophical Review and Mind devoted in 1896 critical notices to it. Husserl review of Die Urteilsfunktion is scathing, see Husserl 1897. The basic idea of Die Urteilsfunktion, says Husserl, is of ‘an incomprehensible naivety’ (Husserl 1903, 218). 14  See Uebel 2012, 13 for the background of Jerusalem’s view of judgement. 15  All translations of Jerusalem’s text are mine. 10 11

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Why? Because every cognition, Jerusalem submits, takes the form of judgement.16 If we want to understand cognition in general and scientific cognition in particular and ground logic and epistemology in psychology, we need a study of judgement. More precisely, we need to uncover which relations obtain between judgement and other mental acts and what the constituents of judgement are. Jerusalem’s general project is to provide a psychological grounding for epistemology and logic, that is show how logic and epistemology can be reduced to special branches of psychology. I will set this general project aside for the purposes of this paper and focus on his theory of judgement that serves it. In outlining his project Jerusalem assumes that judging is a complex activity: an act of judgement is supposed to be composed out of different prior activities that are exercised together. Jerusalem, then, says frequently that a judgement arises out of a synthesis of different elements.17 This assumption and his general philosophical outlook puts him in opposition to Brentano’s theory of judgement. In Die Urteilsfunktion Jerusalem goes on to develop three arguments against Brentano’s view of judgement as a non-propositional and conceptual primitive attitude: The Circularity Argument, The Linguistic Articulation Argument and The Argument from the Judgement Function. In the following sections I will look at all three. To anticipate: I will argue that Brentano can escape Jerusalem’s arguments. But working through the arguments will help to bring Brentano’s view into focus and The Argument from the Judgement Function is worth considering for independent reasons. Jerusalem is the first author I know of who suggests that there are question-­directed attitudes and feelings that are satisfied in judgings.

11.2  J erusalem’s Circularity Argument Against Brentano’s Judgement Primitivism Brentano takes judging to be a phenomenon that can be studied fruitfully by paying attention to one’s episodic memory of one’s own judgements. Jerusalem’s book title Die Urtheilsfunction suggests an alternative approach in line with Mach’s view that mental activities serve a biological function. Judgements have a function for the organism that makes them. They satisfy a need and understanding judging is understanding what this need is and how judgements can satisfy it. Jerusalem will argue that their function requires (i) that judgements are metaphysically complex – they are the joint exercises of different faculties – and (ii) that they articulate or form a manifold of ideas and therefore relate several thing to each other. Both (i) and (ii) support Mach and contradict Brentano’s theory of judgement. In Sects. 11.3, 11.4 and 11.5 I will argue that even if we assume that judging has a function, this assumption does neither entail (i) nor (ii). But Jerusalem also argues against Brentano on independent grounds. I will begin with this argument. 16 17

 UF, 1.  UF, 17.

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Jerusalem gives a concise account of the Brentano’s Judgement Primitivism: Judging means acknowledging or rejecting a presented content. This acknowledging or rejecting is a primary act which can only be understood by appeal to everyone’s inner experience.18

While Jerusalem properly expounds Judgement Primitivism his objection to it misses the mark. He answers the question ‘What is ‘acknowledging’?’ by saying: We have no other choice but to equate the term “acknowledging” with “to take to exist”. […] Judging would then mean as much as taking a presented content to exist or not to exist. If this shall be an explanation of the nature of the act of judgement, one has to say before clearly and distinctly, what one means by existence.19

And, Jerusalem continues, Brentano holds that one cannot say what one means by ‘existence’ without invoking right judgements: correct acknowledgements of objects. Hence, Brentano moves in a tight circle. The response here is simple. There is no circle because judgement is the fundamental notion on the basis of which existence is defined. Jerusalem’s wrongly assumes that ‘acknowledging’ is explained as ‘to take to exist’. Brentano’s view is that one can direct people to the right notion, but not explain it, by saying that in a judgement ‘one takes something to exist’. The nature of judgement cannot be explained at all, one needs to be aware of one’s judgements in order to come to know the nature of judgement by attending to one’s judgings. Brentano can therefore claim that the concept of existence can be defined by appeal to the conceptually primitive notion of judgement; while the notion of existence or reality can be used to help to attend to judgement, but not to define it. Jerusalem’s criticism does not refute, but simply illustrates Brentano’s Judgement Primitivism.

11.3  T  he Token Complexity Thesis and the Linguistic Articulation Argument Jerusalem presents two further arguments intended to show that Brentano’s Judgement Primitivism is false. One target of these arguments is the Primitivism in Judgement Primitivism. Brentano’s judgement and Mill’s belief, says Jerusalem, are not simple: “[T]his ‘believing’ is neither something simple, nor identical with the act of judgement.”20 In which sense is judging not ‘something simple’? Judging, Jerusalem, argues consists in the exercise of several distinct powers: “Judging is a process that consists of elements of presentation, feeling and willing.”21

 UF, 67.  UF, 68. 20  UF, 14. 21  UF, 15. 18 19

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It is unclear whether this is meant as a token identity theory of judgement – for every judging there are activities of the will, feeling and the ability to present things such that the former is identical with a combination of the later – or a type identity theory – the activity of judging is nothing but the activity that consists of the coordinated activities of the will, feeling and the ability to present things. Since The Token Complexity Claim is weaker and therefore more plausible I will assess now whether Jerusalem gives us a good reason to accept it. Jerusalem supports The Token Complexity Claim with two arguments. The first argument is the Linguistic Articulation Argument. It can be glossed as follows: A particular judging cannot be a simple mental activity. For it must involve imagining saying a sentence and associated activities.

Why should one believe Jerusalem’s premise? “I believe to have shown that if one abstracts from the linguistic expression of an act of judgement nothing remains which deserves to be called ‘judgement’.”22 And why is that? Your perceiving a rose triggers at the same time mental pictures, feelings, imaginations. Some of these mental activities are associated with a ‘silent’ utterance of the word “rose” and are thereby collected together. The presentations of words serve as attractors for other presentations and bind them together. Without words as ‘attractors’ for presentations, there is nothing that binds some mental pictures, feelings and imaginings together. If some mental presentations are bound by one word, there is a division in the totality of ideas that are activated by a perception. At the same time the binding stops the process of activating new ideas via further associations. If the presentations of words have attracted the available perceptions, feelings etc. and there is nothing more to attract: attraction stops: “We are provisionally finished with [the process] and precisely this concluding feature of the act of judgement prohibits to take it [judgement] as an association.”23 Judgements conclude trains of association and are therefore themselves not associations. Jerusalem tries therefore to shed light on judgement by detailing how a train of associations can come to an end. In this description presentations of words play an essential role. Without presentations of words, there would be no attractors of presentations that can stop a train of association. Hence, without linguistic expressions judgements cannot be made.24 From Jerusalem’s perspective the first premise seems plausible. Jerusalem adds to this explanation the assumption that common sense conceives of the world as divided into things that have powers (Kraftcentren) and activities that are the exercises of these powers. Consider Jerusalem’s example of judging that

 UF, 17.  UF, 82. 24  For current analytic philosophers it will be helpful to think of Jerusalem as a Proto-Dummett. The natural order of explanation between judgement (belief) and assertion seems to be that judging comes first: assertion is the ‘exteriorization’ of the internal act of assertion. For example, my assertion that p is honest if it is the exteriorization of the judgement that p (the activation of the belief that p). Dummett (1973, 362) argued that this get the order of explanation the wrong way round: ‘Judgement […] is the interiorization of the external act of assertion.’ 22 23

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a tree is blossoming. You judge that the tree is blossoming if the ideas of tree, power and blossoming have been bound together and your current ideas are thereby articulated in different groups representing the power center and one of its exercises: In the judgement the whole complex of presentations, the unarticulated process is formed and articulated by presenting the tree as a unified being with powers that currently exercises these powers by blossoming. The function of judging is therefore not a separating and combining, but consists in articulating and forming presented contents. The tree of the ­judgement is in the judgement presented as a center of forces that is independent of the judger and the blossoming is grasped as his activity. In the judgement we put the power of blossoming into the tree. Thereby the process is extracted from the connection with the stock of my ideas, it is isolated and so to say closed for [erledigt] consciousness.25

The judgement that the tree is blossoming is a representation of the blossoming as an exercise of the power of the tree. Jerusalem’s addition of the power center view seems unwarranted and implausible. We make judgements in which we attribute categorical properties to objects. When I judge that the tile is square I don’t represent the tile as a power centre and squareness as an exercise of one of its powers. The property of being square is not the exercise of a power. However, the power center thesis seems not essential to Jerusalem’s theory of judgement. Jerusalem’s basic hypothesis is that a process of association must be brought to a standstill by something attracting ideas. But why the attractor should be the idea of power center remains unclear. I will set Jerusalem’s power center thesis therefore aside. If we accept Jerusalem’s premises he has given us a reason to assume that there are processes that result in a judgement – the conclusion of a train of associations – but he has not given us any reason to assume that this conclusion is itself complex. There is a causal mechanism that brings association to a standstill, but why should the event of coming to a standstill have the factors that figure in the mechanism as constituents? Let us also set this question aside. Jerusalem goes on to connect his conclusion that judgement is the articulation of a manifold of associated ideas into ideas of a center and its activities to Brentano’s description of judgement. This further step is the most important for our purposes. For it is supposed to deliver the Anti-Brentanian result that, necessarily, every judgement is an articulation of a manifold into at least two parts. A judging or acknowledging is nothing but finishing a train of association and articulating some presentations. Here is the further step in the argument: Simultaneously with the articulation and forming happens in judgement what the English call “belief” and the school of Brentano “acknowledgement”. The tree is put forth in judgement as something that exists independently of me and thereby in a way external to the presentation and objectified.26

Hence, there can be no judgings that only acknowledge an object (and nothing else). This brings Jerusalem to his conclusion:

25 26

 UF, 82.  UF, 82.

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My conception of the act of judgement implies that I take two-termedness [Zweigliedrigkeit] to be an essential property of it. The opposite view put forth by Brentano and Hume will be considered when discussing impersonal and existential statements.27

However, Jerusalem’s premise: Every articulating of some ideas is simultaneous with an acknowledging does not imply the intended conclusion that, necessarily, every judgement has at least two terms. Dinstinct acts may happen simultaneously; the acts can be different in type and complexity. The articulating can constitute a form of complexity, while the simultaneous, but distinct acknowledging accepts an object. Even if the acknowledging happened because of the articulating or the articulating is necessary for the acknowledging, it does not follow that the acknowledging has the same constituents as the forming. Only if we make the stronger assumption: Every articulating of some ideas is identical with an acknowledging can we conclude that, necessarily, every judging has at least two terms. On this reading, Jerusalem tries to reduce acknowledging to the naturalistically more acceptable articulating. When making a judgement we no longer merely associate ideas with further ideas: a judging stopps the process of association. The process of association is stopped when the words have bound the activated ideas. The judgement is nothing but the bounding of idea to words and the bounding of ideas to words is nothing but the articulating of the ideas. By transitivity of identity we get that the judgement is nothing but the articulation of ideas into idea of a power center and activities. How convincing is this argument? Jerusalem’s attempt to show that judging is metaphysically complex is suggestive, but fraught with problems.28 First, it simply begs the question against Brentano in assuming that judging implies an articulation of simultaneous ideas into different groups. This is just the question to be decided. If we take ‘subject-less’ statements like ‘It is raining’, the words of these statements don’t bind different groups of ideas together. Especially they don’t bind them into ideas of a power center and ideas of activities of such a center. Did Jerusalem fail to see this problem? No, in his previous book Lehrbuch der Psychologie he argued that such sentences have a subject: “The subject is the spatio-temporal environment of the speaker. This is designated in German by ‘it’, in Latin and Greek only by the ending of the verb.”29 But if ‘it’ designated the environment of the speaker, the environment would rain. A rather strange consequence. The German ‘es’ in the nominative case is just a grammatical filler, not a singular term in subject position. Hence, assuming that there are no judgings without the utterance of a subject-predicate sentence is false.

 UF, 84.  See Husserl 1890, 220. 29  P, 116. 27 28

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Second, Jerusalem ignores the possibility that many things are acknowledged together without prior organization and division. This is a live option for Brentano. His student and editor of Psychologie Kraus summed this up in his introduction to Psychologie: By “inner perception” Brentano understands a “secondary consciousness” that is inseparable from and directed upon our total “primary consciousness” and at the same time on itself.30 (my translation and emphasis)

We are simultaneously aware of many mental acts; the secondary object is the totality of them and all of them are acknowledged together. Third, the thesis that the completion of the process of sorting ideas into groups is judging is implausible. Consider a thinker who has only a limited stock of ideas that can be grouped. If the grouping his completed, there may be structured mental representation, but why should the completion be a judgement? There is just no more binding or grouping to do. Judging that a is F is one thing, grouping or binding the ideas of a and F together is another. Fourth, even if we agree that judging requires attractors that bind the simultaneously occurring feelings, perceptions and willing into larger groups, why do the attractors need to be words of a natural language? Other things may serves as attractors if all that is required is that the attractor stands in relations of association to events of different psychological types. In sum, the Linguistic Articulation Argument is question-begging and unconvincing.

11.4  The Argument from the Judgement Function Jerusalem’s second argument for the thesis that every judging is metaphysically complex is based on the core assumptions of the biological approach to cognition. Jerusalem builds on August Döring’s theory of goods. I will start by introducing the necessary background. For every organism there are conditions that need to be satisfied for it to persist. Döring calls such conditions are requirements (Erfordernisse). Unfulfilled requirements that are signaled to the organism by mental phenomena are needs (Bedürfnisse). The feeling of hunger, for example, is a mental phenomenon that makes us aware of an unfulfilled requirement; the requirement is therefore a need.31 The feeling of pain makes us aware of the unfulfilled requirement that our body parts are in good working-­order; another need. Döring distinguishes between formal and material needs. Our capacities need exercise. My muscles atrophy if they are not exercised.32 Hence, it is a requirement  Introduction to Brentano 1924 I, LXXXV.  See Döring 1888, 99–100. 32  Ibid, 126. 30 31

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that my muscles are exercised. Such a requirement for the exercise of a capacity or faculty is a formal or functional requirement. The same goes for mental capacities. They will wilt and wane if not exercised. One such functional need gives Jerusalem’s book its title: the judgement function. We have a need to exercise our faculty of judgement in making judgements. Feelings make us aware of the fact that functional requirements are satisfied or unsatisfied. The feeling of sluggishness makes me aware that my capacity for movement is in need of exercise. Similarly, there is an experience of the unfulfilled formal mental requirement for mental exercise: the feeling of boredom.33 The experience that signals satisfaction of the formal requirement is interest. Jerusalem34 defines interest as the pleasure one takes in the satisfaction of mental formal needs. Jerusalem35 goes on to formulate an argument within this framework for the primary conclusion that judgements satisfy a formal mental need. From the primary conclusion he hopes to arrive at two further conclusions: first, that the distinctive judgement mode is a combination of other modes and secondly, that every judging is a forming and dividing of a content. Jerusalem formulates in this framework of mental formal requirements and their experienced satisfaction an argument against Brentano. The argument is contained in a detailed description of an example: Imagine yourself on the top of mountain from were you have a beautiful view to many other mountain tops. One can imagine that a viewer who gives herself completely to the visual sensory impression which the mountain shapes, the snowfields and the glaciers make. His mental functional needs will, then, be satisfied by the presentation alone. But much more often it will happen that we aim to determine how this or that mountain top is called, in which area it is located; especially if we enjoy the same view more often, we will not be satisfied by seeing alone. Our interest will be awakened, and we will be prompted to make judgements and call out, for instance, this is snow, this is the Dachstein, there is the peak of the Grossglockner, what is the name of the mountain under there. Our interest has been excited and the need for intellectual occupation [Beschäftigung] can only be satisfied by judgements. The questions that obtrude on us are the expression of the functional need Funktionsbedürfnis but they show by means of their form that judgements are expected and demanded. In most cases only through them is our need satisfied and one could even go as far to say that the interest be the pleasure in judging [Lust am Urteilen] But how does the judgement satisfy the need? First, by the fact that it is an activity, an exercise of inner powers and not merely a being affected [Afficiertwerden] as the presentation, but then mainly by concluding the process prompted by the presentation and by giving the content the form that is adequate to our consciousness and which makes the content our intellectual property. “This is the Dachstein” does not mean anything else than: the visual impression that I just had is an effect of the power center which I know from previous experience. The need to exercise our intellectual powers is a motive for judging. The interest or the pleasure that results from satisfying this need is an element of the act itself that permeates and accompanies this act. Every judgement is therefore in itself pleasureable, because it satisfies a need.36  Ibid, 128–9. I simplify here for purposes of exposition.  UF, 88. 35  UF, 88. 36  UF, 89–90. 33 34

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The basic idea that drives Jerusalem’s argument is that perception and judgements satisfy different functional needs and that neither can satisfy the need the other satisfies.37 This difference between them makes them activities of different types. The background assumption is that activities are grouped into types with respect to the functional needs they satisfy. The subargument for this conclusion is: (J1) A presentation only prompts us to make a judgement if it stirs an additional, distinct functional need. (J2) A presentation stirs an additional, distinct functional need only if it does not satisfy this need itself. (J3) The judgement can only satisfy the additional formal need if it brings about that a content becomes our ‘intellectual property’. (J4) If acts of type 1 can satisfy formal needs that acts of type 2 can’t satisfy, these act types are different. (JC1) Judging and perceiving are different kinds or types of activity.

Now, Jerusalem wants to refute the Brentano’s Judgement Primitivism, but (JC1) is perfectly compatible with the view that judging is a primitive mental activity. So Jerusalem needs to add a further argument. This argument is exploits the idea that judgings satisfy a distinctive mental functional need. In outline: (J5) Judgements satisfy the need for intellectual occupation. (J6) In order to satisfy the need for intellectual occupation judgements must (a) conclude a process of association and (b) articulate a content into at least two parts. (JC1) Every judgement has at least two parts: judgements are two-termed.

Prima facie, Jerusalem’s line of argument does not seem promising. The need for intellectual occupation is only the need to exercise the judgement faculty by judging. Not much about the nature and metaphysics of judgement can be established on the basis of this need. However, Döring’s account of the need is independently implausible. We don’t want just to make judgements in order to exercise our ‘intellectual muscle’. I could judge that 1 is a number over and over again for hours without taking any pleasure in judging and, hence, my boredom would continue. Döring has failed to describe the need properly. Jerusalem tries to do better than Döring in saying what the functional need is to which judgements answer. He gives two characterizations that will resonate with the reader: (A) ‘Our interest has been excited and the need for intellectual pursuit can only be satisfied by judgements. The questions that obtrude on us are the expression of the functional need, but they show by means of their form that judgements are expected and demanded.’ (B) The feeling that makes us aware of the need we want to satisfy when judging: ‘agonies of uncertainty’ (Qual der Ungewissheit).38

 When hearing a note, I may take an interest in hearing it better in order to appreciate it. One’s attention is primarily appraisive of something x if it contains or is suited to be developed into an appraisal of x (See Gallie 1954). Think of listening to a melody or looking at a painting. You attend to it because you want to appraise it and, under some circumstances, paying attention manifests positive appraisal. Jerusalem’s individuation principle allows aesthetic appreciation to be a form of perception. 38  UF, 90. 37

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Maybe (B) is too dramatic: ‘curiosity’ will do better (A) and (B) point in the same direction. The functional need to which judgements answer is expressed by questions that arise for us and it is manifest in the feeling of curiosity. Curiosity is a feeling that makes us aware of a functional mental requirement: we don’t just want to exercise our ability to make judgements; we want to exercise our ability to find out things that we are ignorant about. We have a drive to increase knowledge, not just a need to make judgements. We feel unsatisfied – pained by ignorance – and need to be relieved of our ignorance. The way to satisfy this need is to find out the answers to the questions that pose themselves for us. If we do so, we feel pleasure and we have recognized something we have connected to our knowledge: we have made it our intellectual property. Jerusalem’s account of the functional need answered by judgement is superior to Döring’s original account of the need for intellectual occupation. In general, we have a drive to find out answers to questions that arise for us. Often it is sufficient that something stands out in our perception for a question to arise. If I hear a strange noise, I will turn my head to find out what made the noise. If I see something I haven’t seen before, I will be curious about it and questions about will press themselves on me. In (A) Jerusalem suggests that curiosity is a question-related attitude. It is the feeling of unpleasure in not knowing the answer to a question.39 To say what the feeling is we need to say which questions needs to be answered to alleviate the feeling and to bring about the pleasure of knowing. This brings us to (J6) in the argument. We can now use the need to be satisfied by judgings to shed light on the satisfier: judgement. Judging that the thing over there on the right is the mountain Grossglockner satisfies a need we have: the need to know what the mountain we see is. With this in mind, Jerusalem’s talk of judgement as articulating a content makes good sense. If the assertion ‘This is the mountain Grossglockner’ is an answer to the question ‘What thing is this?’, the parts of the sentence that contribute the new information are in focus: ‘This is the mountain Grossglockner’. One can think of the sentence as generated from completing the gaps in ‘This is …’ where the gaps are marked by the interrogative pronoun. Hence, we arrive at distinction between known and new parts of a judged content. The judgement indeed brings about a relation between different things: some thing or other ‘plugs’ the gap in an incomplete concept. If the judgement articulates the content, we feel pleasure in knowing an answer: our curiosity has been satisfied. Jerusalem concludes that judging is constituted by taking pleasure in knowing. This pleasure in judging, Jerusalem says, ‘is an element of the act itself which accompanies and penetrates it’ (UF, 90). If satisfying one’s curiosity – did I pass the exam? NO – is not even pleasurable, the initial pleasure in judging is over-ridden by a stronger unpleasure.

39

 See Whitcomb 2010, 673 who holds that curiosity is the desire to know the answer to a question.

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11.5  Responding to the Argument from the Judgement Function Does Jerusalem’s argument refute the main tenets of Brentano’s theory of judgement? Let’s split this up into two questions: First, does it show that judging is metaphysically complex? Here is how Jerusalem put this point: Judging is not only a presentation, but simultaneously a doing, an act of the will. Every act of the will, every internal drive presupposes feelings of pleasure and unpleasure. It is hence indubitable that the judgement contains elements of the will.40

Jerusalem has given us a reason to think that there are judgings that satisfy a need – curiosity – and can give us pleasure. Now making a judgement may give one pleasure. But it is unclear why the pleasure is supposed to be a constitutive part of the judgement. We take pleasure in judging as we take pleasure in seeing. In neither case seems the activity in which take pleasure be constituted by the pleasure we take. Second, does the argument give us a credible motivation for the view that it is necessary for judgement to have two terms? No, for not all questions decompose a content into parts. Take Yes/No questions. Sometimes we are interested to know whether the object we see is mountain. In this situation the interest in knowing the answer to a Yes/No question does not effect a division of the content of the corresponding judgement into known and new components. The whole unarticulated content is known; we are curious whether the whole content is a fact. No analysis of a complex of presentations is required. Jerusalem needs a stronger premise than the one he is entitled to for his purposes, namely the need to know must be the need to recognize something as something previously encountered. This premise is ‘smuggled in’; it is not justified by the theory of functional needs.

11.6  Conclusion Brentano can accept all premises of Jerusalem’s Argument from the Function of Judgement without giving us his Judgement Primitivism. In fact, the idea that curiosity makes us aware of a need to know the answer to a question sheds light on Brentano’s theory. We feel curious about questions whose answer we don’t know. According to Brentano, there is a whole range of questions that inner and outer perceptions settles for us such that we are never curious about them. For instance, the question whether thinking or perceiving is going on now etc. is settled by inner perception. You have no reason to be curious about whether you are thinking or perceiving right now. What we learn from Jerusalem is that there is a range of questions which are not open for us. We cannot be curious about and driven to answer

40

 UF, 86.

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them. I think this makes clear why Brentano’s editor Kraus wrote about the judgements of inner perception: “[Inner consciousness] is in essence independent of the will and accompanies every primary consciousness on the side […].”41 (my translation and emphasis) Inner perception delivers knowledge independently of an inquiry you undertake and prevents ignorance. How can inner perception settle questions? Inner as well as other perceivings are acknowledgements of objects. When I am aware of one or some mental events, I ‘take them to be’ with immediate evidence and thereby the question and my curiosity is preempted.42

References Blackmore, J.T. 1972. Ernst Mach: His Work, Life and Influence. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press. Brentano, F. 1971. PES = Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. Trans. L.  McAlister, 2nd ed. London: Taylor & Francis e-Library 2009. Page references in brackets to Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkt. Second edition (1924) in two volumes, ed. O. Kraus. Reprint Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag. ———. 1988. On Mach = Über Ernst Machs “Erkenntnis und Irrtum”, ed. R.M. Chisholm and J.C. Marek. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Döring, A. 1888. Philosophische Güterlehre. Berlin: R. Gaertner. Dummett, M. 1973. Frege – Philosophy of Language. 2nd ed. 1981. London: Duckworth. Gallie, R. 1954. Pleasure. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 28: 147–163. Husserl, E. 1897. Bericht über Deutsche Schriften zur Logik in den Jahren 1894. In his Aufsätze und Rezensionen (1890–1910). Husserliana 22, 125–154. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. ———. 1903. Bericht über Deutsche Schriften zur Logik in den Jahren 1895–99. In his Aufsätze und Rezensionen (1890–1910), 162–259. Jerusalem, W. 1895. UF = Die Urteilsfunktion. Wien/Leipzig. ———. 1912. P =Lehrbuch der Psychologie. 5th ed. Vienna: Braunmüller. Kriegel, U. 2015a. The Varieties of Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2015b. How to Speak of Existence. A Brentanian Approach to (Linguistic and Mental) Ontological Commitment. Grazer Philosophische Studien 91: 81–106. Mach, E. 1883. M1 = Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwicklung. Leipzig: Brockhaus. ———. 1895. PSL = Popular Scientific Lectures, 186–214. Chicago: Open Court. (Populär Wissenschaftliche Vorlesungen. Leipzig: Ambrosius Barth 1903) ———. 1897. M2 = Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwicklung. 3rd extended ed. Leipzig: Brockhaus. ———. 1914. AE = The Analysis of Sensations, and the Relation of the Physical to the Psychical. Chicago: Open Court. (Die Analyse der Empfindungen. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Reprint of the 1922 edition). ———. 1976. KE = Knowledge and Error. Dordrecht: Springer. (Erkenntnis und Irrtum. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1968. Reprint of the 1926 edition) Mill, J. 1872. Letter to Brentano. In The Later Letters of John Stuart Mill 1849–1873, ed. F.E.  Mineka and D.N.  Lindley, J.  S. Mill, Collected Works, vol. XVII.  Toronto/London: University of Toronto Press. 41 42

 Introduction to Brentano 1924 I, LXXXV.  Many thanks for to Johannes Brandl for very helpful comments on a previous version.

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———. 1878. Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind. 2nd ed. Edited with additional notes by J. St. Mill. London: Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer. Uebel, T. 2012. But Is It Sociology of Knowledge? Wilhelm Jerusalem’s “Sociology of Cognition” in Context. Studies in East European Thought 64: 5–37. Whitcomb, D. 2010. Curiosity was Framed. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81: 664–687.

Chapter 12

Brentano and J. Stuart Mill on Phenomenalism and Mental Monism Denis Fisette

Abstract  This study is about Brentano’s criticism of a version of phenomenalism that he calls “mental monism” and which he attributes to positivist philosophers such as Ernst Mach and John Stuart Mill. I am interested in Brentano’s criticism of Mill’s version of mental monism based on the idea of “permanent possibilities of sensation.” Brentano claims that this form of monism is characterized by the identification of the class of physical phenomena with that of mental phenomena, and it commits itself to a form of idealism. Brentano argues instead for a form of indirect or hypothetical realism based on intentional correlations. Keywords  Brentano · Stuart Mill · Mach · Positivism · Phenomenalism · Permanent possibilities of sensation

This study is about Brentano’s relationship with positivism. This topic has been investigated in connection with Comte’s and Mach’s versions of positivism, and it has been argued that the young Brentano was significantly influenced by several aspects of Comte’s positive philosophy without ever committing himself to its anti-­ metaphysical assumptions.1 But several other aspects of Brentano’s relationship with positivism have not been thoroughly investigated; namely, Brentano’s

 See Münch, D. (1989), „Brentano and Comte“, in: Grazer Philosophische Studien, vol. 35, philosophiques de Strasbourg, vol. 35, pp.  85–128; Fisette, D. (2019), “Brentano’s lectures on positivism (1893–1894) and his relationship with Ernst Mach”, in: F. Stadler (Ed.), The Centenary of Ernst Mach, Berlin: Springer, collection Ernst Mach Circle, p. 39–50. 1

D. Fisette (*) Department of Philosophy, University of Quebec at Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano and Austrian Philosophy, Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40947-0_12

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relationship with the British philosopher John Stuart Mill.2 The young Brentano was influenced by several aspects of Mill’s thought and we shall see that the philosophical program that Brentano developed in Würzburg is in many respects similar to that of Mill. Several years later, in his lectures on positivism and monism that he held in Vienna in 1893–1894,3 Brentano is more critical of Mill’s version of positivism and the so-called permanent possibilities of sensation. The form of phenomenalism that Brentano criticizes in these lectures rests on what he calls “mental monism,” which he characterises as the identification of the class of physical phenomena with that of mental phenomena. Brentano argues that this form of monism commits itself to idealism, which can be summarized by Berkeley’s classical expression: esse est percipii. I claim that Brentano argues instead for a form of indirect or hypothetical realism, and that his own alternative to mental monism consists in replacing the identity relation with that of intentional correlation.

12.1  T  he Background of Brentano’s Relationship with Mill and Positivism Brentano’s interest in positivism goes back to his first meeting with Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg during his studies in Berlin in 1858–1859.4 Trendelenburg exercised a great deal of influence over his intellectual development, not only with respect to his knowledge of Aristotle, but also to his apprenticeship in philosophy. This is what he will confirm, in 1914, on the occasion of his appointment as a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences: With Trendelenburg, I shared the conviction throughout my life that philosophy lends itself to true scientific treatment, but that it cannot get along with such treatment unless it wants to be revived regardless of what was transmitted by the great thinkers of the past. I followed his example by devoting several years of my life to the study of Aristotle’s writings, which he had taught me to consider, above all else, as an untapped treasure. The same belief that there is no real prospect of success in philosophy, unless proceeding in the same way as in other scientific fields, has less encouraged me to want to embrace much than to concentrate all my strength in some relatively simple tasks.5

 There are, however, helpful studies on Brentano’s relationship to Stuart Mill: see Haller, R. (1988), „Franz Brentano, ein Philosoph des Empirismus“, in: Brentano Studien, vol. 1, pp.  19–30; Baumgartner, W. (1989), „Brentanos und Mills Methode der beschreibenden Analyse“, in: Brentano Studien, Bd. 2, pp. 63–78. 3  Brentano, F. (1893–1894), Vorlesungen: Zeitbewegende philosophische Fragen, Houghton Library: Harvard, LS 20, pp. 29366–29475; hereinafter referred to as Lectures on positivism. 4  In his book Seiendes, Bewußtsein, Intentionalität im Frühwerk von Franz Brentano (Freiburg, Alber, 2001, p. 144), M. Antonelli rightly pointed out that most German positivists at the time, notably Ernst Laas, who supervised Benno Kerry’s dissertation on the problem of causality in Stuart Mill, were students of Trendelenburg. 5  Brentano, quoted in M. Antonelli, Seiendes, Bewußtsein, Intentionalität im Frühwerk von Franz Brentano, op. cit., p. 38. 2

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This conviction led Brentano to take an interest in positivism, and it is also at the heart of the research program which he developed in Würzburg. In 1869, he published an article entitled “Auguste Comte and positive philosophy,” in which he praises the merits of the French philosopher whom he describes as “one of the most remarkable thinkers of [the 19th century]”.6 Brentano’s interest in Comte and positivism is not limited to this article. He also held a public lecture on Comte in 1869,7 and it is known that Brentano’s paper was only the first of a series of seven articles that he planned to write on Comte’s philosophy, a project which he never carried out. Nevertheless, many issues discussed by Brentano in this article on Comte were already at the heart of his philosophical preoccupations when he assumed his position at Würzburg in 1866; namely, his philosophy of history, his urging of the employment of the inductive method of the natural sciences in philosophy, and his critique of speculative philosophy. Besides these themes common to Brentano and Comte, several other factors should also be considered in this context. Notable among these are the classification of sciences that took on increasing importance for Brentano during this early period, and the question of religion  – more specifically, the question of the compatibility of philosophy practised in the spirit of the natural sciences with one form or another of theism.8 One of the decisive factors explaining why Brentano took an interest in Comte’s philosophy is without a doubt the importance he granted to British empiricism, and especially to John Stuart Mill’s philosophy. It was through Mill’s work on Comte’s positivism that Brentano came to know about the work of the French philosopher, and his reading of Comte had been deeply influenced by Mill’s interpretation of Comte’s philosophy in that work.9 But there is reason to think that Mill’s position with regard to Comte’s positivism in that work is also, for Brentano, a non-­negligible motivation for his interest in Mill’s philosophy. We know from Stumpf that Brentano’s interest in Mill’s philosophy can be traced back to his first lectures on metaphysics, delivered at Würzburg from 1867 (until 1872), in which he dealt abundantly with Mill’s System of Logic.10 Stumpf also confirms that Brentano’s interest  Brentano, F., „Auguste Comte und die positive Philosophie“, in: Kraus, O. (Ed.) (1968), Die vier Phasen der Philosophie und ihr augenblicklicher Stand, Hamburg: Meiner, pp. 99–100. 7  Concerning Brentano’s 1869 public lectures on Comte and positivism, see Stumpf, C., “Reminiscences of Franz Brentano”, in: McAlister, L. (Ed.) (1976), The Philosophy of Franz Brentano, London: Duckworth, p. 20. 8  See Brentano, F. (1873), „Der Atheismus und die Wissenschaft“, in: Historischpolitische Blätter für das katholische Deutschland, vol. 72, pp. 852–872 & pp. 917–929. 9  Mill, J. St. (1865), Auguste Comte and Positivism, in: Mill, J. St., Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Robson J. M. (Ed.) (1969), Toronto: University of Toronto Press, vol. X, pp. 261–368. 10  Beside Stuart Mill’s work on Comte, Brentano deals extensively with Stuart Mill’s System of Logic in several lectures, namely in his 1869 lectures on deduktive und induktive Logik, and in Brentano’s Psychology (Brentano, Psychology from an empirical Standpoint, trans. A. C. Rancurello et al., London: Routledge, 1973; hereinafter referred to as Psychology) where he repeatedly refers to Stuart Mill’s contribution to the classification of acts, the laws of association, and introspection. Brentano further discusses Mill’s logic in a talk delivered in Vienna in 1890 under the title “Modern errors concerning the knowledge of the laws of inference” (in D. Fisette & G. Frechette (Eds.), 6

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in Comte’s philosophy goes hand in hand with the increasing importance of British philosophy in Brentano’s research and teaching during the Würzburg period.11 Indeed, Marty and Stumpf have pointed out significant changes in Brentano’s philosophy toward the end of the 1860s, including changes in the definition of psychology in its relation to metaphysics. Brentano temporarily dissociates himself from the Aristotelian conception of psychology as a science of the soul, and distinguishes more clearly the field of psychology from that of metaphysics. We can even speak of a turning point in Brentano’s thought, which began during this period, and which is reflected in his rapprochement with the research program developed by philosophers like John Stuart Mill and Auguste Comte, for example, and based on a philosophy from an empirical point of view. This stands out clearly from the comparison of Brentano’s work on Aristotle’s De Anima in 1867, which contains virtually no reference to contemporary psychology, as Brentano’s first lectures on psychology were delivered at Würzburg between 1871 and 1873. It is on these lectures that Brentano’s Hauptwerk is based, and in which we can observe a rapprochement with the British philosophers.12 One of the important sources of information regarding Brentano’s effort to bring himself closer to the British empiricists is his correspondence with Mill from 1872 until the latter’s death in 1873.13 This exchange took place during Brentano’s Glaubenskrise, beginning in 1869 with his reflections on Church dogma, and culminating in his abandonment of priesthood in 1873 and his resignation from his position as ordinarius at Würzburg a few weeks later  – a position that he had finally obtained in May 1872, despite Hoffmann’s opposition, thanks to the intervention of Lotze. It is in this state of mind that Brentano prepared to travel to England, and he would arrive in London during the summer of 1872 to meet some British philosophers.14 In the first letter to Mill, Brentano relates the regrettable state of philosophy in Germany, as well as his intention to reform it by drawing on the reform of the natural sciences. He describes himself as elated by the realization that his own ideas are close to those of Mill in many respects regarding the method and certain of his Themes from Brentano, Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 513–524) in which he opposes the neo-Kantian conception of the rules of inference to that of Stuart Mill. 11  This is also confirmed by A. Marty in his short biography of Brentano where he notes Brentano’s increasing interest, during the Würzburg period, in philosophers such as Locke, Hume, Bentham, Stuart Mill und Jevons (Marty, A. (1916), “Franz Brentano. Eine biographische Skizze”, in: Gesammelte Schriften, vol. I, 1, Halle: Niemeyer, pp. 97–103. 12  Stumpf, C., „Reminiscences of Franz Brentano“, op. cit. p. 37. 13  Mill, J.  St., The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. The Later Letters of John Stuart Mill, 1849–1873, Mineka Francis E. and Lindley Dwight N. (Eds.), Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972, vol. XVII, part IV. 14  It is known that Brentano had planned to teach a course on the theme “inductive and deductive logic with an application to the natural sciences and to the sciences of mind” in the summer semester of 1873, but this course was never given because, in the meanwhile, Brentano resigned from his position at Würzburg. See. Werle, J. (1989), Franz Brentano und die Zukunft der Philosophie, Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 97–98.

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doctrines.15 Brentano tells him about his plans to travel to England, and this ­correspondence deals largely with the planning of a meeting between the two philosophers. However, we know that this meeting never took place, first because Mill was no longer in London during Brentano’s stay, and second, because a later meeting, intended to take place at Avignon, was unfortunately prevented by Mill’s passing.16 This does not mean that the British philosopher was uninterested by the young Brentano’s work, as the correspondence itself demonstrates the contrary. A review of George Grote’s work on Aristotle,17 in which Mill comments of one of Brentano’s two works on Aristotle18 which he had sent to Mill in 1872, also indicates the latter’s interest in Brentano. The passage concerns Brentano’s habilitation thesis and shows Mill’s high esteem for him: Franz Brentano’s work The Psychology of Aristotle, In Particular His Doctrine of the Active Intellect, which M. Grote does not seem to have considered as he wrote his essay because Brentano’s work was recently published in 1867; without taking position on the question of determining whether Brentano has supported all his theses in that work, the author of the present article cannot help but noting that this work is one of the most meticulously executed pieces of philosophical research and exegesis that he has ever encountered.19

Mill’s glowing remarks on Brentano gives us an idea of the philosophical scope that such a meeting between both philosophers might have had.20

12.2  Mill’s Permanent Possibilities of Sensation The major influence of Comte and British empiricism on Brentano’s thought has recently given rise to interpretations of his philosophy as a version of phenomenalism. We owe the first interpretation to P. Simons in his introduction to the English translation of Brentano’s Psychology (p. XVI), in which he attributes to Brentano what he called “methodological phenomenalism.” Simons’s interpretation has been taken over recently by Tim Crane who claims that this form of phenomenalism is  Worth mentioning in this regard is Brentano’s ethics which has been strongly influenced by Mill’s and Bentham’s utilitarianism. See Chisholm, R. (1986), Brentano and Intrinsic Value, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 16  Brentano nevertheless meets with other philosophers during his stay in England, notably with H. Spencer, with whom he exchanged a few letters that were published in the journal Nachrichten, vol. 6, 1995, pp. 7–16. 17  Grote, G., Aristotle, A. Bain/G. C. Robertson (Eds.) (1972), London: John Murray; Mill, J. St. (1875), ‘Grote’s Aristotle’, Dissertation and Discussions, London: Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, vol. IV, pp. 189–230. 18  J. S. Mill, ‘Grote’s Aristotle’, op. cit., pp. 211 & 222. 19  Mill, J. St., ‘Grote’s Aristotle’, op. cit., p. 222. 20  This correspondence also contains a very interesting philosophical discussion on the theory of judgment, and notably on Brentano’s thesis of the reduction of categorical judgments to existential judgments, which I cannot discuss in this study. Brentano reproduces the relevant excerpts of this discussion with Mill in a long footnote to his Psychology (p. 169–171). 15

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compatible with the thesis that the reality of the external world transcends appearances and phenomena.21 According to the second interpretation, Brentano committed himself in his Psychology to metaphysical phenomenalism, according to which there is nothing beyond phenomena, the reality of the external world being constituted by mere appearances. We shall see that the methodological link with phenomenalism is justified, although the expression “methodological phenomenalism” is rather misleading. The term “phenomenology” is perhaps more appropriate given Brentano’s extended use of the term phenomenon, and it is well known that many psychologists, including his pupil Stumpf, have used it in this way.22 On the other hand, despite his sympathy for philosophers such as Comte, Mill, and Ernst Mach, for example, who advocate a rather radical form of metaphysical phenomenalism, we shall see that there are reasons to believe that Brentano himself never adhered to this form of positivism. Brentano’s reservations with respect to phenomenalism are first formulated in his Psychology and later in his lectures on positivism entitled “Contemporary philosophical questions” which he held in Vienna one year before he left Austria and in which he extensively discusses several versions of phenomenalism (p. 29417–29426). Despite the cursory character of Brentano’s notes, which predominately consist of quotes and paraphrases from the main texts of these philosophers on that topic, these manuscripts are valuable with regard to Brentano’s position on phenomenalism. He carefully examines four versions of positivism and compares Comte’s version to Kirchhoff’s on the one hand, and Mill’s version to that of Ernst Mach, on the other hand. He claims that Mill’s and Mach’s versions constitute progress over that of Comte’s and Kirchhoff’s to the extent that they both take into account the contemporary development of natural sciences and they grant more importance to the field of mental phenomena than the other two versions. The first part of these lectures is devoted to a comparative study of Comte’s and Kirchhoff’s versions of positivism which he at this point clearly repudiates. He then asks whether one should rule out any form of positivism or consider any other forms, even if one has to provide them with a critical complement. Brentano opts for the second option, and proposes to

 According to T. Crane (Aspects of Psychologism, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014), what distinguishes Brentano from phenomenalism proper is that Brentano “believes that there is something beyond the phenomena, although we can never know it. Nonetheless, this knowledge can never come through science; so as far as science is concerned, phenomenalism might as well be true. Peter Simons has usefully called Brentano’s approach methodological phenomenalism and I will adopt this label,” p. 33. 22  See Fisette, D. (2015), “The Reception and Actuality of Carl Stumpf”, in: D. Fisette/R. Martinelli (Eds) (2015), Philosophy from an empirical standpoint: Essays on Carl Stumpf, Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 1–53. 21

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examine in turn Mill’s doctrine of permanent possibilities of sensation in chapter 11 of his critical work on Hamilton23 and Ernst Mach’s doctrine of elements.24 Brentano already discussed Stuart Mill’s theory in the first chapter of the second book of his Psychology in the context of a revision of his definition of natural sciences. Brentano considers certain restrictions to his definition of the natural sciences as sciences of physical phenomena because the phenomena of imagination, for example, which are ultimately physical phenomena, are not objects of study of the natural sciences. It is in this context that he proposes this definition of the natural sciences as the sciences which seek to explain the succession of physical phenomena connected with normal and pure sensations (that is, sensations which are not influenced by special mental conditions and processes) on the basis of the assumption of a world which resembles one which has a three-dimensional extension in space and flows in one direction in time, and which influences our sense organs.25

Brentano claims that this form of explanation further presupposes that one ascribes to the world “forces capable of producing sensations and of exerting a reciprocal influence upon one another, and determining for these forces the laws of co-existence and succession.26 In a footnote to this passage, he associates this notion of force with what Mill calls “permanent possibilities of sensation,” even if he claims that the notion of physical phenomenon ultimately refers to “the external causes of sensation” that are manifest in sensations.27 This explanation does not coincide entirely with Kant’s premises, but it approaches as far as possible his explanation. In a certain sense it comes nearer to J. S. Mill’s views in his book against Hamilton (Chap. 11), without, however, agreeing with it in all the essential aspects. What Mill calls “the permanent possibilities of sensation,” is closely related to what we have called forces.28

What Brentano says immediately after this passage regarding the task of natural sciences and their object (forces) does not seem to be entirely in agreement with his understanding of Mill’s doctrine in his 1893–1894 lectures. For he says explicitly in this passage that these forces belong to a spatial world, a true effective world, which is exactly what Mill disputes with his doctrine of the permanent possibility of

 Mill, J. St. (1865), An examination of Sir William Hamilton’s philosophy, and of the principal philosophical questions discussed in his writings, London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, 1865; He introduced the concept of permanent possibilities of sensation in chapter 11 entitled “The psychological theory of the belief in an external world”. 24  Mach,E. (1991), Analyse der Empfindungen und das Verhältnis des Physischen zum Psychischen, 6e ed., Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft; see Brentano, Über Ernst Machs ‘Erkenntnis und Irrtum’, R. Chisholm/J. C. Marek (Eds.) (1988), Amsterdam: Rodopi. 25  Psychology, p. 74. 26  Psychology, p. 74. 27  Psychology, pp. 75–76. 28  Psychology, p. 76 n. 23

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sensations, as we shall see later.29 Be that as it may, Brentano concludes this brief commentary on the definition of the natural sciences by saying that this definition is justified to the extent that it was conceded from the outset that the external causes of sensations correspond to the physical phenomena which occur in them, either in all respects, which was the original point of view, or at least in respect to three-dimensional extension, which is the opinion of certain people at the present time. It is clear that the otherwise improper expression ‘external perception’ stems from this conception.30

Twenty years after the publication of his Psychology, Brentano is much more critical of Mill’s philosophical positions. In his lectures on positivism, Brentano understands Mill’s book on Hamilton as an attempt to explain our belief in an external world in terms of beliefs in permanent possibilities of sensation. The following quote summarizes Mill’s working hypothesis in this chapter of his book on Hamilton: The conception I form of the world existing at any moment, comprises, along with the sensations I am feeling, a countless variety of possibilities of sensation; namely, the whole of those which past observation tells me that I could, under any supposable circumstances, experience at this moment, together with an indefinite and illimitable multitude of others which though I do not know that I could, yet it is possible that I might, experience in circumstances not known to me. These various possibilities are the important thing to me in the world. My present sensations are generally of little importance, and are moreover fugitive: the possibilities, on the contrary, are permanent, which is the character that mainly distinguishes our idea of Substance or Matter from our notion of sensation.31

Mill claims to account for the common sense belief in the existence of a real world, of a substance, by reducing it to such permanent possibilities of sensations.32 He further maintains that our world view contains, in addition to sensations – which are fleeting and momentary and which are moments dependent on us – a multiplicity of possibilities of sensations which come to us partly from past experiences or observations, and which indicate that, under certain conditions, one can experience them repeatedly. In addition to such possibilities, there are possibilities about which we do not know and that we can only imagine or anticipate, for example, and which constitute further possibilities. Mill claims in this passage that the main difference between the actual sensations and these possibilities is that the latter are permanent, and that it is precisely the permanence of these possibilities that distinguishes the substance from mere phenomena and sensations.

 However, in his Lectures on positivism, Brentano argued that Mill, in the second edition of his work on Hamilton, recognized the existence of matter and distanced himself from the version of phenomenalism that he advocated in the first edition. 30  Psychology, p. 76. 31  Mill, J. St. (1865), An examination of Sir William Hamilton’s philosophy, and of the principal philosophical questions discussed in his writings, London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, pp. 237–238. 32  Ibid., p. 246. 29

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Experience further teaches us that the succession of these sensations is linked to a fixed order33 from which we form the relations of cause and effect. This order of succession is not between real sensations in experience, but between groups of possibilities of sensations (of wholes), which seem to us more real than our own sensations.34 As a special case of a permanent possibility of sensation, Mill uses the example of the city of Calcutta. I believe that Calcutta exists, though I do not perceive it, and that it would still exist if every percipient inhabitant were suddenly to leave the place, or be struck dead. But when I analyse the belief, all I find in it is, that were these events to take place, the Permanent Possibility of Sensation which I call Calcutta would still remain; that if I were suddenly transported to the banks of the Hoogly, I should still have the sensations which, if now present, would lead me to affirm that Calcutta exists here and now. We may infer, therefore, that both philosophers and the world at large, when they think of matter, conceive it really as a Permanent Possibility of Sensation.35

These possibilities of sensation form the permanent background of one or more of these sensations which appear to us to be real at a given moment. According to Brentano, the possibilities behave in relation to the real sensations as a cause in relation to its effects or as matter in relation to form.36 Brentano concludes this analysis by saying that Mill is a pure positivist in the sense that he excludes everything that is not psychical phenomena, which is to say that “the object of experience is only his own mental phenomena. And so he believes that he may not assume anything real than his own psychical phenomena. (…) Indeed, only our own mental phenomena deserve the name of facts of experience”.37 This is Brentano’s characterization of Mill’s mental monism: physical phenomena understood as the primary objects of experience are reducible to one’s own mental phenomena, and to percepts in the case of sensory perception. For if phenomena are somehow related to experience, then they are necessarily related to mental states (sensory perception): Esse est percipii.38 We shall see that Brentano’s main criticism of Mach and Mill is based on the fact that they do not account satisfactorily for the duality in the percept or in one’s state of mind, such as an emotion between the feeling and what is felt, or between perceiving and what is perceived. According to Brentano, to this duality correspond two classes of phenomena, which are bearers of heterogeneous and irreducible properties.

 Lectures on positivism, p. 29419.  Lectures on positivism, p. 29421. 35  Mill, J. St. Ibid. 36  Lectures on positivism, p. 29422. 37  Lectures on positivism, p. 29411. 38  Lectures on positivism, p. 29423. 33 34

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12.3  The Case of Pain in Psychology Let us now examine Brentano’s diagnosis of the form of phenomenalism advocated by Mill and Mach, which is based on the amalgam of the class of physical phenomena with that of mental phenomena. In his Psychology, Brentano discusses a similar hypothesis in relation to his theory of primary and secondary objects, which he attributed to Hamilton, A.  Bain and Mill; it also consists in identifying primary objects, i.e. physical phenomena, with secondary objects, i.e. mental phenomena. Brentano’s discussion of this hypothesis takes place in the first chapter of the second book of Psychology, in which he discusses several criteria for the delineation of the class of mental phenomena from that of physical phenomena. It is in this context that he introduces the notion of intentional inexistence both as the main criterion for this classification and as the main property of mental phenomena. The discussion with the English empiricists pertains more specifically to the value of the division in the class of phenomena between the subclass of physical phenomena and that of psychical phenomena. Brentano argues against phenomenalism on the basis of the principles underlying his classification in his Psychology. Brentano uses Hamilton’s view on affectivity as an example of the position advocated by Mill and the other positivists on that issue. In the following excerpt, Hamilton refuses to consider sensations (feelings) of pleasure and pain as mental (or intentional) phenomena. In the phaenomena of Feeling, – the phaenomena of Pleasure and Pain, – on the contrary, consciousness does not place the mental modification or state before itself; it does not contemplate it apart, – as separate from itself, – but is, as it were, fused into one. The peculiarity of Feeling, therefore, is that there is nothing but what is subjectively subjective.39

Hamilton’s position in this passage rests on the idea that one can be conscious of being in a state of pain without representing it (without objectifying it), which is to say that the state of pain can be conscious without being about anything, i.e. without being intentional, as Stumpf and Husserl also claim. The notion of content can also be used to formulate the same opposition. According to the author of Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, an affective state (a feeling) such as pain is subjectively subjective because it has no content different from itself, and the state of feeling and what is felt are one and the same thing. Brentano disagrees fully with Hamilton’s analysis, and proposes an analysis of pain which is compatible with the basic tenets of intentionalism. He admits that macroscopic objects necessarily appear to us as phenomena because the mode of donation of an object depends on the way it is determined intentionally, and in this sense what is given to consciousness necessarily depends on an act of presentation. Thus, the mode of consciousness by which one relates to a physical phenomenon belongs to the class of intentional acts which he calls presentations. That is one of the principles of Brentano’s Psychology that is at the heart of the dispute with the

39

 Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, op. cit. p. 431).

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positivists. It is the principle (Vorstellungsgrundlage) according to which every mental state is either a presentation or is based on a presentation.40 This amounts to saying that this feeling of displeasure is always “presupposed by a presentation”:41 no pleasure or pain without a presentation and therefore without an intentional act. Unlike Hamilton, Brentano claims that every state possesses a content which is different from itself and which carries properties different from those of mental phenomena, and this content constitutes its primary and immanent object.42 Moreover, in response to an argument of A. Bain, Brentano argues that despite the fact that the mode of givenness of physical phenomena, such as colour, for example, is dependent upon and relative to the presentation we have of it, that does not mean that a colour cannot exist without being presented. Otherwise, being presented would be a property of colours.43 Brentano only says that “to present,” “to be presented” means the same thing as “to appear”.44 Yet one of the properties that Brentano attributes to the subclass of physical phenomena is space. In the case of the experience of pain, the object presented is the part of the body where pain is localized. This is consistent with one of the main features of physical phenomena – i.e., that they are always externally perceived as localized.45 Brentano further maintains that all phenomena such as colours convey a similar form of duality, and he emphasizes this distinction in the cases of a cut, a burn, and a tickle which awaken in us a feeling of pain: But then in cases where a feeling of pain or pleasure is aroused in us by a cut, a burn or a tickle, we must distinguish in the same way between a physical phenomenon, which appears as the object of external perception, and the mental phenomenon of feeling, which accompanies its appearance, even though in this case the superficial observer is rather inclined to confuse them.46

He claims, in fact, that the sensation of pain as any sensation involves the EmpfindenEmpfundene duality, and that we must distinguish, even at this most elementary level, the act of experiencing pain, which is a mental phenomenon, from that toward which this act is directed, i.e., the physical phenomenon.47 As we can see, one of the fundamental presuppositions in Brentano’s diagnosis based on the identification of physical and mental phenomena is that pain and sensory feelings in general are, for the positivists, mental phenomena and intentional states. Yet this is precisely what Hamilton denies in the excerpt quoted above. To do  Psychology, p. 65.  Psychology, p. 62. 42  Psychology, pp. 95–96. 43  Psychology, p. 91. 44  Psychology, p. 62. 45  Psychology, pp. 65–66. 46  Psychology, p. 63. 47  One of the arguments used by Brentano against this identification is linguistic and it is based on the equivocity of the German notion of Gefühl which designates both the feeling (Empfinden) and what is felt (empfundene) (Psychology, p. 65). Brentano also mentions an argument based on the experience of the phantom limb (ibid.). 40 41

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justice to their own position, we can introduce a new distinction within the class of affective states between sense feelings, which are sensations just like colours and sounds, and emotions, which are intentional states like beliefs and desires. The essential difference is that emotions but not sense feelings are intentional states. This distinction is at the heart of the debate between Brentano and his students Husserl and Stumpf. In a sense, the debate that divides Brentano and Mill pertains to the question whether the experience of pain belongs to the class of intentional states or whether it is a mere sense feeling as sensationalist philosophers such as W. James claim.48 Husserl and Stumpf claim that they are two sui generis states, while Brentano seems to advocate a form of intentionalism according to which intentionality is the unique trait of the mental, and the threshold of conscious experience is representational and therefore necessarily intentional. This is again confirmed by this excerpt from Brentano’s lectures on positivism in which he summarizes his position on the relationship between the two classes of phenomena: The sensory feeling (das Empfinden) always has the general characteristic feature of a mental phenomenon, which is characterized as an intentional relation to an immanent object. It can be found similarly in memorising, desiring, enjoying, recognizing, negating, etc. However, what is felt [in a sensory feeling] has the general character of a physical phenomenon, which consists in the fact that the phenomenon is localized.49

12.4  Phenomenalism vs. Indirect Realism In his book on Comte, Stuart Mill suggests that the adjective “positive” in the expression “positive philosophy,” “would be less ambiguously expressed in the objective aspect by Phaenomenal, in the subjective by Experiential”.50 Mill’s remark brings to the fore two characteristic features of positive philosophy, which Brentano insists upon in his article, to wit: first, that it is a philosophy aiming to found itself on experience, i.e., on observation and induction, and second, that it ultimately only concerns itself with phenomena, and more specifically, with the succession and similarity between phenomena, which it subordinates to natural and invariant laws. Furthermore, it implies the rejection of research into ultimate causes by which Comte characterizes the mode of explanation of phenomena by theistic philosophy and metaphysical philosophy in his theory of the three states. In this respect, the notion of phenomenon as used by Comte and the positivists is especially important to Brentano with regard to its central role in his Psychology, in which it designates at once the object of psychology (mental phenomena) and that of the natural sciences (physical phenomena). Brentano relates the use of phenomena in his philosophy to the relativity of knowledge, by which he means both a limitation of our  See Fisette, D., “Mixed Feelings”, in: D.  Fisette/G.  Fréchette (Eds.) Themes from Brentano, op. cit. pp. 281–306. 49  Lectures on positivism, p. 29441. 50  Mill, J. St., Auguste Comte and Positivism, op. cit. pp. 10–11. 48

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knowledge of transcendent things and of the relational character of our knowledge. A passage from Mill’s work on Comte summarizes this point perfectly: We have no knowledge of anything but Phaenomena; and our knowledge of phaenomena is relative, not absolute. We know not the essence, nor the real mode of production, of any fact, but only its relations to other facts in the way of succession or of similitude. These relations are constant; that is, always the same in the same circumstances. The constant resemblances which link phaenomena together, and the constant sequences which unite them as antecedent and consequent, are termed their laws. The laws of phaenomena are all we know respecting them. Their essential nature, and their ultimate causes, either efficient or final, are unknown and inscrutable to us.51

According to Brentano, the thesis of the relativity of knowledge does not entail any form of scepticism or any metaphysical presuppositions. On the other hand, a philosopher like Hamilton argues that the lack of absolute knowledge and thesis of relativity of knowledge testify for metaphysical relativism, i.e. the relativity of the existence and reality of the external world to the subject of knowledge: But the meaning of these terms will be best illustrated by now stating and explaining the great axiom, that all human knowledge, consequently that all human philosophy, is only of the relative or phenomenal. In this proposition, the term relative is opposed to the term absolute; and, therefore, in saying that we know only the relative, I virtually assert that we know nothing absolute, – nothing existing absolutely; that is, in and for itself, and without relation to us and our faculties. (…) But as the phenomena appear only in conjunction, we are compelled by the constitution of our nature to think them conjoined in and by something (…) But this something, absolutely and in itself, – i.e. considered apart from its phenomena, – is to us as zero. It is only in its qualities, only in its effects, in its relative or phenomenal existence, that it is cognizable or conceivable.52

Hamilton’s characterisation of the relativity thesis in this passage is metaphysical since it emphasizes the relativity of the existence of the objects of the outside world and not merely an epistemic limitation as does Brentano. And contrary to what some commentators of Brentano have recently argued, the adoption of the relativity thesis does not necessarily involve metaphysical phenomenalism. Brentano conceived of it as an epistemological limitation related to the extended use of phenomena in philosophy and science. According to Brentano, the phenomena studied by sciences, such as sound or heat, do not have any real existence outside observation, but are mere phenomena and “signs of something real, which, through its causal activity, produces presentations of them”.53 That is why Brentano maintains that we cannot claim that the objects of the external perception really are how they seem to us, in contradistinction to mental phenomena, the reality of which is guaranteed by the evidence of internal perception: “We have no experience of that which truly exists, in and of itself, and that which we do experience is not true. The truth of physical phenomena is, as they say, only a relative truth”.54 For physical p­ henomena

 Ibid., p. 6.  Hamilton, W., Lectures on Metaphysics, op. cit., pp. 96–97. 53  Psychology, p. 14. 54  Psychology, pp. 19–20. 51 52

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give us no representation of the reality to which these phenomena refer, and what appears in these phenomena does not truly exist. Brentano further claims that even if we had a complete knowledge of the physiology of the brain, for example, this could not provide us with more information concerning the true nature of these realities; that would only tell us something about certain physical phenomena which are caused “by the same unknown X”.55 What Brentano ultimately disputes in this case is the mode of explanation of phenomena referring to occult properties or obscure causes, i.e., to what Comte in his three laws theory calls the theological and metaphysical modes of explanation based on fictitious entities or persons. Brentano claims instead that our knowledge is limited to relations between phenomena, more specifically relations of succession and resemblance that link phenomena with one another and, as we said above, the main task of science consists in formulating laws that govern these relations. For instance, when we seek to explain why one body attracts another one, we are not looking for an occult entity belonging to the ultimate nature of attraction, but rather we relate phenomena using a law, in this case the law of gravitation.56 Despite Brentano’s commitment to the thesis of the relativity of knowledge and several other aspects of positivism, he does not endorse the mental monism and metaphysical phenomenalism that he closely associates with the identity thesis. This clearly stands out in the conclusion to his lectures on positivism: “It therefore seems that the proof of the absurdity of the presupposition of an external space world on the basis of the identity of the mental and the physical in sensation be a complete failure”.57 As most of his students, Brentano advocates instead a form of critical or indirect realism which is compatible with the thesis of the relativity of knowledge insofar as one understands this form of realism as a form of hypothetical realism, as Brentano frequently does in several manuscripts published in Vom Dasein Gottes. For example, in these manuscripts he says that the presupposition of a real world is a hypothesis: i.e., to quote Brentano, “a hypothesis which makes comprehensible with infinitely more probability than any other our physical phenomena and their order.”58

12.5  Final Remarks on Intentional Correlation I shall conclude this study with a few remarks on Brentano’s option to metaphysical phenomenalism based on the identity relation between the two classes of phenomena. In his lectures on positivism, Brentano raises the question as to whether, if one admits the irreducible character of these two classes of phenomena, the core of

 Psychology, p. 45.  Psychology, pp. 116–117. 57  Lectures on positivism, p. 29443. 58  Brentano (1968), Vom Dasein Gottes, Hamburg: Meiner, p. 156. 55 56

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Mill’s and Mach’s version of positivism could not be preserved. Brentano answers in the affirmative, on the provision that one replaces the identity relation between the two classes of phenomena by that of correlativity (Correlativität), which he developed in his lectures on descriptive psychology held in Vienna in the late 1880s.59 In his lectures on positivism, Brentano claims that this idea of correlation, broadly understood, is something similar but more appropriate to what John Stuart Mill was looking for with his doctrine of permanent possibilities of sensation, and Mach with his doctrine of elements. If there is no identity, in the sensation, between psychical and physical phenomena, another relation might be conceivable which would render it inseparable. I mean that of correlativity (Correlativität). So are cause and effect, bigger and smaller, bride and groom, etc., not identical but correlates and as correlates, inseparable. But also seeing green and green seem to be correlates.60

As first approximation, the term correlation refers to the bilateral relation of dependence between pairs like cause and effect, larger and smaller, etc. But Brentano’s proposal mainly pertains to this class of correlates which he calls intentional correlates (intentionales Korrelat) and which are involved in the relation between these two classes of phenomena. Examples of intentional correlates include the pairs sensing and sensed, presenting and presented, denying and denied, loving and loved, etc. Brentano maintains that what is specific to the class of intentional relations lies in the fact that it includes a pair of correlates, of which “only one is real, while the other is not.” In his lectures on descriptive psychology, Brentano claims that the intentional correlate (intentionales Korrelat) of any intentional state is not something real. This notion of intentional correlate is actually at the heart of a recent controversy surrounding the so-called orthodox interpretation of Brentano’s theory of intentionality advocated by most of Brentano’s students, and more recently by R. Chisholm. There is an interesting parallel to be drawn between this controversy and the debate on phenomenalism to the extent that the former bears on the orthodox interpretation of Brentano’s intentionality thesis as an ontological thesis on the status of the immanent objects of mental phenomena. For what is at stake in both debates is the status of primary objects or physical phenomena and the amalgam of primary and secondary objects, i.e. the act’s object and its correlate. Let us first take a look at the debate over intentionality. In a nutshell, according to the advocates of the so-called continuist reading of Brentano, the traditional interpretation of Brentano’s theory of intentionality in his Psychology conflates the primary object with the intentional correlate of mental act (i.e. the secondary object). One of the arguments that proponents of the unorthodox interpretation forward is based on a passage from Brentano’s Psychology in which he maintains that the sound is not a relative concept (i.e., a correlate).

 Brentano, Deskriptive Psychologie, R.  Chisholm/W.  Baumgartner Hamburg: Meiner. 60  Lectures on positivism, pp. 29443–29444. 59

(Eds.)

(1982),

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The concept of sound is not a relative concept. If it were, the act of hearing would not be the secondary object of the mental act, but instead it would be the primary object along with the sound. And the same would be true in every other case, which is evidently contrary to Aristotle’s own view. Likewise, we could not think of anything except certain relations to ourselves and our thoughts, and this is undoubtedly false.61

Here, the physical phenomenon of sound is considered the primary object of external perception, whereas the secondary object is the object of internal perception (or of self-consciousness) and it includes, in addition to the primary object, the presentation of the sound and the internal perception of the latter. The discontinuists argue that the sound heard is not an intentional object but rather its intentional correlate. Brentano’s argument in this passage can be formalized as follow:62 1. The sound is the primary object of the act of hearing a sound. If the sound was a relative concept, then we would have: 2. The sound (as an object of the act of hearing) is the same as the heard sound. It would then follow that: 3. The heard sound is the primary object of the act of hearing a sound. It would further follow that the actual correlate would be, according to the canonical interpretation: 4. The act of hearing a sound would be the primary object of the act of hearing a sound.

Brentano concludes that the concept of sound is not a relative concept and that the second premise must be false because it confuses the primary (ordinary and non-­ dependent) and the secondary (intentional and dependent on its relation to the act) object. According to the proponents of the non-orthodox interpretation, Brentano distinguishes, therefore, between the object of an act (the sound “tout court”) and its correlate (the intentional object, the sound heard). From this perspective, Chisholm and the adherents to the orthodoxy are wrong to say that the object of an act is a mysterious entity endowed with a kind of “diminished existence.” However, if the non-­ orthodox interpretation is right in insisting on the distinction between intentional objects and correlates, the question arises as to what the status of the objects of external perception – i.e., of the physical phenomena, which they sometimes call the objects “tout court” – is. For Brentano’s theory of primary and secondary objects pertains primarily to consciousness and it aims at accounting for the fact that in hearing a sound, for example, one is not only conscious of the sound, but she is at once conscious of being in the state of hearing it as its secondary object. What, then, is the bearing of Brentano’s theory on the issue of the distinction between correlate and intentional object? Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as an object “tout court” for Brentano, but only phenomena triggered by distal or proximal stimuli, and as we saw above, “forces capable of producing sensations.” And without this distinction, it is very difficult to figure out how to conceive of the distinction

 Psychology, p. 101.  See Sauer, W. (2006), „Die Einheit der Intentionalitätskonzeption bei Brentano“, in: Grazer philosophische Studien, vol. 73, pp. 1–26; Fréchette, G., „Brentano’s Thesis (revisited)“, in: Themes from Brentano, op. cit., pp. 91–119. 61 62

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between, on the one hand, primary objects of external perception and transcendent objects, and on the other hand, intentional correlates and intentional objects. This raises several interesting questions about the status of primary objects in Brentano that I cannot address here. Be that as it may, Brentano’s criticism of Mach’s and Mill’s versions of phenomenalism seems to support the non-orthodox interpretation of Brentano’s intentionality thesis insofar as both the discontinuist interpretation and these versions of phenomenalism commit the same mistake. This seems to be confirmed by a passage in Brentano’s Psychology in which he discusses a hypothesis based on the identification of primary and secondary objects that he attributes to A. Bain and J. Stuart Mill: “This hypothesis assumes that the act of hearing and its object are one and the same phenomenon, insofar as the former is thought to be directed upon itself as its own object”.63 In any case, once one accepts the validity of the distinction between correlate and intentional object and emphasizes the relational character of intentionality in Brentano, the rapprochement which has been made at the outset with methodological phenomenalism gains plausibility. For it shows that if one excludes the metaphysical dimension underlying these versions of phenomenalism, not much difference remains with Brentano. For example, we saw that Brentano is committed to several aspects of positivism, namely, the importance he grants to phenomena, relations, the relativity thesis, and to the mode of explanation based on observation and induction. This mode of explanation consists, on the one hand, in seeking relations of succession and similarity that link phenomena to one another, and on the other hand, in searching for general laws that govern these relations. This explains how Brentano was able to integrate several elements of the positivist program into his own without ever committing himself to its metaphysical assumptions.

63

 Psychology, p. 94.

Chapter 13

Ist die Unterscheidung von Ganzheit und Summe eine sachliche? Bemerkungen zum Vortrage Prof. Schlicks „Über den Begriff der Ganzheit” Alfred Kastil

Keywords  Brentano · Schlick · Vienna Circle · Gestaltpsychology

13.1  Editorial Note Kastil’s first paper is a critical examination of Schlick’s paper “Gestaltpsychologie”.1 Kastil proceeds from Schlick’s general diagnosis of the concept of gestalt as that of metaphysics, namely that problems of the appropriate description are being confused with factual or objective questions, and he wonders what is the confusion resulting from the amalgamation (Verwechslung) of something which belongs to a mere description with objective propositions (sachlichen Behauptungen). He then wonders why Schlick considers that the two modes of description (summative and gestaltist) are not objective but descriptions which merely fulfil practical goals and which are more or less appropriate for that purpose. Kastil admits that one and the same thing can be described in several different ways without that one of these be With an Introduction by Denis Fisette Vortrag vor der Jahreshauptversammlung der philosophischen Gesellschaft an der Universität zu Wien, 18 Januar, 1935. (N.d.H.)  Kastil’s first contribution to this volume is a lecture delivered in the Philosophical Society of the University of Vienna on January 18, 1935 under the title “Ist die Unterscheidung von Ganzheit und Summe eine sachliche? Bemerkungen zum Vortrage Prof. Schlicks “Über den Begriff der Ganzheit””. It belongs to Kastil’s Nachlaß in Franz Brentano Archiv in Graz. The page numbers enclosed in square brackets refer to the original manuscript. Thanks to Thomas Binder of the Franz Brentano-Archiv in Graz for his assistance and for the permission to publish Kastil’s manuscript. Thanks also to Martin Moore who did part of the transcription of the manuscript and Guillaume Fréchette for his revision of the transcription. (N.d.H.) 1

A. Kastil (*) Department of Philosophy, University of Quebec at Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano and Austrian Philosophy, Vienna Circle Institute Yearbook 24, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40947-0_13

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wrong. But one then changes the point of view. Thus, one can conceive of the same sculpture from the point of view of the chemist as gold, from the point of view of an artist as Kitsch, under that of the physician as heavy or heat conductor, of that of taxation as taxable, etc. The point of view is changing at will, but this arbitrariness does not mean that these statements about the thing should not be true or false. That is what Kastil tries to show in his analysis of the notion of Gestalt. Kastil starts from the three fundamental questions that one seeks to solve with the concept of gestalt and that Schlick carefully analyses in his lecture: (a) The problem of life: the relation between the organic and the inorganic; (b) The mind-body problem: the relationship between the physical and the mental; (c) The community problem: the relation of individuals to the community as a whole. Let us take as an example the mind-body problem on which Kastil insists in his commentary on Schlick. He argues that the sum-Gestalt opposition, contrary to what Schlick maintains, refers to something objective and that the descriptum is irreducible to mere descriptions. That is why he introduces Ehrenfels’s conception of the Gestalt (pp. 15577–15582) to which he attributes two essential and exclusive properties: (1) Not a sum of parts but something new, a specific quality alongside color or smell, for example; (2) Its capacity of being transposed (Transponierbarkeit): the idea that a melody, to use Ehrenfels’s favorite example, can be transposed from one key to another, and thus by changing all the notes that compose it, while preserving its identity. He argues that one can say about the same complex of parts that it is at the same time a Gestalt and a sum of parts. This is true of a series of sounds or of a spatial figure, but not because no one is an objective determination, but on the contrary because “one completes the other in a similar way to when one says of the same thing that it is both colored and spatially extended” (pp. 15582–3). Shall one then say that it is only one’s apprehension which is responsible for the fact that a given complex acquires a specific Gestalt? In this case, it would not belong to the object itself but rather to the way it is apprehended or conceived. Kastil believes, on the contrary, that a Gestalt is something objective and he maintains that the opposition between a holistic and a summative conception of states of consciousness (forms or relations) do not oppose as two modes of description “more or less appropriate”, but rather as two “objective determinations” which, however, stand in sharp contradiction with each other (p. 15591). Denis Fisette

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[015562] 1. Seinem Vortrage in der Wiener Philosophischen Gesellschaft (28. I 34)2 schickte Herr Prof. Schlick einleitende Bemerkungen über die richtige Methode der Philosophie voraus. Darin war u.a. die zutreffende Forderung erhoben, daß der Philosoph die von ihm verwendeten Ausdrücke, Worte und Sätze, durch präzise Angabe ihres Sinnes wissenschaftlich brauchbar mache. Sonst werde jeder Streit zum Wortstreit. An der Erfüllung dieser Forderung fehle es nun bei denen, die darüber debattieren, ob etwas eine bloße Summe oder eine Ganzheit sei, gar sehr. Vom Wort Ganzheit weiß jeder, der in diese Erörterungen Einblick gewonnen hat, daß es vieldeutig ist; doch machte der Vortragende aufmerksam, daß auch die Ausdrücke Summe, Undverbindung und dgl. nicht einheitlich verwendet werden. Auch ihnen gegenüber sei also Vorsicht angebracht, und daran habe es z.B. Driesch fehlen lassen, als er am Einsteinschen Additionstheorem sich eine Kritik erlaubte und infolge davon an ihm vorbeiargumentierte. Vielleicht wäre zur Entschuldigung von Driesch zu sagen, daß auch Einstein selbst nicht genügend Sorge getragen habe, solche Missverständnisse auszuschließen.3 Aber dem programmatischen Veto Prof. Schlicks gegen einen undefinierten Gebrauch wissenschaftlicher Termini wird man selbstverständlich zustimmen. 2. Und ebenso seiner Behauptung, daß es gerade bei den Philosophen vielfach an solcher begrifflichen Sauberkeit fehle und ganz besonders in dem, was unter dem Namen Metaphysik dargeboten wird. Wenn es aber a.a.O. gefiel, dem Beispiele Auguste Comte folgend, die Metaphysik geradezu dadurch zu definieren, daß sie  Schlick, M. (1933–1934 and 1934–1935), “Über den Begriff der Ganzheit”, in: Wissenschaftlicher Jahresbericht der philosophischen Gesellschaft der Universität zu Wien, Wien, Verlag der philosophischen Gesellschaft der Universität zu Wien, pp. 23–37; also in Schlick, M., Die Wiener Zeit. Aufsätze, Beiträge, Rezensionen 1926–1936, in: Friedl, J./Rutte, H. (Eds.) (2008), Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Abteilung I, Band 6, New York, Springer, pp. 681–700. 3  „Die Relativitätstheorie, bemerkt Schlick gegen Driesch, lehrt nicht den Unsinn, den Driesch ihr zuschreibt, nämlich, daß c + v = c, sondern vielmehr, daß die resultierende Geschwindigkeit = c wird, falls eine der Komponenten  =  c ist.“ Aber Driesch könnte sich demgegenüber wohl auf Einsteins „Gemeinverständliche Darstellung“ berufen, wo es S. 12 heißt: Hat ein Lichtstrahl relativ zum Bahndamm die Geschwindigkeit c, der Eisenbahnzug die Geschwindigkeit des Lichtes gegen den Wagen w = c–v. Auf S. 20 wird die Frage aufgeworfen, ob eine Relation zwischen Ort und Zeit der einzelnen Ereignisse in Bezug auf beide Bezugskörper denkbar sei, derart daß jeder Lichtstrahl relativ zum Bahndamm und relativ zum Zug die Ausbreitungsgeschwindigkeit  =  c besitz. Diese Frage wird auf S. 23 unten bejaht. Wollte man einwenden, daß es sich hier um eine populäre, nicht exakte Darstellung handle, so wäre auf die allgemein von den Physikern und Mathematikern gebilligte Darstellung der Relativitätstheorie von W.  Pauli (Relativitätstheorie, Leipzig, Teubner, 1921) hinzuweisen, der das Einsteinsche Additionstheorem ganz ebenso verstanden hat wie Driesch. Es heißt hier S. 561: Es ist ohne weiteres zu sehen, daß die Art, wie man in der alten Kinematik Geschwindigkeiten zusammengesetzt hat, in der relativistischen Kinematik nicht mehr zu richtigen Resultaten führt. Z.B. ist klar, daß eine Geschwindigkeit v