Franz Brentano’s Philosophy After One Hundred Years: From History of Philosophy to Reism (Primary Sources in Phenomenology) 3030485625, 9783030485627

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Primary Sources in Phenomenology Franz Brentano Studies

Denis Fisette Guillaume Fréchette Hynek Janoušek  Editors

Franz Brentano’s Philosophy After One Hundred Years From History of Philosophy to Reism

Primary Sources in Phenomenology Franz Brentano Studies Series Editors Guillaume Fréchette, Universität of Salzburg, Austria Kevin Mulligan, University of Italian Switzerland, Lugano, Switzerland Peter Simons, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland Barry Smith, University at Buffalo, NY, USA

This Series makes available important source materials from Austro-German philosophy relating to the foundations and background of currents of thought that shaped decisively the development of twentieth century philosophy. It is divided into four main sections, each of them containing materials or translations of otherwise inaccessible sources, supplemented by interpretative studies designed to establish the systematic implications, historical context, and contemporary relevance of the materials presented. The four sections are 1) Franz Brentano; 2) The School of Brentano (including Marty, Meinong, Twardowski, Ehrenfels, Husserl, and Stumpf); 3) Early phenomenology (including Scheler, Geiger, Pfänder, and Reinach.); and 4) Influences of Austro-German philosophy in other disciplines, especially in logic, linguistics, and theoretical psychology (from Bolzano to Bühler). The Series combines editions and translations of original and previously unpublished works with volumes having a stronger focus on interpretation, including both monographs and edited collections. This Series has been established in response to the increasing interest in early phenomenology and early analytic philosophy of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. It promotes publications, both new editions and interpretative works, relating to a period and a current of the history of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy which is of central importance for both analytic philosophy and phenomenology, but which until quite recently has been almost completely neglected by both of these fields. This sub-series focuses on Franz Brentano and includes new editions and translations of his posthumous works. In addition, it contains monographs and edited collections that deals with the interpretation and evaluation of Brentano’s philosophy. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15615

Denis Fisette  •  Guillaume Fréchette Hynek Janoušek Editors

Franz Brentano’s Philosophy After One Hundred Years From History of Philosophy to Reism

Editors Denis Fisette Université du Québec à Montréal Montréal, QC, Canada

Guillaume Fréchette University of Salzburg Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

Hynek Janoušek Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Praha, Czech Republic

Franz Brentano Studies ISSN 0924-1965 Primary Sources in Phenomenology ISBN 978-3-030-48562-7    ISBN 978-3-030-48563-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48563-4 © 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

Preface

The year 2017 marked the centenary of the death of Franz Brentano, and it was the occasion for numerous publications and conferences. Between May 27 and June 3, we organized an international conference and summer school held in both Prague and Vienna to commemorate the centenary, bringing together established scholars and early-career researchers. As a selection of some of the lectures and contributions presented during the first part of this conference in Prague at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, this volume is meant to give both an overview of current research on the philosophy of Brentano and to serve as the proceedings of the event in Prague. A selection of the lectures presented in Vienna has been published in a second volume.1 Four main issues are addressed in this volume. In the first part of the book, Brentano’s descriptive psychology as a contribution to philosophy of mind is discussed. The second part focuses on the relation between Brentano and Husserl. The third part addresses issues related to Brentano’s reism. Finally, the fourth part deals with Brentano’s use of the history of philosophy, his early training in history of philosophy, and his relations with physiologists in Vienna. The appendix to this volume contains an edition of a previously unpublished treatise by Brentano on ontological questions, which belongs to his early reistic period. The four chapters of the first part assess different aspects of Brentano’s descriptive psychology, from both historical and systematic perspectives. In the last 20 years, Brentano has become one of the central historical figures for many philosophers defending a view along the lines of representationalism or intentionalism. The reason is obvious and lies in Brentano’s two theses about intentionality and consciousness as marks of the mental. Given that the writings on these two central topics published during Brentano’s lifetime are relatively sparse and that his position evolved quite rapidly over the years, it is unclear to what extent his conception of intentionality and consciousness (and which one exactly) is able to accommodate

1  See Fisette, D., G.  Fréchette, F.  Stadler (eds.), Franz Brentano and Austrian Philosophy, Springer (2020).

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these views. As a consequence, Brentano often appears in contemporary literature either as a moving target or as a distant relative. This is the case regarding discussions of intentionality and consciousness in general (as discussed in the papers by Arnaud Dewalque, Denis Seron, and Maik Niemeck), but also in the particular case of Brentano’s theory of emotions, as discussed by Íngrid Vendrell Ferran. In “Brentano and the Birth of a New Paradigm in the Philosophy of Emotion”, Ferran acknowledges Brentano as the founder of a new theoretical approach to the theory of emotions. The originality of Brentano’s position stands out especially as contrasted with a prevalent theory of emotions in the late nineteenth century, namely that of Wundt. As Ferran tells us, Wundt was mainly concerned with the introspective description of felt features of emotional experience—its quality, intensity, and form of development—and by experimental observation of causal relations between felt emotions and their parallel physiological conditions and manifestations. Ferran emphasizes the importance of intentionality, cognitive dependency, and values in Brentano’s starting point. His originality, Ferran holds, does not consist so much in the object directedness of emotions—a feature which gave rise to many different views on the ontological status of emotional correlates among Brentano’s students—as in the uniqueness of the intentionality of emotions and its irreducibility to the intentionality of presentations and judgements. Even though emotions presuppose a cognitive foundation—and here, as Ferran argues, Brentano allows for a wider range of cognitive elements than modern, cognitively oriented approaches along the lines developed by Anthony Kenny—the experience of evidently correct emotions cannot be reduced to the experience of evidently true judgements. It is this specific kind of emotion which allows for experiences of values and preferences in general. Despite some important differences stressed by Ferran, this view brings Brentano closer to the proponents of affective intentionality and its variants (B. Helm, M. Nussbaum, J. Prinz, and others). The three remaining chapters of the first part attempt to replace the self-­ representational account of self-consciousness with a new interpretation of Brentano’s view of inner perception. According to the self-representationalist position, every psychical phenomenon bears an intentional relation to two specific objects. Furthermore, notwithstanding the differences in our awareness of these objects, we speak of representation in both cases in roughly the same sense of intentional “directedness” towards an object. To put it succinctly, every psychical phenomenon is self-representing, that is, it is a represented object for itself. Against this view, Dewalque holds that we should not understand Brentano’s conception of inner perception in terms of self-directed intentionality, but as a way of appearing or being experienced. Inner perception is not inner observation; it is veridical (apodictically true) and entails the existence of the innerly perceived psychical phenomenon. By contrast, the intentional relation, in the usual Brentanian sense of a relation towards a physical phenomenon, allows for observation of the physical phenomena; it is fallible and does not entail the existence of its object. If we stress, as Brentano did in his later work, that intentionality is not a relation but merely something like a relation, since the object of intention need not exist, it seems impossible to speak of the veridical and existence-entailing inner perception

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as a kind of intentional relation. Dewalque suggests that we should rephrase our talk of an intentional relation in terms of the appearing of an object to someone and defends his suggestion against possible objections. In both outer and inner perception, an object appears; however, in inner perception the psychical phenomenon appears incidentally and is acknowledged with self-evidence. Mental phenomena, Dewalque contends, simply manifest themselves in a way that physical phenomena do not. In the same vein, Denis Seron also rejects understanding inner perception in terms of intrinsic intentionality. In the Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, Brentano views intentionality as a relation to an in-existent content (object) contained in the relation as a part. This content, Seron claims, can never be a real object, but exists only phenomenally. The intentional relation is therefore not a real relation but a purely mental and mereological relation to a “non-existing” object. According to Seron, these marks of intentionality make it clear that inner perception does not consist in a secondary intentional relation to a content (that is, to itself), for the inner perception, so Brentano claims, necessarily implies the real existence of its object, and this contradicts the condition of the merely phenomenal existence of the content. A new danger for the self-representational reading arises from the absurdity of a dual representation of the primary intentional object in the primary intentional relation and, yet again, in a secondary inner perception in which it is represented along with the perceived psychical act. To avoid these difficulties, Seron suggests that the distinction between the presentation of the intentional object and the presentation of the psychical act should be understood as a merely conceptual distinction, supporting this suggestion with Brentano’s later distinction between direct and oblique presentations. In seeing a colour, for example, we have a direct secondary presentation of the (real) seeing of the colour, while the object of primary presentation—namely, the colour—appears only obliquely (without existing) as the object of seeing. In the concluding chapter of the part, Maik Niemeck interprets Brentano’s secondary consciousness as a mode of consciousness. Drawing from the recent self-­ mode accounts of the subjective character of experience, he addresses problematic features of the self-representational and pre-reflective approaches to the subjective character of our experience, and finds no place for the content of secondary consciousness in the represented content of our conscious states. According to Niemeck, we are aware of the “primary” content self-consciously without any additional representation of its subjective character. However, the subjective character does not completely disappear from the picture, but remains in the background as an unarticulated constituent of our mental states and figures in the circumstances of evaluation of presented objects. In fear, for example, as Niemeck points out, we are incidentally and implicitly concerned with ourselves without representing ourselves along with the represented object, and this concern clearly modifies our (self-­ consciously experienced) fear of the object. Niemeck argues that in this way, we can account for the incidental and non-observational character of the inner perception mentioned by Brentano.

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Throughout the last 100 years, the name of Brentano has often been mentioned only in connection with the intellectual development of one of his most successful students, Edmund Husserl, and soon became associated almost exclusively with the prehistory of phenomenology. Unsurprisingly, Husserl’s account of his own relationship to Brentano was mostly taken at face value by phenomenologists, and his critique was simply granted without further analysis. Taking a closer, non-palaeontological look at this relationship brings elements of discussion to light that are profitable for both Husserlian and Brentanian scholarship, as the second part of the book shows. In the opening chapter of the part, Hynek Janoušek charts Husserl’s early theory of time consciousness. A closer look at Husserl’s Philosophy of Arithmetic finds Husserl explaining intuitive time consciousness using Brentano’s theory of time modification of intentional contents in fantasy. Husserl also follows Brentano in accepting the actual simultaneity of these contents in the presentation of succession and employs Brentano’s critique of the confusion between the simultaneity or succession of immanent contents in consciousness and their (intuitive) presentations as simultaneous or successive. In Philosophy of Arithmetic, this critique is used to refute a number of theories, which Husserl finds unsuitable to serve as the psychological foundation of arithmetic. Husserl’s early dependence on Brentano’s theory of time consciousness is a fact which seems to have escaped the attention of many phenomenologists. Hamid Taieb revisits Husserl’s critique of Brentano’s supposed misunderstanding of eidetic knowledge. As Taieb shows, Husserl claims that proper eidetic knowledge differs from empirical psychology in its objects, acquisition, and epistemic value. Its truths are drawn from general intuition of essences with apodictic certainty and universal validity. According to Husserl, Brentano fails to see these features clearly and conceives of psychology as an empirical science. Through a detailed discussion of Brentano’s texts, however, Taieb demonstrates that there is a clear differentiation in Brentano’s thinking between a priori knowledge and knowledge of facts. Even though Brentano does not allow for essences and a priori concepts and does not restrict descriptive psychology to a priori insights, he draws a clear line between the absolute certainty appertaining to a priori psychological knowledge and the practical certainty of inductive psychological generalizations. The former kind of knowledge satisfies Husserl’s general requirements for eidetic truths. As Taieb concludes, however, Brentano overlooked that a similar differentiation would have been needed in his genetic psychology as well. Here Husserl’s critique seems to be partially justified. This part on Brentano and Husserl concludes with Alice Togni’s discussion of Husserl’s concept of immanence and its relation to the method of phenomenological reduction. Coming from a one-sidedly oriented reduction to immanence of real-act constituents in the Logical Investigations, which Husserl inherited from Brentano’s descriptive psychology, she suggests that Husserl gradually extended his understanding of reduction and immanence to account for givenness in the sense of absolute self-givenness in On the Idea of Phenomenology. Later, in the first volume of his Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, he expanded his view of intentionality with his concept of noema and shifted the

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problems of phenomenology to the transcendental field with the method of transcendental reduction. As Togni emphasizes, however, he still defended a version of phenomenological psychology and phenomenological reduction alongside the idea of transcendental phenomenology and transcendental reduction, which suggests that Husserl’s critique of Brentanian immanent, intentional psychology should perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt. Another result of the merely palaeontological interest of most phenomenologists in Brentano is that the development of reism, which occurred several years after Husserl’s Philosophy of Arithmetic, is still largely ignored today in the phenomenological tradition. The third part of the book presents discussions of the ontological and metaphysical aspects of Brentano’s work and the impact of his reism on the theory of inner perception and language. Bruno Leclercq builds on the logical tools of formalized mereology to capture different possible ways of interpreting Brentano’s first-order theories of self-­ consciousness and contrasts these views with their counterpart presented by higher-­ order theories of self-consciousness. As Leclercq shows, the various possible formalizations of the relation of a psychical phenomenon to its own inner perception depend on different ontological interpretations of the kind of relation (supervenience, identity, or enrichment) that holds between various parts of the whole psychical phenomenon. These variations can be further distinguished by different ways of substituting the parts into the relation holding between them. According to Leclercq, such formalizations cannot decide which of the alternatives should be accepted, but they can clearly reveal the less intuitive (or even counterintuitive) ontological commitments and consequences involved in accepting them. This especially concerns the less usual “mereological” relations of substance and accidents formulated by Brentano in his late, reistic ontology. Brentano’s late philosophy accepted only real objects and proclaimed that all supposed irrealia are linguistic fictions. Charlotte Gauvry investigates the relation between ontological reism and language. She starts by differentiating Brentano’s negative stance towards the multifarious realm of entia irrealia and entia rationis from the influential and more positive discussion of these concepts in the work of Francisco Suárez. (For Brentano’s relation to Suárez, see the contribution by David Torrijos-Castrillejo in Part IV of the book.) Brentano’s ontological denial of entia rationis led him to a semantic reism, according to which all sentences misleadingly referring to putative irrealia can be rephrased to refer only to real objects. But as Gauvry asks in the second part of her text, what is the criterion for distinguishing proper logical names from fictive ones, and what is the general picture of language that lies behind this view? Analysis of Brentano’s text reveals a far more complicated context to his claim that while proper logical names are autosemantic, fictitious names are merely synsemantic. Brentano holds that all substantives are meaningful in the context of speech; moreover, autosemantic linguistic terms also point to their corresponding paraphrase in terms of descriptions of psychical acts. In following the contrast between ordinary language and its theoretical clarifications in Brentano’s theory, Gauvry suggests that Brentano was not insensitive to the illocutionary functions of language.

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Brentano’s reism specifically targeted the theories of those philosophers who, like Husserl and Meinong, accepted irrealia, with general objects, states of affairs, and values being perhaps the most contested ones. However, his arguments against these kinds of object remained, for the most part, unanswered. Sébastien Richard draws attention to an interesting exchange concerning the existence of general objects between Husserl’s pupil Roman Ingarden and the Polish philosopher and logician Tadeusz Kotarbiński, who developed a reistic philosophy of his own independently of Brentano. Drawing on the work of Stanisław Leśniewski, Kotarbiński presented two arguments against the existence of general objects based on their supposed contradictory nature. In answering these arguments, Ingarden developed his own version of the difference between conceptual marks (the “content of the idea”) and marks of the concept (the “structure of the idea”). He also pointed out an important difference between the variable and constant parts of the conceptual content. From his discussion of the Ingarden-Leśniewski debate and of the presuppositions on both sides, Richard concludes that Ingarden succeeded in showing why Leśniewski’s arguments cannot be taken as convincing proofs of the non-existence of general objects. The fourth part of the book brings together contributions on Brentano as a historian of philosophy with some discussions of the historical context in which he developed his views on psychology. Venanzio Raspa discusses the treatment which Aristotle’s categories receive in Brentano’s first book, On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle (1862), and sets it against the debate of this controversial topic in nineteenth-century Germany. Despite their many disagreements, the participants in this debate were united in their effort to defend Aristotle against the well-known critique of Immanuel Kant. In addition to outlining the views of a whole group of German Aristotelians, Raspa highlights in particular the differences between the interpretations offered by Brentano’s teacher Friedrich Trendelenburg and another prominent scholar of Aristotle, Hermann Bonitz. While Trendelenburg understands Aristotle’s categories as the highest predicates—or rather, ways of predicating—and ties them to grammatical distinctions of the Greek language, without neglecting their ontological value, Bonitz interprets them as the various meanings that being in general assumes. Raspa argues, however, that Bonitz’s understanding of being as the domain of that which is given through experience has a distinctly Kantian flavour. Raspa further shows how Brentano reconciled certain aspects of both of these views in his own distinct response to the problem. According to Brentano, the categories are the highest real concepts of being. However, despite his claim concerning the purely analogical meaning of being in the sense of the categories, Brentano—Raspa holds—moved away from a properly Aristotelian understanding of the categories by interpreting being in Bonitz’s sense and by following him in ignoring Aristotle’s remarks that the categories apply to non-being as well as to being. Emanuele Mariani turns his attention to Brentano’s interpretation of Aristotle’s difficult concept of active reason and the role of analogy in describing the unity holding between the various parts of the soul. Mariani connects Brentano’s discussion with the famous mediaeval disputes concerning the nature of active reason and

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its operation. Is active reason a substantial part of the body? Can it abstract forms from sensory images if it is purely intellectual and separable from the rest of the soul, while the sensory part of the soul seems to be material? In replying to these discussions, Brentano construes Aristotle’s active reason as something mental and particular which acts on the sensible part in such a way that thinking (i.e. receiving concepts from sensory images) is possible. Mariani stresses Brentano’s point that active reason acts before thinking and is therefore unconscious. This fact helps Brentano establish a full analogy between the operations of the senses and those of (passive) reason, each part having a specific kind of receptivity to forms: the unconscious power affects the receptivity and the conscious power apprehends the forms. Brentano thus displays a tendency to use analogies to elucidate the forms of complex unities, and this tendency, Mariani holds, resurfaces in his later psychological works. Laurent Cesalli takes a closer look at Brentano’s philosophy of the history of philosophy, which plays a determining role for his cyclical conception of the history of philosophy and provides a substantial insight into his conception of philosophy as a science. First, by reconstructing Brentano’s classification of the sciences, he shows that history of philosophy is a science that takes philosophy as its object. By contrast, the philosophy of history of philosophy shares its object with history of philosophy but aims at describing the laws governing the historical development of philosophy. Second, he identifies two Neo-Scholastic influences on Brentano’s conception of the history of philosophy: the critical attitude towards the philosophy of his times and the importance of methodological soundness in the evaluation of philosophical doctrines. At the same time, as Cesalli stresses, Brentano views history of philosophy from a rather critical perspective, since history of philosophy is not considered to be philosophy, which gives Brentano’s account of the discipline a paradoxical air. David Torrijos-Castrillejo also explores Brentano’s connections to neo-­ scholasticism. Against other interpreters such as Dieter Münch, who sees neo-­ scholasticism as an ultra-conservative and reactionary programme against modernity, Torrijos-Castrillejo stresses that such a reading makes it difficult to explain how Brentano, coming from this context, was able to develop a philosophy which does not correspond to this characterization of neo-scholasticism. In order to reassess Brentano’s relation to neo-scholasticism, Torrijos-Castrillejo discusses the work of F.J. Clemens, an important figure of German neo-scholasticism, who directed the young Brentano’s studies in Aristotle and influenced his development. While it is true that Clemens puts faith above reason, this should not be taken as a Neo-­ Scholastic innovation but simply as an expression of the traditional theological position. Also, Clemens’s view on the superiority of Aquinas’s reading of Aristotle is not incompatible with a reflective and critical use of the philosophical tradition, as can be seen in Clemens’s writings and in Brentano’s early writings, sometimes in clear disagreement with the Neo-Scholastic school. The last paper of this part deals with an important but often neglected aspect of the contextual development of Brentano’s thought, namely, with his relation with contemporary physiologists. Here, Josef Hlade focuses on Theodor Meynert, a

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brain physiologist at the University of Vienna. Hlade reconstructs Brentano’s critique of Meynert’s view of consciousness and the self as an artificial but useful concept, the conscious self being nothing but the result of a physiological process. As Hlade shows, the central tenet of Brentano’s critique lies in the thesis that an essential mark of conscious experience is its unity. Since reducing consciousness to physiological brain processes cannot account for the unity of experience, the materialistic project of naturalizing consciousness, as developed by Meynert, seems doomed to fail. Last but not least, the previously unpublished treatise Ontological Questions by Brentano is edited and translated by Robin Rollinger as an appendix to the volume. As Rollinger points out, Alfred Kastil edited some parts of this manuscript in his edition of Brentano’s Kategorienlehre, but the parts in question do not accurately reflect the manuscript. Kastil’s editorial policy in the Kategorienlehre was highly liberal, adapting the original texts to an understanding of Brentano’s reism which does not necessarily correspond to the materials at its base. Kastil’s editorial modifications of the original manuscripts make it quite difficult to assess Brentano’s view on ontology accurately: the modifications to the original text are left unmarked, leaving the reader with no means of discerning between the original text and Kastil’s additions and modifications. The present edition by Rollinger is the first step in a more extensive editorial project on the manuscripts on reism, of which Ontological Questions is one of the most important, since it offers a very extensive and substantial account of Brentano’s late ontology. Starting with a reflection on epistemology and probabilities, Brentano proposes a new version of his theory of intentionality, now in terms of the psychical entities that relate to real objects (or things). One interesting outcome of this manuscript is the distinction proposed by Brentano between the object of a presentation and its subject matter (Sache) in order to deal with the relation to objects that are not realia. According to this account, my seeing this stone has this stone as its object, but has as its subject matter a stone, that is, a general object with certain properties. It seems therefore that presenting universals is also a case of intentionality, provided that subject matters have certain ontological significance. We would like to thank the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Austrian Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung (FWF) (project P-27215), the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in Prague, the Inbegriff Group in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Geneva, the research unit on phenomenology at the University of Liège, and the Internationale Franz Brentano Gesellschaft for their financial support of the commemorative event, which gave rise to the present publication. Montreal, QC, Canada Salzburg, Austria  Praha, Czech Republic 

Denis Fisette Guillaume Fréchette Hynek Janoušek

Contents

Preface��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    v Denis Fisette, Guillaume Fréchette, and Hynek Janoušek Part I Descriptive Psychology and Philosophy of Mind 1 Brentano and the Birth of a New Paradigm in the Philosophy of Emotions ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    3 Íngrid Vendrell Ferran 2 The Phenomenology of Mentality����������������������������������������������������������   23 Arnaud Dewalque 3 Consciousness and Representation��������������������������������������������������������   41 Denis Seron 4 Current Accounts of Subjective Character and Brentano’s Concept of Secondary Consciousness����������������������������������������������������   55 Maik Niemeck Part II Brentano and Husserl 5 Brentano’s Theory of Time-Consciousness in Husserl’s Philosophy of Arithmetic������������������������������������������������������������������������   75 Hynek Janoušek 6 Husserl on Brentanian Psychology: A Correct Criticism?������������������   87 Hamid Taieb 7 Brentano, Husserl and Psychological Immanence��������������������������������  109 Alice Togni

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Part III Ontology and Metaphysics. On Reism 8 Foundational Mereology as a Logical Tool for Descriptive Psychology������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  125 Bruno Leclercq 9 Are There Ideal Objects?: The Controversy Between Kotarbiński and Ingarden����������������������������������������������������������������������  149 Sébastien Richard 10 Brentano on entia rationis and Linguistic Fictions ������������������������������  167 Charlotte Gauvry Part IV History of Philosophy 11 Brentano on Aristotle’s Categories��������������������������������������������������������  185 Venanzio Raspa 12 The Analogies of the Soul: Brentano, Aristotle and the Project of a Scientific Psychology��������������������������������������������������������������������������������  205 Emanuele Mariani 13 Brentano as a Historian of (Medieval) Philosophy ������������������������������  221 Laurent Cesalli 14 F.J. Clemens and Some Aspects of Neo-­Scholasticism in the Education of F. Brentano��������������������������������������������������������������  231 David Torrijos-Castrillejo 15 Brentano and Brain Research in His Time: His Criticism of Theodor Meynert’s Brain Theory������������������������������  243 Josef Hlade Appendix: Ontologische Fragen/Ontological Questions: A Treatise from Franz Brentano’s Manuscripts����������������������������������������������  261 Franz Brentano - Edited and Translated by Robin Rollinger Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  341

About the Authors

Laurent Cesalli  is professor of mediaeval philosophy at the University of Geneva (https://www.unige.ch/lettres/philo/accueil/). His publications deal with theoretical philosophy in the mediaeval and Austro-German traditions. Since 2018, he is, together with Gerald Hartung (Wuppertal), general editor of the new Ueberweg, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Arnaud Dewalque  is professor at the Philosophy Department of the University of Liège, where he teaches contemporary philosophy. His main areas of interest are phenomenology and philosophy of mind, with a historical focus on early phenomenology and the school of Franz Brentano. Denis  Fisette  is professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Quebec at Montreal. His main areas of specialization are contemporary philosophy of mind and history of German language philosophy in the nineteenth and twentieth century. His actual research interests pertain to emotions and affects. Guillaume Fréchette  is research fellow at the University of Salzburg and works on Austrian philosophy from the nineteenth and twentieth century and on early phenomenology. He is co-editor of the Brentano Studien and of the Primary Sources in Phenomenology series. Charlotte  Gauvry  is a postdoctoral FNRS Fellow at the University of Liège (Belgium). She wrote a book on “Heidegger and Wittgenstein” (Hermann 2017), and she has published numerous papers at the crossroad of analytical philosophy and phenomenology. The chapter she wrote in the present volume is set in the background of her FNRS postdoctoral research programme on “Linguistic fictions in Brentano”. Josef  Hlade  is researcher at the Center for the History of Science Graz. His research interest lies in the relationship between philosophy and science at the end of the nineteenth century. He recently completed his PhD thesis on this topic, xv

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About the Authors

investigating among others the criticism of Brentano and his students on a so-called physiological method of philosophizing, which is also the theme of his chapter in the present volume. Hynek  Janoušek  is research fellow at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences and has published a number of articles on Brentano and his students. His work on the edition of the volume and the chapter “Brentano’s Theory of Time-Consciousness in Husserl’s Philosophy of Arithmetic” are an outcome of the project “From Logical Objectivism to Reism: Bolzano and the School of Brentano” P401 15-18149S (Czech Science Foundation). Bruno Leclercq  is professor of Logic and Analytic Philosophy at the University of Liège (Belgium). Working in the field of analytic metaphysics, he has published several papers on formal models to be used as conceptual tools for philosophical or scientific theories. Emanuele Mariani  is researcher at the Centro de Filosofia of the University of Lisbon and has extensively published on the Aristotelian tradition of Phenomenology. His chapter “The Analogies of the Soul: Brentano, Aristotle and the Project of a Scientific Psychology” is an outcome of the project “Performing the Self: a Phenomenological Approach to the Problem of Subjectivity” (funded by the FCT, Portugal). Maik Niemeck  is a research assistant and doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Freiburg. He studied at the Universities of Göttingen, Halle, Mannheim, Notre Dame, and King’s College London. Venanzio  Raspa  is professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Urbino. He is engaged in ontology and its relationships with logic, history and philosophy of logic, aesthetics, Austrian Philosophy (Meinong, Twardowski, and Bolzano), and German classical philosophy. He recently published A.  Meinong und K. Twardowski, Der Briefwechsel, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2016; Thinking about Contradictions. The Imaginary Logic of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Vasil’ev, Cham: Springer, 2017. Sébastien Richard  is a research assistant at the Université libre de Bruxelles. He has published several books and papers on logic and metaphysics in the Brentanian tradition. Robin  Rollinger  is research fellow at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences. His book Concept and Judgment in Brentano’s Logic Lectures: Analysis and Materials was published by Brill Rodopi. The commentary and edition of “Franz Brentano—Ontologische Fragen/Ontological Questions: A Treatise from Franz Brentano’s Nachlass” is an outcome of the project “From

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Logical Objectivism to Reism: Bolzano and the School of Brentano” P401 15-18149S (Czech Science Foundation). Denis Seron  is FNRS senior research associate and head of a research centre on phenomenological philosophy at the University of Liège (Belgium). He has published multiple books and articles in the field of contemporary philosophy. Hamid Taieb  is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hamburg. He works on Austro-German philosophy, mostly on the school of Brentano. His research interests also include the Aristotelian tradition, especially Latin scholasticism. Alice Togni  currently collaborates with the Italian Center for Phenomenological Research in Rome. She holds a PhD in Philosophy (cotutelle Università del Salento/ Université Paris-Sorbonne), a BA and MA in Philosophy from the University of Pavia, and a 5 years Diploma in Human Sciences from the Institute for Advanced Study (IUSS) of Pavia. David  Torrijos-Castrillejo  teaches philosophy at San Dámaso University in Madrid, Spain. He has published several articles on Brentano as well as some translations of his works including the Spanish translation of The Psychology of Aristotle. Íngrid  Vendrell  Ferran  is currently interim Professor at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. Her research interests are phenomenology, philosophy of mind, epistemology, and aesthetics. Some of her publications include Die Emotionen (Akademie 2008); Wahrheit, Wissen und Erkenntnis in der Literatur (ed. with Christoph Demmerling, De Gruyter 2014); Empathie im Film (ed. with Malte Hagener, Transcript 2017); and Die Vielfalt der Erkenntnis (Mentis 2018).

Part I

Descriptive Psychology and Philosophy of Mind

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Brentano and the Birth of a New Paradigm in the Philosophy of Emotions Íngrid Vendrell Ferran

Abstract This chapter argues that the view of the emotions put forward by Brentano, and the modifications and refinements of his claims undertaken by his followers, led to the birth of new paradigm in the philosophy of emotion. The paper is structured as follows.  After the introduction, section 2 presents the context in which Brentano’s theory emerged. Section 3 is devoted to Brentano’s three main claims on the emotions, focusing on their intentionality, their dependency on cognitions, and their relation to values. Section 4 offers an overview of the main debates surrounding these claims among the authors belonging to Brentano’s school. Section 5 underlines the parallels between views on the emotions put forward by Brentano and his followers and similar claims defended in contemporary analytic philosophy. Keywords  Franz Brentano · Wilhel Wundt · Theory of emotions · Affective intentionality · Cognitivism

1  Introduction In recent decades, Brentano’s work has been an object of renewed attention, not only among philosophers working on the history of the phenomenological movement, but also among authors who see in Brentano a source of inspiration for thinking about classical problems of philosophy of mind and ontology. In this context, there have been insightful studies of Brentano’s theories of intentionality, values, judgments and emotions, as well as thoughtful attempts to revitalize his work and make it fruitful for contemporary research. This chapter is written against this background, and is thus interested in showing the novelty and actuality of Brentano’s thought. More concretely, it focuses on his theory of the emotions. However, rather than defending a new version of this theory or developing arguments for or against his claims concerning, for instance, the relation between emotion and will or

Í. Vendrell Ferran (*) Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano’s Philosophy After One Hundred Years, Primary Sources in Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48563-4_1

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emotion and value, this paper focuses on its historical reach, arguing that Brentano’s theory and its reception among his followers led to the birth of a new paradigm in the philosophy of emotions that differs substantially from other theories in vogue at that time. This new paradigm focuses on the cognitive and evaluative aspects of the emotions and underlines their relation to values. To understand the historical scope of his theory, the paper examines Brentano’s views in the light of two wider contexts. The first concerns theories of the emotions at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century: placing Brentano in this context is necessary in order to understand the novelty of his claims and their reception among his followers. The second context is contemporary philosophy of the emotions. As I will argue, there are strong similarities between the topics and claims debated by Brentano’s followers and contemporary philosophers of the emotions, to the extent that it is reasonable to believe that both sets of authors share a similar mode of understanding the emotions. The paper is divided into four main sections. After the introduction, section 2 presents the context in which Brentano’s theory emerged by focusing mainly on Wilhelm Wundt’s theory of the emotions. Section 3 is devoted to Brentano’s three main claims about the emotions regarding their intentionality, their dependence on cognition, and their relation to values. Section 4 offers an overview of the main discussions of these claims among Brentano’s followers. Section 5 underlines the parallels between the view on the emotions put forward by the Brentano School and similar claims defended in contemporary analytic philosophy.

2  T  he Historical Context: Theories of the Emotions at the End of the Nineteenth Century By the end of the nineteenth century there were two competing understandings of psychology as the science of mental phenomena. The major proponents of these tendencies are Brentano and Wundt, whose mature works both appeared in 1874. In his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, Brentano is concerned with the study of consciousness and its objects, and he adopts a methodology based on rational argument and a refined description of phenomena as they are experienced. This emphasis on experience led him to call his approach “empirical”. In a different vein, in the Principles of Physiological Psychology Wundt advocated a psychology of a different tenor, based on experimentation, physiological observation, and introspection. Both approaches to mental phenomena were very influential and initiated new movements in psychology, but their divergences appear unsurmountable. The discrepancies between the two approaches led Titchener to claim that: “There is no middle way between Brentano and Wundt” (1921, 108). These differences become most visible in their respective approaches to such phenomena as sensation, perception, and volition, and especially to emotion, which by this time had become a heavily debated topic.

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Wundt based his analyses on introspection and the experimental observation of the physiology of emotional experience, and aimed to develop explicative hypotheses about these phenomena. His experimental psychology approached the emotions by focusing on how they are felt. His main concern was with describing, explaining, defining, and classifying the emotions from the perspective of their qualitative aspects. In contemporary terms, it can be said that Wundt’s theory was a “feeling theory” that underlines the fact that emotions are felt experiences (for an example of this kind of theory in contemporary debates, see Griffiths 1998, 3). Wundt’s view on the emotions can be found in both Principles of Physiological Psychology and Outlines of Psychology (first published in German in 1896). The emotions, for Wundt, are related to sensations and representations. As a proponent of Fechner’s psychophysical parallelism, he understood the emotions to bear a causal relation to specific bodily manifestations. However, their most significant aspect is their experiential nature, and Wundt develops an account that aims to describe the emotions by underscoring precisely how they feel. In Wundt’s view, emotional experience can be described on the basis of three main features: quality, intensity, and form of development, with the former being the most significant (Wundt 1920, 203). (a) Quality: with this term Wundt refers to the subjective state and the attitude adopted by the subject toward her own emotional experience (Wundt 1919, 395 and 1920, 215). According to his tridimensional model, the emotions oscillate between polar opposites constituted by the following couples: pleasure/pain (Lust/Unlust), excitement/inhibition (Erregung/Beunruhigung), and tension/relaxation (Spannung/Lösung). The most decisive of these couples is pleasure and pain. We usually classify our emotional experiences as pleasant (e.g. joy) or as unpleasant (e.g. sorrow), although Wundt also recognizes that some emotions may be neutral (e.g. some instances of surprise). Once this fundamental dimension is established, emotions might be inhibited (e.g. grief) or accompanied by excitement (e.g. fear), tension (e.g. anger), or relaxation (e.g. disappointment). (b) Intensity: emotions are also experienced with different degrees of intensity. What Wundt has in mind here is the mental strength with which the emotion is experienced rather than any bodily manifestations of the emotion (which he interprets in terms of psychophysical parallelism, or the causal effect of emotion on the body). (c) Form of development (Verlaufsform): emotions also exhibit a typical course. Some emotions appear suddenly (e.g. surprise), others develop progressively (e.g. sorrow), while others still have an intermittent nature (e.g. envy and other long-lasting emotions that are latent but might be felt acutely on certain occasions). Wundt’s theory and his interest in describing and explaining the experiential dimension of the emotions exerted a strong influence on his pupils and contemporaries, but it was also subjected to critique. For instance, Külpe and Titchener were very critical about Wundt’s claims and raised serious objections to the idea that emotions might be classified according to the three dimensions, choosing instead to focus only on the dimension of pleasure and pain (see Titchener 1902, 382–406 and 1980, 226). Wundt’s contemporary William James was also critical of his psychology. Like Wundt, James characterizes the emotions by focusing on their qualitative

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aspects, although this focus on experience leads him to develop a quite different theory from the one formulated by Wundt. In “What is an Emotion?” (1884) and Principles of Psychology (1890), James defines the emotions as the feeling or awareness of bodily changes (James 1967, 13).1 Although this theory, according to which the emotions are perceptions of bodily changes, differs substantially from Wundt’s approach, the two accounts can be seen as being embedded within a similar conceptual frame. Both employ methods of physiological observation and introspection, and both explain emotion by attending mainly to its qualitative and experiential moments. While both underline the fact that emotions are felt experiences and both defend “feeling theories” of the emotions, this extends only to the focus on the experiential and qualitative moments of emotions and does not imply that Wundt and James deny the link between emotion and cognition or ignore the idea that emotions are directed toward objects. Wundt’s and James’ approaches can serve as a foil for presenting Brentano’s contrasting account. In both his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint and The Origin of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong (a conference held 1889), Brentano’s focus on the emotions could not be more different. Brentano rejected introspection as a method of knowledge (he was at pains to distinguish inner perception from inner observation), and although he did not reject experimental observation, it was always of secondary importance to philosophical inquiry. Brentano’s analysis of how the emotions are given to us in experience leads him to explore aspects that go beyond their qualitative feel and point to their cognitive and evaluative dimensions. This makes Brentano a proponent of a “cognitive-evaluative” theory of the emotions (for a discussion of this kind of approach in contemporary philosophy, see Robinson 2007, 5–27). Here again, as was inversely the case for Wundt and James as proponents of “feeling theories”, the term “cognitive-evaluative” underlines the focus of Brentano’s research but does not imply that he was uninterested in the qualitative aspects of the emotions. In fact, while Brentano recognized that, just as there are different shades of colour, so emotional experiences differ from each other in their qualitative feel (Brentano 2015, 257 and 259), his main concern was to describe them as forms of intentional reference. In this regard, three main features are characteristic of emotional experiences: (1) Intentionality: the emotions are directed toward an object in a sui generis way that cannot be explained in terms of perception or belief; (2) Cognitive dependence: They are necessarily dependent on the fact that the object toward which they are directed has already been presented to consciousness; and (3) Values: they are related to what is objectively good or bad. In the next section, I will explore each of these claims in detail. What I want to underline here is that together these claims offer a view of the emotions that differs radically from that of Wundt and theorists like him. The contrast between Wundt’s and Brentano’s views could not be more striking: while the former emphasizes the qualitative

1  One of the first critiques of James’ theory was developed as early as 1899 by Carl Stumpf, one of Brentano’s followers (Stumpf 1928).

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dimension of the emotions, the latter is interested in showing that emotions are intentional, and that they are intrinsically related to cognitions and values. Brentano’s theory was very influential and, like Wundt, his claims were discussed widely and further developed, refined, and modified by his followers. The authors that I have in mind here are those belonging to the Graz School, to the Prague School, and to early phenomenology. I will refer to this heterogeneous group of authors under his influence as Brentano’s “school”.2 From Brentano, these authors adopted a methodological attitude that rejected introspection, attributed only secondary importance to experimentation, focused on descriptive analysis, and aimed at rational argument. They also adopted his view that the emotions are a form of intentional reference. Yet they were also extremely critical of the three claims that constitute Brentano’s view on the emotions and raised objections to each of them. I intend to argue that these discussions and modifications of Brentano’s view were crucial in shaping a new way of thinking about the emotions. In the following sections, I will examine the gestation of this new paradigm. I am not interested in arguing for the plausibility of these claims, but in showing how they led to a new conceptual frame that bears strong similarities to contemporary research into the emotions.3

3  Brentano on the Intentionality of the Emotions Brentano’s main concern in his Psychology was to find a criterion by which to distinguish between physical and mental phenomena (or, to use his terminology, “acts”). Inspired by the Scholastics, he thought that only mental phenomena exhibited the feature of being directed toward their objects. In this context, he speaks about an “intentional in-existence”, according to which “each mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself” (Brentano 2015, 92–93). This literally means that the phenomena in question entail the objects toward which they are directed. Today, this “intentionality thesis”, as it has come to be known (although Brentano never used this term), is probably his most celebrated claim, and is certainly considered the most ground-breaking. Before I come to explain the significance of this thesis in the case of the emotions, attention should be paid to two possible misinterpretations. One of these misreadings is motivated by contemporary use of the concept of intentionality. Brentano’s thesis of the intentional reference of mental phenomena is not to be conflated with the employment of this concept in current philosophy of mind. Brentano advocates for an “immanentistic account”—the object is contained in the mental phenomenon—but when contemporary philosophers speak about 2  As Dermot Moran puts it, the term “school” can be used “loosely” to designate a group of authors “united by their attachment to their teacher and a desire to emulate his methods” (Moran 2000, 24). 3  For an insightful contemporary defense of Brentano’s theory of the emotions, see Montague (2017, 64).

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intentionality they refer to the capacity of consciousness to be transparent to the objects of the world (see Smith 1994, 42). The second possible misreading we should be wary about is motivated by an interpretation of Brentano that became very popular among his followers. If it is clear that for Brentano intentional objects are immanent to consciousness, what is not so clear is how to interpret their ontological status.4 According to Brentano’s “official view”, immanent objects are nominal objects and not propositional contents, but some of his texts suggest a different interpretation that is more ontologically liberal.5 There is a tension in Brentano’s use of the concept of intentionality. On the one hand, Brentano officially advocates for a non-propositional interpretation of the concept of intentionality: mental phenomena are directed toward nominal objects. Judgments and emotions can be explained without the need to introduce the notion of propositional content (there are no propositional objects). In the foreword to the 1911 Classification of Mental Phenomena, Brentano is firmly convinced that the object of intentional phenomena cannot be anything other than a thing (“Reales”). On the other hand, however, it is also possible to offer a propositional interpretation of the concept of intentionality in Brentano. According to this view, mental phenomena might have propositional content. This interpretation of Brentano as defending a propositional concept of intentionality presupposes that for him “Irrealia” (unreal things) or objectivities, such as states of affairs and value complexes, exist.6 This interpretation, which he officially rejected, was preferred by his followers, and seems to be supported in some of his texts. In fact, Brentano changed his view: while he endorsed the view of propositional objects for a period of time, he subsequently came to reject it. I will return to the differences between Brentano and his followers in Sects. 4 and 5, but first it is important to establish Brentano’s own claims about the emotions. According to Brentano, intentionality is a general feature shared by all mental phenomena. All mental phenomena are directed toward objects. Prima facie there are three main forms of intentional reference: presentations, judgments, and love/hate (Brentano 2015, 92–93).7 Despite its name, this last class of mental phenomena is not reduced to love and hate, but includes all our emotions, feelings, wishes, decisions, intentions, interests, and desires (Brentano 2015, 207). Brentano also refers to this class as the “phenomena of interest”. In this model, presentations 4  For instance, Twardowski accuses him of not distinguishing between content and object. Others, like Meinong, have elaborated an ontology of immanent objects. 5  I borrow the expression “official view” from Chrudzimski (2001). 6  However, some of Brentano’s students, for example Anton Marty, viewed states of affairs (Sachverhalte) and states of values (Wertverhalte) as “nominal” rather than propositional higher order objects. For the sake of brevity, we will use the term “propositional contents” for specific objects of judgments and emotions. This difference of opinions concerning the structure of higher order irreal objects has no bearing on the outcome of the discussion we present in the following text. 7  This classification is the result of an abstract division, but usually these phenomena appear together (for arguments about how the unity of the mind is preserved in Brentano, cf. Moran (2000, 46), Smith (1994, 48).

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(e.g. perceptions, imaginings) are the most basic kind of mental phenomena and, in Brentano’s view, all other mental states are based on them. In presentations something is “presented” to us: presentations are responsible for making things appear to consciousness; they put things before our “inner eye” (Chrudzimski 2012, 108). Once an object has been presented to consciousness, two different types of pro- and contra-attitude are possible: epistemic and emotional pro- and contra-attitudes. In judgments (e.g. beliefs) we affirm or deny the presented object as true or false, and in love/hate, we take said object to be good or bad. In cases where we take the object to be good, we have an emotional pro-attitude (e.g. joy, desire, striving for, willing, or love), and if we take it to be bad, we have an emotional contra-attitude (e.g. sorrow, aversion, striving against, not willing, or hatred). Given that the objects of our mental acts are nominal objects and not propositional contents (the aforementioned non-propositional account of intentionality), the differences between these forms of intentional reference are not differences in the objects they are directed toward, but rather differences in the manner in which we are directed toward them. That is, intentional acts can be directed only toward nominal objects. However, Brentano was not always consistent with this claim, which led his followers to claim that some of these intentional acts require propositional contents. Focusing on the emotions, this theory can be summarized in the following main claims: (a) Original Emotive Intentionality The idea that emotions are directed toward objects, i.e. that they are about something, was not new to Brentano’s time (we find it already in Descartes). However, Brentano’s originality does not lie in the claim that the emotions are object-directed, but rather in the claim that the intentional reference of the emotions is unique and irreducible to the intentionality of presentations and judgments. It is precisely this claim, according to which the emotions exhibit a form of intentional reference sui generis, that constitutes the novelty of Brentano’s account. For Brentano, there is an original emotive consciousness, i.e. there is a mode of intentional reference which is per se emotional. Presentations and judgments may be involved in the emotional experience and, in fact, presentations are always necessarily involved, but the intentionality of the emotions is not derived from them. According to this claim, the objects of the emotions are not only presented (and eventually also judged), but are also the objects of an emotional pro- or contra-attitude. Brentano claims that these phenomena are “concerned with an object’s value or lack thereof” (Brentano 2015, 248). It has therefore been common to say that for Brentano the emotions are a kind of “evaluative attitude”, and this characterization of his view is correct as long as we do not reduce emotions to evaluations, i.e. to judgments. In this regard, Brentano’s theory about the intentionality sui generis of the emotions differs acutely from some early analytical propositions that tried to reduce the intentionality of the emotions to the intentionality of beliefs and desires (see Sect. 5). What is interesting about Brentano’s account is that this form of intentional reference is common not only to the emotions, but also to all the other phenom-

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ena belonging to this class. When we desire something, this something has a value for us; when something makes us happy, we love it and we desire its existence. Just as judgments are concerned with truth and falsity, emotions are concerned with the object’s value. Brentano argues that emotions and other phenomena belonging to the class of love/hate (such as desires, volitions, wishes, decisions, etc.) share the same form of intentional reference toward their objects: the differences among these phenomena are ones of degree rather than kind. Between pleasure and pain, on the one hand, and acts of the will, on the other, a progressive transition from one phenomenon in this class to the next is possible. Consider the following series: “sadness—yearning for the absent good—hope that it will be ours—the desire to bring it about—the courage to make the attempt—the decision to act” (Brentano 2015, 245–246). The transitions that, in this example, lead from an emotion (sadness) to the act of the will (the decision) are gradual and take place imperceptibly (for a recent defence of Brentano’s position, see Kriegel 2017, 529–558 and Montague 2017, 72–76). (b) Cognitive Bases A further characteristic of the emotions lies in their intrinsic relation to other intentional phenomena. Each emotion, in order to take place, requires that its object is first given to consciousness in a presentation. The function of these presentations consists precisely in making the objects toward which we might take an emotional stance appear in consciousness. This claim is derived from Brentano’s view that each mental phenomenon is a presentation, or is founded upon one. In some cases, a judgment might also be involved. Putting this thesis in contemporary terms, we can say that in Brentano’s view emotions are based on cognitions and, more specifically, they are based on presentations and sometimes also involve a judgment. With this claim, he endorses a specific version of “cognitivism” for the emotions. This version will leave the path clear for his followers to develop Brentano’s cognitivism in new directions, claiming that imaginings, perceptions, beliefs and also suppositions should be considered as cognitive bases for the emotions. The claim that Brentano and his followers endorse a “cognitive view” of the emotions in terms of their bases for emotion is only true as long as we remain aware that their version of “cognitivism” differs substantially from some accounts within contemporary research: unlike some of the early analytical propositions, Brentano and his followers do not reduce the cognitive bases of the emotions to mere beliefs (in Sects. 4 and 5, I develop this point further). (c) Value In Brentano’s view, the emotions are concerned with values and the value (or lack thereof) of their objects. How should we understand values? And how are emotions related to them? To clarify this point, it is necessary to consider another of Brentano’s texts, his published lecture The Origin of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong, where he argues for an objectivist view in ethics. In this lecture, Brentano defends the existence of a “natural law”. However, the word “natural” here does not refer to rules that are “innate” and “given by nature”,

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but to rules which “can be known to be correct and binding” (Brentano 2009, 4). In order to answer the question of how we come to obtain ethical knowledge, Brentano rejects the Kantian proposal of a Categorical Imperative as a palpable fiction and proposes to investigate the origin of our concept of good. As he maintains, the concept of good, “like all our others, has its origin in ­certain intuitive presentations” (Brentano 2009, 13). This is a point that requires further explanation because for Brentano this “intuitive presentation” that gives rise to the concept of the good is neither drawn from sense perception nor is it an a priori concept. We can say that the emotions will play a crucial role in his explanation and that he will understand the good in terms of appropriate emotions. In what follows I will develop his argument for this claim carefully, first by introducing an analogy between emotions and judgments. This analogy is useful in explaining how we know something to be good, i.e. that it is the object of an appropriate emotion. On the basis of this analogy, Brentano will argue that how we know a thing to be good is similar to how we know a thing to be true. This analogy is based on two tenets. First, the objects of judgments and emotions are presented in presentations, but they involve an opposition of intentional relation, i.e. they are the object of a pro- or contraattitude. In judgments there is an opposition between affirmation/acceptance and denial/rejection, i.e. an epistemic pro- or contra-attitude; in the emotions there is an opposition between love/inclination/being pleased and hate/disinclination/being displeased, i.e. an emotional pro- or contra-attitude. Second, as a consequence of this claim, when one of the two opposing modes of relation is correct, then the other is incorrect. Thus, judgments and emotions might be correct or incorrect. According to Brentano, something is true when the affirmation relating to it is correct, and something is good “when the love relating to it is correct” (Brentano 2009, 18). He adds: “In the broadest sense of the term, the good is that which is worthy of love, that which can be loved with a love that is correct” (Brentano 2009, 18). Brentano sees correct judgments as the basis of logic and correct emotions as the basis of ethics. However, as he himself recognizes, this analogy is imperfect: “Everything that is true is equally true; but not everything that is good is equally good” (Brentano 2009, 26). In logic we distinguish between truth and error, but in ethics, what is good appears in degrees: something may be good but it is possible that there is something better. In a further step, Brentano distinguishes between lower and higher forms of judgments and emotions. In some cases, we affirm something and we judge blindly. This happens when we judge something based on our prejudices or when our judgments are based on memories and perceptions. What is affirmed in this way may be true, but these lower forms of judgments “involve nothing that manifests correctness” (Brentano 2009, 19). Higher judgments are those that are insightful and evident (those provided by logic and by the inner perception). In the same sense, there are also lower and higher types of emotion. There are emotions that are instinctive

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or habitual, but there is also a higher mode of emotion. As in the case of judgments, the notion of a correct emotion concerns only the higher modes of emotions and not the lower ones. Brentano goes on to maintain that we identify the correct emotions in our experience. He takes for granted that human beings have a natural tendency to prefer goodness over badness. In the same sense that we tend to avoid error and prefer the truth, we prefer the good over the bad. Therefore, although false and blind judgments and emotions are possible, we tend to prefer the true and the good. In support of this claim, Brentano presents a thought experiment: Imagine a species different from ourselves which not only has different preferences with respect to sense-qualities, but also despises insight and loves error for its own sake. As far as the feelings for sense-qualities are concerned, we would say that this is a matter of taste. But regarding their love of error and hatred of insight—we would say that this is perverse. In Brentano’s view, we would react in this way because we experience the love of error and the hatred of insight as being incorrect. We would say that this species hates what is intrinsically good. And we would say this because we notice that insight is not only loved and capable of being loved, but also that is worthy of love (Brentano 2009, 22). According to Brentano, the same can be said about the preference of joy over sadness and for feelings that are correct and are experienced as being correct. To understand how we identify an emotion as correct, i.e. to understand the origins of our knowledge of what is good and bad, the inner experience is crucial. As Oskar Kraus puts it: if we have once experienced pain, then we have a conceptual presentation of pain. This experience of pain is necessary because otherwise we cannot have the concept of pain (there are for Brentano no innate concepts—all concepts come from our experience. However, experience here does not necessarily mean sense perception, but intuitions with psychological content). This conceptual presentation might motivate a rejection or hatred of pain. We hate the pain and our hatred is correct. It is on the basis of these correct emotions that we come to know the value of the objects in question: we realize that pain is bad. Because we once had the presentation of pain, we can evaluate it; i.e. it is not necessary that each time we have this evaluation, we feel pain (on this point, see Kraus 1937, 172). We know that a thing is good because it is the object of a higher emotion that is experienced as correct. It is against this background that values are understood in terms of appropriate emotions. Clearly, these claims endorse an objectivist view in ethics. The correctness of an emotion is not just a matter of taste, but follows a universal law. Just as there are evident judgments, there are also correct emotions. However, with this claim Brentano is neither arguing for value realism (he is not claiming that there are values independent of feeling subjects) nor proposing the view that emotions have a cognitive function. He only claims that certain emotions are right (Chrudzimski 2001, 87). He writes explicitly: “I do not believe that anyone will understand me to mean that phenomena belonging to this class are cognitive acts by which we perceive the goodness or badness, value or disvalue of certain objects” (Brentano 2015, 247). This claim, introduced in a later edition of the Psychology, is very interesting

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in terms of how his theory is developed by his followers, the majority of whom will advocate value realism. Brentano’s value theory was developed in the direction of value realism by his followers because of the ambiguities inherent within his concept of intentionality.8 Brentano’s followers will focus on states of affairs (Sachverhalte) and value complexes (Wertverhalte). They will claim that emotions are directed toward objective correlates in the same sense that judgments are. We can say that with his objectivist view of ethics, Brentano settled the basis for the development of a value theory that his followers would develop further in the direction of value realism, with interesting consequences for their respective theories of the emotions.

4  The Reception of Brentano’s Theory Among His Followers Each of Brentano’s claims about the emotions was criticized, refined, and modified by his followers. The main groups of authors that steered these discussions are as follows: the Graz School, whose main representatives were Meinong, Ehrenfels, Höfler, and Witasek; early phenomenology, which under the influence of Stumpf and Lipps was mainly developed by Husserl and authors influenced by him, such as Pfänder, Reinach, Scheler, and Stein; and the Prague School, with Marty and his students. This section presents an overview of the main debates and focuses on what I take to be most important: namely the idea that the objective correlates of the emotions are values. My aim is to show that although the theories endorsed by Brentano’s followers differ from those he himself offers (Brentano was not a value realist), the debates around his objectivist view of ethics led to the consolidation of a new paradigm in emotion theory in which the thesis that the emotions disclose values occupies a central place. Although this section presents the criticisms against Brentano’s main claims on the emotions as unified, and focuses on the common elements within different objections, this should not lead us to the conclusion that all of his followers agreed in the views that emerged out of these criticisms. In fact, there were also strong disputes among them. I shall enter into detail only when it comes to the debate on the relation between emotion and value, my main focus in this section. Brentano’s followers raised strong criticisms against the thesis of a supposed unity of emotion and will. Although agreeing with Brentano insofar as both phenomena differ substantially from “intellectual” phenomena such as belief or judgment, they thought it was also necessary to distinguish between emotions and will. 8  In another lecture of Brentano given in 1889—the same year he held the talk on “The Origins”— entitled “On the Concept of Truth”, Brentano refers to the emotions and compares their correctness with the correctness of the judgments. He claims that the correlates of the emotions are some kind of objective entities—the value or disvalue of the object in question—and he understands the correctness of the emotions in terms of appropriateness, of being consonant (im Einklang), and being harmonious with these objective entities (Brentano 1974, 25, see also Moran 2000, 31).

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They differ in the qualitative aspects of the experience: for instance, emotions are pleasant or unpleasant, but desires or will are not. In addition, the emotions are directed toward objects that might be either existent or non-existent (i.e. existent in the past or in the future), while desire and will are directed toward something that ought to be (Seinsollen) (see Stumpf 1928, viii–xvi and 28; Höfler 1897, 390; Husserl 1970, especially the fifth Investigation; Meinong 1923, 129; Meinong 1968a, 39; Meinong 1977, 342). A second modification concerns the idea that all mental phenomena are intentional. The main objection against Brentano focuses on the nature of pleasure and pain, which for him are intentional phenomena. Against this idea, however, the phenomenologists argued that rather than counting as emotions, pleasure and pain are a special kind of bodily sensation, to which they refer with different names, such as “sense feeling” or “feeling sensations” (“Gefühlsempfindung”, “Empfindungsgefühl”). Accordingly, they distinguish between “intentional feelings” and “feeling sensations” (discussions of this can be found in: Husserl 1970; Stumpf 1928, 106–112; Scheler 1973, 328). A third, highly contested topic concerns the idea that emotions are based upon presentations. In Brentano, the emotions are directed toward objects and these objects have to be presented to consciousness in a “presentation”. In order to take a positive or negative stance toward an object, we first need to be conscious of this object. These objects were for him nominal objects, not propositional contents. In Brentano’s view, emotions are based on presentations (although some emotions might also involve a judgment). Brentano’s followers also speak of the “psychological preconditions” or “presuppositions” (“psychologische Voraussetzungen”), as well as of the “intellectual bases” (“intellektuelle Grundlage”) of the emotions, or in contemporary language, the cognitive bases of the emotions. However, they draw attention to other phenomena that might also work as cognitive bases for the emotions. In some cases, in order to have an emotion it is not only necessary for an object to be presented to consciousness but also that a judgment about it has taken place (Meinong 1968a, 35; for the idea that emotions require judgments, cf. Stumpf 1928, xiii, although he defends a non-conceptual and non-linguistic concept of judgment). But it is not only judgments that are important; our emotions might also be directed toward objects that are presented in fantasies or situations that are merely entertained. In this vein, Brentano’s followers enlarged the cognitive bases of the emotions in order to entail different phenomena such as perceptions, imaginings, suppositions, and judgments (cf. Husserl 1970, fifth Logical Investigation; Meinong 1968a, 34; Meinong 1968a, 66; and Stein 1989, 100–101; for a discussion of whether emotions and desires might also work as cognitive bases for the emotions, cf. Höfler 1897, 400–401). These discussions give us a rough impression of the extent to which Brentano’s claims were refined and modified by his followers. It shows that although they were subject to robust criticism, they were also extremely successful in inspiring the authors of his school to investigate the nature of the emotions. However, among all the points discussed by his followers, the most controversial, challenging, and

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inspirational point was his objectivist view of ethics. What most attracted his followers was the idea that values might be seen as the objective correlates of the emotions. Some of his followers, such as Meinong in his first value theory, or Ehrenfels in the field of ethics (but not of aesthetics), defend a clear-cut value emotivism, according to which values are either dependent on our dispositions to feel emotions or projections of our emotions or desires. However, the general tendency among his followers consists in endorsing one form or other of “value realism” (an umbrella term for different forms of objectivism about values). In this regard, Meinong, after having defended more or less subjectivist accounts of values, endorsed value realism. The intentional objects of the emotions are, according to him, “Dignitative” (Meinong 1923, 134; Meinong 1968b, 117). That is, values are the objective correlates of the emotions and the function of the emotions consists in disclosing them. Meinong’s position resembles the theory defended by Marty (1908, 427; Cesalli 2016, 57). In certain modes, it also resembles Husserl’s, as well as other early phenomenological accounts. For Husserl, emotions are themselves valuations or “Wertnehmungen”, although they are not objectifying phenomena. Stein’s theory is also reminiscent of these approaches. In Stein’s view, when we feel a value, we experience an emotion. Although Stein recognizes the possibility that we might feel a value and not experience an emotion, to fully grasp a value it is, in her view, necessary to have an emotional response toward it (Stein 1989, 98–99; Stein 2000, 79 and 159). Not all authors belonging to this tradition, however, have endorsed the same view. Reinach, Scheler, and (drawing on them) von Hildebrand, advocated a different view. In their accounts, they distinguish between the perception of value (Wertnehmen) or value-feeling (Fühlen) and the emotions (Gefühle). The latter are considered to be possible responses, reactions, or stances that we might adopt once a value is given to us (Reinach 1989, 295–297; Scheler 1973, 256; von Hildebrand 1982, 29). For these authors, when we feel a value, this value “demands” or “requires” us to adopt a certain stance, but it is possible for us to not follow this “call”, so that when we perceive or feel a value, we do not always experience an emotion. Through these discussions—particularly the discussion of the nature of value and how emotions relate to it (as disclosing values, as valuations, as possible but demanded responses)—we see how the notion of intentionality, especially with regard to the emotions, underwent major changes at the hands of Brentano’s followers. Unlike Brentano, they do not defend an immanentistic account of the intentionality of the emotions since emotions are able to present or point to value qualities of objects and states of affairs. Moreover, they defend a propositional concept of intentionality, according to which intentional phenomena are not or not only directed toward nominal objects. Furthermore, their arguments for value realism paved the way for understanding the emotions in terms of correctness, or a correspondence between the emotion in question and the corresponding intended value. In this sense, an emotion is correct when it fits to the value toward which it is directed.

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Brentano’s objectivist view of ethics boosted the development of value theory among his followers. The importance of these new developments in value theory was widely recognized at the beginning of the twentieth century. This view is corroborated by two reference books from the time. In Die Werttheorien (1937), Oskar Kraus attributes two main achievements to Brentano: the development of value theory as an independent field of research, and the development of an adequate methodology with which to analyse the valuating acts of consciousness. Only with this methodology did it become possible, according to Kraus, to clarify the meaning of concepts such as value, good, bad, disvalue, preference, etc. (Kraus 1937, xiv). Howard Ormsby Eaton places less emphasis on Brentano and instead focuses more on the development of a value theory among his followers in his book The Austrian Philosophy of Values (1930). Here Eaton speaks about the gestation of a new philosophical discipline of values and maintains that “the theory developed only gradually and did not spring Minerva-like from a single brain” (Eaton 1930, 17). What these monographs make clear is that with Brentano’s claims and the subsequent discussions and modifications made by his followers, the problem of value became a central (as opposed to an ancillary) philosophical concern, at least during the first decades of the last century. These thinkers were not the first to reflect on the phenomenon of values, but they were the first to consider the topic as worthy of study in its own right, rather than simply approach it indirectly through its connections to other philosophical topics within ontology, ethics, etc. That is, they were the first to establish the problem of values as an independent discipline. My claim is that the development of this value theory was accompanied by the parallel development of a new view on the emotions. In short, a new conceptual frame or paradigm in the philosophy of the emotions was established.9 Discussions about the idea of an original emotive intentionality, about the cognitive bases of the emotions, and about values, led gradually to the emergence of a new way of thinking about the emotions. The birth of value theory is tantamount to the generation of a new paradigm of the emotions. Compared to Wundt’s approach to the emotions, which was centred on their qualitative aspects, Brentano and his followers focus more on their intentionality, their relation to cognition and to values. In this paradigm we find a diversity of theories and approaches, which in some cases may substantially differ from each other, but which, as this paper demonstrates, deal with similar concepts, ask similar questions, develop similar discourses, and offer

9  The notion of “paradigm” has been employed extensively in the philosophy of science since the introduction of the concept by Kuhn. Although the idea of a paradigm was first conceived for the natural sciences, it has also been applied to other disciplines. A paradigm is constituted by patterns of thought which include sets of concepts, theories, methods, and approaches that define a discipline in a concrete period of time. A paradigm is a framework that provides a model with which to think about a specific topic. In general terms, a paradigm determines what is observed, the questions that can be posed, and how they are structured, as well as interpretations of the results. The theories formulated within a paradigm may be very different from one another, but all are embedded in a similar framework.

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interpretations embedded in a common view of how to treat this topic. I am not claiming that all the theories examined above are variations of the same idea. They might vary considerably from one another, but they all proceed from the view that there is a genuine emotional consciousness and that this consciousness is related to values.

5  Parallelisms in Contemporary Philosophy of the Emotions My aim in this final section is to highlight some parallels between the new frame for understanding the emotions developed by Brentano and his followers and more recent developments in the philosophy of emotion. (a) The Intentionality of the Emotions One of the hallmarks of contemporary philosophy of the emotions has been the claim that the emotions are intentional. In the celebrated Action, Emotion and Will (1963), one of the first publications on the emotions within analytic philosophy, Anthony Kenny (inspired by the Scholastics) took as his point of departure the idea that the emotions are intentional. However, his use of this concept differed significantly from Brentano’s idea of a genuine emotional intentional reference. During the early wave of analytical philosophy of the emotions it was quite common to explain the intentionality of the emotions in terms of beliefs. During this period of “early cognitivism” (which spans from the publication of Kenny’s book up until the late nineties), three main theories were in vogue: (1) an emotion is a combination of beliefs and desires (Marks 1982, 227–242); (2) emotions are judgments (Solomon 1993, 126); and (3) emotions require belief as their cognitive basis (Kenny 1963, 195; Taylor 1985, 3). In general terms, these theories understood the emotions as intentional in the sense of intentionality inherited from the beliefs on which they are based. More recent accounts, however, defend a different approach to the emotions, according to which they exhibit a sui generis form of intentional reference that is neither reducible to belief nor inherited from beliefs (quite often these accounts underscore the analogy between emotion and perception). This new paradigm, typical of recent accounts, is known as the paradigm of “affective intentionality”. These new approaches try to underscore the idea of a sui generis emotive intentionality by employing different expressions and maintaining that the emotions are “felt evaluations” (Helm 2002), “evaluative appraisals” (Nussbaum 2016), “embodied appraisals” (Prinz 2004), “feeling towards” (Goldie 2000), “value perceptions” (Tappolet 2000), “a way of seeing as” (Roberts 2003), or “evaluative attitudes” (Deonna and Teroni 2012). The theories behind these terms differ substantially from one another, but they all express the idea that there is a genuine affective mode of intentional reference. Like

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Brentano, these new developments argue for an original emotive intentionality typical for the emotions, which is not reducible to the intentionality of other mental phenomena. However, these new approaches to the idea of the intentionality of the emotions are actually closer to Brentano’s concept as developed by his followers rather than to Brentano’s theory itself. When contemporary philosophers claim that emotions are intentional, they usually emphasize the idea that emotions are transparent, that they are directed toward the world, and that they give us information about the world. (b) The Cognitive Bases of the Emotions During early cognitivism the only phenomena that counted as cognitive bases for the emotions were beliefs. In other words, in order to have an emotion, we have to believe that something is the case (Kenny 1963, 195; Lyons 1980, 58 and 71; Taylor 1985, 3). To feel shame thus implies the belief that I have done something wrong; to feel fear implies the belief that something is dangerous, etc. Despite the many proponents of this claim, later accounts within the analytical tradition raised strong criticisms against it for “over-intellectualizing” our emotional responses and for not being able to explain all our emotions (there are emotions, such as disgust, that seem not to require belief). As a result, this strong thesis has been modified. Contemporary philosophers have offered new versions of which phenomena might count as “cognitive bases” for emotions. It has become common to argue that, beside beliefs, perceptions, imaginings, and memories might also work as cognitive bases for the emotions (Elster 1999, 250; Goldie 2000, 45; Mulligan 2004, 177–225). These new accounts strongly resemble the views defended by Brentano’s followers. (c) Emotions and Values Research on the emotions has grown in parallel with a flourishing interest in ethics and the role of the emotions in moral life. Although the idea that emotions might be related to values is relatively new in contemporary research, this idea can be found in nuce in one of the concepts used in Kenny’s 1963 book. Kenny introduces a distinction between material and formal objects, which has been as inspiring as it has been controversial. Emotions may be directed toward a variety of material objects such as persons, animals, things, and situations. They are also directed toward formal objects or axiological properties. Unlike material objects, the formal objects of the emotions are predetermined: disgust is directed toward the disgusting, fear toward what is dangerous, etc. There are many objects that can arouse fear (a rabid dog approaching us, or our imagining of such an event, etc.), but in fear all these objects are presented as fearsome. An important corollary of this claim is that by virtue of their formal objects an emotion may be appropriate or inappropriate. Just as judgments have conditions of truth, or a state of affairs may be deemed true or false, the emotions may be considered appropriate or inappropriate in relation to their formal objects. When an emotion is appropriate, we think that it is intelligible and reasonable (for instance when my fear is directed toward something dangerous, something which seems to warrant this particular emotional response). As we have seen, the idea of appropriate emotions was introduced by Brentano and it was his followers who developed it in a direction close to the contemporary

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meaning put forward in the eighties by de Sousa’s influential book The Rationality of Emotion (1987). Some authors have interpreted these formal objects as values (de Sousa 1987, 109; and more explicitly Tappolet 2000, 9). The relationship between emotions and values has mainly been explained in this debate by using perceptual models according to which the emotions have a cognitive function: they give us information about the world. But this approach has recently been challenged, since it cannot explain how emotions might come to perceive evaluative, as opposed to dispositional, properties, and why we do not always experience emotions when we are aware of values (for arguments against the perceptual model, see Dokic and Lemaire 2013, 227; Mulligan 2004, 177–225; Vendrell Ferran 2008, 200–212). These recent debates among contemporary researchers show that the topics and claims that inspire current philosophies of emotion are not radically different from those that inspired research on emotion a century ago. I think that these parallels suggest that the conceptual frame employed to think about the emotions is in fact quite similar. It could be that the new paradigm that Brentano’s theory of the emotions prompted in our understanding of affectivity still dominates contemporary research, but it might also be the case that these resemblances are just casual. As Solomon has pointed out, the emphasis on emotion in the Anglo-American tradition is nothing new; it is simply the rediscovery of an old discipline which has been part of philosophical inquiry from the outset (Solomon 2004, 4). There may be nothing surprising therefore in the fact that some of the views that are nowadays dominant have already been defended in other periods of philosophy. Either way, we should not lose track of important differences underlying both contexts. While contemporary research on the emotions takes as its point of departure the question of what emotions really are, Brentano and his followers were interested in the emotions in terms of their moral relevance. Thus, their chief interest was in developing a phenomenological ethics of values, in contrast to contemporary theories which are interested in understanding the emotions in the framework of their philosophies of mind.

6  Concluding Remarks In this paper I have presented Brentano’s claims on the emotions and the reception of these claims among his followers, demonstrating how these followers developed a common discourse that shifted attention from the emotions’ felt quality to their cognitive and evaluative moments. I have argued that there is sufficient evidence to speak about the birth of a new paradigm in the philosophy of emotion by the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. The final part of this paper underlined the parallels and conceptual proximities between debates in the Brentano School and contemporary discussions of the emotions, thus establishing a

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dialogue between what have been regarded as two radically divergent styles of philosophy—the “continental” and the “analytic”.10

References Brentano, Franz. 1974. Wahrheit und Evidenz. Erkenntnistheoretische Abhandlungen und Briefe. Hamburg: Meiner Verlag. ———. 2009. The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong. London: Routledge. ———. 2015. Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. London: Routledge. Cesalli, Laurent. 2016. Anton Marty on Emotions, Their Object and Content. Studia Philosophica 75: 51–65. Chrudzimski, Arkadius. 2012. Negative States of Affairs: Reinach versus Ingarden. Symposium 16 (2): 106–127. Chrudzimski, Arkadiusz. 2001. Intentionalitätstheorie beim frühen Brentano. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. de Sousa, Ronald. 1987. The Rationality of Emotion. Cambridge: MIT Press. Deonna, Julien, and Fabrice Teroni. 2012. The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction. London: Routledge. Dokic, Jérome, and Stéphane Lemaire. 2013. Are Emotions Perceptions of Value? Canadian Journal of Philosophy 43 (2): 227–247. Eaton, Howard Ormsby. 1930. The Austrian Philosophy of Values. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Elster, Jon. 1999. Alchemies of the Mind. New York: Cambridge University Press. Goldie, Peter. 2000. The Emotions. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Griffiths, Paul E. 1998. What Emotions Really Are. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Helm, Bennett. 2002. Felt Evaluations. American Philosophical Quarterly 39: 13–30. Höfler, Alois. 1897. Psychologie. Wien und Prag: Tempsky. Husserl, Edmund. 1970. Logical Investigations. New York: Humanities Press. James, William. 1967. What Is an Emotion? In The Emotions, ed. Carl Lange and William James, 11–30. New York: Hafner Publishing. Kenny, Anthony. 1963. Action, Emotion and Will. London: Routledge & Paul. Kraus, Oskar. 1937. Die Werttheorien. Geschichte und Kritik. Brünn: Verlag Rudolf M. Rohrer. Kriegel, Uriah. 2017. Brentano’s Evaluative-Attitudinal Account on Will and Emotion. Revue Philosophique 142 (4): 529–558. Lyons, William. 1980. Emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marks, Joel. 1982. A Theory of Emotion. Philosophical Studies 42: 227–242. Marty, Anton. 1908. Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. Meinong, Alexius. 1923. In Die Philosophie der Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen, ed. Raymund Schmidt, vol. 1, 100–158. Leipzig: Meiner. ———. 1968a. Psychologisch-ethische Untersuchungen zur Werth-Theorie (1894). In Gesamtausgabe III, Abhandlungen zur Werttheorie, I, ed. Rudolf Haller and Rudolf Kindiger, 1–244. Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt. ———. 1968b. Über emotionale Präsentation (1917). In Gesamtausgabe III, Abhandlungen zur Werttheorie, IV, ed. Rudolf Haller and Rudolf Kindiger, 1–181. Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt.

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 I am grateful for useful comments from Denis Fisette, Simon Mussell and Alessandro Salice.

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———. 1977. Über Annahmen (1902). In Gesamtausgabe IV, ed. Rudolf Haller and Rudolf Kindiger. Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt. Montague, Michelle. 2017. A Contemporary View of Brentano’s Theory of Emotion. The Monist 1: 64–87. Moran, Dermot. 2000. Introduction to Phenomenology. London: Routledge. Mulligan, Kevin. 2004. Husserl on the “Logic” of Valuing, Values and Norms. In Fenomenologia della Ragion Practica. L’Etica di Edmund Husserl, ed. Beatrice Centi and Giana Gigliotti, 177–225. Naples: Bibliopolis. Nussbaum, Martha. 2016. Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice. New  York: Oxford University Press. Prinz, Jesse. 2004. Embodied Emotions. In Thinking about Feeling: Contemporary Philosophers on Emotions, ed. Robert C. Solomon, 44–60. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reinach, Adolf. 1989. Sämtliche Werke. München: Philosophia. Roberts, Robert C. 2003. Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Robinson, Jenefer. 2007. Deeper than Reason: Emotion and Its Role in Literature, Music, and Art. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Scheler, Max. 1973. Formalism in Ethics and Non-formal Ethics of Values. Evanston: Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy. Smith, Barry. 1994. Austrian Philosophy: The Legacy of Franz Brentano. Chicago: Open Court. Solomon, Robert C. 1993. The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life. Indianapolis: Hackett. ———. 2004. Introduction. In Thinking about Feeling: Contemporary Philosophers on Emotions, ed. Robert C. Solomon, 3–8. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stein, E. 1989. On the Problem of Empathy: The Collected Works of Edith Stein. Washington, DC: ICS Publications. ———. 2000. Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities. Washington, DC: ICS Publications. Stumpf, Carl. 1928. Gefühl und Gefühlsempfindung. Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth. Tappolet, Cristine. 2000. Émotions et Valeurs. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Taylor, Gabrielle. 1985. Pride, Shame and Guilt: Emotions of Self-Assessment. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Titchener, Edward B. 1902. Ein Versuch, die Methode der paarweisen Vergleichung auf verschiedene Gefühlsrichtungen anzuwenden. In Philosophische Studien XX, ed. Wilhelm Wundt, 382–406. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann. ———. 1921. Brentano and Wundt: Empirical and Experimental Psychology. American Journal of Psychology 32: 108–120. ———. 1980. Textbook of Psychology. New York: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints Delmar. Vendrell Ferran, Íngrid. 2008. Die Emotionen. Gefühle in der realistischen Phänomenologie. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. von Hildebrand, Dietrich. 1982. Sittlichkeit und ethische Werterkenntnis. Eine Untersuchung über ethische Strukturprobleme. Patris: Vallendar-Schönstatt. Wundt, Wilhelm. 1919. Physiologische Psychologie 2. 6th ed. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann. ———. 1920. Grundriss der Psychologie. Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner.

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The Phenomenology of Mentality Arnaud Dewalque

Abstract  This paper offers a phenomenological interpretation of Brentano’s view of mentality. The key idea is that mental phenomena are not only characterized by intentionality; they also exhibit a distinctive way of appearing or being experienced. In short, they also have a distinctive phenomenology. I argue this view may be traced back to Brentano’s theory of inner perception (henceforth, IP). Challenging the self-­ representational reading of IP, I maintain the latter is best understood as a way of appearing, that is, in phenomenological terms. Section 2 addresses Brentano’s claim that IP is one mark of the mental alongside intentionality. Sections 3 and 4 present support for a phenomenological interpretation of IP. And Section 5 briefly discusses two objections. Keywords Franz Brentano · Inner perception · Self-representationalism · Phenomenology of experience · Marks of the mental

1  Introduction Sitting on the plane that brings you to an exciting conference abroad, you look through the window and admire the mountainous landscape below, wondering whether it is the Alps. Let us call ‘phenomena’ all that which you are aware of, all your ‘data of consciousness,’ however different they may be. On a Brentanian account, the phenomena that are given to you in that situation may be divided into two fundamentally distinct classes (see Brentano 1874, 101–104, 1924, 1:109–112, 1995b, 77–80). The mountainous landscape, its colour and shape are physical phenomena. Seeing the landscape, admiring it and wondering whether it is the Alps are mental phenomena. Hence the following question: What, if anything, accounts for the unity of the class of the mental phenomena? What makes mental phenomena ‘mental’? A. Dewalque (*) University of Liège, Liège, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano’s Philosophy After One Hundred Years, Primary Sources in Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48563-4_2

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This paper offers a new interpretation of Brentano’s answer to this question. It is usually held that Brentano’s enduring contribution to the problem at issue chiefly consists in having reintroduced the notion of intentional in-existence, or intentionality, in philosophical discussions about mentality. The fact is, on a Brentanian approach, the notions of intentionality and mentality are coextensive. Call this Brentano’s First coextensivity thesis: First coextensivity thesis Everything mental is intentional, and conversely.

In contemporary philosophy, this view has gone under the Intentionalism label. One widespread way of putting it is to say that intentionality is the mark of the mental, or that intentionality is a necessary and sufficient condition of mentality. On this view, therefore, seeing the landscape, admiring it, and wondering whether it is the Alps qualify as mental phenomena in virtue of the fact that they have the landscape as their (intentional) object. Recently, however, it has been suggested that intentionalism, for Brentano, was not the whole story. One reason is that, in the Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, the mental is conceived of as coextensive not only with the intentional, but also with what is intransitively or ‘innerly’ conscious. This is Brentano’s Second coextensivity thesis: Second coextensivity thesis Everything mental is innerly conscious, and conversely.

It may be argued that intentionalism is blind to this second thesis and, as a result, offers at best a truncated picture of Brentano’s view of the mental. Plausibly, a more faithful picture should accommodate the coextensivity of mentality and inner consciousness.1 It is certainly fair to say that the best attempt, to date, to carry out this agenda has been offered by supporters of so-called Self-Representationalism.2 As I take it, the core idea behind the self-representationalist strategy is that the intentional approach to mentality may be modified in a way that makes it possible to integrate Brentano’s second coextensivity thesis. Like intentionalists, self-representationalists about mentality contend that the notion of intentionality (or, at any rate, of representation) is central to Brentano’s understanding of mentality, but they add that there is no intentionality without self-directed intentionality, or “no representation without

1  It may be argued (with good reason, I think) that Brentano actually accepts all the marks of the mental he discusses in his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (see Textor 2017, Chapter 1), to the effect that further coextensivity theses should be considered. For present purposes, however, I shall confine myself to examining what I just called the second coextensivity thesis. 2  In contemporary philosophy, self-representationalism has been first and foremost introduced as a theory of consciousness (see Kriegel and Williford 2006; Kriegel 2009). Nevertheless, for obvious reasons, the version of self-representationalism I am referring to here also qualifies as a theory of mentality.

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self-representation” (Kriegel 2013).3 One way of unpacking this further claim is as follows. In addition to their ‘primary’ intentionality, in virtue of which they are directed at something else (e.g., the mountainous landscape), mental phenomena exhibit a second kind of intentionality, a ‘secondary’ intentionality, in virtue of which they are simultaneously directed at themselves. On this view, being self-­ representing is a necessary and sufficient condition of mentality. Accordingly, seeing the landscape, admiring it, and wondering whether it is the Alps qualify as mental phenomena in virtue of the fact that the acts of seeing, admiring, and wondering, besides representing the landscape, simultaneously represent themselves. The following interpretation departs from both intentionalism and self-­ representationalism. Briefly and very roughly, I agree with self-representationalists that a faithful interpretation of Brentano’s conception of mentality should accommodate the Second coextensivity thesis, which gets lost in contemporary intentionalism. My own contention, however, is that self-representationalism is not the only—let alone the best—way to understand Brentano’s theory of inner perception. More pointedly, I shall argue that, despite appearances to the contrary, the idea of self-directed intentionality is alien to Brentano’s theory of inner perception and, consequently, cannot be considered constitutive of his understanding of mentality. To support this claim, I shall offer an alternative interpretation of the Second coextensivity thesis. On the proposed interpretation, Brentano’s concept of inner perception (hereafter IP) is best understood as a way of appearing or being experienced, that is, in phenomenological terms. The key idea is that mental phenomena, for Brentano, are not only characterized by intentionality; they also exhibit a distinctive way of appearing or being experienced. In short, they also have a distinctive phenomenology.4 Obviously, one crucial challenge for supporters of a phenomenological approach to mentality is to say more about the allegedly distinctive way mental phenomena are experienced. I shall return to this question in Sect. 4 below. For now, suffice it to say that, on the proposed interpretation, seeing the landscape, admiring it, and wondering whether it is the Alps not only qualify as mental phenomena in virtue of the fact that they have the landscape as their (intentional) object; they also qualify as mental phenomena in virtue of the fact that they are experienced, or given, in a way the mountainous landscape is not. My plan is as follows. Sect. 2 addresses Brentano’s claim that IP is one mark of the mental alongside intentionality. Sections 3 and 4 present support for a phenomenological interpretation of IP. And Sect. 5 briefly discusses two objections which might be raised against the proposed interpretation.

3  Note that it may be wrong to equate intentionality with representation. Yet, I won’t pursue this line of thought here. 4  In accordance with the etymology, I take it that the ‘phenomenology’ locution refers to the way something appears. Thus understood, ‘phenomenology’ and ‘phenomenological’ are not restricted to sensory experience, nor do they entail any reference to a private qualitative character. For a similar view, see (Siewert 2007, 202, 2012, 51; Seron 2017).

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2  Two Marks of the Mental The goal of this section is to provide evidence for the claim that, in Brentano’s eyes, intentionality and IP are two equally acceptable marks of the mental (among others). I proceed from general considerations about Brentano’s distinction between mental and physical phenomena, spell out the conditions that must be met for some character C to qualify as a mark of the mental phenomena, and conclude that, for Brentano, both intentional in-existence and IP fulfil those conditions. Call Phenomenal Dualism the view that “the entire realm of phenomena is divided into two great classes—the class of physical and the class of mental phenomena” (Brentano 1874, 101, 1924, 1:109, 1995b, 77, modified translation; Dewalque and Seron 2015). As illustrated in the opening scenario, the mountainous landscape you see from the plane arguably is a physical phenomenon,5 while your seeing the landscape is a mental phenomenon. This division offers a natural starting point when it comes to understanding Brentano’s theory of the marks of the mental, for as soon as all the phenomena of experience are divided into two distinct classes, the question arises as to what division principle supports this classification. Importantly, Brentano’s phenomenal dualism entails that the mental/physical distinction is not just an intellectual construction. It is not just a matter of thinking of, or combining, sensory data in different ways. Against Mach’s monism, Brentano insists that “the whole identification of seeing and colours, hearing and sound, the presentation of a tree and the tree […] is just false and absurd” (Brentano 1988, 28). Brentano himself is not very explicit about why phenomenal dualism should be endorsed. One prima facie (albeit maybe not ultima facie) reason, though, lies in the fact that you cannot possibly ascribe the properties of physical phenomena to mental phenomena and vice versa. For example, the property of being ‘mountainous’ characterizes the landscape you see from the plane, but your seeing the landscape cannot be said to be mountainous in any sense of the term, nor could you say without absurdity that your act of seeing culminates at 3533 m. Conversely, Brentano claims, the content “shares none of the characteristics of mental phenomena” (Brentano 1874, 161, 1924, 1:173, 1995b, 123). Drawing on Lotze, Brentano summarizes this view in saying that mental phenomena form a “new realm” (neue Welt) which is “absolutely heterogeneous” (völlig heterogen) to that of physical phenomena (Brentano 1874, 64, 1924, 1:72, 1995b, 51). Hence, once all relational predicates like ‘___is experienced by S at time t’ have been excluded, there simply is no predicate left which might be common to the mental and the physical phenomena.6 5  According to Oskar Kraus, only the landscape’s colours and shapes—not the landscape as such— are physical phenomena in Brentano’s sense. See (Brentano 1924, 1:266, 270, 1995b, 79, fn. 2, 92, fn. 14). Be that as it may, this specification has no influence on what follows, and I shall leave it aside. 6  Using his own, idiosyncratic terminology, Carl Stumpf puts this view as follows: “No predicate of the realm of phenomena [= Brentano’s physical phenomena—AD] (except maybe that of time) may be ascribed to mental functions [= Brentano’s mental phenomena—AD] […]. And conversely, no functional predicate may be ascribed to phenomena” (Stumpf 1906, 11, 1997, 112).

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Now, on a strong understanding of ‘class,’ if mental phenomena are to form a unitary class, then plausibly they all must exhibit some distinctive character which makes it possible to recognize them as belonging to the class of the mental phenomena.7 This is where the notion of ‘mark’ enters the picture. As far as I can see, this notion may be traced back to William Whewell’s Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, which arguably was one of the main sources of inspiration for Brentano’s own considerations upon descriptive and classificatory issues (Hedwig 1988). Whewell derives the notion of ‘mark’ from the idea of likeness, which he claims is the first regulative principle behind every scientific classification. One way of putting the likeness condition is to say that two items belong to one and the same class on the minimal condition that they are alike in some respect, or on the minimal condition that it is possible to make some general assertions about them (Whewell 1847, 486).8 The likeness condition implies that every class has one or several marks which distinguish it from other, same-level classes.9 Therefore, saying that some items are to be divided into two fundamentally distinct classes, M and N, presupposes that all items of class M exhibit a common feature or character C and that no item of class N exhibits C.10 When this obtains, C may be considered a distinctive feature, or mark, of items belonging to M. Accordingly, the notion of Mark of the mental phenomena might be defined as follows: Mark of the mental phenomena For every character C, C is a mark of the mental phenomena if, and only if, (i) all mental phenomena are C and (ii) no physical phenomenon is C.

In book 2, chapter 1 of the Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, Brentano reviews several candidate marks. No doubt, on his view, both intentional in-­existence and IP meet the conditions stated in Mark of the mental phenomena. As for the first, Brentano writes: “Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself.” “This intentional in-existence,” he adds, “is characteristic exclusively of mental phenomena. No physical phenomenon exhibits anything like it” (Brentano

7  Alternatively, on a weaker understanding, they could just exhibit a family likeness. I have suggested elsewhere (Dewalque 2018) that Brentano, following Comte and Mill, probably had a strong understanding of classes. 8  Note that this way of putting the likeness condition is rather weak, since it does not exclude the possibility of forming a class whose members satisfy only one relational predicate, like ‘___is experienced by S at time t.’ Obviously, a stronger version of the likeness condition should exclude relational predicates. 9  As Whewell puts it: “Each class has some character which distinguishes it from other classes included in the superior division. We ask what kind of beast a dog is; what kind of animal a beast is; and we assume that such questions admit of answer;—that each kind has some mark or marks by which it may be described” (Whewell 1847, 475, 1858, 164, 1860, 475). The details of Whewell’s theory of the classificatory sciences do not need to concern us here. 10  One potential issue with this definition is that the notion of character is somewhat vague. What is a character? The weaker understanding of classes (in terms of family likeness) does not face the same issue.

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1874, 115–116, 1924, 1:124–125, 1995b, 88–89). In sum, Brentano endorses Intentionality: Intentionality (i) All mental phenomena are intentional and (ii) no physical phenomenon is intentional.

But clearly, in Brentano’s eyes, IP also qualifies as a mark of the mental phenomena: Another characteristic which all mental phenomena have in common is the fact that they are only perceived in inner consciousness, while in the case of physical phenomena only external perception is possible (Brentano 1874, 118, 1924, 1:128, 1995b, 91).11

And like intentional in-existence, IP is presented as an independent and self-­ sufficient distinctive feature of the mental phenomena: “This determination, too, offers a sufficient characterization of mental phenomena” (Brentano 1874, 119, 1924, 1:129, 1995b, 92, transl. modified). This leaves no doubt as to the fact that Brentano does not only endorse Intentionality, but also Inner perception: Inner perception (i) All mental phenomena are innerly perceived and (ii) no physical phenomenon is innerly perceived.

No need to say, Intentionality is a refined formulation of what I have previously called Brentano’s First coextensivity thesis, while Inner perception captures his Second coextensivity thesis. Now orthodoxy has it that there is some hierarchy involved here, to the effect that intentionality is Brentano’s preferred mark. As Brentano himself puts it, intentional in-existence is “that feature which best characterizes mental phenomena” (Brentano 1874, 127, 1924, 1:137, 1995b, 98). This statement, obviously, does not disqualify IP as a further, self-sufficient mark of the mental. But, what is more, I suspect it is no accident that Brentano acknowledges several marks of mental phenomena. Indeed, it is my feeling that this fact has to do with his project of arriving at a natural classification of the phenomena of experience (Brentano 1874, 256, 1925, 2:28, 1995b, 194). Let me briefly explain this suspicion. Literally speaking, ‘natural’ means that the mark(s) of mental phenomena must have something to do with the nature of the relevant phenomena. And yet, there is something puzzling in this way of rephrasing Brentano’s project, for how are we supposed to access this mysterious ‘nature’ without leaving the ground of experience? Returning to Whewell’s considerations, again, might help understand this point. We have seen that, in order to gather two phenomena within one and the same class, these phenomena must exhibit some resemblance, or likeness. This is what I have called the likeness condition. Yet, for the classification to be said ‘natural,’ Whewell writes, a further condition has to be met: the phenomena must exhibit a “natural affinity” (Whewell 1847, 535–542). Affinity is more a demanding notion than likeness. On Whewell’s view, there is a natural affinity between some items if, and only  As Brentano notices, this idea comes from Hamilton, who writes that consciousness is “the one essential element” of mental phenomena (Hamilton 1970, 1:182).

11

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if, the same grouping of items may be obtained on the basis of several criteria—for example, when the class obtained on the basis of some character C1 coincides, or fully overlaps, with the class obtained on the basis of some other characters C2, C3, …Cn. The idea, in sum, is that a classification may be said to be ‘natural’ on the condition that it is obtained on the basis of several converging marks.12 Brentano himself occasionally refers to this idea of affinity. For example, he writes: Psychologists in earlier times have already pointed out that there is a special affinity (besondere Verwandtschaft) and analogy which exists among all mental phenomena, and which physical phenomena do not share (Brentano 1874, 115, 1924, 1:124, 1995b, 88).

Interestingly, he also refers to “natural affinity” (natürliche Verwandtschaft) as a constraint that must be met in order to produce a natural classification of the mental phenomena themselves (Brentano 1874, 55, 1924, 1:63, 1995b, 44). Whether Brentano’s notion of natural affinity is to be understood in exactly the same sense than Whewell’s is of course open to discussion. Yet, assuming Brentano shares Whewell’s definition of what makes a classification ‘natural,’ the demand of natural classification suggests that Brentano’s project in book 2, chapter 1 of the Psychology was not to review several candidates in order to find out one single mark of the mental. On the contrary, the fact that he mentions several marks is important because the existence of several converging marks might be the warrant for the natural character of the classification. If this suspicion is correct, then the quasi-obsessional attention that has been devoted to intentionality in contemporary literature misses the point of Brentano’s efforts for identifying several, individually self-sufficient, and possibly mutually reinforcing,13 criteria of mentality.

3  Inner Perception, First Pass Taking for granted that Brentano endorses Inner perception, how exactly are we to understand his claim that all mental phenomena are innerly perceived? In this section, I offer a first pass at this issue by identifying three features of IP. I suggest the self-representational interpretation conflicts with at least one of these features. In the next section, I shall offer a second pass at IP by putting forth an alternative interpretation, which I take to be more in line with Brentano’s theory. First, in Brentano’s Psychology IP has nothing to do with an act of reflection. Consider again what happens when you see the mountainous landscape. Plausibly, it doesn’t take an act of reflection for you to be aware that you are seeing, rather than merely imagining, the landscape. As a matter of fact, when it comes to Brentano’s theory, the suggestion that “inner perception is a form of reflection or attention to  The “fundamental maxim” of the idea of natural affinity is that “arrangements obtained from different sets of characters must coincide” (Whewell 1847, 542). 13  Although I suspect Brentano’s marks are mutually reinforcing, I won’t argue for that claim here. 12

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one’s conscious acts” (MacDonald 2012, 88) must be rejected at the outset. It is inadequate for at least two reasons. First, an act of reflection directed at occurring mental phenomena would be tantamount to what Brentano calls a simultaneous inner observation, and he clearly rejects the latter as impossible. Inner observation, Brentano writes, is only possible in retrospect; only past mental phenomena are likely to be “observed in memory” (Brentano 1874, 42–44, 1924, 1:48–49, 1995b, 34–35). Moreover, on Brentano’s view, every mental phenomenon is accompanied by an awareness of itself. But it would be absurd the say that every mental phenomenon is accompanied by an act of reflection or mnemonic observation, for, plainly, reflection is not an omnipresent but a punctual and unusual activity.14 Hence, it is beyond doubt that Brentano’s theory of IP is best seen as a theory of pre-reflective self-awareness (see, e.g., Brandl 2013). Next, IP is veridical. It is tempting to think that the distinction between IP and external perception boils down to a mere difference of objects. Contrary to external perception, which is directed at physical phenomena, IP is directed at mental phenomena. Hugo Bergmann, for example, claims that “the division in inner and external perception is thus first and foremost a distinction according to the objects given in intuition” (Bergman 1908, 11). Yet, again, this cannot be the whole story, for it is hard to see how a sheer objectual understanding of IP would be compatible with Brentano’s claim that IP is one mark of the mental. Plainly, if you define mental phenomena as those phenomena that are perceived in IP (as Brentano does), then you simply cannot define IP as the perception of mental phenomena, for such a definition would be merely circular. Brentano was well aware of that. It makes no doubt that, for him, there must be more to the distinction between IP and external perception than just a difference of objects.15 In fact, he takes it that IP is characterised by its self-evidence or veridical character: Besides the fact that it has a special object, inner perception possesses another distinguishing characteristic: its immediate, infallible self-evidence (Brentano 1874, 118, 1924, 1:128, 1995b, 91).16

Finally, on Brentano’s view, ‘being innerly perceived’ entails ‘existing.’ This third feature derives from IP’s veridical character. Since IP is veridical, whenever a  For a similar argument, see (Gurwitsch 2010, 455).  Furthermore, it might be argued with Max Scheler that, if you conceive of mental phenomena as a definite kind of objects and take IP to be the perception of such objects, then there is no more reason to distinguish between IP and external perception than between, say, the ‘perception of trees’ and the ‘perception of houses.’ Interestingly, Scheler rejects Intentionality but endorses a version of Inner Perception. See (Scheler 1912, 99, 1955, 237, 1973, 30–31): “We cannot conceive the unity of the ‘mental’ except by looking at the particular way in which we perceive it, which as just now called ‘inner perception.’ Inner perception, therefore, is not the perception of the ‘mental,’ which has already been established independently of this mode of perception and defined as a generic unity of objects. […] ‘Mental’ is that which comes to light through inner perception. As I said, we would have no right to speak of an external and an inner perception if the mental and the physical were definable and generic distinctions between objects. We do not speak of a distinct perception of trees and a distinct perception of houses.” 16  On the connexion between self-evidence and truth, see (Brentano 1970, 149 ff.). 14 15

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mental phenomenon (e.g., the act of seeing) is innerly perceived, this mental phenomenon exists. By contrast, physical phenomena are only perceived through external perception, and being externally perceived does not entail ‘existing.’ It is quite conceivable, therefore, that the mountainous landscape you saw from the plane did not actually exist and was merely hallucinated. But if you were aware of seeing the landscape, the fact that you were seeing was beyond doubt.17 To sum up, IP is a pre-reflective, veridical, existence-entailing form of awareness. So far, we are on safe ground. But this is where difficulties arise, for how, exactly, are we to conceive of this kind of awareness? On the self-representational account, “awareness of something requires representation of it (for example, I cannot be aware of a table without having an internal representation of it)” (Kriegel 2013, 33). Therefore, self-representationalists argue, IP is a representation of mental phenomena. And since, on Brentano’s view, this representation is not a higher-order mental phenomenon, it follows that IP is best understood in terms of self-representation. More formally put, self-­ representationalists take it that Inner Perception is equivalent to Self-Representation: Self-representation (i) All mental phenomena are self-representing and (ii) no physical phenomenon is self-representing.18

On the face of it, this representational—or intentional—understanding of IP seems to find strong support in Brentano’s following statements. (1) A single mental phenomenon may involve, or be intentionally directed at, several (intentional) objects at the same time. (2) When you hear a sound, your act of hearing has the sound as a “primary object” and has itself as a “secondary object” (Brentano 1874, 167, 1924, 1:180, 1995b, 128). (3) When you hear a sound, your “presentation” (Vorstellung) of the sound is accompanied by a “presentation” of the hearing of the sound. All this seems to suggest that the mental phenomenon itself is an intentional object on a par with sounds and landscapes, and that IP is tantamount to a kind of secondary, self-­ directed intentionality. My opinion, however, is that this interpretation does not hold true in closer inspection. For one thing, I think the temptation of interpreting Brentano’s “secondary object” as an intentional object should be resisted. Admittedly, Brentano claims that the same intentional act may be directed at several primary objects at the same time. Yet, it does not follow from there that the secondary object is an intentional object, let alone that every mental phenomenon involves a ‘secondary’ intentionality in addition to its ‘primary’ intentionality. As a matter of fact, Brentano never uses such formulations. Besides, whereas he writes that the hearing of the sound is itself “presented” with the presentation of the sound, he also clearly emphasises that  This does not mean, however, that you have immediate knowledge of what seeing is (more on this in Sect. 5 below). 18  Recall that, for Brentano, unconscious beliefs and standing desires are not mental phenomena but dispositions. As such, they don’t fall within the scope of Self-Representation—or so it may be argued. 17

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we have to deal here with “two presentations of very different sorts” (Brentano 1874, 159, 1924, 1:170–171, 1995b, 121). Now it might be argued that the notion of ‘presentation,’ in itself, denotes the idea of intentional in-existence. Yet, again, Brentano never claimed that his notion of ‘presentation’ was coextensive with his notion of intentional in-existence. Pending a full-blown elucidation of what he means by ‘presentation’ (more on this in Sect. 4), I think a more cautious interpretation should stay neutral on that score. Above all, the self-representational account of IP faces a serious difficulty. Very roughly, this difficulty arises because, for Brentano, IP is existence-entailing while intentionality is not. Indeed, intentionality, in Brentano’s view, is a quasi-relation, in the sense that the intentional object does not need to exist (Brentano 1925, 2:134, 1995b, 272). But if it is so, the characterization of IP in terms of intentionality is misleading, for, clearly, on Brentano’s view, if a mental phenomenon is innerly perceived, then it actually exists. Unlike intentionality, IP is an actual relation, and like all actual relations, it is existence-entailing. To put it differently, saying that IP is intentional, in Brentano’s view, would amount to saying that IP, which is existence-­ entailing, is not existence-entailing. Hence, on a Brentanian account, the notion of ‘intentional IP’ is a contradictio in adjecto.19 It may be objected that there are varieties of intentionality and that some intentional acts are factive (i.e., existence-entailing) while others are not. I wonder, however, whether the idea of factive intentionality is in line with Brentano’s own understanding of intentionality. Be that as it may, putting aside any terminological disagreements regarding the scope of the notion of intentionality, the point I whish to press in what follows is that IP is best understood as a distinctive way of appearing. Mental phenomena and physical phenomena do not manifest themselves in the same way—they have a different phenomenology. Self-representationalists might accept this view and say that the mental and the physical are both represented, albeit in a different sense. For such a view to be satisfying, however, more should be said about (a) what ‘being represented’ means and (b) what exactly is the difference between the way the mental is represented and the way the physical is represented. The alternative reading put forth in next section precisely offers a way of answering those two questions.

4  Inner Perception, Second Pass: The Paraphrase Strategy The positive interpretation I propose in this section rests upon what I call the Paraphrase Strategy. This strategy is directly connected to Brentano’s so-called conceptual empiricism. It is common knowledge that, on Brentano’s view, there are no a priori concepts. All our concepts have their source in experience. Nevertheless, there are two kinds

19

 See (Seron, Chap. 3 of this volume), for an extended version of this argument.

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of empirical concepts, namely complex (or non-primitive) and simple (or primitive) concepts. In Brentano’s words: “All our concepts are either taken immediately from an intuition or combined out of marks that are taken from intuition” (Brentano 2010, 1). When it comes to understanding a concept, complex concepts must be analysed into further concepts and, ultimately, into simple and primitive terms, terms which cannot be defined any further and are “taken immediately from intuition.” The Paraphrase Strategy I propose here consists in applying this method to Brentano’s concepts of ‘perception’ and ‘inner perception.’ In this respect, the first question that needs to be addressed is the following: does Brentano regard the concept of ‘perception’ as primitive and unanalysable? Or does he regard it as a complex, non-primitive notion? I lean towards the second option.20 In my opinion, ‘perceiving,’ on Brentano’s view, is a non-primitive notion, which needs to be analysed into more primitive terms. In the case of IP, this interpretation is confirmed by the fact that (a) IP is endowed with self-evidence and (b) self-­ evidence, for Brentano, is a feature that only judgements exhibit. From there, it follows that perceiving involves at least the notion of judging. A similar line of though holds true for external perception, which involves, by contrast, the notion of ‘blind’ judgement (where ‘blind’ means the lack of self-evidence). But ‘judging,’ in turn, presupposes that something is presented, for, Brentano argues, it is impossible to judge that something is the case without having a presentation of it. More generally put: “Presentations are the foundations of all other mental phenomena” (Brentano 1874, 181, 1924, 1:196, 1995b, 138). Therefore, being perceived, in Brentano’s terminology, is tantamount to being-presented-and-judged. Brentano, however, does not stick to this first paraphrase. Being judged, he admits, is equivalent to being acknowledged or being rejected. In the case of perceiving, the act of judging comes in its affirmative form, which is akin to positing something. This non-propositional understanding of the concept of judgement is confirmed by the following passage: This judgement of inner perception does not consist in the connection of a mental act as subject with existence as predicate, but consists rather in the simple affirmation of the mental phenomenon which is present in inner consciousness (Brentano 1874, 186, 1924, 1:201, 1995b, 142).

Therefore, the act of judging involved in perceiving is not a primitive term. It is tantamount to affirming or acknowledging something. But importantly, being presented, for Brentano, is not a primitive term either. Indeed, it is equivalent to appearing (erscheinen): As we use the verb ‘to present,’ ‘to be presented’ means the same as ‘to appear’ (Brentano 1874, 106, 1924, 1:114, 1995b, 81). We speak of a presentation whenever something appears to us (Brentano 1874, 261, 1925, 2:34, 1995b, 198, see also 1956, 32).

20

 For a somewhat different interpretation, see Seron (this volume).

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When Brentano writes that some phenomena are presented, he just means that these phenomena appear. Hence, being perceived, in Brentano’s terminology, is tantamount to appearing-and-being-acknowledged.21 One advantage of this paraphrase is that it accounts for the common structure of IP and external perception. On Brentano’s view, both the apprehension of the mountainous landscape and that of the act of seeing the landscape are ‘perceptions’ in the sense that, in them, something appears-and-is-acknowledged. That said, we are only halfway of our goal, which is not to paraphrase being perceived but being innerly perceived. Hence, we need to refine the proposed analysis in a way which makes it possible to integrate IP’s above-mentioned features and distinguish it from external perception. One way of doing so, I think, is simply to add some qualifications to appearing and being-acknowledged. First, in IP, mental phenomena always appear or are presented ‘on the side’ or ‘incidentally’ (nebenbei), in the sense that IP always is parasitical of intentionality, of the appearance of a ‘primary object.’ As Brentano writes: The act of hearing appears to be directed toward the sound in the most proper sense of the term, and because of this it seems to apprehend itself incidentally and as something additional (Brentano 1874, 167, 1924, 1:180, 1995b, 128).

To put it differently, in IP, mental phenomena are “concomitantly experienced,” mitempfunden (Brentano 1982, 24, 1995a, 26). Therefore, being innerly perceived involves the idea of appearing-incidentally, that is, appearing concomitantly to a primary object.22 Next, phenomena given in IP are acknowledged in a way phenomena given in external perception are not, namely: they are acknowledged with self-­ evidence. Therefore, being innerly perceived does not just involve the idea of being acknowledged; it involves the idea of being-acknowledged-with-self-evidence. By contrast, Brentano claims that the act of acknowledging involved in external perception is ‘blind.’ Let me take stock. IP, for Brentano, is a mark of the mental phenomena, in the sense that all mental phenomena are innerly perceived and no physical phenomenon is innerly perceived. I have suggested that Brentano himself endorses a series of equivalences which help understand what he means by ‘innerly perceived.’ According to the above-mentioned equivalences, being innerly perceived is tantamount to appearing-incidentally-and-being-acknowledged-with-self-evidence. Hence, IP ultimately denotes a way of appearing Brentano takes to be one mark of the mental phenomena. Accordingly, Inner perception should be best paraphrased in terms of the following combination of claims, which I shall call Phenomenology: Phenomenology (i) All mental phenomena appear-incidentally-and-are-acknowledged-with-self-­ evidence and (ii) no physical phenomenon appears-incidentally-and-is-acknowledgedwith-self-evidence.

21 22

 I use hyphens to suggest that this paraphrase refers to one single, unitary experience.  As Stumpf (1939: 342) puts it: “The mental cannot be represented for itself.”

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Phenomenology is meant to capture the way mental phenomena appear or are experienced before any act of reflection. For the sake of illustration, consider again the difference between the mountainous landscape and your act of seeing. According to Phenomenology, your act of seeing appears in a way the landscape does not. Indeed, if the landscape appears at all, it appears as the primary (intentional) object of an intentional act, whatever this act might be (an act of seeing, admiring, wondering, remembering, etc.). Physical phenomena necessarily appear within mental phenomena. There is no other way for them to appear or to be experienced. Moreover, Brentano has it that, whenever they are experientially acknowledged, they are acknowledged blindly, in a way which is not self-evident and which is always compatible with their nonexistence: the mountainous landscape may not exist, it may be merely hallucinated, etc. By contrast, mental phenomena do not manifest themselves that way. Before any act of reflection, they do not appear as primary objects of intentional acts. They do not appear within a mental phenomenon (nor, for that matter, within themselves). The only way for them to be experienced before any act of reflection is to appear-incidentally-and-be-acknowledged-with-self-evidence. This phrasing captures the distinctive way mental phenomena are experienced, their distinctive phenomenology. All terms included in it are to be considered as primitives, which means that they cannot be analysed away in terms of further, more primitive notions. We are now in a position of contrasting the phenomenological interpretation advocated here with the self-representational approach to mentality. Recall that, on the self-representational approach, IP is representational or intentional. As it has been suggested in Sect. 3, this claim conflicts with Brentano’s view that IP is existence-­entailing while intentionality is not. The phenomenological interpretation advocated here does not face the same difficulty. Indeed, nothing, in Phenomenology, calls for the notion of intentionality or representation. IP just denotes the way of being appeared to by mental phenomena. The above-mentioned difficulty may be avoided just by taking this way of appearing to be non-intentional or non-­ representational, and by understanding Brentano’s notion of intentional in-existence as a non-primitive notion restricted to cases where something appears as a primary object without being acknowledged with self-evidence. Moreover, on the proposed interpretation, the fact that IP is existence-entailing simply follows from the fact that being innerly perceived entails being-­acknowledged-­ with-self-evidence. Very roughly, the idea goes as follows. (1) Existing, in Brentano’s eyes, is equivalent to being-correctly-acknowledged. Whenever something is correctly acknowledged, it may be said to exist (see, e.g., Brentano 1925, 2:52; Marty 1916, 116, etc.). (2) The idea of correct acknowledgement is part of what it means to be innerly perceived. Since mental phenomena, when innerly perceived, are acknowledged with self-evidence, they cannot be acknowledged wrongly. (3) Therefore, IP’s existence-entailing character is accounted for by the fact that being innerly perceived entails being-acknowledged-with-self-evidence, which entails being-acknowledged-correctly, which in turns entails existing.23

 Similarly, it is hardly necessary to say that IP’s pre-reflective character is captured by the idea of ‘appearing incidentally’ or ‘on the side,’ while its veridical character is captured by the notion of

23

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On the whole, I conclude that Phenomenology (a) is more faithful to Brentano’s theory and (b) accommodates all the distinctive features of IP. Hence, Phenomenology should be preferred to Self-Representation.

5  Two Objections I have suggested that IP, for Brentano, refers to a way of appearing and, for that reason, is best understood in phenomenological, rather than intentional, terms. Inner Perception, in my opinion, is equivalent to Phenomenology. Yet, it might be objected that Phenomenology raises new difficulties, indeed seems hardly compatible with other aspects of Brentano’s doctrine. To finish, let me briefly discuss two objections which might be raised against the proposed interpretation. For the sake of clarity, I shall label them The Absent Self Objection and The Cognition Objection. The Absent Self Objection runs like this. Appearing always is appearing to someone. For example, when it is said that your act of seeing the landscape appears (is experienced, or given) in a distinctive way, what we actually mean is that the act of seeing appears to you (is experienced by you, or given to you) in a distinctive way. The phenomenological interpretation of mentality advocated here therefore seems to entail the reference to a subject or self. Now it is commonly believed that Brentano, in the Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, shares Hume’s position that no substantial self is experienced, and endorses the idea of a “psychology without a soul” (Brentano 1874, 13, 20, 1924, 1:16, 24, 1995b, 11, 16). The idea of a self or a substantial bearer of mental phenomena just is absent from the 1874 Psychology. By reintroducing it, is not the phenomenological analysis of IP in conflict with Brentano’s explicit neutrality regarding the self? I think not. On the one hand, the claim that appearing always is appearing to someone, might be challenged. Indeed, it might be argued that mental life appears to itself—full stop. On the other hand, even if one accepts the thought that something, which appears, necessarily appears to someone, the problem only arises under the assumption that Brentano’s neutrality claim is to be understood in an ontological sense, as entailing that there is no subject or self in the reality. Now this assumption is disputable. As it has been noticed about Hume’s bundle theory, the claim that no substantial bearer is experienced does not mean that there is none—for, plainly, if there are ‘mental phenomena’ at all, there is someone to whom these phenomena appear.24 In fact, the neutrality claim might be construed as an epistemological claim. On this reading, what Brentano actually says in book 1 of his Psychology self-evidence. 24  Even Hume’s famous claim that, when he looks into himself, all what he finds is a ‘bundle of perceptions’ (Treatise 1.4.6.4 = Hume 2007, 1:165) somehow presupposes that there is a mind, or a subject, who is experiencing these perceptions. Plausibly, Hume’s concern is not with the existence of the mind, but rather with what we can know about it on the basis of what we experience (see, e.g., Strawson 2014, 123–125).

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should be best understood as follows. Psychological knowledge is knowledge about mental phenomena, not about the soul, or the mind, or the subject, for the latter (arguably) is not given in inner perception and, therefore, is not part of the data from which psychology must proceed in order to be scientific. This is why the definition of psychology as ‘science of the mental phenomena’ must be preferred to its definition in terms of ‘science of the soul.’ Thus understood, the neutrality claim lies in the idea that the self is not a topic of scientific investigations, not in the idea that there is no self. Either way, The Absent Self Objection, I conclude, has no real cogency. Yet, Phenomenology might raise another worry, which might give rise in turn to The Cognition Objection. On Brentano’s view, IP is not just an experience, but also a form of cognition. Brentano writes: “Knowledge frequently accompanies mental phenomena. We think, we desire something, and know that we think and desire” (Brentano 1874, 181, 1924, 1:195, 1995b, 138). On the face of it, this statement seems hardly compatible with a sheer phenomenological, or experiential, understanding of IP. In Brentano’s view, knowing is judging (id.), and judging arguably is an intentional mode that presupposes that something is presented. If IP is a way of being appeared to by one’s own mental phenomena, how could it possibly deliver knowledge about them? My own feeling is that this difficulty, again, is more apparent than real. First, in saying that IP is an experience, nothing is said against Brentano’s claim that IP is also a form of cognition. On the contrary, as we have seen, ‘x is innerly perceived’ means ‘x appears-incidentally-and-is-acknowledged-with-self-evidence.’ Now being acknowledged-with-self-evidence precisely is Brentano’s definition of knowledge (see, especially, Brentano 1970). Contrary to any blind acknowledgement, knowing means acknowledging in a self-evident way. Therefore, the proposed analysis is consistent with Brentano’s statement that IP is a form of cognition. In some sense, experiencing a mental phenomenon is knowing it, since ‘experiencing,’ in the case of mental phenomena, is tantamount to being-appeared-to-by-it-on-theside-and-acknowleging-it-with-self-evidence.25 On a more subsidiary note, it should be added that the kind of experiential knowledge at issue has nothing to do with omniscience about one’s own mental life. What is perceived in IP merely is “that a mental act exists” (Brentano 1874, 185, 1924, 1:200, 1995b, 141). But, plainly, this does not preclude any confusion about the nature of the act. My own suggestion is that one way of capturing this idea is as follows. What is perceived is just a modification of the overall field of consciousness, or a contrastive relation between the present mental state and some previous state, or the overall mental background. Suppose you are remembering the mountainous landscape you saw from the plane. What is self-evident to you is the fact that you  This kind of ‘experiencing it is knowing it’ view is not as exotic as it might seem. See, e.g., (Hamilton 1970, 1:193): consciousness and knowledge are “not opposed as really different,” and (Russell 1940, 49): “There is a sense of ‘knowing’ in which, when you have an experience, there is no difference between the experience and knowing that you have it.” See also (Strawson 2017, 97, 100).

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are presently undergoing some mental phenomenon which contrasts with some others—full stop. That such a contrast relation exists is self-evident, but grasping the exact nature of the relata and being able to describe them, arguably, require considerably more than merely experiencing the contrast. It requires, among other things, reflection and memory, plus a compare-and-contrast method aiming at identifying the constituent aspects of the contrasted phenomena (see Brentano 1995a, 31–77). In that sense, IP’s cognitive import is rather ‘thin.’ And yet, on Brentano’s view, this thin basis is all we have when it comes to understanding psychological distinctions.

6  Conclusion I have argued that, for Brentano, mental phenomena experientially manifest themselves before any act of reflection in a way physical phenomena do not. All mental phenomena appear-incidentally-and-are-acknowledged-with-self-evidence. By contrast, physical phenomena do not and cannot possibly appear that way. Whenever they appear, they appear as primary objects, and whenever they are acknowledged, they are acknowledged ‘blindly.’ Nothing in this view contradicts Brentano’s intentionality thesis, which simply refers to another, converging mark of the mental. Moreover, nothing in this view contradicts the possibility of reflecting upon one’s occurring mental phenomena and taking them as ‘primary objects’ of further mental states directed at them. The advocated interpretation is perfectly compatible with Brentano’s claim that mental phenomena also may have “intentional existence” in addition to their “actual existence” (Brentano 1874, 120, 1924, 1:129, 1995b, 92). Indeed, they have intentional existence in reflection, not in IP. Finally, nothing in this view contradicts the possibility of mental dispositions or non-phenomenal states. The phenomenological interpretation advocated here just says that, if something mental is a phenomenon, then it manifests itself in a way physical phenomena do not. Acknowledgments  Drafts of this paper have been presented at the University of Luxembourg, the University of Utrecht, the University of Liège, the Academy of Sciences in Prague and the University of Parma. I am grateful to the audiences there, and especially to Mauro Antonelli, Federico Boccaccini, Eli Chudnoff, Arkadiusz Chrudzimski, Denis Fisette, Guillaume Fréchette, Frank Hofmann, Wolfgang Huemer, Carlo Ierna, Gemmo Iocco, Olivier Massin, Venanzio Raspa, Denis Seron, Gianfranco Soldati, Andrea Staiti, and Peter Andras Varga for their helpful comments. Many thanks also to Davide Bordini, Hynek Janousek and Mark Textor for their comments on a previous draft.

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References Bergman, Hugo. 1908. Untersuchungen zum Problem der Evidenz der inneren Wahrnehmung. Halle A. S.: M. Niemeyer. Brandl, Johannes. 2013. What Is Pre-Reflective Self-Consciousness? Brentano’s Theory of Inner Consciousness Revisited. In Themes from Brentano, ed. D. Fisette and G. Frechette, 44–41. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Brentano, Franz. 1874. Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte. Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot. ———. 1924. In Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, ed. Oscar Kraus, vol. 1. Leipzig: Meiner. ———. 1925. In Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, ed. Oscar Kraus, vol. 2. Leipzig: Meiner. ———. 1956. Die Lehre vom richtigen Urteil. Bern: Francke. ———. 1970. Versuch über die Erkenntnis. 2nd ed. Hamburg: Meiner. ———. 1982. Deskriptive Psychologie. Hamburg: Meiner. ———. 1988. Über Ernst Machs ‘Erkenntnis und Irrtum’. Amsterdam: Rodopi. ———. 1995a. Descriptive Psychology. Trans. B. Müller. London: Routledge. ———. 1995b. Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. Trans. Antos C.  Rancurello, D. B. Terrell, and Linda L. McAlister. London: Routledge. ———. 2010. Philosophical Investigations on Space, Time, and the Continuum. Trans. Barry Smith. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. Dewalque, Arnaud. 2018. Natural Classes in Brentano’s Psychology. Brentano Studies 16: 111–142. Dewalque, Arnaud, and Denis Seron. 2015. Existe-t-il des phénomènes mentaux?  Philosophie 124: 105–126. Gurwitsch, Aron. 2010. The Self-Awareness of Consciousness. In The Collected Works of Aron Gurwitsch (1901-1973), 451–464. Dordrecht: Springer. Hamilton, William. 1970. Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic. Vol. 1. Frommann-Holzboog: Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt. Hedwig, Klaus. 1988. Deskription. Die historische Voraussetzungen und die Rezeption Brentanos’. Brentano Studies 1: 31–45. Hume, David. 2007. A Treatise of Human Nature. A Critical Edition. Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kriegel, Uriah. 2009. Subjective Consciousness: A Self-Representational Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2013. Brentano’s Most Striking Thesis: No Representation Without Self-Representation. In Themes from Brentano, ed. D. Fisette and G. Frechette, 23–40. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Kriegel, Uriah, and Kenneth Williford. 2006. Self-Representational Approaches to Consciousness. Cambridge: MIT Press. MacDonald, Paul S. 2012. Languages of Intentionality: A Dialogue Between Two Traditions on Consciousness. London: Continuum. Marty, Anton. 1916. Anzeige von William Jame’s Werk: The Principles of Psychology. In Gesammelte Schriften, I, 1, 105–156. Halle: Niemeyer. Russell, Bertrand. 1940. An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. London: Allen & Unwin. Scheler, Max. 1912. Über Selbsttäuschungen. Zeitschrift für Pathopsychologie 1: 87–163. ———. 1955. Die Idole der Selbsterkenntnis. In Gesammelte Werke, 3rd ed., 213–292. Bern: Francke. ———. 1973. Selected Philosophical Essays. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Seron, Denis. 2017. Apparaître: Essai de philosophie phénoménologique. Leiden: Brill. Siewert, Charles. 2007. In Favor of (Plain) Phenomenology. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6 (1–2): 201–220. ———. 2012. Respecting Appearances: A Phenomenological Approach to Consciousness. In The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Phenomenology, ed. D. Zahavi, 48–69. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Strawson, Galen. 2014. The Secret Connexion. Causation, Realism, and David Hume. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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———. 2017. Consciousness Never Left. In The Return of Consciousness., Stockholm: Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation, ed. K. Almqvist and A. Haag, 89–103. Stumpf, Carl. 1906. Erscheinungen und psychische Funktionen. Abhandlungen der Königlich-­ Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin: Verlag der Königl. Akademie der Wissenschaften. ———. 1939. Erkenntnislehre, vol. 1. Leipzig: Barth. ———. 1997. Erscheinungen und psychischen Funktionen. In Schriften zur Psychologie, ed. Helga Sprung and Lothar Sprung, 101–141. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Textor, Mark. 2017. Brentano’s Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Whewell, William. 1847. The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences Founded upon Their History. 2nd ed. 2 vols. London: Parker. ———. 1858. Novum Organon Renovatum (= Second Part of the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences). 3rd ed. London: John W. Parker and Son. ———. 1860. On the Philosophy of Discovery. London: Parker.

3

Consciousness and Representation Denis Seron

Abstract  In this chapter, the author raises new objections to the self-­representational reading of Brentano. This reading, he argues, is untenable simply because Brentano regards a representational perception as conceptually impossible. He then provides a new construal of Brentano’s theory of intentionality, based on a phenomenological approach to intentionality and consciousness. In his view, the main purpose of Brentano’s theory of intentionality is to account for mental acts that are not (inner) perceptions, that is, for acts in which something appears without existing. Keywords Franz Brentano · Inner perception · Self-representationalism · Intentional content · Non-representationalism

A common interpretation of Brentano’s theory of consciousness is the so-called self-representational interpretation. According to this interpretation, Brentano in the Psychology conceived of consciousness as a form of representation or intentional act. This reading seems to find strong support in the text. In a famous passage from the Psychology, Brentano clearly defends the view that the act of hearing a sound has two distinct objects, namely the sound as a physical phenomenon and the act of hearing as a mental phenomenon. This seems to suggest that, as some commentators claim, Brentano ascribes to every mental act two distinct intentions, namely a primary intention that is directed towards a physical phenomenon and a secondary intention that is directed towards itself, that is, towards a mental phenomenon. Since it is a unique mental act that is directed both inwards and outwards, the distinction between the two intentions must be, as Brentano argues, not a real but an abstract or conceptual distinction. Accordingly, Brentano’s view that every mental act is conscious means that every mental act exhibits a partial intention which relates to the mental act itself. And from this it can be concluded that consciousness or inner perception is essentially representational. D. Seron (*) University of Liège, Liège, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano’s Philosophy After One Hundred Years, Primary Sources in Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48563-4_3

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The self-representational interpretation was much debated in the last 15 years. Some authors simply reject it, while others agree that Brentano was a self-­ representationalist but claim that Brentano was wrong and that consciousness is better described as a non-intentional or “pre-reflective” self-awareness, as in Husserl and Sartre. The present chapter has two distinct aims. The first one is to offer two new objections on the basis of what could be called a phenomenological approach to intentionality and consciousness. My contention is that the self-representational interpretation is untenable simply because, for Brentano, a representational perception is conceptually impossible. The second aim is to provide a relatively new construal of Brentano’s theory of secondary objects.

1  Preliminary Remarks The core of the self-representational interpretation is what Uriah Kriegel calls Brentano’s “most striking thesis”, namely: “There could be no representation without self-representation” (Kriegel 2013, 24). “Self-representation” here is supposed to be equivalent to “consciousness”. The question I want to address is this: Is consciousness for Brentano really a self-representation? Is it intrinsically intentional as self-representationalists claim? As is well-known, Brentano himself never used the word “intentionality”. Nor did he ever use the word “intentional” in the contemporary sense of “directed toward something”. This makes it desirable, as a first step, to identify what corresponds to now so-called “intentionality” in Brentano’s philosophy of mind, or what he would have called “intentionality” if he had used the word. I think we can safely agree that what Brentano would have called “intentionality” must meet at least these five conditions: 1. First, instead of “intentionality”, Brentano uses the terms “relation to a content”, “relation to an object”, or “direction toward an object” (Richtung auf ein Objekt) (Brentano 1973, 124; Engl. trans. 88). Intentionality is a two-term relation one term of which is an object or content. 2. Secondly, a content is something that is contained within what it is the content of. As Brentano claims in a famous passage of the Psychology: “Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself” (Brentano 1973, 125; Engl. trans. 88). In other words: intentionality is somehow a part-whole relation. 3. In the 1911 Appendix, Brentano puts the matter otherwise by saying that intentionality is a “mental relation” (psychische Beziehung) (Brentano 1925, app. 1). This is my third condition. A mental relation, as I understand the term, is a relation that has no existence except in the mind—a relation such that accepting it as existent does not commit you to accepting as existent anything outside the mind. Today this position is labelled “internalism”. 4. Fourthly, it is evident that the term “mental relation” should not be taken to denote a metaphysical relation—a relation that has something to do with the

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soul. The relata are only appearances in the mind, namely mental and physical phenomena. In this sense, intentionality could be called a phenomenal relation, or an “apparent directedness” as Katalin Farkas once suggested (Farkas 2013). An apparent or phenomenal relation is something that appears to be a relation but is not a real relation. For example, neither Donald Duck nor his sailor shirt really exist and the sentence “Donald Duck wears a sailor shirt” does not denote a real relation. Yet this relation is imagined and the sentence is true: it is true that Disney used to draw Donald Duck with a sailor shirt and that well-informed people normally imagine Donald Duck with a sailor shirt. The relation is something that appears in the mind—and it is true that it appears in the mind. 5. This leads us to the fifth and final requirement. Every real relation is such that necessarily, if it exists, all its relata exist. If intentionality were a real relation, that is, a relation that really exists, then fictions, hallucinations and false judgments would not be intentional. But intentionality, as we have seen, is not a real relation. Therefore, as Brentano says: If someone thinks of something, the one who is thinking must certainly exist, but the object of his thinking need not exist at all. (…) So the only thing which is required by mental relation is the person thinking. The terminus of the so-called relation does not need to exist in reality at all. (Brentano 1925, 134; Engl. trans. 272)

To put it otherwise: Intentionality, as an apparent relation, cannot appear unless the represented object appears. Appearing, however, does not entail really existing. The intentional relation can obtain even when the represented object does not exist. It would be a mistake to interpret the above quote as being about what we today call “representational opacity”. Brentano’s claim here is not only that the represented object can possibly not exist. His claim, as I understand it, is that the represented object cannot possibly exist or that it necessarily does not exist. This claim can be called the intentional existence claim. Necessarily every intentional object or content is such that it exists only intentionally or phenomenally (as Brentano also says). In other words: it is something that appears in the mind, a phenomenon, but it does not really exist. This is part of the definition of the concept of intentionality that is commonly attributed to Brentano in the Psychology. The word “object”, Brentano claims, “is not to be understood here as meaning a reality” (Realität) (Brentano 1973, 124–125). A clear illustration of this is provided by Brentano’s account of Kant’s one hundred thalers example in the 1911 Appendix (Brentano 1925, 136; Engl. trans. 274). Kant said that a hundred actual thalers are not more than a hundred possible or conceived thalers. To this Brentano replies that a hundred real thalers are much more than a hundred conceived thalers. Actually, they are one hundred thalers more than a hundred conceived thalers. The hundred conceived thalers are “not a sum of money at all, and indeed do not exist at all”. Intentional thalers, like all other intentional objects, do not exist. Of a man who owns only intentional money, we will legitimately say that he is penniless. The five conditions I have laid out are what I consider to be the most important characterizations of intentionality according to Brentano. What contemporary

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philosophers call “intentionality” corresponds, in Brentano, to this: a phenomenal and mereological relation to a content or object that does not exist. The question now is this: Does the “secondary intention” defended by self-­ representationalists meet these five conditions? If so-called “secondary intention” is to fulfill all the five conditions, then there will be good reason to think that it is, as self-representationalists claim, a representation in the contemporary sense of the word. It won’t be thereby proven to be representational, for the conjunction of the five conditions may be a necessary but not sufficient condition. Nevertheless, we will then have a good argument in favour of the self-representational interpretation of Brentano’s theory of consciousness. In the converse case, namely if we manage to prove that the so-called “secondary intention” does not meet the five conditions of intentionality, then we will have proved that the self-representational interpretation is false.

2  Two Difficulties of the Self-Representational Reading My opinion is that what some commentators call a “secondary intention” is not an intention at all and thus that Brentano was not a self-representationalist. In order to establish this, I will try to show that the so-called “secondary intention” is not a phenomenal and mereological relation to a content or object that does not exist. Since I do not believe that the so-called “secondary intention” is really an intention, I will rather use the term “secondary relation”, which is used by Brentano himself in the 1911 Appendix (Brentano 1925, 139). In my view, the self-representational interpretation gives rise to at least two major problems. 1. The first issue to be considered is about the fifth condition above, namely intentional existence. In Brentano’s view, the intentional object is something that does not really exist. This applies to veridical representations as well. When you look at the colour of the table, the phenomenal colour you see is something that appears in your mind, but obviously there exists nothing in your mind that can be called a colour. Now let us consider the secondary relation. If the self-representational interpretation is correct, then the secondary relation is a representation, that is, something that relates the mental act to an intentional content—namely to itself. This content either really exists or does not really exist. But if it really exists, then the secondary relation does not fulfill the fifth condition for being intentional and hence it is not a representation. Therefore, the self-representational reading is necessarily false. Accordingly, a self-representationalist reader of Brentano must suppose that the content of the secondary relation does not really exist. The mental act, like the colour of the table, appears without really existing. But this option, too, leads

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to a contradiction. Indeed, the secondary relation is what Brentano more commonly calls “consciousness” or “inner perception”. The self-representational view is that consciousness or inner perception is a kind of representation. Now, in Brentano’s view, it is part of the definition of perception that its object really exists in the present. As opposed to being remembered or imagined, being perceived analytically implies real existence. And of course this applies to consciousness: being conscious means being “conscious of a mental phenomenon while it exists in us” (während es in uns besteht) (Brentano 1973, 176; Engl. trans. 126 slightly modified). In consequence, the view that the secondary relation is both an intention and an inner perception is self-contradictory. In fact, it would suffice to say that the notion of a representational inner perception involves contradiction. If the represented object cannot exist, then the intentional relation cannot be reflexive. If a self-representation is a representation that is numerically identical with its object, then it is trivially impossible that there exists a self-representation whose object does not exist. And it is plausibly for this reason that Brentano claims that consciousness is a perception, that is, a presentation that gives an object as really existing in the present. To summarize: The content of a self-representational consciousness must exist and not exist at the same time. This suggests that the view that consciousness is self-representational is necessarily false. 2. My second set of objections is related to condition (2), namely: intentionality is a part-whole relation. By contrast with the higher-order interpretation, the self-representational interpretation centrally claims that the primary and the secondary relations are parts of one single mental act. One and the same representation is directed toward both a physical and a mental phenomenon. This is necessary because, according to Brentano, all mental acts are necessarily conscious representations. First, it should be remarked that this view sounds somewhat strange when applied to Brentano’s theory of intentionality. Apart from the passage on secondary objects in the Psychology, Brentano always speaks of a “relation to a content” and never of a relation to two contents. Moreover, the idea of a single intentional act with two distinct contents is very counter-intuitive. Supposing that consciousness is self-representational, it would be more natural to say that the mental act has one single object which is composed of two different parts, for example that colour and the act of seeing that colour. In a sense, this is how some self-representationalists describe the content of the conscious representation. They see it as a unique phenomenal field with a focal and a peripheral area. The seen colour occupies the focal centre while the self-represented act is at the margin (Kriegel 2009). Brentano, however, does not see things this way. He strongly affirms that there is a real distinction between the primary and the secondary object. That is why he sometimes presented himself as a dualist, in opposition to Ernst Mach’s psycho-­ physical identity thesis (Brentano 1988, 47–48). His claim is that one and the same mental act has two really distinct objects. We can correspondingly distinguish

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between a primary and a secondary presentation, but this latter distinction is not a real distinction. It is just an abstract or conceptual distinction: in reality there is only one mental act. This raises a major difficulty for the self-representational reading. For the idea of a unique mental act with two objects is very problematic if the primary and secondary relations are representations. Suppose that self-representational readers are right and that every mental act includes within itself, say, two partial representations—a primary and a secondary intention. For example, you represent both the colour and your representation of the colour at the same time. Thus, the two objects of your total representation are a physical phenomenon and a mental phenomenon. The actual picture, however, is a bit more complex. It is well-known that, in Brentano’s view, “every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself” (Brentano 1973, 125; Engl. trans. 88). Therefore, the objects of the total representation are, more precisely, the colour and your act of seeing with its content—that is, your act of seeing qua something of which the colour is a part. In other words: you represent the colour and the act of seeing along with its content, namely the colour. As a result, the colour must be represented twice. The problem is that Brentano very explicitly rejects the view that the physical phenomenon is (re)presented twice. We might be tempted to say, Brentano argues, that we have several presentations and that they are of different kinds; so much so that one of them constitutes the content of another, while having a physical phenomenon as its own content. If this were true, the physical phenomenon must, to a certain extent, belong to the content of both of these presentations, to that of one as its external object, to that of the other as, so to speak, its included object. It would seem, therefore, as Aristotle also noted, to turn out that the physical phenomenon must be presented twice. Yet this is not the case. (Brentano 1973, 178–179; Engl. trans. 127)

3  A Non-representational Reading In the second part of this chapter, I would like to suggest a different construal of Brentano’s theory of secondary objects, namely a construal in non-­ representational terms. What is the idea behind Brentano’s theory of secondary objects? In a nutshell, the general thought is this: Necessarily every single mental act has two really distinct objects, namely a primary and a secondary object. The former is for example the seen colour; the latter is the act of seeing the colour. For the sake of clarity, we certainly can regard these two objects as objects of two distinct Vorstellungen. The distinction between the two corresponding Vorstellungen, however, is just an abstract or conceptual distinction. If we adopt such an abstract distinction, then we can say that consciousness is the Vorstellung of the mental act’s secondary object. To begin with, let us ask what a Vorstellung is. The view I argued for in the first part is that a Vorstellung, in Brentano’s terminology, is not a representation in the contemporary sense of the word. In short: being a Vorstellung does not involve having an intentional content. Accordingly, I will translate Vorstellung as

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“presentation” rather than “representation”. It is worth noticing that this very common distinction between presentation and representation is accepted even by the defenders of the self-representational interpretation (Kriegel 2013, 24). What is a presentation for Brentano? The answer is fairly easy to find. Brentano himself clearly indicates what a presentation is in the following quotes: As we use the verb “to present”, “to be presented” means the same as “to appear”. (Brentano 1973, 114; Engl. trans. 81) We speak of a presentation whenever something appears to us. (Brentano 1925, 34; Engl. trans. 198) Wherever something appears, i.e., is given to us in consciousness, we talk of a presentation. (Brentano, 1956, 32).

To be presented simply means to appear, that is, to be a phenomenon. That’s all. All physical and mental phenomena must be presented, insofar as they are phenomena. Tim Crane (2017, 45) rightly claims that “presentation, for Brentano, is the fundamental way of being conscious of an object”. Your being conscious of an object A means both that A appears to you and that you have a presentation of A.1 On the basis of this, we now can summarize Brentano’s theory of secondary objects in terms of mental or physical phenomena rather than in terms of presentations. The idea is this: When you see a colour, that is, when you experience the act of seeing a colour, what appears to you—or what you have a presentation of—is a combination of a physical and a mental phenomenon, namely the seen colour and the act of seeing the colour. As I said, the distinction between the physical and the mental phenomenon is a real distinction, while the distinction between primary and secondary presentation is only an abstract or conceptual distinction. Your act of seeing the colour has two really distinct objects, namely a mental and a physical phenomenon. However, this does not mean that your mental act has these two phenomena as its intentional objects. Actually, this would be impossible, for the mental phenomenon must exist and an intentional object, as we have seen, is something that does not exist. The mental phenomenon is, so to speak, the real object of your act, while the physical phenomenon is its intentional object. As Husserl puts it in the Logical Investigations, the difference is between the real and the intentional content of the act (Husserl 1984, 411ff., Engl. trans. 112ff.). Let me now propose a working hypothesis. This hypothesis is about a distinction which is not explicitly found in the first volume of the Psychology, namely the distinction between direct and oblique presentation. The act of seeing that colour has two really distinct objects, namely a mental and a physical phenomenon, and to these two phenomena correspond two conceptually distinct presentations. My hypothesis is that this conceptual distinction between two kinds of presentation is, at least to some extent, one and the same as the distinction between direct and oblique presentation. More precisely: all secondary presentations are direct presentations; all 1  This suggests a significant distinction between Brentano’s presentations and the British empiricists’ “ideas” (Crane 2017, 45). See also (Stout 1896, 41): “Brentano’s ‘object’ is the same as Kant’s ‘presentation’. It is an appearance in consciousness. It is what Brentano would call a content (Inhalt) of presentation.”

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primary presentations are oblique presentations. When you see the colour, you have a direct presentation of your mental act, and an oblique presentation of the colour. Since only mental phenomena can be objects of a secondary presentation, it follows from this that all physical phenomena are obliquely presented. For Brentano, as we have seen, “being presented” means appearing or being a phenomenon. If my working hypothesis is correct, we can thus say that the oblique presentation of the colour is the appearance of something that does not really exist. That a colour is obliquely presented to you simply means that something, a colour, appears in your mind without existing. You see a colour that is a mere appearance. Since all physical phenomena are obliquely presented, this entails that no physical phenomenon really exists. As Brentano claims: “The objects of the so-called external perception… demonstrably do not exist outside of us. In contrast to that which really and truly exists, they are mere phenomena” (Brentano 1973, 14, Engl. trans. 10). By contrast, as suggested earlier, the direct presentation of the mental act to itself necessarily involves real existence. That is why Brentano calls consciousness a “perception”. A perception is by definition an act that involves acquaintance with things that really exist in the present.2 Thus, there is on the one side an oblique presentation of an intentional object, namely of something that appears without existing, on the other side a direct presentation of a real object, namely of a mental act that appears and really exists. It follows from what I said before that this distinction between the direct presentation of the act of seeing and the oblique presentation of the seen colour is identical with the distinction between what Brentano calls “consciousness” and what he would have called “intentionality” if he had used the word.

A consequence of this is that not all presentations—not all acts of the first class— are representational. Only primary presentations are representational, while

 Brentano’s view of inner perception, thus construed, may in some ways seem close to Russell’s view of acquaintance. As opposed to knowledge by description, acquaintance by definition requires an object that really exists (Russell 1992, 48ff.). In what follows, I suggest that Brentano’s presentism leads to an even stronger view, namely: For all x, x really exists if, and only if, x is perceived. Another significant difference is that Brentano’s oblique mode is not restricted to conceptual thoughts and thus allows for a nonconceptualist account of intentionality. 2

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secondary presentations are directed toward an object that really exists and hence do not fulfil condition (5) on our list. One may be tempted to object that for Brentano every mental act is intentional, and that secondary presentations are obviously mental. But the objection would fail, because, in Brentano’s view, the secondary presentation is not by itself a mental act. For there to be a mental act, there must be both a primary and a secondary presentation. Brentano regards the idea of a secondary presentation without primary presentation as self-contradictory: “A presentation of the act of hearing without a presentation of the sound would be an obvious contradiction” (Brentano 1973, 180, Engl. trans. 128). Another consequence of what I said is that the intentional content is not, properly speaking, an abstract part of the mental act—although it certainly is necessarily dependent on the mental act inasmuch as a phenomenon is by definition something that is in the mind. The primary and the secondary presentation are abstract parts of the act insofar as there is no real distinction between them. By contrast, there is a real distinction between the primary and the secondary object. What would Brentano have called “intentionality” if he had used the word? What he would have called “intentionality” is a combination of three features that are necessarily present in all mental acts. First, two really distinct phenomena appear to you or you have a presentation of two really distinct phenomena. Second, these two phenomena are such that one appears in the other, i.e., is the content of the other. Third, they are such that the containing phenomenon really exists and its content does not. In short, what Brentano would have called “intentionality” is the appearance of something that does not exist within another appearance that exists. This is exactly how Brentano puts things in the 1911 Appendix. He says that the secondary presentation is the appearance (Erscheinen) of the mental phenomenon’s directedness toward the sound: The act of hearing appears to be directed toward sound (Dem Tone erscheint das Hören zugewandt) in the most proper sense of the term, and because of this it seems to apprehend itself incidentally and as something additional. (Brentano 1973, 180, Engl. trans. 128)

As I said earlier following Katalin Farkas, “intentionality” is a phenomenal relation or an “apparent directedness”. Your mental act is “intentional” inasmuch as you are conscious—or you have a direct presentation—of your own present mental act and this mental act appears to have a part that does not exist. Thus, the intentional relation is an apparent mereological relation that stands between the mental act and its content. And the presentation of the inexistent content is an oblique presentation, because the content is the terminus of a relation.3

 “Someone who is thinking of a mental activity is, in a certain way, thinking of two objects at the same time, one of them in recto, as it were, and the other in obliquo. If I think of someone who loves flowers, then the person who loves flowers is the object I am thinking of in recto, but the flowers are what I am thinking of in obliquo.” (Brentano 1925, 134, Engl. trans. 272–273) The view that the mental act has a part that is really distinct from it is problematic. Brentano distinguishes between the intentional object as the content of the act and the intentional object as its correlate.

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4  Why the Non-representational Reading Is Better In conclusion, I wish to suggest some reasons for preferring the non-­representational to the representational interpretation, on the basis of the two difficulties I have raised for the latter. First, it is obvious that the intentional existence issue simply ceases to be a problem if one denies, as I did, that the secondary relation is a representation. The secondary relation—consciousness, inner perception—is now described as a relation to a real object, while intentionality is a relation to an intentional object, that is, to an object that appears without existing. This resolves the contradiction I have mentioned. For the object of inner perception is no longer an intentional object. Thus it no longer needs to exist and not exist at the same time as in the self-representational interpretation. I now turn to the second difficulty. In summary fashion: Brentano holds that every single mental act has two objects. For example, your act of seeing the colour has as its objects a physical and a mental phenomenon, namely the colour and itself. This is problematic because, from the representationalist perspective, this seems to imply that the colour is represented twice: the colour is both the intentional object of the primary representation and part of the object of the secondary representation. But as I said, Brentano firmly denies that the colour is presented twice. Of course, the self-representationalist would not agree with this. She would emphasize the fact that, for her as well as for Brentano, there is not two, but only one representation: one and the same representation has two distinct intentional objects. But then it is the plurality of objects that is problematic. For it becomes unclear why there should be a real distinction between the primary and the secondary object, and why they could not be parts of one single presented object. Why should there be two objects instead of just one? Why couldn’t the colour and the act of seeing be part of one single psychophysical object, as for example Mach or Carnap claimed? My contention is that this problem, too, disappears once you opt for a non-­ representational reading of Brentano’s theory of secondary objects. It is clear that, in the non-representational interpretation as well, the primary object is not presented twice. But what about the real distinction between mental and physical phenomena? The key point, I think, is that, in marked contrast with the self-representational interpretation, the non-representational interpretation tends to favour an intransitive view of consciousness—an intransitive view which I believe is more consistent with Brentano’s statement that the mental phenomenon “is present to itself as content” (ist sich selbst als Inhalt gegenwärtig) (Brentano 1973, 180, Engl. trans. 127 modified). The idea that consciousness is not a representation clearly suggests that the identity of the mental phenomenon and its presentation or consciousness should be

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taken at face value—namely in the sense in which dancing a dance is not different from the dance itself.4 Dan Zahavi suggested something like this in a paper of 1998: As a first step towards an understanding of self-awareness, it might be useful to point to the contrast between intentionality, which is characterized by a difference between the subject and the object of experience, and self-awareness which implies some form of identity. (Zahavi 1998, 128–129)

In other words, the mental phenomenon and its presentation are one and the same thing. Consciousness is not something directed toward, and superadded to, the mental phenomenon; it is no more than its being there as a phenomenon, that is, its appearing. By contrast, the physical phenomenon must be different from its presentation, for it does not really exist. If the physical phenomenon were numerically identical to its presentation, this would lead to a contradiction, namely: There exists a presentation such that it is identical to its object and that its object does not exist. Thus, the mental phenomenon is identical with its presentation; the physical phenomenon is different from its presentation. To this we can now add Brentano’s claim that the secondary and the primary presentation are identical: there is only one mental phenomenon which we decompose by abstraction into two distinct presentations. For example, one and the same thing is a pen and is on the table, although we can conceptually distinguish between that which is a pen and that which is on the table. The pen and the thing on the table are numerically identical. To recapitulate: (a) The secondary presentation of the mental phenomenon is numerically identical with the (presently experienced) mental phenomenon. (b) The primary presentation of the physical phenomenon is different from the physical phenomenon. (c) The secondary presentation of the mental phenomenon is numerically identical with the primary presentation of the physical phenomenon. The conjunction of these three propositions implies, by transitivity of identity, that the physical phenomenon must be different from the mental phenomenon. This result can easily be generalized to cover the cases in which the object of the primary presentation—the intentional object—is not a physical, but a mental phenomenon. When you remember to have felt sad the day before, you have a primary presentation of your past feeling and a secondary presentation of your present remembering your past feeling (Seron 2017, 36). The remembered mental act is not presently perceived and no longer really exist. Thus, in this case as well, the present mental phenomenon is necessarily different from its intentional object. The non-­ present mental phenomenon that is obliquely presented must be different from the present mental phenomenon that is innerly perceived. Since every phenomenon is either mental or physical, we may safely conclude that there must be a real distinction between the present mental phenomenon and its intentional object. Now, 4  Cf. Siewert (2012). On the adverbial account of phenomenal consciousness, see also Thomasson (2000), Thomas (2003), Zahavi (2004), Zahavi (2006), Seron (2015).

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Brentano’s so-called intentionality thesis states that necessarily every (present or non-present) mental act has an intentional object. Therefore, we have demonstrated that Brentano’s theory of intentionality and consciousness, if construed in non-­ representational terms, not only is compatible with, but entails the view that necessarily every single mental act has two really distinct objects. To conclude, the non-representational interpretation is better than the self-­ representational interpretation insofar as the latter raises at least two major difficulties that the former allows to escape. First, the non-representational interpretation makes Brentano’s view that the intentional object does not exist consistent with his view that the innerly perceived mental act necessarily exists. Second, the non-­ representational interpretation, unlike the self-representational interpretation, entails a real distinction between the primary and the secondary object of the act.

References Brentano, F. 1925. Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, Vol. 2: Von der Klassifikation der psychischen Phänomene. Leipzig: Meiner. Engl. Trans. A.C.  Rancurello, D.B.  Terrell, & L.L. McAlister. 1995. Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. London: Routledge. ———. 1956. In Die Lehre vom richtigen Urteil, ed. F. Mayer-Hillebrand. Bern: Francke. ———. 1973. Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt. Hamburg: Meiner. Engl. Trans. A.C.  Rancurello, D.B.  Terrell, & L.L.  McAlister. 1995. Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. London: Routledge. ———. 1988. In Über Ernst Machs “Erkenntnis u. Irrtum”. Mit zwei Anhängen: Kleine Schriften über E.  Mach. Der Brentano-Mach-Briefwechsel, ed. R.M.  Chisholm and J.C.  Marek. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Crane, T. 2017. Brentano on Intentionality. In The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School, ed. U. Kriegel. London: Routledge. Farkas, K. 2013. Constructing a World for the Senses. In Phenomenal Intentionality, ed. U. Kriegel, 99–115. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Husserl, E. 1984. Logische Untersuchungen, Vol. 2/1: Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis. In Husserliana. Gesammelte Werke, ed. U. Panzer, Vol. 19/1. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Engl. Trans. J.N. Findlay. 2001. Logical Investigations, Vol. 2. London: Routledge. Kriegel, U. 2009. Self-Representationalism and Phenomenology. Philosophical Studies 143 (3): 357–381. ———. 2013. Brentano’s Most Striking Thesis: No Representation Without Self-Representation. In Themes from Brentano, ed. D. Fisette and G. Fréchette. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Russell, B. 1992. Theory of Knowledge: The 1913 Manuscript. London: Routledge. Seron, D. 2015. Problèmes de l’auto-représentationalisme. In Esthétique et complexité II: Neurosciences, évolution, épistémologie et philosophie, ed. Z. Kapoula, L.-J. Lestocart, and J.-P. Allouche, 313–327. Paris: CNRS Éditions. ———. 2017. Brentano’s Project of Descriptive Psychology. In The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School, ed. U. Kriegel, 35–40. New York: Routledge. Siewert, Ch. 2012. Respecting Appearances: A Phenomenological Approach to Consciousness. In The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Phenomenology, ed. D.  Zahavi, 48–69. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stout, G.F. 1896. Analytic Psychology. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. Thomas, A. 2003. An Adverbial Theory of Consciousness. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 2 (3): 161–185.

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Thomasson, A. 2000. After Brentano: A One-Level Theory of Consciousness. European Journal of Philosophy 8 (2): 190–209. Zahavi, D. 1998. Brentano and Husserl on Self-Awareness. Études Phénoménologiques 27/28: 127–168. ———. 2004. Back to Brentano? Journal of Consciousness Studies 11 (10–11): 66–87. ———. 2006. Two Takes on a One-Level Account of Consciousness. Psyche 12 (2): 1–9.

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Current Accounts of Subjective Character and Brentano’s Concept of Secondary Consciousness Maik Niemeck

Abstract  There is widespread agreement among many contemporary philosophers of mind that, in addition to their qualitative character, phenomenally conscious states contain some kind of subjective character. The subjective character of experience is most commonly characterized as a subject’s awareness that it is currently undergoing a specific experience. This idea is nothing new, of course, and something similar has been proposed quite some time ago by Franz Brentano, among others, under the name of “secondary consciousness”. That fact hasn’t remained unnoticed. Indeed, a number of competing contemporary accounts of subjective character refer to Brentano as an early proponent of their particular view. This article pursues two objectives. First, it argues that the so-called self-mode account of subjective character is, for systematical reasons, superior to self-representational and pre-reflective accounts. Second, the article briefly suggests a novel interpretation of Brentano’s concept of secondary consciousness that sets it in relation to the previously introduced self-mode account and bears some similarities with Thomasson’s adverbial interpretation of Brentano’s concept of secondary consciousness. Keywords  Franz Brentano · Self-representationalism · Pre-reflective consciousness · Modes of experience · Secondary-consciousness

1  Introduction There is widespread agreement among many contemporary philosophers of mind that, in addition to their qualitative character, phenomenally conscious states involve some kind of subjective character (see, among others, Block 1995; Frank 2011; Gallagher and Zahavi 2008; Kriegel 2009; Kriegel and Horgan 2007; Levine 2001; M. Niemeck (*) Philipps-Universität Marburg, Marburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano’s Philosophy After One Hundred Years, Primary Sources in Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48563-4_4

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Metzinger 2000; Schlicht 2014; Strawson 2011; Williford 2014, 2006a, b; Zahavi and Kriegel 2015; Zahavi 1999, 2004). The subjective character of experience is most commonly characterized either as an awareness that one is currently undergoing a specific experience, or as an awareness that an experience belongs to oneself. Accordingly, if a person experiences something, he or she is not just experiencing the object or content of that experience; in addition, they are also experiencing that they are having that very experience. Ned Block (1995) has named this phenomenon “me-ishness” and many authors have followed him in accepting it. Block once wrote: “P-conscious states often seem to have a ‘me-ishness’ about them; the phenomenal content often represents the state as a ‘state of me’” (Block 1995, 235). Other authors understood Block’s me-ishness as some form of self-­representation: “[P]henomenally conscious states, whatever else they represent, also represent themselves. Thus, your perceptual experience of this page represents both the page and itself” (Kriegel and Horgan 2007, 132). Over 100 years ago, Franz Brentano suggested something very similar: “Every mental act is conscious; it includes within it a consciousness of itself. Therefore, every mental act, no matter how simple, has a double object, a primary and a secondary object” (Brentano 2015, 160). Even though most researchers believe that this subjective character exists, it remains unclear how one is supposed to understand the nature of this component of experience. Different accounts have been provided to answer this question. In what follows, I will firstly review two of the central assumptions that form the motivation behind many of the contemporary philosophical accounts of the subjective character of experience. Then, I will introduce three views on that issue and claim that the self-mode account proposed by Recanati (2007, 2012), and more recently by Musholt (2015), should be favoured over self-representational (Kriegel 2009; Williford 2006a, b) and pre-reflective (Frank 2011; Henrich 1967; Zahavi 1999, 2004) accounts of subjective character. I will argue that the self-mode approach might be best suited to account for the motivations noted previously, and that it can avoid individual problems that beset the other proposals. I will then present some thoughts about Brentano’s idea of a secondary consciousness (Huemer 2018; Kraus 2015) and how it relates to recent accounts of subjective character. I will argue that his account might not be best understood as some form of self-representationalism, as has been suggested by Kriegel (2003), Williford (2006a) or Zahavi (2004). Instead, I will briefly propose a novel interpretation of Brentano’s concept of a secondary consciousness that sets it in relation to the previously introduced self-mode account and bears some similarities with Thomasson’s (2000) adverbial interpretation of Brentano’s secondary consciousness.

2  R  easons to Believe in the Subjective Character of Experience Due to the limitations of this paper, I will only give a brief overview of two presumed phenomena that lead contemporary philosophers to believe in subjective character. Both phenomena are subject to ongoing debate and have found dedicated

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adherents as well as passionate opponents. I will not discuss the eliminativist’s position here and take for granted the introduced phenomena, since my chief concern is the nature of subjective character rather than arguments for its existence. 1. Infallibility of self-ascriptions of conscious states: One motivation for positing subjective character is the assumption that conscious states are experienced by us in a way that ensures a certain kind of infallibility of self-ascriptions of those states. There are mainly two variations of the infallibility assumption. One way to think of it is by maintaining that we cannot be wrong in self-ascribing currently conscious states simpliciter. If someone believes that he is in pain based on an experience, he necessarily is in pain (Brentano 2015, 10, 95; Kriegel and Horgan 2007). A more restricted version builds on the so-called Immunity to Errors through Misidentification (Shoemaker 1968) and claims that we cannot be mistaken in self-ascribing a conscious state in respect of whom we ascribe that conscious state to, even though we might be wrong about the type of state we self-ascribe. Accordingly, if someone thinks “I am experiencing pain,” he might be wrong in thinking that it is pain he is feeling, but he cannot be wrong in thinking that it is him who is currently in that state (Bermúdez 1998; Musholt 2015; Recanati 2007, 2012; Zahavi 1999, 2004). Irrespective of what version of the infallibility assumption is defended, both camps are united in the belief that conscious states already need to contain immediate, non-inferential information about whom they belong to in order to ensure the infallibility of self-ascriptions of those states. 2. Condition for reflexive self-reference: Another branch of arguments is set up to prove that mastery of the first-person pronoun already presupposes a form of self-consciousness that is not dependent on the competent use of the first-person pronoun (Bermúdez 1998; Guillot 2016; Lang 2010; Musholt 2015; Nozick 1981; Zahavi 1999). Most philosophers consider the linguistic meaning of first-­ person pronouns to be something along the lines of Kaplan’s concept of character, which is of “I”: “I” rigidly refers to the user of a specific token of it (Kaplan 1989, 505). When we entertain thoughts about ourselves which are adequately expressed using a first-person pronoun, we usually know that we do so and thus that we are the referents of these tokens. This form of first-personal self-­reference can be in stark contrast to cases in which we use proper names or definite descriptions that accidently happen to refer to ourselves, as established by the influential tradition of Perry (1979), Lewis (1979) and Castañeda (1966). The question that arises from these observations is how we are able to perform first-personal self-­ reference at the level of thought and language. This ability appears to demand more than a mere understanding of the character of the first-person pronoun, since it only specifies that the pronoun refers to the user of the pronoun, whoever that might be in a specific situation. Adherents of the subjective character view declare that only non-linguistic information given in experience can fill the gap and deliver us with the information that we are currently the thinkers, speakers or writers of specific I-thoughts, I-utterances or I-sentences. Thus, the subjective character is considered to be an experiential condition for reflexive self-reference.

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3  Recent Accounts of Subjective Character In what follows, I will introduce three main accounts of subjective character: namely, the self-representational (Kriegel 2009; Williford 2006a, b), pre-­reflective (Frank 2011; Henrich 1967; Zahavi 1999), and mode of presentation (Musholt 2015; Recanati 2007, 2012) account.

Self-Representationalism Self-representational theories of consciousness maintain that a mental state is conscious if and only if it is represented by itself. This self-representation of a conscious state is considered to be a consciousness of oneself being in that conscious state. Thus, as the name of this approach suggests, these theories hold that the subjective character is some kind of representational mental content. As such, they remain within the framework of so-called higher-order representational theories of consciousness (HOR-theories), since they take representations as those entities that can convert unconscious mental states into conscious states. However, self-­ representational accounts differ from HOR-theories in two key respects: First, they claim that (A) every conscious state is consciously represented, and second, they claim that (B) mental states are conscious because they have a self-representational content, rather than because they are represented by a numerically distinct mental state, as HOR-theoreticians claim. This second claim is required so as to avoid regress problems that representational accounts of phenomenal consciousness face if they want to maintain the first claim. At the same time, they need this second claim in order to circumvent the so-called “targetless higher-order representation problem” (Block 2011). One highly debated issue within all representational theories of consciousness is the question of what type of representational content is involved in the conscious making process. The two main rival accounts in this debate are those that rely on perceptual contents (Armstrong 1968; Lycan 1996) and those that rely on contents of beliefs (Carruthers 2005; Rosenthal 1986, 2005; Weisberg 2011). Both accounts face serious problems. In the account based on perceptions it remains unclear what is being perceived when a mental state itself or the subject in that state is perceived, and this has in fact led some to deny the idea of a phenomenal self in general (Hume 1896; Prinz 2012). Beliefs, on the other hand, appear to be cognitively too demanding as a necessary condition for consciousness. Many animals and children probably have conscious perceptions or pains, but they are not able to have beliefs, since this might presuppose the command of a language. Moreover, first-personal beliefs about mental states are probably even more sophisticated than beliefs about outer objects and might require a conceptual framework of the mind. In light of these issues, Kriegel and Horgan (2007) claim that their proposed self-­ representations have the form of what they call proto-beliefs, and they contend that

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when we consciously perceive something, we peripherally believe that we do so. They write: “A proto-belief is a peripheral doxastic state that becomes a belief as soon as it becomes focal. Thus, in the ordinary go of things your perceptual experience of this page involves focal visual awareness of the page and peripheral proto-­ beliefish awareness of itself. When you shift your attention from the page to your experience of it, you become focally aware belief-wise of your experience and peripherally aware visually of the page” (Kriegel and Horgan 2007, 137). According to such a view, a peripheral belief is not yet a belief but can become one if we shift our attention to that peripheral belief itself. Thus, proto-beliefs are not actual beliefs but rather some representational states that are disposed to gain the features of beliefs in virtue of them being peripheral. Hence, the mechanism underlying the transition from non-linguistic to linguistic self-representation is supposed to be a shift of attention. Despite the apparent advantages of this approach compared to higher-order theories, I am not convinced by the proposed self-representational account of subjective character. Here are my reasons why. 1. It certainly seems to be correct that most of our conscious perceptual contents are divided into focal and peripheral parts. Beliefs, by contrast, seem to lack this peculiarity. They might come in degrees, implicitly or only phenomenally unconscious, but I cannot imagine what it would mean for them to be focal or only peripheral. I suppose that being peripheral has something to do with whether a content is digital or analog (Dretske 1981), and that only those contents that decode more than one specific information can be divided into peripheral and focal parts. Hence, the question about the nature of the content remains unsolved. 2. Most people believe that the subjective character of experience involves first-­ person awareness.1 According to this idea, in the case of experiencing oneself in a first-person way, a subject is not solely de facto identical with the subject that is addressed by that experience, but also entertains a certain kind of awareness of that identity relation. The notion of self-representation per se is too weak to ensure this kind of first-person awareness. We might still represent states as belonging to someone else, even if they are de facto our states. I can accidentally entertain self-representations while not noticing that they represent me, as shown, for instance, by Perry’s messy shopper case (Perry 1979). Moreover, I can have self-representations of my states that misrepresent a state as something other than it actually is. For these reasons, self-representationalists might not be able to account for the initial motivations for positing subjective character. 3. Furthermore, I am not so sure whether self-representationalists are able to avoid the regress-problem to which they accuse higher-order theories of succumbing. The dialectic of the regress-problem for representational theories of consciousness can be summarized as follows:

1  Kriegel (2009, 161–163) himself explicitly claims that his account needs to fulfill the de se requirement but does nothing to address this issue.

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Thesis 1. A mental state is conscious only if it is represented by a numerically distinct state. Thesis 2. A mental state is conscious only if it is represented by a conscious state. But: (a) If thesis 1 and 2 were both true then a person with phenomenally conscious states would have infinitely many mental states. (b) A person can only possess a finite amount of mental states. (c) Therefore: The conjunction of thesis 1 and 2 is false. To avoid the regress-problem, higher-order theoreticians mostly deny thesis 2 that every conscious state is consciously represented, though they retain assumption 1 that every conscious state is represented by a numerically distinct state. In contrast, self-representational theoreticians deny thesis 1 and defend thesis 2. Both branches of representationalism claim to avoid the regress-problem and argue that the opposing representationalism is wrong. I think that self-representationalists are right in arguing that thesis 2 is true and that thesis 1 is wrong. This is mainly because I believe that only conscious representational states or contents make us conscious of those things they represent (Rowlands 2001; Siewert 2013). However, I am not so sure whether self-representationalists can avoid the regress-­ problem by a denial of thesis 1. Claim B (see section 4 of this article) is Kriegel’s (2009) overall strategy to overcome the regress. However, he does introduce a distinction between different contents. This claim, unsurprisingly, invites the following inconvenient questions: (1) does the self-representational content need to represent itself in order to be conscious? And (2) does the self-representational content need to represent all properties of the state of which it is part in order to adequately represent that state? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, then the stateregress is substituted by a content-regress.

The Pre-reflective Self Contemporary adherents of a pre-reflective-self account, such as Dieter Henrich (1967), Manfred Frank (2011) or Dan Zahavi (1999), are unified in the denial of representationalism. They conjointly argue that the subjective character is not dependent on the ability to entertain certain representations. Zahavi, for instance, writes: “It is necessary to differentiate pre-reflective self-awareness, which is an immediate, implicit, irrelational, non-objectifying, non-conceptual, and non-­ propositional self-acquaintance, from reflexive self-awareness, which is an explicit, relational, mediated, conceptual, and objectifying thematization of consciousness” (Zahavi 1999, 33, my emphasis). Corresponding to that quote, he believes that the subjective character is not adequately described as some form of representation, and, in addition, that it is also totally non-relational in nature. Thus, the pre-­ reflective-­self view is quite radical in this respect. Manfred Frank nowadays takes an even more radical approach on this issue and denies any connection between the subjective character and more demanding forms of self-consciousness. For instance,

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he has written: “I myself have thought before (following Sartre) that pre-reflective self-consciousness grounded reflective consciousness. […] But if we understand by ‘pre-reflective cogito’ something pre-conceptual and under ‘reflective cogito’ something conceptual […] then this thesis is surely false. I made it clear to myself about ten years ago […]” (Frank 2016, 41). For these reasons, a pre-reflective theory of subjective character depends on a concept of non-relational, non-representational and non-conceptual mental entities. So far, there is no commonly accepted pre-reflective account of subjective character. Manfred Frank (2002), taking inspiration from the tradition of German Idealism and Romanticism, introduced the notion of self-feeling into the debate, since feelings might be considered to be a class of states that exhibit the features mentioned previously. They might not require the mastery of a language and are thus very little demanding. In this regard, pre-reflective accounts seem to avoid certain problems that arise from selfrepresentationalism. However, there are some obvious problems with the pre-reflective account of the subjective character of experience. These can be described as follows. 1. I am not sure whether the notion of a pre-reflective self-feeling is able to capture the very idea of a subjective character. Subjective character is supposed to be about something, namely me and the conscious state I am currently in. The idea of being about something suggests at least some form of intentionality, but how can a state be intentional if it is non-relational? My suggestion would be that it simply cannot be so. Maybe self-feeling theoreticians can avoid this by claiming that self-feelings do represent the state they accompany but in a way that differs from typical representational states. But then they would be prone to the second and third problem of self-representational theories. 2. While the self-representational approach maintains that conscious states are accompanied by proto-beliefish representations, pre-reflective accounts depend on strictly non-representational states. So, the question is how can we get from non-conceptual, non-representational states to full-blown first-person thoughts? How can they provide us with representational information which might be needed in order to identify the referents of our reflexive I-thoughts? 3. And finally, if we assume that subjective character is completely structureless and fulfils no function for more demanding forms of self-thought, as Frank suggested, it is hard to see how one could incorporate this concept into further empirical or even philosophical research. In light of these reasons, and the radicality of this approach, I suggest that we should abandon such talk of a pre-reflective self in general and instead rely on more promising notions that allow for more conceptual possibilities.

The Self-Mode of Experience The final account of subjective character, which I call the “self-mode account,” might provide a more promising concept. Adherents of the self-mode of experience mostly go along with the pre-reflective approach insofar as they take the subjective

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character to be non-representational. However, they give up the search for a specific type of state or content that subjective character is supposed to be and conclude that it is rather a specific mode in which conscious experience takes place. In general terms, modes of experience are ways in which we consciously access representational contents, i.e. what is accessed. For example, we can perceive or memorize the same content. While the perceiving and memorizing of a similar representational content are not themselves part of the content of these experiences, they strongly shape their phenomenal character, i.e. the way the representational content feels. Adherents of a self-mode of experience believe that the subjective character is such a mode in which we access the representational contents of conscious states. Furthermore, this self-mode is understood as something relational but still non-­ representational. The subject as such is not part of the representational contents of conscious states, but the representational contents still somehow involve the subject to whom they belong. Recanati (2007, 2012) and Musholt (2015)—drawing on Perry’s work on unarticulated constituents (Perry 1986, 1998)—maintain that the contents of conscious states only implicitly concern the subjects they belong to, rather than explicitly representing them. A well-known form of representation, which can be about more things than those that are explicitly given by the appearance of the representation, are utterances that are evaluated relative to certain contextual entities without somehow representing these entities. Utterances such as “It is raining” are most often evaluated relative to the place of the utterance, even though the place is not represented in the syntactical structure of the uttered sentence. Fabrice Teroni has rightly noted that “a representation that is made correct by a complex fact does not necessarily reflect the complexity of that fact” (Teroni 2016, 444). In this regard, an utterance of “It is raining” is quite often made true by the fact that it is raining at the place of the utterance and not merely by the more general fact that it is raining somewhere. If this were not the case, all tokens of that type of sentence would presumably be understood as expressing something true. One might maintain that conscious experiences are similarly evaluated with respect to a subject even though the subject is not part of the representational content of those experiences. Or to use different terminology, the subject can be part of the circumstances of evaluation of representational contents. One paradigmatic case that can be brought up are memories. They often have conditions of correctness that are evaluated relative to the subject having them, even though the subject is not part of the representational content of these memories. Consider a vivid memory of perceiving a tree. One is totally absorbed in remembering as many visually perceivable features of that tree as possible. That memory can represent the tree in a perfect way, but if it happens that the subject never had that tree perception, the memory can hardly be considered as veridical. So, in that case, the subject is still part of the conditions of correctness of the memory, even though that memory is not representationally about its subject. In this sense, the representational content of the memory concerns the subject, but at the same time does not represent it. Mode of presentation accounts appear to be a viable alternative, as they are able to avoid many problems of both self-representationalism and pre-reflective accounts.

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On the one hand, they do not postulate a duality of contents, which leads into a regress and does not ensure the infallibility of self-ascriptions of those states. On the other hand, they do not conceptualize the subjective character as something that lacks any structure and therefore is more or less about nothing, let alone me or my states as such. Moreover, the idea that certain contents relate to a subject or a state rather than representing them has been proposed as an appropriate conceptualization of de se thoughts (Lewis 1979), or as an explanation for immunity to error through misidentification (Recanati 2007, 2012). Therefore, one might conclude that the self-mode account is a promising way to account for the motivations that lead one to believe in subjective character in the first place.

4  B  rentano’s Secondary Consciousness as a Mode of Experience After having laid out a brief argumentation of why the self-mode approach might be the most promising way to account for the subjective character of experience, I will attempt to show that Brentano might also be best understood as proposing something very close to that view. In my analysis, I will concentrate on a few thoughts presented in his main work Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt (1874). Brentano once wrote: “Every mental act is conscious; it includes within it a consciousness of itself. Therefore, every mental act, no matter how simple, has a double object, a primary and a secondary object” (Brentano 2015, 160). This quote clearly shows that Brentano was an early proponent of the idea of a subjective character. But at first glance, it also suggests that he understood the subjective character as some sort of object of experience. According to that view, when we, for instance, see an object, we are additionally directed at our seeing, just as we are directed at the object of the seeing in the first place. A conscious act of seeing becomes an object of its own intentionality and thus involves a duality of objects. Therefore, self-representationalism naturally lends itself as a theoretical framework through which to understand Brentano’s view and has been suggested as an appropriate interpretation by Kriegel (2003) and Zahavi (2004) among others. However, there are other ways to make sense of Brentano’s thesis of a secondary object of consciousness. Amie Thomasson (2000, 202–207) has suggested to interpret Brentano’s thesis, cited above, in an adverbial theoretical fashion. She proposes that we take seriously Brentano’s idea that secondary consciousness ontologically depends on primary consciousness: “Brentano’s way of trying to preserve the idea that only one act is involved was to characterise the awareness involved in consciousness as a dependent aspect of the original act. That makes it, ontologically, something like a property of the first act, rather than an independent act of its own. If we take the notion of a mental act seriously, a way that act is might be expressed adverbially, and indeed this is a natural—perhaps the most natural—use of the word ‘conscious’: We see, hear, think, etc. consciously” (Thomasson 2000, 203).

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According to this approach, it is not the case that every conscious state or act contains some secondary self-representational content or object, but rather self-­ consciously represents its primary content or object. The state or the subject as such are not part of the representational content of experience, but a manner in which this content is experienced. The secondary object is just a modification of the primary act of experiencing something, not an additional experience (against higher-order theories of consciousness), nor is it an extra object somehow contained in that primary experience (against self-representationalism). If we adopt this line of interpretation, some striking similarities emerge between Brentano’s account and the self-mode account of subjective character. However, while Thomasson stresses the idea that secondary consciousness is merely a modification of primary consciousness, the self-mode theory proposed by Recanati and Musholt additionally relies on the assumption of unarticulated constituents. With this assumption they open up a middle way between self-representationalism, which postulates a duality of representational objects or contents, and a full-blown one-­ level account, which involves no content- or object-duality, such as Thomasson’s adverbial interpretation. According to the suggestion made here, the subject or secondary object of experience modifies an experience in virtue of being an object that figures in its circumstances of evaluation. Thus, the presented view might be understood as a one-and-a-half-level theory of subjective character, as suggested by Brandl (2013). Furthermore, the self-mode account proposed by Recanati and Musholt is also more suitable than Thomasson’s view in accounting for Brentano’s original formulation that inner perception is some kind of object of experience. This is because, according to this line of interpretation, secondary consciousness cannot be just understood as an adverbial modification of primary consciousness, but also described as an object which is part of the circumstances of evaluation even though it is not a constituent of the representational content of experience. Therefore, I believe that adopting this interpretation has two major advantages. On the one hand, one is able to ascribe to Brentano a promising theoretical approach that can avoid complications of self-representationalism. On the other hand, one can still plausibly account for certain assumptions he made about his concept of secondary consciousness. In the following passages, I will continue to demonstrate this. But before doing so, I will briefly reject one prima facie objection.

Intentionality Without Representation One objection that can be raised is that understanding Brentano’s secondary object as a mode entails too great a terminological leap. Thomasson set out this possible yet unfounded worry as follows: “While this view preserves Brentano’s central idea that consciousness is intrinsic to those mental states that possess it, not bestowed on

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them by other acts, the biggest change, at least rhetorically, from the Brentanian view with which we began lies in dropping the talk of conscious mental states as those we are (in any sense) conscious of. Some philosophers […] may feel the loss of the idea that we have an ‘inner awareness’ of our conscious mental states, and may object that this change takes the view I am proposing too far from Brentano’s original view to claim any connection with it” (Thomasson 2000, 204, my emphasis). Even if we grant that the proposed view of subjective character does not include any consciousness-of-relation in virtue of a representation-relation, it still posits a concerning-relation which nevertheless might be understood as some kind of consciousness-­of. According to the self-mode account of subjective character, conscious states stand in concerning relations to themselves or the subject to which they belong, but do not explicitly represent either of those entities. Thus, there is no self or mental state to be found in the representational content. Yet, the self or the state as such figure in the conditions of correctness or satisfaction of the representational contents of primary consciousness. In that sense, representational states are intentionally directed at their subject without being representationally about any subject. To give another example, the emotion of fear, for instance, might represent only a particular object as dangerous, but the conditions of correctness or adequacy of fear states concern the subject, since that particular object might only be dangerous for some subjects and not for others. When I fear and therefore represent a non-­ poisonous spider as dangerous, the attitude towards that spider is most certainly not adequate. But if a bug fears that spider in a similar type of representational state that I have, that particular emotion is quite accurate. (Let’s suppose, for the sake of the argument, that a bug can do so.) So even if the bug and I both entertain the same type of mental state with a similar non-self-involving content, these states have different conditions of adequacy relative to the subject who employs them. In this spirit, mental states can be directed at particular things such as the subject entertaining them without being about them representationally. In this regard, we are able to reconstruct Brentano’s secondary consciousness as an intentional but nevertheless non-representational relation. Therefore, it is still possible to understand the subjective character as a mode without departing too far from Brentano’s original terminology. Furthermore, it has recently been suggested (Frechette 2015) that Brentano considered the possibility of mental states being intentionally directed at categorically different entities. According to this interpretation, Brentano was, for instance, well aware of the distinction between contents and objects as correlates of intentional mental states (Frechette 2015, 10f.). In this light, it is a conceptual possibility that mental states can be intentionally directed at objects without being directed at these objects content-­wise. Hence, with only a slight terminological stretch, the proposed interpretation can constitute a genuine alternative way of understanding Brentano’s concept of secondary consciousness.

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Inner Perception Is Only Peripheral One of the central claims Brentano made about secondary consciousness is that it is only incidental or peripheral (Brentano 2015, 30, 133, 137, 286). For instance, he wrote: “The act of hearing appears to be directed toward sound in the most proper sense of the term, and because of this it seems to apprehend itself incidentally and as something additional” (Brentano 2015, 133, my emphasis). As this quote and various other passages indicate, Brentano’s central intention in introducing the notion of a secondary consciousness was not to claim that our conscious states include any genuine awareness of themselves, but something phenomenally less present. One way to spell this out could be to say that conscious states surely are self-consciously entertained, but they are not conscious of themselves. While primary consciousness is of other things, it is not of itself but rather self-consciously entertained. Hence, secondary consciousness might be better understood as a monadic property (such as a mode) rather than as a genuine relation. Brentano himself sometimes seems to speak about secondary consciousness in such a way: “[T]he correlative consciousness which accompanies a mental phenomenon is [not] added to it as a second, distinct act; rather […] it exists along with the phenomenon itself, as a distinct mode and quality of it” (Brentano 2015, 138, my emphasis). Moreover, Brentano’s crucial assumption can plausibly be embedded in the framework of the self-mode approach. To say that conscious states are only incidentally aware of themselves or of the subject to which they belong might be another way of asserting that conscious states as such are merely unarticulated constituents of their primary contents, while primary objects of experience are directly given in the content. Subjects are usually totally absorbed in their experiences and do not encounter themselves in the way that they encounter a tree given in visual perception. There is nothing in the visual field itself I could immediately identify as myself or as a visual perception as such. Perhaps Brentano had this elusiveness in mind when he said that mental states as such apprehend themselves only incidentally or in addition. Yet, subjects—and other modes of experience—still play a particular role for the experience and its content insofar as the experience is given to a subject or is for the subject. In this way the experience is peripherally directed at the subject or—to put it differently—it concerns the subject. And that is why the subject also figures in the conditions of correctness of representational states. Therefore, Brentano’s distinction between incidental and non-incidental objects of experience could be accounted for by drawing a distinction between objects represented in experience and objects only concerned by experience.

Inner Perception Cannot Become Inner Observation Brentano took this thesis a step further and claimed that it is impossible for inner perception—i.e. another expression for secondary consciousness (Kraus 2015, 421; Simons 2009, XV; Soldati 2005, 63)—to turn into inner observation (Brentano

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2015, 29–35, 43, 45–46, 133–134). He wrote: “One of the characteristics of inner perception is that it can never become inner observation. We can observe objects which, as they say, are perceived externally. In observation, we direct our full attention to a phenomenon in order to apprehend it accurately. But with objects of inner perception this is absolutely impossible” (Brentano 2015, 29–30, my emphasis). Brentano’s stronger thesis regarding secondary consciousness provides even more reason to assume that he believed that it is of a completely different kind than primary consciousness. It is not just more of the same—another representational object of experience—but rather, as he said, a distinct quality or mode of experience. Hence, again, we can make sense of his assumption by relying on the distinction between objects represented in experience and modes of experience. Since the subjective character is a mode of experience—rather than a constituent of its representational content—we cannot simply shift our attention towards these entities. They are genuinely different things that cannot be accessed in the very same way as constituents of representational contents such as a tree. Hence, the difference in epistemic access is explained through the metaphysical difference between the things accessed. Apparently, Brentano accepts that subjects can sometimes turn their attention towards their states as such or themselves. Therefore, one might be inclined to conclude that secondary consciousness can become observation after all. However, he explains that this is only possible retrospectively in an act of remembering: “[N]o simultaneous observation of one’s own act of observation or of any other of one’s own mental acts is possible at all. [W]hen we recall a previous act of hearing, we turn toward it as a primary object, and thus we sometimes turn toward it as observers. In this case, our act of remembering is the mental phenomenon which can be apprehended only secondarily” (Brentano 2015, 134, my emphasis). While Brentano assumes that we can focus our attention on representational objects when they are present, he denies that we can focus on modes during their presence. So, ultimately there is a substantial difference between the observation of representational objects and modes. It is quite unfortunate that Brentano describes the remembering of acts in terms of observation, which clearly seems to be in tension with his central thesis introduced at the beginning of this section. However, what he probably had in mind is that we just cannot visually observe a seeing as such. We might be able to observe something we see—the what—but we cannot visually observe the seeing itself—the how. We can think and cognitively remember that we saw something rather than heard something, but we cannot observe this fact. So, the central idea of the picture outlined here is that modes of experience as such might be represented in consciousness, but if so, they are only cognitively represented. I can represent usual objects of perception—such as a tree—by perceiving, smelling or visually imagining them, but I can only represent modes of experience by thinking about or cognitively remembering them. And because modes of experience can only be represented via cognitive states, they cannot be observed. I can believe or consider a certain proposition, but I cannot observe particular parts of it. Ultimately,

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even if one accepts that modes can be represented in primary consciousness, this does not necessarily mean that they actually can be observed. Finally, I believe that Brentano’s insistence that inner perception itself cannot turn into observation is strong evidence against an interpretation that is akin to self-­ representationalism. The notion of a representation itself does not implicate a substantial difference between representations involved in primary and secondary consciousness. Thus, self-representationalism draws no clear ontological line between primary and secondary consciousness since both types are defined in terms of representation. That is why this line of interpretation might struggle to explain why the objects of secondary experience cannot be observed while those of primary experience can, as claimed by Brentano. In contrast, the self-mode approach explains this epistemic peculiarity of secondary consciousness by exposing it as a special kind of entity and not another representation. Moreover, one might be inclined to think that self-representations themselves can become the focus of attention just as the objects of primary consciousness. In fact, a few self-representationalists—such as Kriegel and Horgan (2007) or Williford (2006b)—have even suggested that we can become focally aware of our self-­ representational contents by a shift of attention. This appears to be in stark contrast to Brentano’s thesis set out above. By contrast, the self-mode account of subjective character makes a clear distinction between secondary and primary objects of consciousness. While the first are in no way represented in the content of experience, the latter are. Hence, the suggested interpretation might be in a better position to account for this essential claim within Brentano’s work.

5  Conclusions This article has sought to demonstrate that the subjective character of experience might be best understood as a mode, and, more importantly, that Amie Thomasson’s (2000) adverbial interpretation of Brentano’s concept of secondary consciousness remains a tenable alternative. Even if some of Brentano’s most prominent passages prima facie suggest that he understood the subjective character of experience as an additional (although incidental) object of experience—rather than a way or a mode in which primary experience takes place—there are conceptual possibilities within an adverbial interpretation to account for these passages. One way to accommodate these word choices is to maintain that modes are not merely manners in which we experience something, but that they can still be addressed by the representational content of experience. This is possible if one understands modes as objects that figure in the circumstances of evaluation of an experience. In light of this, modes can still be regarded as peculiar kinds of intentional objects, albeit while not forming part of any representational content. Furthermore, it has been argued that the interpretation outlined here is in a good position—perhaps even in a better position than self-representationalism—to elucidate central constraints that Brentano places on his conception of secondary

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consciousness. He strongly emphasizes that secondary consciousness itself is only peripheral and cannot turn into observation. The proposed interpretation explains this by conceptualizing secondary consciousness as a way primary consciousness is. Since secondary consciousness is not just another representation, it cannot become observation like primary consciousness. Hence, this epistemic difference proclaimed by Brentano is explained by putting forward an ontological distinction between modes and representations.

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Part II

Brentano and Husserl

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Brentano’s Theory of Time-Consciousness in Husserl’s Philosophy of Arithmetic Hynek Janoušek

Abstract  In reading Husserl’s Lectures on the Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness and the relevant scholarly literature (e.g., Held 1966, Boehm 1969; Schumann 1977; Marbach 1980; Bernet 1985; Kortooms 2002; de Warren 2009; Mensch 2010), one usually gets the following picture of the influence of Brentano on Husserl’s lectures: In the winter semester of 1885/1886, Husserl attended lectures on selected topics in psychology and aesthetics given in Vienna by his teacher, Franz Brentano. In these lectures, Brentano presented his theory of time consciousness. His views made a strong impression on the young Husserl: the lectures were “wonderful”, Husserl later recalled (Husserl 1994, 35). However, although Husserl discussed time consciousness in some of his early manuscripts, it was not until the period shortly after the publication of the Logical Investigations that his effort to describe time consciousness intensified. At that time, he shifted the focus of what was then his descriptive psychology. While a description of categorial acts stood in the foreground of the Logical Investigations, pre-categorial intuitive acts of perception, memory, phantasy, and their attentional modifications stood in need of further research. As Husserl was preparing to pursue this task in his lectures, he became more aware of the major role time consciousness plays in the constitution of intentional acts and the contents of intuitive acts, as well as in differentiating types of intentional experience. Owing to this importance, the topic of time was to conclude the lectures on the phenomenology of intuitive acts. Keywords  Edmund Husserl · Franz Brentano · Time-consciousness · Philosophy of Arithmetic · Simultaneity of consciousness

H. Janoušek (*) Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Praha, Czech Republic © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano’s Philosophy After One Hundred Years, Primary Sources in Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48563-4_5

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1  Introduction In reading Husserl’s Lectures on the Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness and the relevant scholarly literature (e.g., Held 1966, Boehm 1966; Schumann 1977; Marbach 1980; Bernet 1985; Kortooms 2002; de Warren 2009; Mensch 2010), one usually gets the following picture of the influence of Brentano on Husserl’s lectures: In the winter semester of 1885/1886, Husserl attended lectures on selected topics in psychology and aesthetics given in Vienna by his teacher, Franz Brentano. In these lectures, Brentano presented his theory of time consciousness. His views made a strong impression on the young Husserl: the lectures were “wonderful”, Husserl later recalled (Husserl 1994, 35). However, although Husserl discussed time consciousness in some of his early manuscripts, it was not until the period shortly after the publication of the Logical Investigations that his effort to describe time consciousness intensified. At that time, he shifted the focus of what was then his descriptive psychology. While a description of categorial acts stood in the foreground of the Logical Investigations, pre-categorial intuitive acts of perception, memory, phantasy, and their attentional modifications stood in need of further research. As Husserl was preparing to pursue this task in his lectures, he became more aware of the major role time consciousness plays in the constitution of intentional acts and the contents of intuitive acts, as well as in differentiating types of intentional experience. Owing to this importance, the topic of time was to conclude the lectures on the phenomenology of intuitive acts. In his lectures on time consciousness in 1905, Husserl read his old notes on Brentano’s theory of time consciousness to his students (Husserl 1994, 35). This time, he found the theory of his teacher to be quite unsuited to his needs. He felt that Brentano failed to properly “bracket” objective time, that he failed to grasp the differences of time consciousness as differences pertaining to modes of consciousness, and that he did not make proper use of the distinction between non-intentional immanent contents and their intentional apprehension (Husserl 1969, 15–19, Engl. trans. 16–20). Most importantly, he thought that Brentano had not properly addressed the question of internal time consciousness. Surely, claimed Husserl, while intuiting we are conscious not only of the duration of intuited objects but also of the duration of the intuitive acts and their parts as well (Husserl 1969, 22, Engl. trans. 24)! How is this internal duration of consciousness constituted? What is its form? In Husserl’s eyes, Brentano provided no clear answers.1 This is more or less the received view on Husserl’s stance towards Brentano’s theory of time consciousness. Even though this picture of Husserl’s development is not wrong, it is not entirely correct either. Brentano’s theory is rightly depicted as the main source of inspiration for Husserl’s phenomenology of time, but Husserl is usually presented as someone

 For a detailed discussion of this issue see also de Warren (2005).

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who, after an initial infatuation with Brentano’s theory, simply refused to follow in his master’s footsteps. Since the lectures which Husserl attended were delivered before his habilitation in 1887, it might be helpful to take a closer look at his first discussion of Brentano’s theory of time consciousness in his habilitation thesis On the Concept of Number and in his Philosophy of Arithmetic. These texts clearly show Husserl employing the version of Brentano’s theory of time consciousness that he later criticized. This is hardly surprising, since Husserl’s habilitation thesis was published in 1887, just one year after Brentano’s Vienna lectures.2 What is surprising however is the omission of this fact from the official accounts of Husserl’s phenomenology of time consciousness. Obviously, one piece of the puzzle is missing in the received account of Husserl’s understanding of Brentano’s theory of time consciousness. Since the passages from Husserl’s habilitation thesis that will be of interest to us appear almost verbatim in the Philosophy of Arithmetic, and since Husserl considered the latter book to be his first properly published work, we will use the Philosophy of Arithmetic as a point of reference. Husserl did not say much about time in this work, but given the importance of this topic for Husserlian and Brentanian scholarship, the following discussion of Husserl’s remarks on time in the Philosophy of Arithmetic will help us to get a more complete picture of the intricate relation between Brentano and Husserl on this sensitive issue of phenomenology.

2  Number and Time in the Philosophy of Arithmetic To understand Husserl’s discussion of time in his Philosophy of Arithmetic, we first need to understand how Husserl views the intuitive origin of the concept of natural number. In the first part of the Philosophy of Arithmetic, he presents an analysis of the psychological origins of the concepts of multiplicity, unity, and (natural) number “as far as they are not given to us in symbolic (indirect) forms” (Husserl 1970, 287, Engl. trans. 303). This means that Husserl wants to correctly describe how these concepts are intuitively (i.e. directly) given to us in experience. Since Husserl accepts the Euclidean tradition according to which number is a “multiplicity of units” (Husserl 1970, 15, Engl. trans. 16), he first describes the intuition of concrete multiplicities. He maintains that such concrete multiplicities form a basis for the abstraction of a general concept of multiplicity or plurality. Furthermore, Husserl defends the view that multiplicity is a whole consisting of objects which need not have anything in common. The objects of multiplicities

2  For further information on Husserl’s early relationship with Brentano and his school, especially with regard to mathematics, see Ierna (2005, 2006).

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grasped as units of multiplicities are simply treated as pure “somethings”, “something” being the formal concept under which they fall. This approach sets Husserl against those psychologically based theories of number which, like the theory of John Stuart Mill, ground the abstraction of our concept of number in empirical properties or relations of objects. What kind of relation unites these “somethings” into multiplicities? At the time of the publication of the Philosophy of Arithmetic, Husserl distinguished two main kinds of relations, namely, primary (non-intentional) relations and psychical (intentional) relations. While primary relations are relations which “belong in a certain sense among the representational contents of the same level as their terms” (Husserl 1970, 69, Engl. trans. 72), psychical relations hold between terms purely on account of the terms being intentional objects of a relating psychical act. Since objects unified in a plurality need not have anything in common, they can be completely disjointed, that is, unrelated in the usual sense of the word. Yet, according to Husserl, such objects can still constitute a collective unity (multiplicity); I can, for example, think of the premises of the Barbara syllogism as constituting a multiplicity together with the copy of Husserl’s book Philosophy of Arithmetic on my table and the Robert Glasper’s song currently playing in my room. Given the standpoint of Husserl’s early theory of relations, this proves that the relation of collective combination is a psychical relation. In sum, Husserl suggests that the forming component in any intuitively given multiplicity is a certain psychological relation. This relation must be in a certain sense universal, since it can unify any given objects regardless of their nature. But what kind of universal relation is at work here? One popular response by Husserl’s contemporaries pointed out a certain relational “togetherness” of contents in our consciousness (Bain 1873; Lange 1877). After all, objects of our experience seem to constitute a multiplicity regardless of their content, and if they do, then time relations become an attractive option for the explanation of this togetherness. It seems evident that any content of consciousness is present simultaneously or successively with any other content of consciousness. Succession or simultaneity might therefore seem to be the universal relation holding between objects of multiplicities. However, Husserl was unpersuaded by such time-oriented attempts and followed Brentano’s observations about the nature of our time consciousness to refute three theories of this kind.

3  C  o-presence in One Consciousness, Simultaneity, and Succession Husserl opens his “critical developments” with a short refutation of the simplest form of the time-oriented theory of collective multiplicity. According to this theory, the givenness of objects in a multiplicity is constituted by “the co-presence of those

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objects in our consciousness”, that is, by their “belonging in the consciousness which encompasses them” (Husserl 1970, 22, Engl. trans. 23). Husserl’s rejection is swift: to be conscious of an authentic multiplicity is to be conscious of a group of units which stand out from their background as specifically and separately noticed entities (Husserl 1970, 23, Engl. trans. 24).3 The totality of contents of consciousness might at best function as a background from which contents enter into a particularly intuited plurality. But even this background function might be limited, for some elements of consciousness—such as the parts of a continuum or fused contents of consciousness—resist inclusion in a collective set of well-recognized unities. Husserl therefore concludes that the totality of contents in consciousness cannot function as the intuitive origin of our authentic concept of multiplicity (Husserl 1970, 23, Engl. trans. 24). The second theory rejected by Husserl is only a slight modification of the first one. This theory holds that the relation of multiplicity is the relation of simultaneity in time: “What else are we to notice but that every content is there simultaneously with each other one? Temporal co-existence of contents is indispensable for the representation of their multiplicity” (Husserl 1970, 24, Engl. trans. 25). This theory, as Husserl remarks, faces the same objections as the previous one. More importantly, it is guilty of confusing simultaneous presentation with presentation of simultaneity: To represent contents simultaneously does not yet mean to represent contents as simultaneous. For example, in order for the representation of a melody to come about, the single tones which make it up must be brought into relation with one another. But every relation requires the simultaneous presence of the related contents in one act of consciousness. Thus, the tones of the melody must also be simultaneously represented. But in no wise are they to be represented as simultaneous. Quite to the contrary, they appear to us as situated in a certain temporal succession. (Husserl 1970, 24, Engl. trans. 25)

This confusion disqualifies the second theory as a viable option: for if the relation between contents were the relation of simultaneity then we would never be conscious of multiplicities whose parts form a successive series. However, we clearly do have an intuitive consciousness of successive multiplicities; we can, for example, count the number of chimes made by a clock. As we will see, according to the young Husserl, simultaneity necessarily holds only between presenting acts, and since these acts are intentional their contents must be—in a special sense—simultaneously given. However, the contents need not be intended as simultaneous; that is, the psychological relation between them need not be the relation of simultaneity. The second theory thus fails.

3  That the clear delimitation of units in a set is not an arbitrary psychological requirement is evident from the following consideration: it is a necessary property of any two sets that they are numerically equal if and only if there is a one-to-one correspondence between their units. To be authentically or intuitively conscious of a set is to be conscious of a set which can be checked for a one-to-one correspondence of its units with units of any other set. However, this would not be possible if intuitive consciousness were not a consciousness of units that are specifically and separately noticed.

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The third theory claims that the form of multiplicity is constituted by relations of succession between contents of consciousness. It claims that “all mental activity of a relational or higher sort becomes possible only in that the objects with which it has to do are given in temporal succession” (Husserl 1970, 25, Engl. trans. 26). Once again, Husserl points out the same mistake: To perceive temporally successive contents does not yet mean to perceive contents as temporally successive. This is a point that we also have had to emphasize upon occasion with respect to simultaneous contents. (Husserl 1970, 29, Engl. trans. 30)4

Both of the theories that are criticized identify our presentation of simultaneity or succession of contents with the simultaneous or successive presentation of contents in consciousness. But this is patently false, as Brentano claimed already in 1867:5 Our presenting presents succession simultaneously, but [it presents it] as being successive. “Being presented simultaneously” and “being presented as simultaneous” are to be distinguished. Our sensory presentation has a temporal depth (zeitliche Tiefe), so to speak. Without this wonderful device, through which the teleology of the soul shows itself on a par with the teleology of nature, we wouldn’t have any presentation of movement, melody, etc. and [we would not have] any presentation of time at all. As a further consequence, we wouldn’t have any memory. (Brentano 1867, §257)

The same type of argument reappears in the Lectures on the Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness when Husserl praises Brentano’s clear differentiation between subjective and objective time: The duration of sensation and the sensation of duration are two very different things. And this is equally true of succession. The succession of sensations and the sensation of succession are not the same. (Husserl 1969, 12, Engl. trans. 12)

It seems clear that in his 1887 Habilitationsschrift and in his 1891 Philosophy of Arithmetic Husserl is applying Brentano’s critique to refute any time-oriented theory of intuitive multiplicity. The second, very subtle point that links Husserl’s Philosophy of Arithmetic to Brentano’s theory of time consciousness is that Husserl, just like Brentano, speaks of our intuition of time.6 Brentano maintains that the constitution of the temporal depth of a sensory content cannot be assigned to memory in the traditional sense of 4  Husserl also remarks that to perceive objects in time does not yet mean to grasp them as an intuitive plurality of specifically and separately noticed unities: “The clock sounds off with its uniform tick-tock. I hear the particular ticks, but it need not occur to me to attend to their temporal sequence. But even if I do attend to it, that still does not involve singling out some number of ticks, and uniting them into a totality by an inclusive noticing” (Husserl 1970, 30, Engl. trans. 31). 5  The following passage from Brentano’s unpublished German lectures was translated by Guillaume Fréchette and published in Fréchette (2017, 79). For details concerning the development of Brentano’s theory of time consciousness, see, for example, Kraus (1919), Kraus (1930), Chrudzimski (1998/1999), Fréchette (2017). 6  In the passage quoted above from the Philosophy of Arithmetic, Husserl even speaks of perception (Wahrnemung) of succession (Husserl 1970, 29, Engl. trans. 30). For Husserl’s later critique of Brentanian use of the terms “perception” and “intuition” see, for example, Husserl (1894, 178–179, Engl. trans. 158), Husserl (1984, 761–762, Engl. trans. 341).

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the storage of past contents which are occasionally called back for intuitive recollection. What we encounter in our consciousness of sensory contents in the immediate past is a consciousness of a specific intuitive kind. It is not a kind of sensation (Empfindung), for according to Brentano we cannot, strictly speaking, sense past objects. It is not a kind of recollection either, since recollection presupposes memory. In 1885/1886 Brentano therefore assigns these contents—contents of proteraesthesis (Proterästhesie) or after-sensation, as he later called it7—to a special kind of modifying act of intuitive phantasy. The function of phantasy in intuition of time in Brentano’s 1885/1886 lectures naturally leads to two stronger claims connecting Husserl’s and Brentano’s theories of time consciousness. These claims stand in direct opposition to Husserl’s later views.

4  M  odification of Contents in Phantasy and Simultaneity of Presentation To understand these points, we must briefly outline the theory of time consciousness defended by Brentano in 1885/1886. In his lectures, Husserl presented the theory of his teacher using the following diagram (Husserl 1969, 399):8

The letters above the horizontal arrow represent the linear succession of perceived objects in time. The letters below the line represent the successive development of the intuited time depth of objects, with each row introducing the object present in “now” as its last member. With every introduction of the present object, the older “nows” are reproduced in the same row to the left of it and an apostrophe is added to their symbol to mark the new reproduction. For example, when we are perceiving the object c, we are co-perceiving the immediately past object b′. However, the temporally modified object b′ is yet again co-perceived with the object which constituted its immediate past, that is with the a″; a″ is therefore co-perceived as a more distant member in our present perception of c.  See Kraus (1930) for further elucidation of this matter.  Brentano is known to have used a similar drawing in his older lectures as well: see Stumpf’s report of Brentano’s diagram in Kraus (1919, 136). 7 8

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Let us bear in mind that the version of the theory which Husserl heard in Brentano’s 1885/1886 lectures was content-oriented. The phantasy modification of the present perceived object into the past imagined one is literally a modification of the object itself and not of our way of intending it. This modification of the object was understood by Brentano as a modification of its real being into unreal (irreal) being. The character of the past is therefore not a determining attribute of the object but a modifying one. Just as painted gold is not gold, a past sound is not a sound. Nobody can get drenched in past rain and, in Brentano’s view, nobody can have a sensory perception of a past tone. However, the phantasy contents do not constitute an isolated domain of intentional existence. Quite the opposite: as we have seen in Husserl’s diagram, Brentano viewed past irreal contents as associated with each other and with present real contents. Brentano called this association of contents “original” because the continuous modification of contents required for such association creates completely new contents from previous ones. The same theory of modified phantasy contents is clearly present in Husserl’s Philosophy of Arithmetic: Were it merely a question of describing the phenomenon (Phänomen) that is present when we represent a multiplicity, then certainly we would have to make mention of the temporal modifications which the particular contents undergo, although those modifications as a rule are not given any special notice. […] If a totality of objects, A, B, C, D, is in our representation, then, in light of the sequential process through which the total representation originates, perhaps finally only D will be given as a sense representation, the remaining contents being then given merely as phantasy representations which are modified temporally and also in other aspects of their content. (Husserl 1970, 31, Engl. trans. 32)

Even though Husserl speaks in the corresponding passage of the Philosophy of Arithmetic about presenting A, B, C, D as simultaneous parts of multiplicity, the unnoticed underlying temporal modifications—“D, just-passed C, earlier-passed B, up to A, which is the most strongly modified” (Husserl 1970, 31, Engl. trans. 33)— are clearly Brentanian in character. Such a theory faces many challenges. As Husserl later said, “What is remarkable here is that the irreal temporal determinations can belong in a continuous series along with the only actually real determination [of present “now”], to which the irreal determinations attach themselves in infinitesimal differences” (Husserl 1969, 14, Engl. trans. 15). Indeed, as Brentano already claimed in a letter written to Marty in 1895 and reprinted by Kraus (Kraus 1930, 7), a continuous change of real contents into irreal ones is not only remarkable, but altogether impossible: the idea of an infinitely small difference between real and irreal being in the transition from real being to its irreal modification seems absurd. It is therefore hard to see how a real content could undergo a continuous time modification and how contents of two radically different species of being could share a boundary in one and the same time continuum. Let us discuss the final feature of Husserl’s early position. Perhaps the most striking difference between the positions of the Philosophy of Arithmetic and the Lectures on the Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness concerns the

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necessary simultaneity of time presenting acts and their modified contents. Consider the following two passages from the Philosophy of Arithmetic: For example, in order for the representation of a melody to come about, the single tones which make it up must be brought into relation with one another. But every relation requires the simultaneous presence of the related contents in one act of consciousness. Thus, the tones of the melody must also be simultaneously represented. (Husserl 1970, 24, Engl. trans. 25) One will of course no longer find any problem at all in our being able to bring representations of present contents into relation with representations of past contents. In doing so, these representations are all, in fact, simultaneously present in our consciousness. They are in toto representations that are temporally present. By contrast, we can relationally connect past representations neither with each other nor with present representations; for, as past, they are irrecoverable and gone forever. (Husserl 1970, 27, Engl. trans. 28)

Since past psychical phenomena are “gone forever”, they are not real anymore. However, time-presenting psychical phenomena are real. Past acts therefore cannot be accommodated in our presentation of time. In his early work, Husserl clearly accepts the “dogma of simultaneity”, that is, the necessity of momentary simultaneity of time presenting acts and their modified contents as well.9 Compare the theory of simultaneity contained in the two passages quoted above with the later passages from the Lectures on the Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness: An idea that derives from Herbart, was taken up by Lotze, and that played an important role in the whole following period, works as a driving motive in Brentano’s theory: namely, the idea that in order to grasp a succession of representations (a and b, for example), it is necessary that the representations be the absolutely simultaneous objects of a knowing that puts them in relation and that embraces them quite indivisibly in a single and indivisible act. (Husserl 1969, 19, Engl. trans. 21) It is certainly evident that the perception of a temporal object itself has temporality, that the perception of duration itself presupposes the duration of perception, that the perception of any temporal form itself has its temporal form. If we disregard all transcendencies, there remains to perception in all of its phenomenological constituents the phenomenological temporality that belongs to its irreducible essence. (Husserl 1969, 22, Engl. trans. 24)

In the first passage, Husserl rejects the “dogma of simultaneity” and ascribes it to Brentano and the antecedent tradition. In the second, he proposes duration of perception as essential for any perception of duration. It is important to see that Husserl is not accusing Brentano of thinking that psychical phenomena have no duration. Husserl could hardly miss that, for Brentano, psychical phenomena are real, and all real objects, even God, must have a duration in time. Being real implies being in time: “I believe that I have established that it must hold of the real as real that it is temporally extended” (Brentano 1976, 107, Engl. trans. 63). Furthermore, Husserl is not accusing Brentano of wrongly claiming that we are not conscious of past 9  In the lectures on time consciousness, Husserl rejects the simultaneous presence of contents of succession as absurd. See Husserl (1969, 18, English trans. 18–19).

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states of psychical phenomena; according to Brentano, we do have a continuous memory of past states consciousness (see Brentano 1874, 219, Engl. trans. 129). Moreover, fresh memory of innerly perceived psychical phenomena is a methodological presupposition of Brentano’s descriptive psychology (see Brentano 1874, 42–45, Engl. trans. 26–27).10 What Husserl is claiming is rather that our intuitive consciousness of objects as enduring in time presupposes intuitive inner time consciousness of acts and their parts as enduring in time. Husserl presents this view as a critique of Brentano’s dogma which, as we have seen, is also present in Husserl’s first work. It has not been our task here to evaluate this critique but only to point out that the story of Husserl’s thinking concerning time should be amended to include Husserl’s first Brentanian position.

5  Conclusion Our result points to a rather peculiar feature of Husserl’s style of work. In the style of his time, Husserl often does not identify his sources. He sometimes does when he no longer accepts their views, but frequently without mentioning his own previous commitment to them. In short, from the fact that Husserl criticizes the views of someone else, it does not always follow that these are not present in his previous work and defended as his own. We have shown that in On the Concept of Number and the Philosophy of Arithmetic, Husserl accepts Brentano’s content-oriented theory of the consciousness of time. In these works, Husserl describes our time experience as being based on the phantasy modification of intentional contents. Furthermore, he defends the momentary simultaneity of all acts and contents responsible for presenting contents as simultaneous or successive. He also employs Brentano’s critique of the confusion between the simultaneity or succession of presented contents on the one hand, and the presentation of contents as simultaneous or successive on the other. This critique is used to refute those theories of multiplicity which see the relation that unifies members (contents) of a multiplicity in the simultaneity or succession of the contents in consciousness.

References Bain, A. 1873. Logic. Part 2. London: Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer. Bernet, R. 1985. Einleitung. In Husserl, E. Texte zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewußtseins (1893-1917), ed. R. Bernet. Hamburg: Meiner.

 This point is also stressed by Stumpf in Husserl’s notebook containing Stumpf’s lectures on psychology (Stumpf 1886/1887, Q11/1, 21).

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Boehm, R. 1966. Einleitung des Herausgebers. In Husserl, E. Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstesens (1893-1917), Husserliana. Gesammelte Werke, ed. R.  Boehm, vol. 10. Martinus Nijhoff: The Hague. Brentano, F. (1867). Metaphysik. Vorlesung, ed. W. Baumgartner et al. Forthcoming. ———. 1874. Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt. English Trans. A.C.  Rancurello, D.B. Terrell, & L.L. McAlister (eds). 1995. Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. London: Routledge. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. ———. 1976. Philosophische Untersuchungen zu Raum, Zeit und Kontinuum. English Trans. B.  Smith. 1988. Philosophical Investigations on Space, Time, and the Continuum. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Leipzig: Felix Meiner. Chrudzimski, A. 1998/99). Die Theorie des Zeitbewustseins Franz Brentanos aufgrund der unpublizierten Manuskripte. Brentano Studien 8: 149–161. de Warren, N. 2005. The Significance of Stern’s Präsenzzeit for Husserl’s Phenomenology of Time Consciousness. In The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, ed. B. Hopkins and S. Crowell, vol. 5, 81–122. Seattle: Noesis Press. ———. 2009. Husserl and the Promise of Time: Subjectivity in Transcendental Phenomenology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fréchette, G. 2017. Brentano on Time-Consciousness. In The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School, ed. E. Kriegel, 75–86. New York: Routledge. Held, K. 1966. Lebendige Gegenwart. The Hague: Nijhoff. Husserl, E. 1894. Psychologische Studien zur elementaren Logik. Philosophische Monatschefte (Berlin) 30 (1894), 159–191. English Trans. D.  Willard. 1994 Psychological Studies in the Elements of Logic in: Husserl, E. Early Writings in the Philosophy of Logic and Mathematics. Collected Works, vol. 5. Dordrecht: Kluwer. ———. 1969. Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstesens (1893-1917). Husserliana. Gesammelte Werke, ed. R.  Boehm, vol. 10. English Trans. J.B.  Brough. 1991. On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time (1893 – 1917). Collected Works, vol. 4. Dordrecht: Kluwer. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. ———. 1970. Philosophie der Arithmetik. Mit ergänzenden Texten (1890-1901). Husserliana. Gesammelte Werke, ed. L.  Eley, vol. 12. English Trans. D.  Willard. 2003. Philosophy of Arithmetic, Psychological and Logical Investigations  - with Supplementary Texts from 1887-1901. Collected Works, vol. 10. Dordrecht: Kluwer. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff ———. 1984. Logische Untersuchungen, zweiter Teil: Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis. Husserliana. Gesammelte Werke. ed. U. Panzer, vol. 19. English Trans. J.N. Findlay. 2001. Logical Investigations. New York: Routledge. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff ———. 1994. In Briefwechsel, Band I.: Brentanoschule, Husserliana: Edmund Husserl Dokumente, ed. K. Schumann, vol. 3/1. Dordrecht: Springer. Ierna, C. 2005. The Beginnings of Husserl’s Philosophy (Part 1: From Über den Begriff der Zahl to Philosophie der Arithmetik). In The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, ed. B. Hopkins and S. Crowell, vol. 5, 1–56. Seattle: Noesis Press. ———. 2006. The Beginnings of Husserl’s Philosophy (Part 2: Philosophical and Mathematical Background). In The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy, ed. B. Hopkins and S. Crowell, vol. 6, 23–71. Seattle: Noesis Press. Kortooms, T. 2002. Phenomenology of Time: Edmund Husserl’s Analysis of Time-Consciousness. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Kraus, O. 1919. Franz Brentano, zur Kenntnis seines Lebens und seiner Lehre mit Beiträgen von Carl Stumpf und Edmund Husserl. Munich: Oskar Beck. ———. (1930). Zur Phänomenognosie des Zeitbewußtseins. Archiv für die gesamte Psychologie, 75, 1–22. English Trans. (1976) Toward a Phenomenognosy of Time-Consciousness. In: The Philosophy of Brentano, ed. McAlister. London: Duckworth. Lange, F.A. 1877. Logische Studien. Iserlohn: Baedeker. Marbach, E. 1980. Einleitung des Herausgebers. In Husserl, E.  Phäntasie, Bildbewusstsein, Erinnerung: Zur Phänomenologie der anschaulichen Vergegenwartigungen. Texte aus dem

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Nachlass (1898-1925), Husserliana. Gesammelte Werke, ed. E.  Marbach, vol. 10. Martinus Nijhoff: The Hague. Mensch, J. 2010. Husserl’s Account of Our Consciousness of Time. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press. Schumann, K. 1977. Husserl-Chronik: Denk-und Lebensweg Edmund Husserls, Husserliana: Edmund Husserl Dokumente. Vol. 1. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Stumpf, C. (1886/1887). Vorlesungen über Psychologie von Prof. Carl Stumpf Halle W.S. 1886/87 1. Teil, Transkription des Hefts Q 11/1 des Husserl-Archivs, ed. E. Schumann, K. Schumann. Manuscript of Husserl Archives Leuven.

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Husserl on Brentanian Psychology: A Correct Criticism? Hamid Taieb

Abstract  Husserl often pays tribute to his teacher Brentano for having opened the path towards phenomenology. However, the praise is systematically followed by a criticism: Brentano failed to draw all the consequences from his ground-breaking rediscovery of intentionality, and remained stuck in inadequate psychological research. For Husserl, there are three ways to study mental acts: empirical, eidetic, and transcendental. What is objected to Brentano is his adherence to empirical psychology. Husserl himself focuses on the second and third levels. It is clear that Brentano never entered into transcendental considerations. However, it seems also clear that he was doing eidetic-like research in psychology in a way similar to Husserl. In the paper, I first present Husserl’s criticism of empirical and, thus, Brentanian psychology. I then turn to Brentano’s and the psychology of his heirs and try to show that Husserl’s criticism is unjustified. In the course of the discussion, I treat the crucial epistemological question of eidetic vs empirical knowledge, both in Husserl and in Brentano. Keywords  Edmund Husserl · Franz Brentano · Eidetic knowledge · Empirical knowledge · Psychology

1  Introduction Even if Husserl’s teacher, Brentano, was regularly praised for having opened the path toward phenomenology, Husserl also often accused him of doing inadequate research in psychology.1 For Husserl, one must sharply distinguish empirical psychology, which is about the mental life of some existing natural kind, e.g. human being, on the one hand, and eidetic psychology, also called “phenomenological psychology,” which is about essences (eidê) of mental acts considered independently of any instantiation, on the other hand. Husserl himself proceeds to eidetic psychology.  See e.g. Husserl (1962, 267.37–269.10).

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According to Husserl, eidetic knowledge differs from empirical knowledge with respect to its object, its acquisition and its epistemic value. First, as regards its object, eidetic knowledge is about essences and their relations. It is existence-­ independent, in the sense that one can have insight into essential features without these features being instantiated. This is to be contrasted with empirical knowledge, which is about existing things. Second, as regards its acquisition, eidetic knowledge is intuitive, whereas empirical knowledge is based on induction. Finally, as for its epistemic value, the grasping of essential features leads to a cognition which has “absolute certainty,” whereas inductive knowledge can only attain greater or smaller likelihood.2 These epistemological considerations form the basis of Husserl’s initial criticism of traditional psychology, including Brentano’s: traditional psychology leads to inductive and probabilistic knowledge about some existing natural kinds, e.g. human being, whereas Husserl’s eidetic inquiries provide secure knowledge of the very essence of consciousness. Yet Husserl does not merely criticize traditional psychology on the basis of these epistemological reasons. He also appears to have transcendental objections: as an idealist, the later Husserl develops a theory of the transcendental ego, which is “constituting” nature, alter-egos, essences, and so forth. Husserl rejects what he calls “naturalistic” psychology, including Brentano’s, for having missed the point in putting consciousness in nature; in fact, consciousness constitutes nature.3 It is clear that Brentano and his (faithful) students never adopted any kind of idealism, and that the transcendental criticism made by Husserl against them is correct. Not in the sense that Husserl is right regarding idealism, but in the sense that Brentano and his pupils are not idealists. By contrast, as regards the eidetic criticism, Husserl’s criticism seems not to be quite correct: Brentano did not think of his psychological inquires as being empirical in Husserl’s sense. Brentano, as well as his followers, Anton Marty and other Brentanians from Prague, like Oskar Kraus, Alfred Kastil, and Georg Katkov, or Carl Stumpf in Berlin, admitted eidetic-like, definitional knowledge in psychology. Brentano explicitly contrasted this kind of knowledge, which is existence-independent, which “emerges from the concepts themselves” and has “absolute certainty,” with empirical knowledge, which he took to be about existing things, to be acquired by induction, and, thus, to entail mere likelihood. This is strikingly similar to Husserl’s views.

 See Husserl (2001 and 1985), discussed below.  See, above all, Husserl (1986a, 1962 and 1976). Brentano is, notably, called a “naturalist” in Husserl (1962, 246.37–247.23) and in (1976, 346.3–27), whereas he is rather spared during the long criticism of naturalism in Husserl (1986a, 20.1–30). The question whether Husserl’s idealism is a metaphysical position is highly controversial. As J. Drummond points out, the metaphysical reading is defended by many important students and interpreters of Husserl: J. Daubert, A. Reinach, M. Scheler, E. Stein, R. Ingarden, as well as D. Willard, B. Smith, P. Simons and K. Mulligan. Drummond himself supports an alternative, non-metaphysical reading (see Drummond 2008, 193). For a recent and detailed reconsideration of the debate, see Zahavi (2017). Note that, in this paper, I am not primarily interested in Husserl’s transcendental project, may it be metaphysical or not, but in his eidetic phenomenology, which he himself distinguishes from transcendental idealism.

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Studies that evaluate Husserl’s attacks against Brentano’s psychology from the point of view of the Brentanians themselves are rare.4 Besides, the emphasis is usually not put on the epistemological objections made by Husserl towards Brentano, and nor is there any attempt to present in a systematic manner the answers of the Brentanians to these objections. As a matter of fact, Brentano’s epistemological texts are not the primary subject of interest of scholars. Yet a clarification of these questions is of major interest. Indeed, it will widen our knowledge of the relationship between philosophy and psychology at the turn of the twentieth Century, more precisely in regards to our comprehension of the origins of phenomenology, by reappraising the importance of Brentano.5 In the following pages, I will first present Husserl’s criticism of empirical and, thus, Brentanian psychology, in focusing on the above-mentioned epistemological issues. I will then turn to the psychology and epistemology of Brentano and his followers, and will try to show that Husserl’s criticism is unjustified. In the course of the discussion, I will treat at length the crucial question of eidetic vs empirical knowledge, both in Husserl and in Brentano.

2  Husserl Against Brentanian Psychology The Early Husserl on Psychology Husserl draws a clear dividing line between the so-called empirical psychology, which concerns the mental life of some existing natural kind, on the one hand, and the eidetic psychology, which concerns consciousness’s essential features taken in themselves, on the other hand. Already in his early writings, Husserl apparently paid close attention to the epistemic scope of his inquiries: they were destined to pick up essential features of mental acts in general, and not structures of human psychic activity.6 To use a comparison made by Husserl himself, these essential features hold for every kind of thinking being: angles, devils, gods etc., and even for trees in fairy tales, as soon as mental acts are attributed to them.7 In his later works, Husserl strongly refined his considerations regarding the study of mental acts, distinguishing between (i) empirical, (ii) eidetic, and (iii) transcendental  The best accounts on the matter are Fisette (2015), who focuses on Stumpf, and Fréchette (2012), who holds that Husserl’s early criticism of descriptive psychology was rather directed against Lipps than against Brentano See also Fisette (2019). A much older discussion is to be found in Brück (1933). For an overview of Husserl’s relation to the Brentanians, see Rollinger (1999). 5  However, there is one exception, namely, the studies of Brentano’s psychology made by Marek, who not only draws attention to the fact that Brentano’s descriptive psychology contains definitional knowledge, but also explains the nature of this kind of knowledge by referring to elements of Brentano’s epistemology (see Marek 1986 and 1989). While Marek also quotes some Brentanians on these issues, his main objective is not a comparison with Husserl (despite the brief reference in 1986, 222) but rather with Wittgenstein (see Marek 1986). 6  See Husserl (1984, 24 n. 1) and the discussions below. 7  See Husserl (1987, 195.25–26) and (1962, 38.10–16). 4

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inquires, and thus between (i) “empirical psychology,” (ii) “eidetic psychology,” also called “phenomenological psychology,” and, finally, (iii) “transcendental phenomenology.”8 Husserl, who was the student of Brentano, knew the latter’s lectures on descriptive psychology, notably via notes taken by Hans Schmidkunz, another of Brentano’s students.9 In these lectures, Brentano contrasts “descriptive psychology,” also called “psychognosy” or “phenomenology,” as first-person inquiries regarding the very structure of psychic acts and their (non-causal) logical-ontological interdependencies, to “genetic psychology,” which studies the causal relations leading to the appearance and disappearance of psychic acts, and which is mainly psychophysiological. There is no doubt that Husserl was initially influenced by the Brentanian project, as testified by the initial 1901 edition of his Logical Investigations, which says: “phenomenology is descriptive psychology.”10 But famously, Husserl also seems to have changed his mind on the topic, notably in the later, 1913 edition of the same text, where one finds him saying: “if psychology is given its old meaning, phenomenology is not descriptive psychology.”11 The “old meaning” in question is that of empirical psychology, focused on the structures of the psychic life of some existing natural kind, e.g. the human being. Husserl himself, before turning to transcendental phenomenology, directed his inquiries toward eidetic structures. Thus, one could talk of a “descriptive eidetic psychology” in Husserl.12 According to Husserl, the founding of phenomenology as an eidetic discipline is revolutionary in the history of psychology.13 But how, more precisely, are we to understand the difference between empirical and eidetic psychology? As recently emphasised by G. Fréchette, the lectures given by Husserl shortly after the publication of his Logical Investigations are of major importance for the comprehension of this contrast.14 In his 1902–1903 lectures on the theory of knowledge, although Husserl still accepts the label “descriptive psychology” for phenomenology, he is careful in distinguishing descriptive-empirical vs descriptive-eidetic research: Empirical and natural-scientific description (Deskription) is description (Beschreibung) of individual existing things, processes etc. and the description is the basis for the research of empirical generalities and of laws of nature. In phenomenology, there is in this sense no description, but abstraction, generalisation, determination of essences and of their relations.15

8  Husserl (1962). A recent discussion of the importance of this threefold distinction for the relations of phenomenology to empirical psychology is to be found in Zahavi (2010). 9  Part of the lectures are published in Brentano (1982). As regards Husserl’s knowledge of these lectures, I rely on Rollinger (1999, 22). 10  Husserl (1984, 24 n. 1, trans. Findlay, 176). 11  Husserl (1984, 23.15–16, trans. Findlay, 175). See also the similar passages in Husserl’s “Entwurf einer Vorrede zur zweiten Auflage der Logischen Untersuchungen” (Husserl 2002b). 12  The expression comes from de Boer (1978). 13  Husserl (1962, 39.14–17). 14  Fréchette (2012). For a detailed analysis of these lectures, see also Lavigne (2005). 15  Husserl (2001, 78).

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Thus, phenomenology is about “ideas” or “essences of experience” (Erlebnis-­ Idee, Erlebnis-Wesen or -Essenz) and their relations. This is to be contrasted with empirical psychology, which turns its inquiries toward experiences “in space, time and individual consciousness” and restricts itself to a determinate natural kind, e.g. the “natural-historical species human being.”16 In a letter to Theodor Lipps written in 1904, Husserl affirms that phenomenology is not about an “I” (Ich), that is, an empirical “objective thing-like reality,” nor merely about humans.17 In 1905, in his lectures on judgment, in the so-called “Vorlesung E,” Husserl talks of his project as a “description of essences” (Wesensdeskription) and renounces the label “descriptive psychology.”18 The difference between “phenomenology” and “psychology,” Husserl says, is “a nuance, but a nuance of fundamental importance.”19 However, despite the change of name (which as such holds little interest), the project and the “nuance” on which it is based are quite similar to the 1902–1903 lectures: phenomenology treats “experience” independently of its relation to an “individual and accidental (zufälligen) subject,” may this subject be “the mystical substance of the soul” or any other sort of “objective unity” or “individual bearer” giving to the experience “its objective time-position and indirectly its spatial position” (due to its connexion to a body).20 Besides, phenomenology, in contrast to empirical psychology, has no particular interest for a specific natural kind such as human being.21 Note that Husserl’s attacks on the psychology of the “I” would mutatis mutandis hold for a psychology where experiences are not individuated by a subject, but are compresent tropes deprived of any bearer. Indeed, what Husserl wants in this context is to contrast his own eidetic inquiries with the study of empirical, and thus individual, experiences, no matter how one explains the individuation of the latter. This seems to be clear in view of Husserl’s later attacks against empirical psychology, where he explicitly targets not only the old-fashioned “psychology of the soul,” but also the more modern “psychology of psychic phenomena,” a formula which strongly recalls Brentano’s Psychology, which does not presuppose the existence of the soul.22 Husserl’s own analyses posit no empirical item, whether it be the property of a bearer or a trope.23 As Husserl says in the Ideen I: Phenomenology only drops the individuation, but elevates the whole essential content, in the fullness of its concretion, into eidetic consciousness and takes it as an ideally identical

 Husserl (2001, 78 and 191–193).  Husserl (1993a, 124.34–35 and 125.24–25), quoted and discussed in Fréchette (2012). 18  Husserl (2002a, 42). For the dating of this lecture, see Schuhmann (2002, XIII). 19  Husserl (2002a, 43). 20  Husserl (2002a, 43 and 45). 21  Husserl (2002a, 43–44). 22  See Brentano (1924–1925, I.16): psychology is about “psychic phenomena” and “without a soul.” 23  See Husserl (1977, 3.1–9.20, 1984, 23.5–24.3), as well as (1986a, 23.27–29 and 33.29–34.11). Lavigne (2005) insists on the fact that empirical psychology, for Husserl, is a psychology which posits individual experiences, regardless of whether they come with or without a substantial bearer. On these questions, see also Moran (2000, 182–183). 16 17

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In sum, drawing on a Humean distinction, Husserl pretends not to be interested in “matter of facts,” but only in “relations of ideas.”25 Phenomenology and empirical psychology do not only differ in regards to their object—essences of consciousness vs existing experiences—but also in regards to both their acquisition and their epistemic value. These two last points are mainly developed in Husserl’s lectures on the theory of knowledge of 1902–1903 and 1906–1907. Phenomenology is built on “general intuition”: it is a direct grasping of “essential laws,” or “ideal laws,” and the cognition of these laws has “absolute certainty” (absolute Gewissheit). Thus, phenomenology is an “a priori” science. Note that among a priori propositions, Husserl distinguishes “analytic” and “synthetic” ones. Despite the Kantian terminology, Husserl’s distinction between the analytic and the synthetic is not about propositions in which the predicate is included in the subject vs propositions in which this is not the case. As stated by P. Simons: According to Husserl, analytic propositions are those whose truth-value remains unchanged when all material concepts (concepts with content) occurring in them are varied arbitrarily, holding only the formal concepts constant.26

This is the case in logic, but not in phenomenology, whose truth-values depend on specific material concepts: presentation, judgment, emotion, and so forth. The a priori status of phenomenology is to be contrasted with empirical psychology. The latter, as a natural science, is based on experience and is “theoretical inductive”: it is interested in “natural laws,” which are gained by induction, and their cognition cannot be more than a “presumption” (Vermutung). Indeed, empirical general statements have a greater or lesser “likelihood” (Wahrscheinlichkeit), and this is the best they can get.27 To that extent, psychology is not better than meteorology or other natural sciences: (…) we know that even the most exact and developed natural sciences, like mechanics, astronomy, theoretical physics, and chemistry, can never provide absolute security and that their whole theory are based on fundamental laws which in fact have the character of hypotheses, hypotheses, however, which are only very enormously likely and which, thanks to countless deductions and verifications, are based on such a large fundament of experience that no rational person can reject them.28

Husserl clarifies the contrast between eidetic intuition and inductive cognition with an example. Take the arithmetic law “a+1  =  1+a.” This law is given “all at once” as having “unconditioned validity and certainty.” It is not established through an induction in which one goes from cases like “2+1  =  1+2,” “3+1  =  1+3,”  Husserl (1977, 157.2–7, trans. Kersten, 168, slightly modified).  Husserl (1986a, 33.36 and 34.23). 26  Simons (1992, 371–372). The locus classicus for the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions is Husserl (1984, 258.25–261.5). 27  See notably Husserl (2001, 47–48, 206–209 and 213), as well as (1993a, 122.26 and 127.37). 28  Husserl (2001, 208). 24 25

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“4+1 = 1+4” to the law, nor is one presuming that there is a great likelihood that things may continue in that manner: there is just no question that a could be replaced by another number and the law not hold, and thinking it would be a “non-sens” (Widersinn). By contrast, in empirical sciences, such absurdity is absent: the negation of the “law of gravitation” does not strike one as “unthinkable” (undenkbar) like “2+2 = 5.”29 How do these epistemological contrasts work, precisely, in the context of psychological inquiries? The issue is quite controversial, but Husserl’s Logical Investigations, notably the Vth and the VIth, have been read by some scholars as already containing eidetic analyses.30 Thus, these texts might help illustrate what a non-empirical psychology amounts to. For example, Husserl claims that every intentional act is divided into two abstract parts, namely a “quality” (Qualität) and a “matter” (Materie). The quality, or mode, is what makes of the act a presentation, a judgment etc., whereas the matter, or content, is what is responsible for the act’s being directed toward such and such an object or state of affairs. For example, in the act of ‘judging that there are equilateral triangles,’ ‘judging’ is the quality, and ‘that there are equilateral triangles’ is the matter. Now, as Husserl says, a quality, e.g. of a judgment, without a matter makes no sense, i.e. it is in the judgement’s essence to be intentional and, thus, to have a matter, just as a matter without a quality is “unthinkable” (undenkbar).31 And exactly as in the case of an arithmetic proposition, one does not need to check a series of intentional acts in order to reach by induction the quality/matter (or mode/content) distinction, nor does one expect to meet once an intentional act deprived of one of these two aspects. The fact that intentional acts are made up of quality and matter seems to be more than likely. And this holds for every thinking being having intentional acts, not just for humans. Even if one thinks that Husserl’s inquiries in the Logical Investigations are not yet fully eidetic, it is nonetheless clear that he adopts and develops this position in his subsequent lectures, notably in regards to logical thought. Indeed, as Husserl says in his 1902–1903 lectures, conceptual presentations, judgements, and all logical operations like conjunction, disjunction, as well as deduction, have essential features, and every thinking being which is thinking logically must instantiate these features.32 As is also affirmed in the famous 1903 Elsenhans review, this allows for a non-psychologistic correlation between acts of thinking and logic, i.e. a 29  Husserl (1985, 47–51). Husserl does not say what he exactly means by the law of gravitation, except that it is “Newtonian” (see Husserl 2001, 22). He is probably thinking of the formula F = Gm1m2/r2 stemming from Newton (1972). 30  See e.g. Ströker (1997, 129) and Mohanty (2008, 149). Fisette (2010, 249) holds that Husserl’s rejection of “descriptive psychology” after the Logical Investigations is a mere “mise au point” intended to clarify some misunderstandings in the interpretation of phenomenology. Moran (2000) follows a similar path, talking of a “clarification” and “refinement” of the task of phenomenology. A less continuist reading is found e.g. in Lavigne (2005). Seron (2017) holds that in the first edition of the Logical Investigations, Husserl is not ready to talk about “a priori psychology”, because he thinks that “psychology” refers to an inductive science. 31  On all this, see Husserl (1984, 425.20–431.3). 32  See Husserl (2001, 76–77, 188, 191).

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correlation which does not assimilate the laws of logic with the psychology of a given natural kind: to the ideal realm of logic, i.e. concepts, propositions, syllogisms, taken as such corresponds an eidetic realm of acts of thinking, conceptual presentations, judgments, deductions, and so on.33 Similarly, in arithmetic, there is only one mental process for addition, one for subtraction, one for multiplication etc., regardless of whether the counting beings are humans, angels, devils, gods, or even trees (assuming that trees can count): what would it mean to say e.g. that there are two different arithmetic operations for counting “2+2 = 4”?

Husserl’s Later Developments in Psychology Husserl maintained the core of his eidetic psychological program throughout his works. The eidetic inquiries will be called “phenomenological psychology,”34 to be contrasted not only with empirical psychology, but also with transcendental phenomenology, Husserl’s later idealist position according to which consciousness “constitutes” reality, and which he also takes to be revolutionary in the history of psychology. Husserl’s later views are already mentioned in his 1913 Ideas I,35 but are most clearly presented in his lectures on “phenomenological psychology” held during the 1920s. In these lectures, Husserl makes some clarifications regarding his understanding of “natural sciences”: now, he clearly distinguishes a priori natural sciences—e.g. geometry, the a priori science of space, and kinematics, the a priori science of movement—from empirical-inductive natural sciences. The a priori natural sciences fix the limits of all possible natural worlds.36 In that sense, although not empirical sciences, they are still sciences of the world (in its possibility). Similarly, phenomenological psychology is the a priori science of every possible mundane psychic being. In that sense, although not empirical-inductive, it is a science of the world as well (again, in its possibility). Yet following the line of thought of his early writings, Husserl maintains that phenomenological psychology is an eidetic and a priori science, and is to be contrasted with empirical psychology.37 To be sure, Husserl introduces many changes in his later philosophy which are not of minor importance for the comprehension of eidetic psychology. It has been

 Husserl (1979a). Husserl himself does not use the word “correlation” in this text, but I do it following Scanlon (2001, 10), who employs it in commenting on the same topic in the Logical Investigations. 34  I take this claim to be not much polemical, since it is made not only by Husserl himself (see e.g. 1986a, 36 n. 1, and 1962, 37.17–39.17), but is also admitted by a great number of his interpreters, e.g. Kockelmans (1994, 44) and Welton (2000, 67). However, contra, see De Boer (1978, 208). 35  See Husserl (1977, 160.7–161.7). 36  See Husserl (1962, 43.34–38). 37  On all this, see Husserl (1962, 46.10–51.8). For a discussion of Husserl’s late views concerning the distinction between empirical psychology and transcendental phenomenology, see also Husserl (1974, 157.1–183.37). 33

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argued that in Husserl’s later theory of eidetic intuition, cognition of essences is not made “all at once,” but is akin to an inductive process, although not based on empirical, but rather on possible instances, since it proceeds out of a variation of cases which are produced by the imagination.38 Moreover, Husserl holds that some objects of inquiry in phenomenology—apparently the most specific kinds of mental act— are vague, and correspondingly that their essences are not exact but “morphological”, as he calls them: for example, there is no sharp boundary between seeing-red and seeing-orange (due to the fact that red and orange are themselves vague); by contrast, seeing and hearing, which are less specific kinds of mental act, are sharply distinguished.39 Besides, Husserl, in the course of his development, will bipolarize his phenomenological investigations. Every intentional act, or “noesis,” entails a “noetico-noematic” correlation, i.e. every intentional act has as its correlate a “noema”, an “intentional object,” which is consciousness-dependent. On this basis, Husserl widens the scope of phenomenology in order to describe not only the structure of mental acts, but also their different kinds of objectual correlates. This is a notable change compared to the Logical Investigations, where phenomenology was reserved for the analysis of the act-pole of consciousness, not the object-pole.40 However, despite these changes, the core idea of the epistemology of psychology is the same: there is a strict contrast to be made between empirical and eidetic psychology. The former concerns the mental life of some existing natural kind, whereas the latter is about essences of consciousness, including vague ones, and thus holds for every psychic being whatsoever. Before discussing his criticism of Brentano, it is worth mentioning the last, important change in Husserl’s later philosophy, which directly concerns the frontiers between empirical and eidetic psychological inquiries. The change concerns genetic psychology. This discipline studies not the structure of mental acts as such, but rather the causal or motivational relations leading to the appearance and disappearance of these acts. The earlier Husserl seems to think that all genetic inquiries in psychology are empirical and based on induction. This holds both for psychophysiological genesis, e.g. the laws regulating the stimulation of perceptual organs, and for strictly psychological genesis, e.g. the laws of formation of habits or of association of ideas.41 However, Husserl clearly changes his mind on this point. Indeed, in his later works, he claims that there are also eidetic laws for psychological genesis. For example, as regards “immediate association,” Husserl affirms that it is essential to it that a relation of similarity holds between “what awakens” and “what is awakened,” and that cases of “mediated association,” that is of association between things which are “foreign in terms of content” (inhaltlich fremd), are  Hardy (1992, 30), basing himself on Husserl (1962, 72.14–87.24) and on the interpretation of Ströker (1997, 45–81). 39  On this, see Husserl (1971, 156.11–158.30), as well as (1986b, 234.34–235.24), quoted in Sowa (2004, 559b). 40  For a systematic discussion of the notion of “noema”, see Husserl (1977). On this enlargement of phenomenology, see among others Drummond (2008, 200). 41  See e.g. Husserl (2001, 204–207, 2002a, 46 and 1985, 49). 38

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impossible without an intermediary awakening through resemblance. For example, if, during a conversation, one suddenly thinks of a marine landscape, one may later realise that a similar conversation was once held in front of the landscape in q­ uestion. According to Husserl, these considerations regarding immediate and mediated associations pick out “essential laws” (Wesensgesetze).42 Thus, in the context of genetic phenomenology, one can proceed to “experimentations” which are “not inductive-objective.”43

Husserl on Brentano But what is Brentano’s exact role in this story? Husserl’s position with respect to his teacher is somewhat ambiguous. He often praises him for having opened the path toward phenomenology, notably in reference to Brentano’s “rediscovery” of the key notion of intentionality and its use as the mark of the mental, i.e. as the distinguishing feature of so-called “psychic phenomena,” by contrast to “physical phenomena.”44 Occasionally, Husserl even suggests that Brentano’s psychology contains some eidetic inquiries.45 However, when Husserl makes such claims, he immediately adds that Brentano, in the final analysis, did not follow the eidetic path. A clear confirmation of this is found in a passage of the lectures on phenomenological psychology, where Husserl, after having presented his eidetic project, says: There had not been a single actual beginning of a phenomenological a priori psychology and no notion even of its possibility. That holds also for Brentano.46

Indeed, what Husserl often claims about Brentano is that his psychology was an empirical science, based on inner experience and that restricted itself to the study of an existing natural kind, i.e. human being.47 Already in a letter to Natorp in 1897, Husserl says of his anti-psychologistic project that it is opposed to Brentano’s approach.48 One way to solve Husserl’s apparent inconsistency regarding Brentano’s psychology is proposed by Husserl himself, in a passage in Ideas III, where he affirms that although some of Brentano’s inquiries were eidetic, this move remained “unnoticed” (unvermerkt).49 So, maybe Husserl’s point is that Brentano, even when he was doing eidetic psychology, was not aware of it.

 Husserl (1966, 121.34–123.28). On this text, and more broadly on association in Husserl, see Holenstein (1972, 22–25). 43  Husserl (1966, 150.39), quoted in Schmicking (2010, 49). 44  This refers above all to Brentano (1924–1925). 45  See notably Husserl (1986a, 20.1–30 and 1962, 31.1–33.6 and 353.28–354.28). 46  Husserl (1962, 39.14–17, trans. Scanlon, 28). 47  See e.g. Husserl (1962, 246.37–247.23, 267.37–269.10, 309.15–29 and 350.1–351.5). 48  Husserl (1993b, 43.8–32). 49  Husserl (1971, 61.23–62.3, trans. Klein and Pohl, 53). 42

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Is Husserl right about Brentano? Husserlians usually answer yes. Strikingly, they sometimes do not even mention Brentano when speaking of Husserl’s “descriptive” program.50 However, the correct answer seems rather to be no: Brentano was indeed doing eidetic-like psychology, and he was aware of it. In the upcoming section, I will present Brentano’s views on these topics, and point out the similarities that they have with Husserl’s position.

3  A Defence of Brentano Brentano’s Epistemology In his writings on epistemology, notably in his logic lectures given in Vienna around 1870, and then more thoroughly in a posthumous text of 1903,51 but also in his lectures on descriptive psychology or “phenomenology” held in Vienna around 1890, Brentano distinguishes empirical and definitional knowledge. The former is about existing things, whereas the latter is concerned with “the necessity or impossibility of a unification of certain elements.”52 Referring to Hume, Brentano holds that empirical knowledge is about “facts” (Tatsachen), whereas definitional knowledge is about “relations” (Verhältnisse).53 In contrast to empirical knowledge, definitional knowledge grasps what Brentano calls “axioms,” i.e. “truths immediately clear from themselves.”54 Axioms are divided in different types. Definitions, e.g. “water is a body,” are the first kind. They are based on the principle of non-contradiction: it would be contradictory for something to be water and not to be a body. Brentano also counts among axioms “propositions of positive opposition,” e.g. “that something straight is not curved,” “that something slow is not fast,” “that something blue is not yellow.”55 Moreover, he also admits axioms based on the principle of excluded middle. These are disjunctions of contradictory propositions: e.g. “either a exists or a does not exist.”56 The knowledge of axioms is a priori, analytic, apodictic, and evident. As regards definitions, they are indeed known a priori, i.e. one grasps them simply by reflecting on the “object” or “content” of concepts, not by being acquainted with any fact.57 As Brentano says, definitions come “from the concepts  See Sokolowski (1983) or Natanson (1984).  Brentano (2011), dated in Rollinger (2011), and “Nieder mit den Vorurteilen!,” included in 1970, 1–141, dated by the editor A.  Kastil. See also the texts gathered by Kastil in Brentano (1929), which, however, mainly focus on the proof of the existence of God. Note that Kastil’s editorial work is often not reliable, for example in Brentano (1933), where he takes some liberties with Brentano’s manuscripts. I will compare Kastil’s editions to the manuscripts, and give the exact reference of the folios. Unless otherwise specified, the editions follow Brentano’s original texts. 52  See Brentano (1982, 28 and 73), as well as (1970, 51) (EL 47, n°10502). 53  Brentano (1970, 50) (EL 47, n°10501). 54  Brentano (2011, 137). 55  Brentano (1970, 9) (EL 47, n°10437). 56  Brentano (2011, 217 and 224). 57  Brentano (1970, 50) (EL 47, n°10499–10500). 50 51

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themselves” and are grasped “all at once.”58 Knowledge of definitions is analytic, in the sense that such a knowledge is directed toward “the object of a concept composed of a plurality of concepts” and is an “actual grasping of the parts as contained in the whole of the concept.”59 Note that Brentano rejects the Kantian class of “synthetic a priori” judgments and, thus, admits only analytic a priori ones. The knowledge of axioms is given with absolute certainty, i.e. it is “evident.” Finally, it is apodictic: e.g. of all necessity, water is a body.60 The truth of definitions is independent of existence. In order to make it clear that “water is a body” is true independently of the existence of water, Brentano suggests translating the proposition in a hypothetical way: “if there is water, it must be a body.”61 However, this hypothetical statement, in the final analysis, has to be understood in a negative manner. Indeed, Brentano tries to be parsimonious in his philosophy, including in his theory of modes of intentionality. To that extent, he claims that what one is doing when one judges hypothetically “if there is water, it must be a body” is a judgement with a double negation, namely: “water which is not a body is impossible,” i.e. is not possible.62 Thus, in the final analysis, the “necessity (…) of unification of certain elements” mentioned above is understood in terms of an impossibility of non-unification. Brentano’s parsimony forbids him to posit essences. However, it is clear that his definitional knowledge is—let us say—“eidetic-like”: Brentano himself affirms that his definitions are about the “nature” (Natur) of the objects or contents of concepts.63 Whereas definitions come “from the concepts themselves,” empirical knowledge is acquired through “inductive generalization.”64 This kind of knowledge uses perception in order “to register observations of the same kind and to determine on this basis what is common to them as a general fact.” To that extent, it is a posteriori.65 Interestingly, according to Brentano, in contrast to axioms, which are known with evidence, inductive knowledge leads at best to “likelihood” (Wahrscheinlichkeit).66 As Brentano puts it: There are judgments whose truth, and others whose falsehood, is known with certainty. But also such judgments were none of both is proven. We then say that one and the other is possible (thinkable).67

Note that, for Brentano, “induction” may have two meanings. “Induction in the strict sense” refers to generalization based on commonalities in observations.  Brentano (1982, 28 and 73), as well as (1921, 82), quoted in Kraus (1924, XVIII).  Brentano (1970, 47 and 51) (EL 47, n°10495 and 10502), my addition. 60  Brentano (1970, 51) (EL 47, n°10502). 61  Brentano (1970, 9 and 50) (EL 47, n°10435–10436 and 10501). 62  See Brentano (1970, 9) (EL 47, n°10436) as well as Marty (1940, 131). 63  Brentano (1970, 62) (EL 47, n°10527). On both the proximity with Husserl, and the distinction as regards the positing of essences, see Marek (1986, 222), Rollinger (1999, 25) and Mulligan (2017, 91). 64  Brentano (1982, 28 and 73). 65  Brentano (1970, 49) (EL 47, n°10499–10500). 66  See notably Brentano (1970, 77) (EL 47, n°10554–10555). 67  Brentano (1970, 77) (EL 47, n°10555). Kastil adds “with certainty” after “is proven.” 58 59

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However, one can also talk of “induction in a broad sense,” in order to refer to every kind of knowledge that presupposes experience. Now, Brentano himself defends “conceptual empiricism” (Begriffsempirismus), i.e. the claim that all concepts are acquired thanks to perception, or that there are no innate concepts.68 But in that case, even the grasping of definitions via the analysis of concepts, although given “all at once,” may still be labelled as “induction,” since it requires some perceptual input at its very basis: one cannot judge “it is impossible for a red thing not to be coloured” if one never perceived something red. Thus, if one wants to use “induction” in such a sense, i.e. “in the broad sense,” then even definitional knowledge would be inductive, or a posteriori and empirical, i.e. based on experience. However, this is not the way Brentano himself talks of “induction.” He uses the term only “in the strict sense,” so that he can still distinguish a priori from a posteriori or empirical knowledge.69 This broad sense of “induction” invites us to follow Mulligan in qualifying Brentano’s definitional knowledge as “inductive intuition,” a notion also applied by Mulligan to Husserl’s eidetic intuition.70 As a matter of fact, it is striking how much of Husserl’s epistemology draws on Brentanian material when distinguishing eidetic knowledge and empirical knowledge. This concerns their objects, the former being existent-independent, and the latter about existing things, their acquisition, the former being intuitive, and the latter inductive, and their epistemic value, the former having absolute certainty, the latter leading at best to likelihood.

Brentano on Psychology Where should we place the different sciences, including psychology, in this Brentanian framework? In his texts on epistemology, both from 1870 and 1903, Brentano holds that arithmetic and geometry are a priori sciences, thus taking them to be concerned with absolute certainties. These disciplines are contrasted with empirical sciences, which are concerned with mere likelihoods. However, in natural sciences, the degree of likelihood is usually very high, up to what Brentano calls “infinite likelihood,” so that one can talk of “certainty”: not “absolute certainty,” but “physical certainty.” This holds e.g. for the laws of chemistry and mechanics.71 In his lectures on descriptive psychology, Brentano  On this theory, see Chrudzimski (2001).  On these two senses of induction, see notably Brentano (1970, 49–50 and 74) (EL 47, n°10499–10500 and 10550). These are discussed by Marek (1986) and especially (1989). 70  See again Mulligan (2017). The notion of “inductive intuition” comes from Johnson (1921–1924). On the comparison between Brentano and Johnson, see also Marek (1989). 71  Brentano (2011, 46–51 and 248–270), as well as (1970, 68–95) (EL 47, n°10539–10587). As an example of infinite likelihood, one finds in Brentano (1929, 136), the case of someone throwing a cone in the air and claiming that it will not stay on its point after its fall: the prediction is not absolutely certain, but so likely that no one would expect the opposite. The manuscript, ms. Th 31, n°80653, contains only the sentence “illustration with the case of the falling cone” with a marginal drawing of a cone staying on its point. The detailed explanation of the example in Brentano (1929) is due to Kastil. 68 69

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puts mathematics and mechanics on par as “exact sciences,” and contrasts them with meteorology, which is said to be “inexact,” as stated by its regular use of adverbs like “often,” “most of the time,” “on average.”72 Such adverbs, says Brentano, are not used in mechanics when one talks of the law of inertia. A comparison between these last affirmations and Brentano’s texts on epistemology seems to entail that Brentano contrasts sciences that have “certainty,” may it be “absolute,” e.g. as in mathematics, or “physical,” e.g. as in mechanics, with sciences deprived of certainty, e.g. as in meteorology. As regards psychology, Brentano claims that it may be either “exact” or “inexact,” depending on whether one is talking of descriptive or genetic psychology. The first discipline studies the structure of mental acts and their mutual logical-ontological dependencies. By contrast, genetic psychology studies the causal relations that explain the appearance and disappearance of psychic phenomena. This second discipline is above all psychophysical, but contains also merely psychical studies, notably in regards to “association of ideas.”73 As for descriptive psychology, it is wholly free of “physical-chemical” considerations: it studies consciousness as it is given from the point of view of inner experience. Note that this is what Brentano means when he talks of a psychology made “from an empirical standpoint”: he does not proceed to experimentations in laboratories, but rather to inquiries which have their starting point in inner experience. However, this does not imply that his psychology is empirical in the sense criticized by Husserl, i.e. that it consists of inductive and probabilistic knowledge about the mental life of an existing natural kind. In the abovementioned lectures, Brentano briefly presents his epistemological position on psychology. He holds that the psychologist, after having adequately noticed the phenomena that he wants to study, must proceed to “induction” or “inductive generalization.” Significantly, however, Brentano also affirms that apart from induction, the psychologist also acquires knowledge “from the concepts themselves.”74 In other words, Brentano distinguishes empirical and definitional psychology. As an example of inductive generalization, he mentions the thesis that quality and localisation are overlapping, or “mutually pervading,” for every coloured point in the perceptual field.75 As for psychological knowledge that emerges from the concepts themselves, he mentions the thesis that “the peculiarity of evidence is not to be found anywhere outside of judgments.”76 In his texts on epistemology, Brentano gives as an example of definitional knowledge in psychology: “that there is no third quality for judgments apart from acknowledgement and rejection.”77 And none of these theses is meant to be restricted to human

 See notably Brentano (1982, 1–5).  Brentano (1982, 4). 74  Brentano (1982, 28, trans. Müller, 31). 75  Brentano (1982, 72, trans. Müller, 74). 76  Brentano (1982, 73, trans. Müller, 75). 77  Brentano (1970, 62) (EL 47, n°10527). 72 73

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judgment, or indeed to judgment as it is found in another existing species; rather, they concern judgment as such, independently of its instantiation by this or that natural kind. As a matter of fact, Brentano affirms that animals seem to have “evident judgments” and he does not say that their evident judgments and ours would somehow be of a different nature.78 Besides, in his Psychology, in discussing the thesis of the unity of consciousness, he holds that one could admit a plurality of impermeable consciousnesses living in the same body with their respective psychic phenomena. The examples he gives are those of a human being “possessed by one of those evil spirits whose exorcisms are so frequently reported in the Scriptures” and of a reef of coral, where “countless little animals” have “simultaneous mental phenomena” which “do not form a real unity.”79 Thus, if there is a unity of consciousness, it applies in the same way to humans and to corals. Finally, one finds explicit combinations of the eidetic-like nature of some theses and their non-human scope. Indeed, Brentano holds of some psychological statements that they cannot be empirically restricted to human beings, since this would entail an absurdity: So, we can say determinately that it is not just for us human beings due to fortuitous circumstances, but in general that a hybrid quality composed, so to speak, half of sound and half of colour is impossible. Whoever affirms this affirms an absurdity.80

To be sure, Brentano’s example of inductive generalization in descriptive psychology is quite unfortunate: does one merely know through induction that in colour perception, quality and localisation overlap? Isn’t it rather a kind of a priori knowledge? Would it make sense to say the following: “it is highly likely that for colours, quality and localisation overlap, but there may be cases where it does not happen”? Thus, Brentano seemingly fails to give a good example of inductive generalization in descriptive psychology. Yet he clearly thinks that there is inductive knowledge in descriptive psychology.81 Both such induction and definitional knowledge are “exact,” but probably with the following addition: the certainty of inductive descriptive psychology equates “physical certainty,” whereas definitional descriptive psychology has “absolute certainty.” Thus, what one finds in Brentano’s lectures is akin to what Husserl defends in his eidetic phenomenology. Indeed, for Brentano, if there is a judgment, then it is either  Brentano (1982, 37).  Brentano (1924–1925, I.232–233, trans. Rancurello, Terrell, McAlister, I.127). 80  Brentano, ms. Ps 76, n°58257: “Somit können wir mit Bestimmtheit sagen, dass nicht bloß bei uns Menschen infolge zufälliger Umstände, sondern überhaupt eine Zwitterqualität, die sozusagen halb Ton halb Farbe wäre, unmöglich ist. Wer dies behauptet, behauptete eine Absurdität.” This is an unpublished passage from Brentano’s (1887–1888) lectures on descriptive psychology. 81  One way to solve the problem would be to say that Brentano speaks of “induction” only in the sense of “abstraction” or “generalization.” However, this seems to be ruled out by his claim (1982, 71) that descriptive psychology engages in “inductive generalization”—note that he does not say simply “generalization”—and that to this extent, it behaves like all other “inductive sciences”, which are here most probably opposed to sciences which generalize, or abstract, without induction. For discussion of these problematic passages, see also Marek (1989, esp. 58–59). 78 79

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affirmative or negative, regardless of whether it is made by a human being or another kind of thinking being, for example a coral. As a matter of fact, it is in the very nature of judgment itself to have this structure, and this is clear from considering its concept. In other words, Brentano does proceed to eidetic-like inquiries in descriptive psychology, and, contrary to what Husserl seems to hold, he is aware of it. One of the most famous eidetic-like Brentanian theses of descriptive psychology is already found in Brentano’s Psychology, namely: “Nothing can be judged, nor desired, nor hoped or feared which was not first presented.” Already at that time, Brentano seemed to be aware of the eidetic-like character of the claim, since he adds that love without a presented object strikes us as “immediately absurd” or “contradictory.”82 Husserl himself discusses this thesis at length in his Logical Investigations, and he never treats it as empirical.83 It is also true, however, that although Brentano is aware that he is doing eidetic-like research in descriptive psychology and that the results of his inquiries do not hold only for human beings, he does not emphasize, in contrast to Husserl, that these results are not restricted to humans, nor does he take care to strictly distinguish empirical and eidetic-like inquiries in his books or lectures (for example, in distinct chapters or lectiones). What about “genetic psychology”? Brentano takes it to be inexact; and according to his psychology lectures, this holds not only for psychophysical studies, e.g. those on the “stimulation of a retinal part by a light-ray of a certain frequency,” but also for merely psychical ones, e.g. those on “association of ideas.”84 Since definitional knowledge is exact, genetic psychology seems to be excluded from its domain, being fully inductive and empirical. However, one could wonder if all Brentanian inquiries into genetic psychology are empirical. Indeed, in Marty’s unpublished lectures on genetic psychology, which were meant to be Brentanian in spirit (Marty is known as Brentano’s most faithful pupil),85 one finds discussions which do not really resemble empirical considerations. More precisely, when entering the debate regarding the number of laws of association, and the question of the reduction of one law to another, Marty makes some claims that seem a priori. For example, he affirms that the law of causality, which is admitted by Hume as a law of association, has nothing to do with association of ideas: indeed, causality is a relation, and correlatives are thought together on the basis of “mutual inference,” whereas association is not inferential.86 Perhaps one could say that the Brentanians were taking a non-empirical path in genetic psychology without being aware of it, and that Husserl was the first to point it out explicitly in his own genetic researches. Thus, Husserl’s attacks against the Brentanians would be right in regards to genetic psychology.

 Brentano (1924–1925, I.112 and 225).  Husserl (1984, 441.1–519.32). 84  Brentano (1982, 4–5, trans. Müller, 6). 85  On these lectures, see Rollinger (2014). 86  See Marty (1889, 71–80). 82 83

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Brentanians on Brentano The fact that Brentano’s descriptive psychology is eidetic-like was frequently emphasised by his most faithful students, above all in the Prague branch of the School, by Anton Marty, Oskar Kraus and Alfred Kastil, two students of Marty, and Georg Katkov, a student of Kraus, but also in Berlin, by Husserl’s own Habilitation supervisor Carl Stumpf.87 In some passages discussed by Husserl in the second edition of his Logical Investigations,88 Marty defends the view that Brentanian psychology contains a priori knowledge in psychology. As he affirms: (…) it is clear from the analysis of concepts that there can be no judgment without something judged which is at the same time presented, and no interest without something in which some interest is found which is at the same time presented or also judged (…).89

Now, as Marty states, this knowledge presupposes experiences in the sense that the concepts out of which it is gained come from experience. However, “the aprioricity of some given judgments does not need to have anything to do with the aprioricity of the concepts or presentations out of the analysis of which these a priori insights are gained.”90 Kraus emphasises that Brentano’s descriptive psychology is made without any consideration about a “soul substance,” and that Husserl’s attacks against empirical psychology understood as a psychology of the soul cannot concern Brentano.91 This point has also recently been defended by G. Fréchette, who holds that the attacks of Husserl were probably directed against Lipps.92 To be sure, in his Psychology, Brentano insists that he is doing a “psychology without a soul.”93 Yet Husserl could answer that the rejection of the “soul” does not transform an empirical psychology into an eidetic one, if one substitutes to the “soul account” a “trope account” of psychic phenomena, or indeed any other theory of individuation of these phenomena, as long as one is talking of individual and, thus, empirical phenomena. However, as Kraus also underscores, Brentano’s descriptive psychology clearly contains eidetic-like inquiries: The task of descriptive psychology as it has been first formulated by Brentano has neither something to do with the “now,” nor with the “here,” but is fully general, and as such negative-­a priori-apodictic.94

 On the influence of Brentanian eidetic-like psychological inquiries on subsequent psychological research, see Mulligan (2017). 88  See Husserl (1984, 349.19–350.2). Marty’s book has also been reviewed by Husserl (1979b). 89  Marty (1908, 57–58). 90  Marty (1908, 57 n. 1), who refers to Hume. 91  Kraus (1937, 240). 92  Fréchette (2012). 93  Brentano (1924–1925, I.16). 94  Kraus (1937, 241). See also Kraus (1924, XVII–XVIII). 87

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Kraus goes probably too far, since Brentano himself, in his 1890–1891 lectures, admits inductive inquiries in descriptive psychology, although the example of induction he gives is not very telling. Yet Kraus emphasises that a statement like “nothing can be judged which was not first presented” is not empirical, and that Brentano was aware of this already in the Psychology.95 Besides, Kraus insists on the fact that definitional knowledge is acquired by analysing concepts which themselves come from experience, but that this does not yet make of this knowledge itself an empirical one: it is not an “induction out of a plurality of individual facts.”96 As Kastil puts it very clearly: does not furnish a mere factual knowledge (Tatsachenerkenntnis), since from the distinct grasping of the objects of inner consciousness, we arrive to the structural laws of psychognosy not by taking the road of inductive generalisation, but all at once, without any danger of being refuted by newly appearing cases.97

A similar defence is to be found in Katkov, who writes not directly against Husserl, but rather against Paul Linke, a student of Lipps and member of the Munich Phenomenologist.98 According to Katkov, the eidetic program found in phenomenology is not different from Brentano’s descriptive psychology, with the exception that Brentano does not need to posit essences of psychic phenomena in order to make definitional statements. Indeed, according to Katkov, the admission of essences makes one guilty of “multiplicatio praeter necessitatem,” and Brentano is free of it.99 As for Stumpf, he also objects to Husserl that Brentanians were indeed proceeding to eidetic-like psychology.100 Stumpf provides an open list of definitional theses in Brentano: (…) that representations are at the basis of all mental acts, that every act is directed toward a primary and a secondary object (itself), and indeed toward itself in three ways, presenting, judging with evidence and loving or hating etc.101

And Stumpf insists that this kind of statement is not acquired thanks to induction (in the strict sense), which leads at best to “likelihood.”102 In a rather sarcastic manner, he stresses that, contrary to what Husserl thinks, Brentanians were not merely interested in “the inner experiences of Johann Nepomuk Oberniedermaier born in  Kraus (1924, XVIII).  Kraus (1934, 96–97). 97  Kastil (1951, 30). 98  See Linke (1929). 99  Katkov (1930, 468–469). A similar point is found in Engel (1930), another student of Kraus, quoted in Kraus (1937, 240 n. 1). Both Kraus and Katkov’s texts are quoted in Dewalque (2017, 17 n. 1). For references to Kraus and Kastil on the presence of definitional knowledge in Brentano’s psychology, see Marek (1986, 225) and (1989, 57); as well, see the reference in Marek (1989, 58) to Hugo Bergmann (1966), another student of Marty who also defended this idea. 100  Stumpf (1939–1940, 194). 101  Stumpf (1939–1940, 182–183). 102  Stumpf (1939–1940, 183). 95 96

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Straubing in 1741.”103 However, Stumpf also adds that Husserl’s “merit” (Verdienst) was to insist on the importance of eidetic knowledge in contrast to empirical knowledge, not only in psychology but with respect to the sciences in general.104

4  Conclusion Husserl is comfortable with saying that his work has its origins in Brentano’s rediscovery of intentionality. He is less ready to admit that Brentano’s project in descriptive psychology has important similarities with his eidetic phenomenology. In Brentano’s Psychology and, more explicitly, in his psychology lectures from 1890 to 1891, one finds analyses of mental acts which are independent of empirical considerations. For example: judgments, as well as acts of loving and hating, cannot but have an underlying presentation; judgments have only two qualities, affirmation and negation; evidence belongs to judgments and to no other mental act etc. When Husserl holds that there is a “nuance” between his eidetic program and “descriptive psychology,” then he may be right in his criticism if he means Lipps’s or some similar psychology, but if he has Brentano’s in mind, then the attack seems largely unjustified. To be sure, in contrast to Husserl, Brentano does not insist on the non-­ human scope of his inquiries, nor does he carefully distinguish his empirical and his eidetic-like investigations in his books or lectures. However, he is aware that he is proceeding to eidetic-like research and that the results are not just about human beings. Certainly, Husserl’s objection are right concerning the matter of genetic psychology: Brentano and his followers have apparently missed the fact that there are also eidetic-like studies to be made in this domain. But with descriptive psychology, things seem to go the other way round: phenomenology has strong Brentanian origins. As recently stated by A. Dewalque, one should in fact “invert” the order of explanation: “instead of considering Brentano a mere precursor of Husserl, it would be more just to consider Husserl as an heir of the Brentanian philosophical project.”105 With respect to some of its most important insights, phenomenology is indeed descriptive psychology.106

 Stumpf (1939–1940, 194), quoted in Fisette (2015, 334).  Stumpf (1939–1940, 190). 105  Dewalque (2017, 17). A similar claim is made in Marek (1986, 222) and Rollinger (1999, 67). 106  This paper was presented in 2017 at an informal workshop organized by Lena Zuchowski at the University of Salzburg. I am grateful to the participants for their comments, especially to Johannes Brandl and Guillaume Fréchette. I also thank Denis Seron for his written remarks on an earlier draft. 103 104

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———. 1986b. Zur Kritik an Theodor Elsenhans und August Messer. Edith Steins Ausarbeitung. In Edmund Husserl. Aufsätze und Vorträge (1911-1921) (Husserliana XXV), ed. Thomas Nenon and Hans Reiner Sepp, 226–248. The Hague: Nijhoff. ———. 1987. Vorlesungen über Bedeutungslehre (Husserliana XXVI), ed. Ursula Panzer. The Hague: Nijhoff. ———. 1993a. Briefwechsel. Die Münchener Phänomenologen (Husserliana Dokumente III/2), ed. Karl Schuhmann. The Hague: Kluwer. ———. 1993b. Briefwechsel. Die Neukantianer (Husserliana Dokumente III/5), ed. Karl Schuhmann. The Hague: Kluwer. ———. 2001. Allgemeine Erkenntnistheorie (Husserliana, Materialien III), ed. Elisabeth Schuhmann. Dordrecht: Kluwer. ———. 2002a. Urteilstheorie (Husserliana, Materialien V), ed. Elisabeth Schuhmann. Dordrecht: Springer. ———. 2002b. Zwei Fragmente zum Entwurf einer Vorrede zur zweiten Auflage der Logischen Untersuchungen (September 1913). In Edmund Husserl. Logische Untersuchungen. Ergänzungsband. Erster Teil (Husserliana XX/1), ed. Ulrich Melle, 272–329. The Hague: Kluwer. Kastil, Alfred. 1951. Die Philosophie Franz Brentanos. Berne: Francke. Katkov, Georg. 1930. Bewußtsein, Gegenstand, Sachverhalt. Eine Brentanostudie. Archiv für die Gesamte Psychologie 75: 459–544. Kraus, Oskar. 1924. Einleitung des Herausgebers. In Franz Brentano. Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, ed. Oskar Kraus, XVII–XCIII. Leipzig: Meiner. ———. 1934. Das ‘apriori’ bei Kant. In Oskar Kraus. Wege und Abwege der Philosophie, 92–107. Prague: I. G. Calve’sche Universitäts-Buchhandlung Robert Lerche. ———. 1937. Die Werttheorien. Leipzig: Verlag Rudolf M. Rohrer. Linke, Paul. 1929. Grundfragen der Wahrnehmungslehre. 2nd ed. Munich: Reinhardt. Marty, Anton. 1908. Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie. Erster Band. Halle: Max Niemeyer. ———. 1940. Psyche und Sprachstruktur, Nachgelassene Schriften I aus “Untersuchungen”, ed. Otto Funke. Berne: Francke. ———. “Genetische Psychologie.” Sommersemester 1889. University of Prague. Notes of Carl Deetjen. Transcription by Malvine Husserl and Karl Schumann. Leuven: Husserl Nachlass, sign. Q 10. Newton, Isaac. 1972. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, ed. Alexandre Koyré and Ierome Bernard Cohen, 2 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press-Cambridge University Press. Stumpf, Carl. 1939–1940. Erkenntnislehre, 2 vols. Leipzig: J. A. Barth.

Other References de Boer, Theodor. 1978. The Development of Husserl’s Thought. The Hague: Nijhoff. Brück, Maria. 1933. Über das Verhältnis Edmund Husserls zu Franz Brentano. Würzburg: Triltsch. Chrudzimski, Arkadiusz. 2001. Intentionalitätstheorie beim frühen Brentano. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Dewalque, Arnaud. 2017. Présentation. In Franz Brentano. Psychologie descriptive, 7–62. Paris: Gallimard. Drummond, John J. 2008. The Transcendental and the Psychological. Husserl Studies 24: 193–204. Fisette, Denis. 2010. Descriptive Psychology and Natural Sciences: Husserl’s Early Criticism of Brentano. In Philosophy, Phenomenology, Sciences. Essays in Commemoration of Edmund Husserl, ed. Carlo Ierna, Hanne Jacobs, and Filip Mattens, 135–167. Dordrecht: Springer. ———. 2015. A Phenomenology without Phenomena? Carl Stumpf’s Critical Remarks on Husserl’s Phenomenology. In Philosophy from an Empirical Standpoint. Essays on Carl Stumpf, ed. Denis Fisette and Riccardo Martinelli, 321–357. Leiden: Brill-Rodopi.

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———. 2019. La crise des sciences et le fondement de la psychologie. La double vie de la phénoménologie dans les écrits de Husserl. In Husserl. Phénoménologie et fondements des sciences, ed. Julien Farges et Dominique Pradelle, 319–341. Paris: Hermann. Fréchette, Guillaume. 2012. Phenomenology as Descriptive Psychology: The Munich Interpretation. Symposium 16: 150–170. Hardy, Lee. 1992. The Idea of Science in Husserl and the Tradition. In Phenomenology of Natural Science, ed. Lee Hardy and Lester Embree, 13–39. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Holenstein, Elmar. 1972. Phänomenologie der Assoziation. The Hague: Nijhoff. Johnson, William E. 1921–1924. Logic, 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kockelmans, Joseph. 1994. Edmund Husserl’s Phenomenology. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press. Lavigne, Jean-François. 2005. Husserl et la naissance de la phénoménologie, 1900–1913. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Marek, Johann Ch. 1986. Zum Programm einer deskriptiven Psychologie. Grazer philosophische Studien 28: 211–234. ———. 1989. Psychognosie  – Geognosie. Apriorisches und Empirisches in der deskriptiven Psychologie Brentanos. Brentano Studien 2: 53–61. Mohanty, Jitendranath N. 2008. The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl. New Haven: Yale University Press. Moran, Dermot. 2000. Husserl’s Critique of Brentano in the Logical Investigations. Manuscrito 23: 163–205. Mulligan, Kevin. 2017. Brentano’s Knowledge, Austrian Verificationisms, and Epistemic Accounts of Truth and Value. The Monist 100: 88–105. Natanson, Maurice. 1984. “Descriptive Phenomenology.” Essays in Memory of Aron Gurwitsch, ed. Lester Embree 249–260. Washington. DC: Center for Advanced Research in PhenomenologyUniversity Press of America. Rollinger, Robin D. 1999. Husserl’s Position in the School of Brentano. Dordrecht: Kluwer. ———. 2011. Editor’s Preface. In Franz Brentano. EL 80, Logik, ed. Robin D. Rollinger. Graz: Franz Brentano Archiv. ———. 2014. La psychologie génétique. La conception brentanienne de l’explication de l’esprit exposée dans les cours d’Anton Marty (Prague 1889). In Vers une philosophie scientifique. Le programme de Brentano, ed. Charles-Édouard Niveleau, 153–186. Paris: Demopolis. Scanlon, John. 2001. Is it or Isn’t it? Phenomenology as Descriptive Psychology in the Logical Investigations. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 32: 1–11. Schmicking, Daniel. 2010. A Toolbox of Phenomenological Methods. In Handbook of Phenomenology and Cognitive Science, ed. Shaun Gallagher and Daniel Schmicking: 35–55. Dordrecht: Springer. Schuhmann, Elisabeth. 2002. Einleitung der Herausgeberin. In Edmund Husserl. Urteilstheorie (Husserliana, Materialien V), ed. Elisabeth Schuhmann, VII–XIX. Dordrecht: Springer. Seron, Denis. 2017. Husserl, Marty, and the (Psycho)logical A Priori. In Mind and Language: On the Philosophy of Anton Marty, ed. Guillaume Fréchette and Hamid Taieb, 309–323. Berlin: De Gruyter. Simons, Peter. 1992. Wittgenstein, Schlick and the a priori. In Peter Simons. Philosophy and Logic in Central Europe from Bolzano to Tarski, 361–376. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Sokolowski, Robert. 1983. The Theory of Phenomenological Description. Man and World 16: 221–232. Sowa, Rochus. 2004. Typus. In Wörterbuch der phänomenologischen Begriffe, ed. Helmuth Vetter, 558–561. Meiner: Hamburg. Ströker, Elisabeth. 1997. The Husserlian Foundations of Science. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Welton, Donn. 2000. The Other Husserl. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Zahavi, Dan. 2010. Naturalized Phenomenology. In Handbook of Phenomenology and Cognitive Science, ed. Shaun Gallagher and Daniel Schmicking, 3–19. Dordrecht: Springer. ———. 2017. Husserl’s Legacy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

7

Brentano, Husserl and Psychological Immanence Alice Togni

Abstract  “Husserl said that the theory that was to come to correct views here had to come to the problem from psychology, and through Brentano” (Cairns, Conversations with Husserl and Fink [Phaenomenologica 66], Nijhoff, The Hague, 1975, 10). This article aims to present Husserl’s discussion of the psychology of Brentano by examining whether and how Brentano influenced Husserl’s elaboration of the so-called “psychological way into phenomenology”. Therefore, the Husserlian psychological reduction deserves particular attention, since it properly belongs to this phenomenological way of proceeding. We suggest that the core of the psychological reduction—that occurs mainly in Husserl’s writings of the 1920s and 1930s—is already to be found in the “reduction to the real (reelle) immanence in experience” (Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Band. Erster Teil. Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis [Hua XIX/1], Springer, Dordrecht 1984, 413*. English Translation: Husserl 2001a (II), 354) in the Fifth Logical Investigation. Husserl claims that this reduction undergoes a development since it evolves from a “reduction to what is psychologically immanent” (Husserl, D 13 I/51b) into a psychological-phenomenological reduction that “leads to the pure soul (das rein Seelische), and pure analysis of the soul is laying out (Auslegung) (“This working-­ out of understanding we call Auslegung”. Welton, The Other Husserl: The Horizons of Transcendental Phenomenology, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2002, 351) its immanence, with all that is “real” (reell) or “implicit” within it” (Husserl, B II 4/37a). And this reduction, in its turn, changes into another, transcendental-­ phenomenological reduction. But what role has Brentano in this framework? The distance between the two philosophers seems to be huge.

A. Togni (*) Università del Salento, Lecce, Italy Sorbonne Université, Paris, France © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano’s Philosophy After One Hundred Years, Primary Sources in Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48563-4_7

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However, if, on the one hand, Husserl states that “the descriptive inner psychology of Brentano and of all his other contemporaries is useless” (Husserl, Phänomenologische Psychologie. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925 [Hua IX], Nijhoff, The Hague, 19682, 357), affirming that his main defect is naturalism, on the other hand he recognizes him as a “pioneer” (Wegbereiter) (Ibid. 31) in the field of inner experience, having discovered intentionality as the fundamental characteristic of psychic life. In this sense, we would affirm that Brentano prepared the (psychological) way for husserlian phenomenology: the aim here is precisely to provide proof of this. Keywords  Edmund Husserl · Franz Brentano · Psychological reduction · Transcendental reduction · Immanence

1  Introduction In his Introduction to the problems of general psychology (1922) Binswanger, while he discloses consciousness and the intentional structure of lived-experiences, compares1 the journey from Brentano to Husserl to that of Lotze to Brentano. Although controversial, the impact of Lotze on Brentano is in fact comparable to that exercised by Brentano on Husserl. In both cases with particular regard to the idea of psychology, as observed by Stumpf, Lotze and Brentano can be defined as “the great masters of analytic psychology and introspection (Selbstbeobachtung)”.2 But even masters are not exempt from making mistakes: Brentano found weaknesses in Lotze’s system and tried to remedy them in the same way as Husserl did when he then put his master’s theory “under a microscopeˮ.3 According to Husserl, Brentano’s concept of “immanenceˮ is one of these defects, with repercussions for his theory of intentionality, since this aspect relies on the long-standing issue about the distinction and the relationship between psychological and phenomenological immanence: they must be distinguished, they require different treatment, but at the same time there is a relation between them and, as such, it must be taken into account and investigated. At root, there is, for Husserl, a lack of clarity on several issues in Brentano which gives rise to both terminological and conceptual confusion, as in the case of the well-known notion of “immanenceˮ. Brentano argues, in fact, that every mental (psychical) act has its own immanent object and that this immanent object is given in an intentional way. But what does that mean? A preliminary clarification of the terms “immanenceˮ and “intentionalityˮ is required, since Husserl maintains that the different interpretations of immanence create long-standing problems, and  Binswanger (1922, 139).  Stumpf (1928, 28). 3  Binswanger (1922, 139). 1 2

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principally that of the confusion between psychological and phenomenological immanence, on which many misunderstandings depend. Clarity may, not surprisingly, be regarded as one of Husserl’s key concepts, as stated in one of his personal notes: “only one thing can fulfill me: I must gain clarity, otherwise I cannot live”.4 To get clarity on this issue, we need to start by defining Brentano’s account of “immanence”. This conceptual exposition will be discussed in the first part of the article together with a brief overview of how Brentano and Husserl differ from one another in their notions of immanence and intentionality. In the second part an in-­ depth analysis of their varied methodological approaches will be carried out in detail, followed by a focus on the connection between immanence and reduction. Since in Husserlian phenomenology there are different forms of reduction, great emphasis will be placed on distinguishing between psychological and phenomenological reduction and, correlatively, between merely psychological and phenomenological immanence proper. As will be seen, Husserl thinks, in fact, that the latter is to be interpreted in terms of intentional, not psychological, but rather actually constitutive immanence. Finally, it will be possible, on this basis, to answer the question previously raised about the relationship between Brentano and Husserl, enabling us to better understand how Husserl could at the same time say that “the descriptive inner psychology of Brentano and of all his other contemporaries is useless”,5 and, on the other hand, recognize him as a “pioneer” (Wegbereiter)6 in the field of inner experience because of his discovery of intentionality as the fundamental characteristic of psychic life.

2  Immanence and Intentionality An investigation concerning immanence and intentionality in Brentano should inevitably be centred on his well-known work Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, which he wrote in spring 1874 just a few months after his appointment as professor of philosophy at the University of Vienna. Brentano, as is known, published only two of the six parts of the book he planned, namely Psychology as a Science and Mental Phenomena in General. In 1911 he republished the second book under the new title Classification of Mental Phenomena, with the addition of comments and remarks aimed at explaining the development of his own thought (and thanks to Oskar Kraus one more edition came out posthumously in 1924, including some essays from Brentano’s Nachlass). In this epoch-making work Brentano, by outlining the exclusive features of psychical phenomena, provides a definition of “immanent objectivity” as intentional in-existence of the object, so that psychical are thought to be different from the physical phenomena in terms of intentionally

 Husserl (2001, 324).  Husserl (19682, 357). 6  Ibid. 31. 4 5

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containing objects within themselves. According to Brentano, this trait is exactly what distinguishes most7 psychical phenomena from physical phenomena: every mental phenomenon is characterized by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or 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 a thing), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phenomenon includes something as object within itself, although they do not all do so in the same way.8

However, this statement about “immanent objectivity” is not unambiguous. Questions arise regarding the nature of the intentionally given object: what does that mean, “intentional in-existence”? In what way is such an object “immanent”? Moreover, Brentano further argues that in every mental state (even in the simplest) we should properly speak of a double object that is “immanently present”,9 because indeed we have something as our primary object, but at the same time the mentally active subject has also himself as object. In any case, when an object is said to be immanent, this means that the subject of intentionality is mentally concerned with this object. While Twardowski in his 1894 book On the Content and Object of Presentations distinguishes, both conceptually and terminologically, between “content” (Inhalt) and “object” (Gegenstand), between, respectively, the immanent (intentional) object and the external object, Brentano, regardless of whether the intentional object actually exists or not outside the mental act, seems to make neither conceptual nor terminological distinction. According to him, in fact, in the intentional relation the immanent object continues to be present so long as “the thinker has it as his intentional object. It is a non-real correlate of the thinking that has it as its objectˮ.10 As he explained in his lectures on descriptive psychology (1890/1891), when we speak of some internal object-like thing (ein innerlich Gegenständliches), this entity need not correspond to anything outside: to avoid misunderstandings, one may call it ‘in-dwelling’ (inwohnendes) or ‘immanent’ object. This is something (a) generally and (b) exclusively characteristic of consciousness.11

Consequently, the immanent object involved in the intentional relation is a distinctive property of consciousness and “to every consciousness belongs essentially a relation”,12 namely an intentional relation. And if this reference to the essentiality of relation reminds us of Lotzte (according to which “knowledge is fundamentally relational”13), also Aristotle comes into consideration here, since the intentional relation is meant to consist of two correlates that are “only distinctionally separable  Brentano (1995b, 152).  Ibid. 68. Cf. Brentano (2009b, 10). “Mental” means “psychical” in Brentano. 9  Brentano (1995b, 120). 10  Chisholm, Baumgartner (1995, XIX). 11  Brentano (1995a, 24). 12  Ibid. 23. 13  Beiser (2014, 162). 7 8

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from one another”14 and of which only one, namely the subject of the mental act—is real, while the other—that is the immanent object, is not something real (nichts Reales). As pointed out by Oskar Kraus in the Introduction to the 1924 edition of Brentano’s Psychology: Brentano holds that consciousness can never be thought of as a reference to something existing as such; it is always a “relative determination” in the sense of something quasi-­ relational. [...] It is not a co-existence relation of any kind—whether with something existing immanently or with something existing transmentally or transcendentally.15

This is exactly what Brentano wrote to Marty in 1905 after taking part in the Fifth International Congress of Psychology in Rome. He stressed once again that the “immanent object” was intended to be immanent in order to avoid misunderstandings, “since many use the unqualified term “object” to refer to that which is outside the mind”.16 But, at the same time, he introduced a difference between the immanent object and the so-called “object of thought” (vorgestelltes Objekt) by taking the famous example of thinking about a horse: if, in our thought, we contemplate a horse, our thought has as its immanent object—not a “contemplated horse”, but a horse. And strictly speaking only the horse—not the “contemplated horse”—can be called an object. But the object need not exist. The person thinking may have something as the object of his thought even though that thing does not exist.17

As a result, Brentano claims that the term “immanent object” in the intentional relation does not imply an assertion of existence, but it simply indicates that its being an object [..] is merely the linguistic correlate of the person experiencing having it as object, i.e., his thinking of it in his experience.18

Despite Brentano’s attempts at clarification, Husserl, for his part, sees in this theory of intentionality a kind of “false double” (falsche Verdoppelung)19 of the immanent object (der immanente Gegenstand) and the “true” object (der wahre Gegenstand) existing outside the mind. In order to avoid any confusion, Husserl prefers to use the term “intentional object” (der “intentionale” Gegenstand)20 rather than “immanent object”, since—as already pointed out by Kraus in the quotation above—immanent existence is taken for real existence.21 Most of Husserl’s remarks on this topic are to be found in the Fifth Logical Investigation, where he presents his conception of consciousness as intentional experience (intentionales Erlebnis). Husserl agrees in principle to Brentano’s definition of mental phenomena (or acts) in  Brentano (1995a, 24).  Brentano (1995b, 294). 16  Brentano (2009b, 52). 17  Ibid. 18  Ibid. 19  Husserl (1979, 308). 20  Ibid. 309. In the same way, Husserl replaces “internal and external perceptionˮ with “adequate and inadequate perceptionˮ, “psychical phenomenaˮ with “intentional experiencesˮ (Erlebnisse). 21  Brentano (1995b, 309). 14 15

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terms of intentional relation, “direction to an objectˮ which is said to be immanent, but at the same time he feels the need to change terminology that is so susceptible to misunderstanding. If the use of words like “relationˮ (Beziehung) is unavoidable in the field of intentionality, Husserl claims that we must at least avoid expressions which tempt us to regard such a relation as having psychological reality (psychologisch-­ realen), as belonging to the real content of an experience (reellen Inhalt des Erlebnisses).22

In this respect, it should also be noted that, according to Husserl, the immanence of the object within the intentional relation only means that an object is ʻreferred toʼ (gemeint) or ʻaimed atʼ (abgezielt) in such intentional experience: the ʻimmanentʼ, ʻmental objectʼ is not therefore part of the descriptive (real) component of the experience (deskriptiven (reellen) Bestande des Erlebnisses), it is in truth not really immanent or mental (gar nicht immanent oder mental). [..] It makes no essential difference to consciousness whether the object given (das Gegebene) exists, or is fictitious, or is perhaps completely absurd. [...] These so-called immanent contents (Inhalte) are therefore merely intentional (intended) (intentionale (intendierte)), while truly immanent contents, which belong to the real component (reellen Bestande) of the intentional experiences, are not intentional: they constitute the act, provide necessary points dʼappui which render possible an intention (Anhaltspunkte die Intention), but are not themselves intended, not the objects presented in the act. I do not see colour-sensations but coloured things.23

These considerations relate to what Husserl said in the Second Logical Investigation about the phenomenological sense of real elements in consciousness (reellen Bewußtseinselementen). In fact, in this context, he made an important distinction: on the one hand the phenomenal external object (außere Gegenstand) which appears, intended as a concrete whole, on the other its inherent determinations (innewohnenden Bestimmtheiten) like colour and form, which are instead abstract. In this framework the immanent contents (Inhalte) were said to be “only a special class of objects (Gegenständen) (which naturally does not mean of things (Dingen))”.24 The crux of the matter is the distinction between the German words (and the associated concepts) “real” and “reel”, in the Logical Investigations as well as in the Ideas. “Real” is referred to the existence of things—physical, material things (Dinge)—, it can be regarded as synonymous with the German word “wirklichˮ: real stands for the effective reality of the world. “Reel” instead is to be understood as the “genuineˮ status of intentional lived-experiences, the kind of experiences that refer essentially to intentional objects: in a very specific sense, reel is what truly belongs to consciousness, which is, we stress once more, essentially intentional. But there is also another distinction to be drawn, namely the one  Husserl (1984, 385). English Translation: Husserl 2001a, (II) 98.  Ibid. 387. English Translation (modified): Husserl 2001a (II), 99. 24  Husserl (1984, 221). English Translation: Husserl 2001a, (I) 309. Cf. Husserl (1979, 309–310), where Husserl, about immanence and existence, contrasts “real thingˮ (reales Ding) with “real componentˮ (reeller Bestandteil)) by taking the example of colour: in the mental representation of a colour we have no real coloured thing (farbiges reales Ding), but nevertheless the colour we look at in imagination exists, although “it is not a thing (Ding) and neither is the whole representation in which the colour is a real componentˮ (reeller Bestandteil)ˮ. Cf. Husserl (1976a, 85, 130–131). 22 23

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between “reell” and “intentional”. And it is exactly in this respect that the issue of immanence switches from the field of intentionality to that of reduction, falling into the proper phenomenological domain.

3  Immanence and Reduction In the Fifth Logical Investigation Husserl defines the real content (reellen Inhalt) of an act as “the sum total (Gesamtinbegriff) of its concrete or abstract parts, in other words, the sum total of the partial experiences (Teilerlebnisse) that really (reell) constitute itˮ.25 Moreover, he underlines that this content in a real, genuine sense (reellen Sinn) “is the mere application of the most general notion of content, valid in all fields to intentional experiences”.26 The intentional content (intentionalen Inhalt) concerns instead the intentional object, which “does not generally fall within the real (reellen) content of an act, but rather differs completely from thisˮ.27 In the light of this distinction between real and intentional content, Husserl further specifies that within the latter type of content we must differentiate between three concepts, namely “the intentional object (intentionalen Gegenstand) of the act, its intentional material (Materie) (as opposed to its intentional quality) and, lastly, its intentional essence (Wesen)ˮ.28 And then in Ideas I Husserl highlights that this kind of distinction within the consciousness has to deal both with the modes of giveness (Gegebenheitsweisen) of Erlebnisse and with their phenomenological components (Beständen): whatever there may be in “reducedˮ experiences (reduzierten Erlebnissen) to grasp eidetically in pure intuition, whatever as a real, genuine portion (reelles Bestandstück) of such experience or as intentional correlate (intentionales Korrelat), that is its very own (das ist ihr eigen), and is a vast source of absolute knowledge for it.29

The main concepts of the Logical Investigations remain the same, only transposed into the language of Ideas I and elevated to a higher level of investigation, so that within the intentional relation two coexisting “sides” are detected: one is the “noesisˮ, namely the act of consciousness, the other is the “noema” or “noematic contentˮ, which is the correlative intended object (the brentanian “immanent objectˮ). And the real (reellen) portion of the intentional experience tilts toward the noesis-­side. In fact, while the noema is the object (Gegenstad) we are intentionally  Husserl (1984, 411). English Translation: Husserl 2001a (II), 112.  Ibid. 413. English Translation: Husserl 2001a (II), 113. 27  Ibid. 414. English Translation: Husserl 2001a (II), 113. 28  Ibid. 29  Husserl (1976a, 156). English Translation: Husserl 2012, 143. Cf. Husserl (2003, 100): here Husserl adds further considerations about real component (reeller Bestand) and intentional object (intentionaler Gegenstand): “Constantly we face the contrast between what the perception experience really (reell) contains in itself and what is conscious within it as intentional objectivity (intentionale Gegenständlichkeit)”. 25 26

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conscious of and to which we attach a certain meaning, the noesis is what Husserl characterizes as “animating construing (beseelende Auffassung)”30 and “sense-­ giving (Sinngebung)”31 inherent to each intentional experience. It follows that what forms the stuff into intentional experiences (intentionalen Erlebnissen) and what brings in that which is specific to intentionality is precisely the same thing as what gives the locution, consciousness, its specific sense: precisely according to which consciousness eo ipso indicates something of which it is consciousness. Because, now, the locutions, moments of consciousness, awarenesses, and similar constructions, and likewise because the locution, intentive moments, are made quite unusable by the many different ­equivocations which will be distinctly brought out in what follows, we introduce the term noetic moment or, in short, noesis. These noeses make up what is specific to nous in the broadest sense of the word; it refers us back, according to all its actual life-forms (aktuellen Lebensformen), to cogitationes and then to any intentional experiences (intentionale Erlebnissen) whatever.32

As Husserl observes, such noetic moments are, e.g., directions of the regard (Blickrichtungen) of the pure Ego to the objects “meant” ("gemeinten” Gegenstand) by it owing to sense-bestowal, to which is “inherent in the sense” ("im Sinne liegt") for the Ego.33

And, moreover, even the hyletic moments belong to the noesis in so far as they bear the function of intentionality, undergo sense-bestowal, help constitute a concrete noematic sense. But this must be stated earlier with corresponding seriousness. I myself have vacillated before in distinguishing noetic and hyletic moments.34

So, if “the essential parallelism of the two structures (noesis and noema) has not yet attained clarity”35 in the Logical Investigations, now in Ideas I Husserl provides a higher degree of clarification. The starting point lies indeed in Brentanoʼs theory, but then Husserl moves away from it by developing his own thought and by forging a “new” terminology, which corresponds to a conceptual novelty. Some footnotes added by Husserl to the second edition of the Logical Investigations (1913) provide interesting clues for understanding this transition from Brentanoʼs intentional theory to his own account of intentionality and—correlatively—from psychological to phenomenological immanence. Retrospectively, at the time of Ideas, Husserl says in fact that in the first edition of his Logical Investigations “reellˮ and “phenomenologicalˮ were, after all, used as identical expressions, since the word phenomenological (in the descriptive sense) refers to the real, genuine elements of experience (reelle Erlebnisbestände), namely,

 Husserl (1976a, 192). English Translation: Husserl 2012,, 204.  Ibid. 202. English Translation: Husserl 2012, 213–214. 32  Ibid. 194. English Translation (modified): Husserl 2012,, 205. 33  Ibid. 202. English Translation: Husserl 2012, 214. 34  Husserl (1976b, 606). English Translation: Husserl 2012, 213. 35  Husserl (1976a, 294). English Translation (modified: bracket added by the author): Husserl 2012, 308. 30 31

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to what belongs properly to consciousness, to its intentional acts and states. Such a perspective expresses what Husserl calls the “natural starting with the psychological point of viewˮ,36 that reflects his own starting-point from Brentano: the way through Brentanoʼs intentional psychology is precisely the historical, so to say, “biographicalˮ way, whereby Husserl developed his own idea of phenomenology, moving from a merely descriptive approach to a transcendental constitutive method. It became plainer and plainer, however, that as I reviewed the completed Investigations [..] that the description of intentional objectivity as such (die Beschreibung der intentionalen Gegenständlichkeit als solcher)—as we are conscious of it in the concrete act-experience (Akterlebnis)—represents a different direction, whereby descriptions may be purely intuitive and adequately (rein intuitiv und adäquat) performed, in opposition to that ­ of real act-constituents (reellen Aktbestände), but which also deserves to be called ʻphenomenologicalʼ.37

As Husserl later says in his 1925 lectures on phenomenological psychology, the Logical Investigations were, of course, the direct result of his confrontation with Brentano, but beside the Brentanian influence they already took a new turn (neue Wendung):38 it is precisely here, in this work, that an essential transformation (wesentliche Umgestaltung)39 of the idea of descriptive psychology takes place and Husserl establishes a basis for developing a significant new, phenomenological method, which is essentially different from Brentano’s psychognosis.40 The roots of this change mainly lie in that Fifth Logical Investigation we have already mentioned several times, where Husserl hints at the “reduction to the real (reelle) immanence in experience (Erlebnisimmanenz)”.41 In Brentano there is no trace of such a methodological reduction: the only reduction that is discussed in his works42 is the reduction of categorical to existential propositions. This kind of reduction is just confined to the problem of the difference between judgement and presentation and it is a methodical artifice of an entirely different type to the Husserlian reduction. In fact, Husserl claims that the phenomenological reduction takes place on a totally different level compared to the naturalistic approach of psychology (even that of Brentanian psychology): the proper phenomenological attitude is neither inner nor self perception (innere Wahrnehmung/ Selbstwahrnemung), it is a completely new attitude that allows us to “disengage all transcendence in the sense of the natural positing of existence”43 and to turn to the  Husserl (1984), LII. English Translation: Husserl 2001a , (II) 354.  Husserl (1984), LIV. English Translation (modified): Husserl 2001a, (II) 354. 38  Husserl, 34. 39  Ibid. 40  Brentano, too, used the word “phenomenologyˮ to indicate his own psychology—he spoke, namely, of a “descriptive phenomenologyˮ (beschreibende Phänomenologie)—but this occurred only in the title of the lecture he gave in 1888/89 and only as a synonym for “descriptive psychologyˮ (deskriptive Psychologie), without any innovative connotations. 41  Husserl (1984, 413*). English Translation: Husserl 2001a (II), 354. Cf. Lohmar (2002, 755–761). 42  Brentano (1995b, 172). Cf. Brentano (2009a, 38; 2009b, 25). 43  Husserl (1973b, 174). English Translation: Husserl 2006, 69. 36 37

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pure transcendental consciousness. It is exactly the reduction that makes possible the exclusion of all empirical and existential elements: we must take what is inwardly experienced or otherwise inwardly intuited [...] as pure experiences, as our exemplary basis for acts of Ideation. [...] We thus achieve insights in a pure phenomenology which is here oriented to real constituents (reellen Beständen), whose descriptions are in every way ʻidealʼ and pure (rein), free from ʻexperienceʼ, i.e. from presupposition of real existence (realem Dasein). When we speak simply of the real (reellen), and in general of the phenomenological analysis and description of experiences, the connection of our discussions with psychological material is (we must keep on stressing) merely transitional (ein bloßes Durchgangsstadium) [...].44

Consequently, the preconditions for the subsequent development of Husserlʼs phenomenology are already to be found in the Logical Investigations. The comparison with Brentano, especially on the issue of immanence related to the theory of intentionality, provides a starting point: the way through psychology is a transitional phase for the development of phenomenology, it is a process—a lengthy process— not an end-point. In this sense, the reduction to the “reelle Erlebnisimmanenzˮ, by leaving out all that is transcendent, acts as first step on the way from psychology to phenomenology. As Husserl himself acknowledges in his 1907 lectures On the Idea of Phenomenology, at first one is inclined to interpret, as if it were entirely obvious, immanence as real (reelle) immanence, indeed, as real (reale) immanence in the psychological sense: the object of knowledge (Erkenntnisobjekt) also exists in the experience of knowing (im Erkenntniserlebnis), or in the consciousness of the ego (im Ichbewusstsein), to which the experience belongs, as a real actuality (reale Wirklichkeit). […] Upon closer examination, however, one can distinguish between real (reelle) immanence and immanence in the sense of the self-givenness (Selbstgegebenheit) that constitutes itself in evidence.45

This manner of proceeding leads Husserl to depart from the psychological field, even that of descriptive psychology, even that of Brentanoʼs psychology: as a result, “the concept of real (reellen) immanence is reducedˮ46 as well. It is no more intended as psychological immanence, but rather as absolutely evident self-givenness, which means phenomenological immanence, immanence in the genuine sense: “it makes clear to us that real (reelle) immanence (and, respectively, transcendence) is only a special case of the broader concept of immanence as such. It is now no longer obvious and unquestioned that what is absolutely given and what is really (reell) immanent are one and the same thing; for the general (das Allgemeine) is absolutely given and yet not really (reell) immanent. […] research must restrict itself to pure seeing (reinen Schauen)—but not, therefore to the really (reell) immanent. For it is research in the sphere of pure evidence (Sphäre reiner Evidenz), and, moreover, it is research into essences (Wesensforschung). We also said that its field is the a priori within absolute self-giveness (absolute Selbstgegebenheit). […] What

 Husserl (1984, 413). English Translation (modified): Husserl 2001a, (II) 112.  Husserl (1973a2, 5). English Translation: Husserl 1999, 62–63. 46  Ibid. 7. English Translation: Husserl 1999, 64. 44 45

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is fundamental is to apprehend the sense of absolute giveness, the absolute clarity of being given (absoluten Klarheit des Gegebenseins)”.47 This absolute field, opened up by the phenomenological reduction, is the field of research of phenomenology as an eidetic, transcendental, constitutive science. Consequently, there is a contrast in consciousness between empirical—namely real (reell)48 psychological—and absolute lived-experiences, whereas the latter is “presupposition (Voraussetzung) for the sense” of the former. Real (psychological, Brentanian) and genuine (phenomenological, Husserlian) immanence must ­therefore not be confused. It is no coincidence that Husserl in his lectures on The Basic Problems of Phenomenology attributes the long-standing problem of solipsism exactly to this fatal misunderstanding: only “being ignorant of the radical principle of the phenomenological reduction”49 one can mistake the psychological consciousness (and, correlatively, the psychological sense of immanence) for the phenomenological consciousness proper. Linked to the double sense of immanence, there is, therefore, a double sense of subjectivity in phenomenology: each consciousness, whose absoluteness had become apparent as opposed (gegenüber) to the relativity of the existence of the world, is certainly consciousness—title for perceptions, memories, fantasies, judgements, emotions etc. with all that, real (reell) and intentional, required from its own essence—, but on the other hand, this cannot be intended as consciousness in psychological sense.50

In fact, thanks to “the method of absolutely universal epoché, psychological experience, presentive of the psychological consciousness itself, becomes changed into experience of a new kind”.51 This implies, however, a split which is difficult to overcome: Are we, then, supposed to be dual beings (doppelt sein)—psychological, as human objectivities (Vorhandenheiten) in the world, the subjects of psychic life, and at the same time transcendental, as the subjects of a transcendental, world-constituting life-process?.52

Husserl solves this “double meaning (or ambiguity) of the subjectivity of consciousness (Doppeldeutigkeit der Bewußtseinssubjektivität)ˮ53 by talking about a double phenomenology: since the double sense of consciousness (and of immanence) is due to a difference in the attitude and, correlatively, in the method of investigation, Husserl bring this difference within the phenomenology itself. As a result, two different levels in phenomenology emerge: the psychological and the transcendental. And since the phenomenological psychology is nearer to our natural  Ibid. 9. English Translation: Husserl 1999, 66.  Husserl (1976b, 486). English Translation: Husserl 2012, 128 (“empiricalˮ was substituted by “real psychologicalˮ in copy D, with the addition of the following sentence: “pertaining to human being in the worldˮ). 49  Husserl (1973b, 154). English Translation: Husserl 2006, 47. Cf. Ales Bello (1985, 36). 50  Husserl (2003, 124). 51  Husserl (1976b, 486). English Translation: Husserl 2012, 65 (insertion in copy A). 52  Husserl (19682, 171). 53  Ibid. 295. Cf. Ibid. 288, 614. 47 48

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thinking, it is “well suited to serve as a preliminary step that will lead up to an understanding of philosophical phenomenologyˮ.54 In this sense, it is a long and thorny way that leads from the [..] psychological theory of knowledge, to the apprehension of immanent-psychological and then phenomenological data (Gegebenheiten), and lastly to all the essential connexions (Wesenszusammenhänge) which make the transcendental relations (Beziehungen) intelligible a priori.55

The apprehension of immanent-psychological data is exactly the task of the psychological level of phenomenology. It is, so to speak, the Brentanian level of phenomenology, although already being “purified” from a first, psychological, reduction, on which the transcendental reduction is built (aufgestuft).56 As Husserl said in a draft for the introduction to Ideas I, the aim is to go beyond Brentano by establishing the position that—compared to this psychological phenomenology, which embraces all those immanent descriptions given in psychological experience (Erfahrung)—needs a certain „pure“ or transcendental phenomenology, by which we acquire fundamentally new knowledge, that despite all kinship (Verwandtschaft) with psychological knowledge [..] must be separated from it. We also call this pure phenomenology transcendental, because all the true (echten) transcendental-philosophical problems are to be formulated and resolved through it.57

4  Conclusion On the basis of the above, it is now possible to understand the relationship between Husserl and Brentano in a whole new light. On the question previously raised— namely that of how Brentano could have prepared the (psychological) way for Husserlʼs phenomenology—, we are now able to provide an answer by drawing attention to the different evaluations of immanence in Brentano and Husserl. As it emerged from the examination we carried out, this is in fact a key issue. According to Husserl, in phenomenology we speak then of just those things that are absolutely given (absoluten Gegebenheiten); if they happen also to refer intentionally to objective reality (Wirklichkeit), then that referring (das Sich-beziehen) is a characteristic that resides in them, while nothing is thereby assumed concerning the existence or non-existence of reality. And thus we drop anchor on the shore of phenomenology, whose objects are posited as existing [..] but not as existing in an ego, in a temporal world, but rather as entities absolutely given and grasped in pure immanent seeing (im rein immanenten Schauen): what is purely immanent (das rein Immanente) here is first of all to be characterized through the phenomenological reduction; I mean precisely what is immanent.58  Husserl (19682, 159).  Husserl (1976a, 201). English Translation: Husserl 2012, 212. 56  Husserl (19682, 172). 57  Husserl (1976b, 531). 58  Husserl (1973a2, 45). English Translation: Husserl 1999, 34–35. 54 55

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To realize these aims Husserl had to go through psychology, especially through Brentano's psychology and his account of intentionality. In this way, he could understand the “true” sense of immanence by developing the method of phenomenological reduction, a “step-by-step reduction” (schrittweisen Reduktion),59 as underlined by Husserl first in Ideas I and then in the Crisis.60 This gradualism mirrors the historical development (historischen Entwicklungsgang) of phenomenology itself, namely, its debate with psychology, reflected in the two levels, psychological and transcendental. It is therefore not surprising that, up to now, the first explicit occurrence (around 1918/19) of the concept of “psychological reduction” is closely related to the notion of psychological immanence, expressed, as mentioned in the Introduction, in the following terms: psychological reduction as reduction to what is psychologically immanent.61

As we have seen, this psychological reduction is presented by Husserl as standing right next to the transcendental-phenomenological reduction. It is exactly by way of this second reduction that we can understand the correlation and, at the same time, the difference between psychological and proper phenomenological immanence. In conclusion: Husserl’s lifelong discussion of “immanent, intentional psychologyˮ is basically his lifelong discussion with Brentano.

References Ales Bello, Angelo. 1985. Sul problema di Dio. Roma: Edizioni Studium. Beiser, Frederick Charles. 2014. Late German Idealism: Trendelenburg and Lotze. Oxford: Oxford University. Binswanger, Ludwig. 1922. Einführung in die Probleme der Allgemeinen Psychologie. Berlin: Springer. Brentano, Franz. 1995a. Descriptive Psychology. London: Routledge. ———. 1995b. Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. London: Routledge. ———. 2009a. The Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong. London: Routledge Revivals. ———. 2009b. The True and the Evident. London: Routledge Revivals. Cairns, Dorion. 1975. Conversations with Husserl and Fink [Phaenomenologica 66]. The Hague: Nijhoff. Chisholm, Roderick Milton, and Wilhelm Baumgartner. 1995. Introduction. In Descriptive Psychology, ed. Franz Brentano. London: Routledge. ———. 19682. Phänomenologische Psychologie. Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925 [Hua IX]. The Hague: Nijhoff. ———. 1973a2. Die Idee der Phänomenologie. Fünf Vorlesungen [Hua II]. English Trans. E. Husserl. 1999. The Idea of Phenomenology. Dordrecht: Springer. The Hague: Nijhoff. ———. 1973b. Zur Phänomenologie der Intersubjektivität. Texte aus dem Nachlass. Erster Teil (1905-1920) [Hua XIII]. English Trans. E.  Husserl. 2006. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. Dordrecht: Springer. The Hague: Nijhoff.  Husserl (1976a, 63). English Translation: Husserl 2012, 66.  Husserl (1976c, 250). English Translation: Husserl 1970, 247. 61  Husserl, D 13 I/51b. 59 60

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———. 1976a. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch. Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie [Hua III/1]. English Trans. E.  Husserl. 2012. Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book: General Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology. London: Routledge. The Hague: Nijhoff. ———. 1976b. Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie. Erstes Buch. Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie. 2 Halbband. Ergänzende Texte (1912-1929) [Hua III/2]. The Hague: Nijhoff. ———. 1976c. Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. Eine Einleitung in die phänomenologische Philosophie [Hua VI]. English Trans. E. Husserl. 1970. The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology. An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Dordrecht: Springer. ———. 1979. Aufsätze und Rezensionen (1890-1910) [Hua XXII]. The Hague: Nijhoff. ———. 1984. Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Band. Erster Teil. Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie und Theorie der Erkenntnis [Hua XIX/1]. English Trans. E. Husserl. 2001a. Logical Investigations, Vol. I. London: Routledge; E. Husserl. 2001b. Logical Investigations, Vol. II. London: Routledge. Dordrecht: Springer. ———. 2001. Personal Notes. In The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy I, ed. Burt Hopkins and John Drummond. London, New York: Routledge. ———. 2003. Transzendentaler Idealismus. Texte aus dem Nachlass (1908-1921) [Hua XXXVI]. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Lohmar, Dieter. 2002. Die Idee der Reduktion. Husserls Reduktionen und ihr gemeinsamer methodischer Sinn. In Die erscheinende Welt. Festschrift für K. Held, ed. Heinrich Hüni and Peter Trawny. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot Gmbh. Stumpf, Carl. 1928. Gefühl und Gefühlsempfindung. Leipzig: Barth. Welton, Donn. 2002. The Other Husserl: The Horizons of Transcendental Phenomenology. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

Part III

Ontology and Metaphysics. On Reism

8

Foundational Mereology as a Logical Tool for Descriptive Psychology Bruno Leclercq

Abstract  Franz Brentano maintains that consciousness is experienced as a whole and can only be analyzed into “components” through theoretical distinctions. And he claims that some mereology provides the conceptual tools required by such a holistic conception of mind. But of course, this cannot be classical extensional mereology, for which wholes are nothing but the sum of their parts. Brentano’s conception of mind requires some “foundational mereology” like the one Husserl sketched in his third Logical investigation. In the present paper, we use Gilbert Null’s formalization of this foundational mereology in order to investigate the possible relations between what Brentano names the “primary” and “secondary” acts and distinguish thereby several theoretical stands that can be taken on this point, some of them being close to Brentano’s own views and some of them challenging it. Keywords  Franz Brentano · Gilbert Null · Mereology · Extensional mereology · Foundational mereology

That consciousness should be seen as a whole, whose alleged basic “components” are but distinctive parts, is a strong claim of the descriptive psychology developed at the end of nineteenth century by Franz Brentano (1874, 1982)—and then by many of his disciples such as Carl Stumpf (1883, 1890, 1906), Christian von Ehrenfels (1890), Alexius Meinong (1891, 1893, 1899) or Edmund Husserl (1894, 1901)—as well as by some of his contemporaries such as Ernst Mach (1886) or William James (1890, 1892). In opposition to the two main theories of consciousness that had prevailed in modern philosophy, i.e. the atomistic conception defended by British empiricists—e.g. David Hume (1739-1740) or James Mill (1829)—, according to which mind is just an aggregate or a bundle of sensations, and the substantialist B. Leclercq (*) University of Liège, Liège, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 D. Fisette et al. (eds.), Franz Brentano’s Philosophy After One Hundred Years, Primary Sources in Phenomenology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48563-4_8

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conception defended by subjectivists—e.g. René Descartes (1641, 1644)—, according to which mind is a substance which is the “bearer” of sensations and other mental states (or in which they “inhere”), the holistic conception of mind considers that consciousness is experienced as a whole and can only be analyzed into “components” through theoretical distinctions. In this frame, sensations and so-called basic “components” of consciousness are distinctive parts rather than proper pieces of more global mental states on which they are ontologically dependent.

1  The Need of Logical Tools for Descriptive Psychology Now, such a new ontology of the mental also required new logical tools to accurately express the analyses led by descriptive psychology. While classical predicate logic and classical extensional mereology seemed to respectively suit the substantialist and the atomistic conceptions of the mind, the new holist conception of the mind was in need of some specific logical tools which could help to have a close theoretical look at it. According to Brentano’s own claims, some mereology is often taken to provide such tools (Mulligan and Smith 1985; Smith 1992-1993). But of course, classical extensional mereology, for which wholes add nothing to their parts, cannot do. This means that the explication of both the required mereological principles and the way these principles could help clarifying the descriptive work is still needed.

Carnap’s Quasi-Analysis Rudolf Carnap (1928) notoriously made that job for set theory; he explained how, through abstraction principles, set theory could be used as a logical tool for describing the structure of the mind (and from that on of the whole world), a task which requires to proceed to some “quasi-analysis”, i.e. to the theoretical (re)construction of alleged basic components such as sensations from the more complex yet elementary experiences (Elementarerlebnisse) in which they seemingly “take part”. As is well known, logicists use abstraction principles of set theory (Cantor 1874; Russell 1908; Russell and North 1910-1913; Zermelo 1908; Fraenkel 1921) in order to build higher-order objects as sets of lower-order objects sharing some property, or sets of couples (or triplets, …) of lower-order objects sharing some relation:



F  x : Fx x  Fiff Fx R   x,y  : Rxy  x,y   Riff Rxy



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Furthermore, sets of lower-order objects related to each other through some binary relation which appears to be equivalent, i.e. reflexive (∀x Rxx), symmetric (∀x ∀y (Rxy ⊃ Ryx)) and transitive (∀x ∀y ∀z [(Rxy ∧ Ryz) ⊃ Rxz]), form an “equivalence class”, which, through an abstraction principle, can itself lead to another (theoretical) object corresponding to some kind of property that all these lower-order objects “have in common”. And this is what Carnap’s “quasi-analysis” method (1928, §§71–74) uses for building sensations as higher-order objects. The stream of thought is made of complex yet unitary (unanalysed) elementary experiences which relate to each other through some unspecified resemblance relation, the “recollection of similarity” (Ähnlichkeitserinnerung). Now, this relation happens to define equivalence classes for some subsets of elementary experiences. In this case, some theoretical object can be logically defined as the “common property” of all these “equivalent” elementary experiences (§73). Intuitively, all elementary experiences involving some blue-feeling (while the sensation of blue has not been defined yet) will somehow look like each other (through some resemblance relation which is an “equivalence”). And out of this equivalence class the sensation of blue can be defined. In the same way all elementary experiences involving some round-shape-feeling (while the sensation of roundness has not been defined yet) will somehow look like each other (through some resemblance relation which is an “equivalence”). And out of this equivalence class the sensation of roundness can be defined. Blue-similarity (Bxy) is just similarity (Sxy) restricted to a subset of elementary experiences where Sxy is an equivalence: Bxy  Sxy  Equiv.Bxy.



Blue-similarity is reflexive, symmetric and transitive:

Bxy 

 x, y  :  Bxy  Sxy   Bxx   Bxy  Byx   z  Bxy  Byz   Bxz 

And therefore the sensation of blue can be defined as what objects satisfying Bxy have in common:

Bxiffy Bxy iffy  x,y   Bxy 



Surely a blue-round-shape feeling will both look like blue-square-shape, blue-­ triangular-­shape feelings and like green-round-shape, yellow-round-shape feelings. But the resemblance relation is not transitive from the blue-square-shape feeling to the blue-round-shape feeling to the green-round-shape feeling, while it is from the blue-square-shape feeling to the blue-round-shape feeling to the blue-triangular-­ shape feeling. Only the latter set of elementary experiences is likely to be part of an equivalence class and thus to share some common feature (§80).

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red

blue

yellow blue blue green

blue brown

What is interesting is that elementary experiences and their resemblance relations are first and that sensations, which seemed to be parts of elementary experiences, are (logically) built upon them. “Analysing” elementary experiences into sensations is thus some theoretical work, which “finds” components in what were elementary wholes: The constituents of elementary experiences will have to be quasi constituents, since in our system the elementary experiences are indivisible units. Every sensation quality, whether it is a colour, a tone, a fragrance, etc., will have to be a common property of those elementary experiences in which it occurs as a constituent (i.e. as a quasi-constituent). This common property is constructionally represented as the class of the appropriate elementary experiences (“quality class”) (Carnap 1928, §76, engl. transl. p. 125).

Classical Extensional Mereology Similarly, some mereology could be used to give an account on how mental states experienced as elementary wholes could be analysed into quasi-components. For this, however, classical extensional mereology will not be enough. Mereology (Leśniewski 1916; Whitehead 1916; Leonard and Goodman 1940; Goodman 1951; Simons 1987) is classically based on a proper part-whole relation (a