Philosophy of Language and Other Matters in the Work of Anton Marty : Analysis and Translations [1 ed.] 9789042031203, 9789042031197

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Philosophy of Language and Other Matters in the Work of Anton Marty

STUDIEN ZUR ÖSTERREICHISCHEN PHILOSOPHIE Gegründet von Rudolf Haller Herausgegeben von Mauro Antonelli BAND XLII

Philosophy of Language and Other Matters in the Work of Anton Marty ANALYSIS AND TRANSLATIONS

Robin D. Rollinger

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2010

Die Reihe wird gemeinsam von Editions Rodopi, Amsterdam - New York und dem Verlag Königshausen und Neumann, Würzburg herausgegeben. The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 978-90-420-3119-7 E-BOOK ISBN: 978-90-420-3120-3 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2010 Printed in the Netherlands

Without a doubt, the future belongs to our exact school. Unserer exakten Schule gehört eben zweifelsohne die Zunkunft. Brentano to Marty, 31 March 1873 My standpoint in psychology is the empirical one; experience alone is my teacher: but with others I share the conviction that a certain ideal view is indeed compatible with such a standpoint. Mein Standpunkt in der Psychologie ist der empirische; die Erfahrung allein gilt mir als Lehrmeisterin: aber mit Anderen theile ich die Überzeugung, dass eine gewisse ideale Anschauung mit einem solchen Standpunkte wohl vereinbar ist. Brentano, Preface to Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874)

In memory of Kyle Rollinger (1962-2005) and Richard Bechtle (1952-2008)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

xi

ANALYSIS

1

INTRODUCTION

3

I. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 1. Relationship to Brentano 2. The Situation of Philosophy 3. The Situation in Psychology 4. The Situation in the Study of Language 5. Concluding Remarks

9 11 27 34 37 45

II. THE CONCEPT AND TASKS OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE 1. Language as a Subject Matter of Philosophy 2. Practical Philosophy of Language 3. Theoretical Philosophy of Language 4. Concluding Remarks

49 50 66 70 74

III. DESCRIPTIVE SEMASIOLOGY 1. Inner Linguistic Form 2. Autosemantica 2.1. Statements 2.2. Emotives 2.3. Presentational Suggestives 3. Synsemantica 4. Conclusion

77 77 82 84 101 107 126 129

TRANSLATIONS

131

ON THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE Preface Introduction Historical and Critical Survey Positive Account

133 133 135 136 175

x

Table of Contents

Concluding Considerations

223

WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?

235

REVIEW: WILLIAM JAMES, THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY Introduction I. Overview II. Criticism

255 255 256 269

ON ASSUMPTIONS: Introduction: Part I: Test of the Preliminary Improbability of the Theory of “Assumptions” Part II: Demonstration that the Hypothesis is Unnecessary

301 301

BIBLIOGRAPHY

351

INDEX OF NAMES

371

306 326

PREFACE The aim of the present volume is to put Anton Marty’s work, especially his philosophy of language, in the spotlight instead of viewing it as a mere shadow of the towering figures which have emerged in philosophy and linguistics since his death. Though much of my analysis of his philosophy was written long ago, it has been considerably revised in connection with the entry on Marty that I wrote for The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Some parts of that entry are to be found here. Important for the process of revision were various comments and queries which were raised by my colleagues in the philosophical division of the Faculty for Cultural and Social Sciences at the University of Salzburg. In this regard I especially thank Edgar Morscher, Johannes Brandl, Arkadiusz Chrudzimski, and Otto Neumaier. I also thank my philosophical colleagues in Graz, especially Johannes Marek, Alfred Schramm, and Alessandro Salice for their reactions to my outline of Marty’s philosophy of language. In addition I am grateful to the editors of The Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for their suggestions for the improvement of the condensed version of my analysis. The second part of this book contains translations of texts by Marty. Since he is for the most part undeservedly unknown to English speakers and indeed to the world at large, it was seen as desirable to make some of his writings available in English. In making a selection I wanted to avoid writings which are extensively polemical, as Marty’s writings so often are. His polemics may indeed be regarded as belonging to the main factors which have kept his philosophy from receiving much attention. I have chosen to translate his first book, On the Origin of Language, and his inaugural address (“What is Philosophy?”) as rector in Prague, for both of these texts are only moderately polemical. Though the former work contains some polemics against opposing theories of the origin of language, it is an important aspect of the history of linguistics that Marty played an significant role – perhaps more than anyone else – in laying to rest the theory (espoused especially by Steinthal, Lazarus, and Wundt) that language originates via the mechanism of vocal reflex. While this issue is not made thematic in the analysis, On the Origin of Language in English translation fills in this gap. Moreover, the seeds of much of Marty’s mature philosophy of language can be found in this work. The inaugural address is an elaboration of the conception of philosophy that comes into play throughout Marty’s mature treatment of language. These two texts are therefore clearly important ones. It may even be recom-

xii

Preface

mended (though not presupposed) that these early works should be read prior to my analysis of Marty’s mature philosophy. Though the two remaining translations are much more polemical in character and are best left to be read after the analysis, there are two very important theses defended in them. In his critique of William James’ psychology he defends the thesis that an analysis of mind is both possible and necessary as a prerequisite for psychophysiological investigation (especially neurological ones regarding the brain). In Marty’s critique of Alexius Meinong’s theory of assumptions (which is also first and foremost a psychological theory) we find a defense of the thesis that mind is to be analyzed exhuastively into three basic classes of phenomena (and their subclasses) and does not require a fourth basic class, that of “assumptions”. Moreover, both James and Meinong have considerably more stature for contemporary philosophers than many others under attack in Marty’s writings (such as Steinthal, Sigwart, Wundt, not to mention far more obscure figures from the past). That is to say, even from a contemporary standpoint, it is of interest to know where Marty stands in relation to James and to Meinong. In my translations I have striven for readability without forsaking accuracy. Since Marty makes use of very little jargon in the selected texts, it seemed for the most part unnecessary rigidly to stick to certain terms, as must sometimes be done in translations. The verb äußern, for instance, could not be uniformly translated as “utter”. Though it is correct to say that we utter sounds, it is better to say that we externalize or manifest our inner states (via sounds or other signs). Yet, Marty often uses the same verb (just mentioned) in German for both of these cases. The same goes for the corresponding noun Äußerung. The words ausdrücken and Ausdruck, however, come closer to being technical terms. Accordingly, an effort has been made to translate them consistently as “express” and “expression”. The closely related Kundgabe and kundgeben (which are again rather technical terms for Marty) are usually translated as “manifestation” and “manifest” respectively. The term Vorstellung is also a technical term for Marty and is here, almost without exception, translated as “presentation”. The corresponding verb is translated as “present”. Though there is reason to translate Vorstellung as “idea”, in order to remind the reader of the close connection with British empiricism, I still prefer “presentation” because it does suggest an act. Besides, “ideate” does not make for a felicitous verb. The term “representation” and its corresponding verb, moreover, are better reserved for translations of other words.

Preface

xiii

The translator’s notes are clearly indicated in italics. The parentheses that Marty uses to insert words in quotations have been changed to square brackets. Consequently angular brackets have been used to indicate insertions of the translator (and have been also used for insertions in quotations in the analysis for the sake of consistency). All conceptions of gender, race, ethnicity, etc. which are found in Marty’s works and in the sources he cites are left intact in the translations. Otherwise the historicity of the texts in question would be violated. While it is no longer customary to regard certain peoples as “primitive” or “savage”, the habits of thought on such matters were quite different during Marty’s lifetime. What is interesting about him, however, is the fact that he made an effort to defend philosophy in general and the philosophy of language in particular against an antiphilosophical current on the one hand and against a revival of Kant on the other, both of which were becoming very powerful intellectual and academic forces in his time and place. In this regard Marty must not be seen as a mere product of his times. Whenever Marty cites passages from English texts in German translation, an effort has been made to make use of the original English in the translations. When he translates from French, I have asked for help for translating the relevant passages from the original language. In many cases I have also cited works in English translation, though I have sometimes taken the liberty to alter the translated quotations, at least for the sake of consistency. Above all, however, the reader is urged to view the translations and other writings of Marty as worth reading and not to be content with my analysis. Though there are some who make an extreme demand upon older texts to be relevant to current issues and accordingly are not open to the possibility that there were legitimate issues which have subsequently been lost, such readers will nonetheless find some satisfaction in their exposure to Marty’s thought, much of which is in fact relevant to contemporary concerns in linguistics and philosophy. If in addition they gain an appreciation for treasures from the past and thereby overcome an unjustified presentism, this will be a highly desirable result of my work. There are a few others I want to thank here for their kind assistance which was indispensable for the publication of the present volume. One of them is Mauro Antonelli for his encouragement and patience as the editor of the series in which it appears. I am also grateful to Esther Roth for support with respect to the layout. In addition, I thank Mark and

xiv

Preface

Vanessa van Atten for helping me translate passages which Marty cites from Renan. Finally I thank Carlo Ierna for proofreading the entire volume in manuscript and sparing me the embarrassment of numerous typographical errors and stylistically awkward phrases. It goes without saying, however, that I bear full responsibility for the final result. Robin D. Rollinger Salzburg, May 2010

ANALYSIS

INTRODUCTION Though it is certainly true that a great deal of philosophy has for a long time now been by and large dominated by the so-called “linguistic turn”, the philosophy of language has been around for a much longer time and is indeed to be found within many diverse traditions. 1 In the reflection on language, various philosophical problems are encountered, whether these be concerned with knowledge, with reality, with value, or some other domain of inquiry. This does not mean, however, that language must become the primary concern of philosophy, as it has often been in the tradition dominated by the linguistic turn. An alternative approach would be to make the exact analysis of mind the primary philosophical task and to investigate language from the standpoint of such analysis. That is to say, it remains a possibility worth exploring that a mind-to-language approach in the philosophy of language may prove just as fruitful as the language-to-mind approach, if not more so. In the present volume I shall be concerned with the results from a school of philosophy in which precisely the mind-to-language approach was taken. The school of philosophy in question is the one that was begun by Franz Brentano in the late nineteenth century. Though Brentano is at present primarily known to many as the teacher of Edmund Husserl and thus belonging at least to the prehistory of phenomenology (which Husserl developed most elaborately), 2 the list of students of Brentano includes other names which prove to be of great significance in the history of ideas, such as Carl Stumpf, Alexius Meinong, 3 Sigmund Freud, Rudolf Steiner, Kasimir Twardowski, 4 Thomas Masaryk and Christian von Ehrenfels. 5 These thinkers, philosophers, psychologists went their own ways in many important respects, as indeed their mentor knew all 1. See Coseriu (revised and expanded by Albrecht) (2003). 2. For an examination of Brentano’s relation to Husserl, see Rollinger (1999), pp. 1367, and Rollinger (2004). See also Ierna (2009a). 3. For an examination of Brentano’s relation to Meinong, see Rollinger (2008a), pp. 157-188. 4. For an examination of Brentano’s relation to Twardowski, see Rollinger (2008c). 5. Regarding the school of Brentano, see Smith (1994), Albertazzi (ed.) (1996), Rollinger (1999). Not all the names listed in the text should be viewed as members of this school in the strict sense. Freud and Steiner, for instance, are not properly regarded among its members.

4

Marty’s Philosophy of Language

too well. Among Brentano’s students, however, one of them stands out as an especially orthodox follower of him as well as a very prolific writer. This is Anton Marty, whose philosophy of language, along with other related aspects of his views, will be examined here. It will be seen that, while his reputation for orthodoxy in the school of Brentano is in large measure justified, he did in fact develop some original ideas. Marty spent approximately four decades writing and teaching about issues in the philosophy of language. Among such issues were the origin of language, 6 color names in relation to color perception, 7 subjectless sentences or “impersonals” (e.g. “It is raining”), 8 the relation of grammar to logic, 9 and theories of grammatical cases. 10 While his writings on such special topics are certainly worthy of consideration, his wideranging magnum opus, i.e. his Investigations concerning the Foundation 6. Marty (1875). See the translation below. Though Marty later discussed the same issue, the essence of his theory as stated in the work just cited remained intact. His concern in Marty (1884b), Marty (1886), Marty (1889), Marty (1890), Marty (1891), Marty (1892b), and Marty (1908), pp. 544-738, was the critique of the “nativist” theory, prompted by Wilhelm von Humboldt and found in the work of Moritz Lazarus, Heyman Steinthal, and Wilhelm Wundt. The theory as it was known in Marty’s life-time made the notion of innate mechanism for producing sound reflexes the cornerstone for explaining the origin and nature of language. Though such a theory may now seem unworthy of considerable attention, it was quite prominent when Marty was criticizing it. In fact the case can be made that he was the one who laid it (together with all the psychological and historical support employed in its favor) permanently to rest. See Eisenmeier et al. (1916). Cf. Jodl (1916) II, p. 95. 7. Marty (1879). The question under consideration here is whether historically observed changes in the application of color names must be explained by an appeal to an evolution in human color perception. The topic arose in view of the fact that in Homer’s work, as well as other ancient texts, such names were applied in ways which are not entirely comparable to contemporary usage. While this fact led certain contemporaries of Marty to argue that the human sensory apparatus involved in color perception has evolved, he argues that psychological, physiological, and aesthetic considerations demonstrate that color names could shift in their meanings and become more complex without any such evolution occurring. 8. Marty (1884a); Marty (1894a); Marty (1894); Marty (1895). See Kreibig (1909), pp. 162-166. 9. Marty (1893) and Marty (1897). 10. Marty (1910). See Spinicci (1989).

Introduction

5

of Universal Grammar and the Philosophy of Language (a work “dedicated to Franz Brentano, teacher and friend, on his 70th birthday”), will be the main source for the present study. Unfortunately he only managed to publish the first volume of this work, 11 though drafts for the projected second volume have appeared posthumously. 12 Unlike other students of Brentano, such as Meinong, Twardowski, and above all Husserl, Marty has received little attention from philosophers and scholars. Though he is not entirely unknown among historians of linguistics, 13 there is still a need for a study of his philosophy of language as a whole. The main reason why his views are left undiscussed probably lies in his elaborate polemics against many of the opposing theories which were put forward by his predecessors and contemporaries. These theories are often known only by a handful of scholars and will no doubt be regarded as “of historical interest only” by others. Though some consideration of Marty’s polemics is indeed desirable and sometimes even necessary (especially regarding the views of other students of Brentano) in order to understand his own positions on various topics, I shall here try to avoid such matters wherever possible. Otherwise the present volume will be of little consequence in drawing attention to Marty. The first chapter of this study will be concerned with the historical background of Marty’s thought. A brief, though by no means exhaustive discussion of his relation to Brentano will prove to be relevant throughout the volume. Moreover, some attention will be given to the situations in philosophy, psychology, and the study of language during the late nineteenth century while Marty was developing his own views in these areas. In the second chapter Marty’s concept of the philosophy of language 11. Marty (1908). 12. This material is to be found in Marty, (ed.) Funke (1950a), Marty, (ed.) Funke (1950b), and Marty, (ed.) Funke (1969). Another important source are the notes from a lecture course on the foundations of the philosophy of language (1904), posthumously published in Marty, (ed.) Funke (1950a), pp. 75-117. Though these are not nearly as elaborate as Marty (1908), they are very plainly written without the adornment of Marty’s usual vexing polemics. 13. See Elfers-van Ketel (1991), pp. 272-275; Nerlich (1996), pp. 190-195; Graffi (2001), pp. 16, 32, 54, 58-63, 70, 72, 84, 94-95, 100, 102 f., 108, 112, 117 f., 127, 144, 151, 315, Leška (2002), Linhares-Dias (2009).

6

Marty’s Philosophy of Language

as well as the tasks he assigns to this domain will be examined. It will in particular be seen how he regards philosophy in relation to the science of language. What drives this conception is his view that philosophy always involves the analysis of mind, which is understood in a sense that was central to Brentano’s very exacting philosophical enterprise, centered in “descriptive psychology” or what was also called “descriptive phenomenology” or “psychognosy”. From this standpoint Marty was able to provide us with an overview of both the practical and the theoretical tasks which are to be carried out in the philosophy of language. In the third chapter the very heart of Marty’s philosophy will be analyzed. The concern here is, in his terminology, “descriptive semasiology”, in which the theory of the meaning of linguistic expressions is central. Another matter which is of importance for descriptive semasiology is “inner linguistic form” (innere Sprachform), which will also be given attention in the third chapter. As much of Marty’s descriptive semasiology involves the analysis of mind, as indeed his very concept of the philosophy of language requires, this will especially be made clear in his assigning three different types of meaning to three different types of autosemantica, i.e. linguistic expressions which have meaning independently of others. At the same time, however, we will encounter a good deal of ontology in Marty’s descriptive semasiology, particularly in his attempt to formulate the notions of contents of judgment and of interest, which are also in a certain sense the meanings of statements and emotives respectively. Marty’s concern with ontological issues is of course no surprise, since philosophical semantics and ontology have been inseparable for a good many philosophers since Aristotle (as seen in his short work on the categories and its reverberation throughout his metaphysical investigations). It will also be clear that epistemological and even axiological matters are not without relevance to Marty’s philosophy of language. Though Marty does not belong to that class of philosophers of language who took the linguistic turn, his reflections on language nonetheless give him a vantage point from which a wide range of topics are carefully investigated. These topics are moreover of enduring interest to philosophers and linguists. In view of Marty’s conception of philosophy as a psychology-based endeavor, there will be a resolute effort made throughout the analysis here to highlight this aspect of his approach, without of course ignoring other aspects (especially the ontological one) of his writings. There is a

Introduction

7

regrettable tendency among commentators on the school of Brentano to down-play the presence of psychological considerations therein in order to suit current philosophical sensibilities, which are very often much more conceptual, semantic, and even formal. Though it cannot be denied that Brentano and his students had concerns which are relevant to contemporary ones, it would be very wrong to overlook the empirical analysis of mind which pervades their consideration of all issues. Some philosophers might wish to give the impression that such a psychological orientation can no longer be the defining feature of philosophy, whereas this is in fact hardly a settled matter.

I. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Anton Marty (October 18, 1847-October 1, 1914) 1 was born in Schwyz, Switzerland in a very large family and baptized as a Catholic with the full name of “Martin Anton Maurus Marty”. His oldest brother went into the priesthood and became a missionary to the Sioux in North America. Another one of his brothers likewise became a priest. Though Marty himself was ordained, he left the priesthood shortly after Brentano had done so (in 1873, a few years after the declaration of papal infallibility 2 ) and pursued an academic career instead. Unlike Brentano, however, Marty never married and was childless. While he enjoyed listening to music and playing the piano, his focus was directed upon his intellectual endeavors, which involved an unusually vast erudition, especially with regard to literature in the philosophical and scientific study of language. He died in Prague, at that time a city that belonged within the AustroHungarian Empire and where he had been professor at the Germanspeaking division of the Ferdinand Charles University for most of his academic career. 3 The following character sketch of Marty was written by his student Hugo Bergmann in a letter to Meinong on 2 July 1915: Marty was, so to speak, only a researcher and a teacher. He had almost no interests outside of philosophy, at most a concern with the development of his first fatherland, Switzerland. Thus he spent all his time in work. He had no family. His family was his students. He was entirely devoted to his teaching profession. In his last years, when he suffered from poor health, he almost never cancelled a lecture, not even when he hardly had enough strength to walk from his apartment to the university. As an examiner he was strict and took examinations in the so-called 1. The chief biographical source on Marty is Kraus (1916). 2. Though this doctrine was what definitively drove Brentano and presumably also Marty over the edge, so to speak, Brentano had already been doubting many of the teachings of Catholic theology, chiefly with regard to so-called revealed matters. Still he continued to espouse much of the natural theology from the Aristotelian and Thomistic tradition. For an examination of Brentano’s views on religion, see Tiefensee (1998). Marty was of course a close follower of Brentano in this regard, though he never published on theological topics. 3. In 1882 this university had split into two, one of them for speakers of German and the other for speakers of Czech. The two even had separate administrations.

10

Marty’s Philosophy of Language minor subject very seriously, no less the colloquia. In seminars he demanded lively co-operation from the participants. He usually read the authors Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Locke, Leibniz, and it was always less his concern to read much than it was thoroughly to think through what was read, while he was always making an effort to guide the participants of the seminar to the views he held to be the correct ones without influencing their own active engagement more than was necessary. The seminar was strictly disciplined. He had no patience for wild leaps in discussions. He did, to be sure, demand historical knowledge, especially of ancient philosophy, but the question “what is correct?” was always much more important to him than “who teaches this or that?”. The history of philosophy was to be a history of problems, he demanded, and thus he usually gave his pupils the assignment of tracing a problem historically. Even the young researcher, on his view, was to begin his scholarly career in this way. Marty had a great love for the psychological institute established by him, which of course, due to lack of funding, could not be as well equipped as he would have desired. Marty had worked out his lectures precisely and kept on working on them. He lectured well, interposing a joke here and there, with a harmlessness that was almost touching. For his teacher Brentano he had the highest respect, which did not keep him from having his own opinion, divergent from Brentano’s. Especially in the last years he had many a difference of opinion (concerning the non-real, etc.) without this causing any change in his personal relations. Characteristic for Marty’s personality is his intimate love towards children. He lived in the city park and knew all the children there. On the street he was often greeted by a lady, who as a child liked to play with him. He, a bachelor, had the highest opinion of the female gender and of marriage. (See his exhortation to the academic youth 4 ) He never passed a nun without tipping his hat. 5

4. See Marty, (eds.) Eisenmeier et al. (1916b), pp. 169-187. 5. Kindinger (ed.) (1965), pp. 205-206.

Historical Background

11

1. Relationship to Brentano 6 Marty’s career can be best viewed from the perspective of his relationship to Brentano. Already in 1867, before Marty began to study at a university, he had written a prize winning essay “St. Thomas’ Doctrine of Abstraction of Supersensory Ideas from Sensory Images, with an Exposition and Critique of Other Theories of Knowledge”, in which he cited Brentano’s recently published works on Aristotle. 7 He was so inspired by these works that he requested permission from his bishop to study in Würzburg, where Brentano, also at the time a Catholic priest, had just been appointed lecturer after triumphantly engaging in a formal disputation with professors from the dreaded idealist tradition. One of the theses that Brentano defended in this disputation was: “The true method of philosophy is none other than that of the natural sciences”. 8 In the autumn of 1868 Marty began attending Brentano’s lectures in which this thesis was applied to various areas of philosophy. He and Stumpf, who had already been drawn to philosophy by “F. Brentano’s lectures through the rigorous acuteness of their reasoning” 9 in Würzburg, became friends with each other and shared an enthusiasm for their mentor’s prospects of bringing about a renewal of philosophy and 6. Marty’s philosophy was discussed in Spinicci (1991) with considerable caution regarding the relationship with Brentano. In view of the editions of Brentano’s manuscripts which have been published, this caution was fully justified. Here, however, I avoid as much as possible making use of these editions and rather base my discussion on manuscripts, as these are available in digital facsimile, and of course on works that Brentano published in his lifetime, such as Brentano (1874) and Brentano (1889). Be that as it may, the considerations here and also Rollinger (2009a) are at best a prelude to a full-blown treatment of the relationship in question. For there is indeed a great abundance of manuscripts, including the correspondence between Brentano and Marty, which demands attention. 7. Brentano (1862) and Brentano (1867). 8. Brentano, (ed.) Kraus (1929), p. 147. 9. Stumpf (1883), p. v. In his youth Stumpf was actually interested in music above all else, but he began his studies in law for practical reasons. The attachment he formed to Brentano and thus to philosophy appears to be something of a conversion. Nonetheless, his interested in music remained unabated, as indicated by ibid. and Stumpf (1890), as well as numerous other publications. For an extensive bibliography of Stumpf’s writings, see Fisette (ed.), pp. 309-323.

12

Marty’s Philosophy of Language

religion. 10 In such a renewal all the speculative excesses of German Idealism from earlier in the century had to be purged and replaced with rigor and clarity of thought, not to mention a relentless adherence to the empirical source of knowledge. Though much from the Aristotelian and Thomistic tradition was to be assimilated, the great modern philosophers were also to be regarded as teachers of considerable significance. Nothing, however, was to be taken uncritically. Brentano’s mission in philosophy was transmitted to his students with particular sharpness in his theory of “four phases” through which each period of philosophy has gone. 11 While the first phase is one of ascendancy, it progressively declines through three phases: dogmatism, skepticism, and mysticism. In modern philosophy the ascending phase is represented by Descartes, Leibniz, and Locke, whereas dogmatism is represented by thinkers of the Enlightenment, skepticism by Hume, and finally mysticism by German Idealism. It is especially Kant who is targeted in Brentano’s criticisms of past philosophers, for through his socalled Copernican revolution he started the extreme decline which had prevailed for most of the nineteenth century. 12 The influence of Kant in fact gained new vigor at the end of the century. It was accordingly a great concern for Brentano, in his efforts to promote scientific philosophy, to ward off this influence. In 1869 Marty became a teacher in a secondary school in his home town and received higher orders the next year, while he continued to stay in contact with Brentano, who was indeed very happy with Marty’s philosophical influence on the youth. Marty was hardly aware, however, that Brentano was having misgivings about his Catholic faith as such and not only the doctrine of infallibility that was declared in 1870. Though Brentano became a professor in Würzburg in 1872, he resigned from this position and left the church in the following year. Both Stumpf and Marty were soon to follow him in abandoning their pursuit of a profession as clergymen. This was not as damaging to Stumpf, who had never been ordained, as it was to Marty. The circumstances which Marty as a consequence faced gave him little choice but to resign from his 10. Stumpf (1919), pp. 88 ff. 11. See Brentano (1895). 12. See Campos (1979).

Historical Background

13

teaching post in his home town and pursue a full-fledged academic career, as he proceeded to do by receiving a doctorate in Göttingen with Rudolf Hermann Lotze as his dissertation advisor, as Stumpf had also done. While Stumpf’s dissertation 13 had received whole-hearted approval from Lotze, 14 the following assessment of Marty’s was expressed by the same dissertation director in 1875: The treatise “On the Origin of Language” is only meant to be psychological; it unfortunately contains, I should say, no material pertaining to the science of language, which would require another assessment. I regret that Mr. Marty could not be dissuaded from this unfruitful topic, in the treatment of which he of course had to restrict himself to showing how a language can have originated without being able to demonstrate how it or another actually did originate. The preference for this topic does not speak favorably for the philosophical ingenuity of the author; however, I must acknowledge that the treatise is, formally speaking, well worked out, disregarding its verbosity. It shows extensive familiarity with the literature and distinguishes itself by good arrangement, clarity of exposition, intelligent judgment, and the possession of all of the additional knowledge that was necessary here; it is proof of good methodical training, though unfortunately applied to an unrewarding subject matter. 15

Indeed, from what can be gathered from Lotze’s letters, he had misgivings about Marty’s capacity for producing literature of any great philosophical or scientific value, though he did admire Marty as “a well instructed, thoroughly educated man” 16 and also for “his calm, clear, and reflective manner of deliberation”. 17 Perhaps the negative side of Lotze’s evaluation was only a reaction to Marty’s resistance to influences beyond Brentano’s philosophical sphere. 18 Be this as it may, Marty did manage 13. See Stumpf (1869). 14. See Lotze, (ed.) Orth (2003), pp. 486 ff. 15. Lotze, (ed.) Orth (2003), p. 609. 16. Lotze, (ed.) Orth (2003), p. 658. 17. See Lotze, (ed.) Orth (2003), pp. 667 f. 18. Though no study, as far as I know, has been devoted to possible Lotzean aspects

14

Marty’s Philosophy of Language

to forge a path as an academic and as an author with help from Brentano, who had become a professor in Vienna in 1874. 19 An expanded version of Marty’s dissertation 20 was subsequently published and he took a position at the newly established university in Czernowitz. In the meantime Brentano continued to develop his philosophical views in the same spirit as he had done in Würzburg, that is to say: with no other method but that of the natural sciences. An important distinction that Brentano came to make in his lectures in Vienna, however, was that between two branches of psychology. One of these was descriptive psychology, also called descriptive phenomenology or psychognosy, and was concerned with analyzing consciousness into its elements and specifying their modes of combination. The other branch, genetic psychology, was to be concerned with causal explanations of mental phenomena. Though Brentano maintained that the latter branch required physiological investigations and also that physiology was not yet developed enough to deal with matters in genetic psychology, he thought that he had already contributed to descriptive psychology in his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint 21 and continued making further elaborations in this area through his lectures. Already in his lectures on psychology and aesthetics of the winter semester of 1885/86 Brentano made the notion of descriptive psychology focal. In the winter semester of 1887/88 he held lectures under the title “Descriptive Psychology”. In the winter semester of 1888/89 he gave a shorter lecture course under the same title, though with the addition “or Descriptive Phenomenology” (oder beschreibende Phänomenologie). 22 Already in February 1890 23 he planned a book in in Marty’s thought, he clearly differs from Stumpf and especially Husserl, who quite conspicuously exhibit the mark of Lotze. Though Husserl of course never studied with this philosopher, Lotzean influences were ubiquitous not only in the German speaking world, but also abroad, during Husserl’s formative years. 19. Brentano obtained this position due to a recommendation from Lotze, whom he thanks in a letter (18 January 1874) (Lotze, [ed.] Orth [2003], pp. 595 f.). 20. Marty (1875), translated below. 21. Brentano (1874). 22. Already in Würzburg (probably in 1870 or somewhat later), Brentano used the term Phänomenologie for a part of metaphysics, namely the one that comes after transcendental philosophy and precedes ontology (M 96/31730, 31739, 31943). The

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this area of psychology, presumably as a shift from his earlier plan to continue with a second volume of Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. 24 The new book, however, was to be entitled Psychognosy. Though this book was never realized, his lectures under the same title, given in the winter semester of 1890/91, have been published posthumously. 25 In view of the fact that Brentano’s notion of a descriptive psychology became so crucial to Marty’s philosophical endeavor, the following beginning sections from Brentano’s projected Psychognosy will be of considerable interest here: § 1. Psychology is the science of the mental life of man. It seeks to determine the elements of human consciousness and their combinations exhaustively and to state the conditions under which the single phenomena causally arise. The first of these is the concern of psychognosy, while the second one belongs to genetic psychology. § 2. The distinction of both disciplines is profound and asserts itself in two very essential respects. Psychognosy, it might be said, is pure psychology, whereas genetic psychology would not unfittingly be designatable as physiological psychology. The former belongs to the exact sciences, whereas the latter must in all its determinations presumably forever forgo the claim of exactness. Both of these points can be shown with few words. basic idea of phenomenology in this context was that the phenomenal world, including both psychical and physical phenomena, was to be described before it would be decided in ontology what is really real and not merely phenomenal. It is uncertain why Brentano did not follow through with phenomenology as part of metaphysics. It is of possible that he abandoned the idea altogether. However, another possibility is the time-constraints of a lecture course would not allow for him to cover all the parts of metaphysics if phenomenology were to be included. 23. This date is taken from the material in Ps 65, which contains preliminary work for the work on psychognosy. 24. Brentano (1874) is designated as the first of two volumes. In the preface Brentano explains his overall plan for the work. While there is a substantial draft for the continuation in Brentano, Ps 53, this material still does not fulfill of the author’s plan. What was published as Brentano (1911) was only part of the original edition of the first volume with later written appendices. This is a clear indication that Brentano ultimately abandoned his plan for Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. 25. Brentano, (eds.) Baumgartner and Chisholm (1982).

16

Marty’s Philosophy of Language § 3. The emergence of our consciousness and its different phenomena, as experience makes clear, is tied to physiological occurrences which we have learned to grasp as chemico-phyiscal ones. Without stating chemico-physical processes, genetic psychology will never fully and properly solve its problems. Psychognosy is different, which, even when developed to its highest perfection, will not mention in any of its tenets a physico-chemical process. For as doubtless as someone who sees in such occurrences preconditions of consciousness is right, one must just as decisively contradict someone who asserts, as a consequence of intellectual confusion, that our consciousness is intrinsically to be regarded as a chemico-physical occurrence or is composed of chemical elements. The chemical elements are materials, unintuitive in themselves and to be characterized relatively only with regard to various direct and indirect effects on our consciousness. The elements of mental life, however, are all contained in our consciousness. By recounting them to us, psychognosy need not say a word about the physiological, the phyisco-chemical domain. Something similar is thus obviously true where it speaks of the forms of combinations of the elements of consciousness, which are as alien to the combinations that chemistry makes known as what is connected in the one case is alien to what is connected in the other. Psychognosy is therefore pure psychology in this sense and thereby essentially different from genetic psychology. § 4. It distinguishes itself from it, however, also by the fact that it is an exact science and the latter is in all its determinations an inexact science. The statements of psychognosy are sharp and precise, whereas those of genetic psychology allow only a less definite formulation. The laws of becoming which it formulates are not so strictly universal that they have not more or less frequently been subject to an exception. As meteorology and other inexact branches of natural science, genetic psychology, in order to speak truly, must weaken the precision of each sentence by a “usually”, “frequently”, etc. [§ 1. Die Psychologie ist die Wissenschaft vom Seelenleben des Menschen. Sie sucht die Elemente des menschlichen Bewusstseins und ihre Verbindungen erschöpfend zu bestimmen und die Bedingungen anzugeben, unter welchen die einzelnen Erscheinungen ursachlich entstehen. Das Erste ist Sache der Psychognosie, das Zweite fällt der genetischen Psychologie anheim. § 2. Der Unterschied beider Disziplinen greift tief und macht sich insbesondere in zwei sehr wesentlichen Beziehungen geltend. Die Psychognosie, könnte man sagen, ist reine Psychologie, während die genetische Psychologie nicht unpassend als physiologische Psychologie zu bezeichnen wäre. Jene gehört zu den exakten Wissenschaften,

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während diese in allen ihren Bestimmungen wohl für immer auf den Anspruch der Exaktheit verzichten muss. Beides lässt sich mit wenigen Worten dartun. § 3. Das Auftreten unseres Bewusstseins und seiner verschiedenen Erscheinungen ist erfahrungsgemäß an physiologische Vorgänge geknüpft, welche wir als chemisch-physische Prozesse zu begreifen gelernt haben. Ohne Mitangabe chemisch-physischer Prozesse wird daher die genetische Psychologie nirgends voll und eigentlich ihre Aufgabe lösen. Anders die Psychognosie, die auch zur höchsten Vollkommenheit ausgebildet, in keinem Lehrsatze eines physischchemischen Prozesses irgendwie erwähnen wird. Denn so unzweifelhaft derjenige recht hat, der in solchen Vorgängen Vorbedingungen des Bewusstseins sieht: so entschieden muss man dem widersprechen, der in Folge einer Gedankenverwirrung behauptet, dass unser Bewusstsein in sich selbst als ein chemisch-physischer Vorgang zu betrachten, oder dass es selbst aus chemischen Elementen zusammengesetzt sei. Die chemischen Elemente sind Stoffe, unanschaulich in sich selbst und nur in Rücksicht auf mannigfache direkte und indirekte Wirkung auf unser Bewusstsein relativ zu charakterisieren. Die Elemente des Seelenlebens dagegen sind sämtlich in unserem Bewusstsein enthalten. Indem die Psychognosie sie uns aufzählt, wird sie darum mit keinem Wort das physiologische, das physisch-chemische Gebiet zu berühren haben. Ähnliches gilt dann selbstverständlich, wo sie von den Verbindungsweisen spricht, die den Verbindungen der Elemente des Bewusstseins, welche die Chemie namhaft macht, so fremd sind, wie das, was die einen dem, was die anderen in Beziehung setzen. Die Psychognosie ist also in diesem Sinne reine Psychologie und dadurch von der genetischen Psychologie wesentlich verschieden. § 4. Sie unterscheidet sich von ihr aber auch dadurch, dass sie eine exakte, jene in allen ihren Bestimmungen eine inexakte Wissenschaft ist. Die Lehrsätze der Psychognosie sind scharf und genau, die der genetischen Psychologie lassen nur eine minder bestimmte Fassung zu. Die Gesetze des Werdens, die sie aufstellt, gelten nicht so streng allgemein, dass sie nicht mehr oder minder häufig eine Ausnahme erlitten. Wie die Meteorologie und andere inexakte Zweige der Naturwissenschaft, so muss die genetische Psychologie, um wahr zu sprechen, die Präzision eines jeden Satzes durch ein “gewöhnlich”, “häufig” u.dgl. abschwächen.] 26 26. Brentano, Ps 65/5049-5052. Cf. Brentano, (eds.) Baumgartner and Chisholm (1982), pp. 1 ff. Brentano’s rejection of a materialistic reduction of the elements of consciousness, however, is stated much more forcefully in the passage just cited than in the corresponding lectures. If he subscribes to any sort of naturalism, it appears to be only in terms of methodology. He rejects even the analogy between chemical synthesis

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Here we may note that Brentano is not saying, either in the passage just cited or apparently anywhere else, that the alleged advantages which psychognosy has over genetic psychology, such as its purity and exactness, somehow make this discipline more philosophical than genetic psychology. From his manuscripts it is indeed evident that two of the most philosophically interesting questions which he originally planned to address in the second volume of his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, namely the mind-body problem and immortality, were to be the subject matter of genetic psychology rather than psychognosy. 27 Marty likewise came to make the distinction between these two branches of psychology, but did not characterize the descriptive branch as the more philosophical one. Though Brentano, once he distinguished between the two branches, lectured only on the descriptive one, Marty lectured on both of these branches. 28 Moreover, in his mature work in the philosophy of language he made a distinction between two branches of this area of philosophy corresponding to descriptive and genetic psychology respectively, 29 though his focus was by and large fixed on the descriptive philosophy of language (to be discussed in more detail in the third chapter). In view of the fact that Brentano had advocated a “psychology from an empirical standpoint”, the question arises as to whether his descriptive psychology was also meant to be an empirical science. We are of course familiar with Husserl’s notion of phenomenology, which had its roots in Brentano’s descriptive psychology, and was intended to be a purely a priori or “eidetic” discipline. So-called analytic philosophers are likewise inclined to include an a priori discipline (“conceptual analysis”) within the ranks of philosophy and to discourage a more empirical and the combination of the elements of consciousness, which had gained considerable currency in the nineteenth century through the work of James and John Stuart Mill. 27. Ps 65/55052. 28. See Marty, (eds.) Marek and Smith (1987). There are of course more materials in Marty’s literary remains which are yet to be published. In the Husserl Archives there is also a copy of lecture notes of Marty, under the signature Q 10, concerning genetic psychology. 29. Marty (1908), pp. 21 ff.

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orientation. There is therefore a temptation to see Brentano’s psychognosy in this light, for philosophers have a tendency to update intellectual currents of the past rather than see them for what they actually were. 30 While Brentano, by contrast, never had anything else put a predominantly empirical enterprise in mind when he spoke of psychognosy, Marty is very explicit on this point in his lectures on descriptive psychology, as we see in the following passage: Descriptive psychology is an experiential science, the method of which is the empirical one. There are other sciences which do not build upon experience, but are rather fully a priori; to these belong the mathematical sciences. Psychology cannot proceed in an a priori fashion; more particularly not only can genetic psychology not do so, but also descriptive psychology cannot. It also must, like every science, start from that which is immediately evident or immediately certain, but these immediate evidences, from which descriptive psychology starts, do not have apodictic character, like the truths of mathematics, but rather they have merely assertoric character; that is to say, it is a matter of immediately evident concrete facts. Only secondarily do we in this case also arrive at an analytic a priori consideration. 31 Those facts, however, from which descriptive psychology above all starts are none other than those on which experience is ultimately based. Every experiential science must start from immediately evident facts: there is one domain of such immediately certain facts, and these are the facts of inner experience which are the very basis and the subject matter of descriptive psychology. 32

30. Cf. Simons (1990), p. 159: “Marty’s discussion, true to the methodology of Brentano, is wholly philosophical, and makes no reference at all to the results of empirical investigation”. In view of the fact that the contrast between the philosophical and the empirical was crucial to German Idealism, it is particularly inappropriate to saddle Brentano with it. 31. In Marty (1916a), p. 31, the thesis “a judgment cannot be given unless there is an underlying presentation” is listed among those which can be known a priori, albeit one based on our empirical concepts of judging and presenting. 32. Marty, (ed.) Funke (1950), pp. 89 f. As indicated by Funke (p. 10), this excerpt from Marty’s descriptive psychology is taken from lecture notes of a student, namely Karl Eßl. The relevant lecture course was held during the winter semester 1909/10. See also the notes taken by Alfred Kastil from Marty’s lecture course (winter semester 1894/95) on the same subject in Marty, (eds.) Antonelli and Marek (2010).

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Marty’s Philosophy of Language

The mention of “inner experience” is of course absolutely crucial here. As the British empiricists did not limit experience to sensation and also spoke of reflection, Brentano also allows for the experience or indeed perception of one’s own mind-functions. 33 This was especially important to emphasize at a time when Auguste Comte’s “positive philosophy” was gaining ground, which in fact did not allow for psychology as a science because, according to Comte, it is impossible for the mind to observe itself. 34 Though Brentano conceded that the mind cannot observe itself, he distinguished between observation (Beoachtung) and perception (Wahrnehmung). What must be added to a perception to make it an observation, he explains, is attention (Aufmerksamkeit). Every mind-function, according to him, is perceived while it is present, though it is not and cannot be observed during its presence. 35 Though psychology does not observe the mind, inner perception provides it with the stock of concepts which are needed for its realization as a science. Marty likewise accepts Brentano’s views on inner perception. Here we must be on guard against misunderstanding the empirical orientation of Brentano and Marty. As Brentano had said at the outset of Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint that his approach in psychology does not exclude an “ideal view” (ideale Anschauung), Marty is no less inclined to make use of such cognition wherever he can do so. Brentano’s manuscripts make it abundantly clear that immediate knowledge for him consists not only of inner perception, but also of 33. Brentano is ultimately inspired by Aristotle on this point. See De Anima III. 2, 425b12-25 and De Somno 2, 455a12-22. 34. Comte (1896) I, (trans.) Martineau, pp. 11 f.: “In short, looking at all scientific theories as so many great logical facts, it is only by the thorough observation of these facts that we can arrive at the knowledge of logical laws. These being the only means of intellectual phenomena, the illusory psychology, which is the last phase of theology, is excluded. It pretends to accomplish the discovery of the laws of the human mind by contemplating itself; that is, by separating it from causes and effects. Such an attempt, made in defiance of the physiological study of our intellectual organs, and of the observation of rational methods, cannot succeed at this time of day”. 35. Nowadays we speak of introspection without drawing the distinction that Brentano proposes. However, since introspection is usually understood to be a voluntary act, it is best to say that Brentanian descriptive psychology is not meant to be based on introspection.

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insight into general axioms. 36 While Brentano insists upon the analytic character of these axioms, he does not think that such analyticity makes them “trivial”. 37 They are analytic, on his view, in the sense that they can be known simply from the concepts (or presentations) which underlie them. Though Marty’s main concern is not with epistemology, he approves of this characterization of analyticity and finds it satisfactory as an account of the a priori as such. 38 Moreover, though nominalism is often closely allied with empiricism, Brentano also thinks that “the acceptance of the fact of analytic truths is incompatible with consistent nominalism [die Anerkennung der Tatsache analytischer Wahrheiten mit dem konsequenten Nominalismus unverträglich ist]” 39 and also our ability to distinguish certain types of parts from their wholes make it necessary to make room for abstract general presentations. 40 Marty, like 36. This type of knowledge is especially emphasized throughout EL 80. 37. It is especially important for Brentano to exclude the Kantian synthetic a priori and most certainly any sort of grand a priori construction of the kind found in postKantian idealism. In this regard Marty naturally felt a need to defend himself against the charge in Jespersen (1894), p. 334, that his theory of the origin of language is comparable to the Hegelian one. According to Marty, his theory does not at all propose anything like a “jump” from non-existence to pure existence, as this is found Hegel’s system, but rather an explanation of how language originated under the hypothesis that human beings in the distant past were not significantly different from human beings at present, whereas the theories he opposes are burdened with the hypothesis that language originated in human beings who had an innate sound-reflex which has apparently vanished. See Marty (1908), pp. 673 f. On this point one may of course consult the translation of Marty (1875), which is provided in the present volume. 38. Of mathematics he says in Marty (1908), p. 43: “Its subject matter is the a priori (i.e., analytic) knowable laws of relations among magnitudes”. Marty (1908), p. 300: “judging something a priori, i.e. on the basis of the mere consideration of presentations”. 39. Brentano, Ps 19/50191. In this important manuscript, written in 1900, Brentano only criticizes the nominalism that he found in Guastella (1897), but attempts to show how various arguments for nominalism which have cropped up in modern philosophy are fallacious (50193-50202) and also to provide decisive arguments against nominalism (50203-50218). 40. Brentano, Ps 62/54009. The types of parts in question are “metaphysical” ones (as red, for example, is part of a red-colored patch) or “logical” ones (as color is part of red). In contemporary terms “nominalism” is often taken simply to mean the purely ontological thesis that there are no abstract entities, whereas Brentano understands the term in a more traditional sense, namely as the assertion that only names are general. In the contemporary sense Brentano is indeed a nominalist. It is, however, advisable to let a

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other students of Brentano, likewise allows for a kind of abstraction which would not be acceptable from a radically nominalist perspective. 41 In short, the allowance for abstract general concepts and also for a priori knowledge on their basis is by no means something that Brentano and Marty see as incompatible with their empiricism. At the same time, however, we must be on guard against taking such allowances too far, as this is done in Otto Funke’s assertion that “there is nothing to discover in psychology but only the exposition and unfurling of what occurs in our psyche”. 42 This conception of the Brentanian psychological orientation would bring both Brentano and Marty much too close to later analytically directed philosophical enterprises, perhaps even language-to-mind orientations. 43 It is rather their aim in empirical psychology to arrive at general conclusions, in large measure by means of induction, and therefore results which must be characterized as discoveries. A case in point would be the thesis that a mind-function in each case belongs to one of three classes: presentations, judgments, or acts of love and hate. This thesis can hardly be seen as anything but the result of an empirical discovery, just as the thesis that every primary color is red, blue, or yellow is so. Again, while there are no doubt analytical or conceptual aspects of the psychology under consideration here, it remains first and foremost psychology from an empirical standpoint. 44 We shall come back to this point below when briefly philosopher speak in his own terminology as much as possible. 41. See Marty (1884a), pp. 70 f., and Marty (1895), pp. 243 ff. Cf. Marty (1908), p. 338, 422, 531, and 730. 42. Funke (1927), p. 117, as translated in Mulligan (1990), p. 25. Cf. Kusch (1995), p. 138: “In his Psychologie Brentano went on to suggest that psychognosy and genetic psychology differed in that only the former’s results were self-evident, a priori and apodictic”. No such statement is to be found in Brentano (1874), which had actually been written prior to Brentano’s distinction between the descriptive and genetic branches of psychology. Moreover, when Brentano does come to make this distinction, it is not the a priori aspect of the descriptive branch which is highlighted in contrast with the genetic one. 43. See Quine (1960), pp. 219 ff. 44. Concerning the question whether Brentano is an empiricist, what Stumpf later says of his own position might be helpful (Stumpf, [ed.] Stumpf [1939], pp. 5 f.). As regards concepts, Stumpf is an empiricist because he maintains that these all have their origin in experience. As regards judgments, however, he does not think that whenever

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considering a comparison between Marty and Wittgenstein. As Brentano characterized philosophy as including all the disciplines which involve psychology, Marty did the same in his inaugural address, held in 1896. 45 On this view, philosophy encompasses at least three practical disciplines, namely logic (concerned with what judgments should be made), aesthetics (concerned with what ideas or, as we shall say, presentations we should have), and ethics (concerned with what to love and what to hate). As regards the theoretical branches of philosophy, Brentano and Marty considered them to be psychology itself and also metaphysics. 46 While it may seem unacceptable to characterize metaphysics as involving psychological concepts, Marty points out various metaphysical issues which have arisen in the past and obviously involve psychological considerations. 47 Whether or not there are synthetic judgments a priori, for instance, requires reflection on judgments which are psychical occurrences. Likewise, the metaphysical concepts of substance and causality, according to Marty, must be psychologically derived. Also, the origin of the world in the divine will and understanding is for him also a matter that remains unintelligible without psychology. Accordingly, “not only the psychological concepts, but also the most important metaphysical ones are taken from the domain of the psychical”. 48 Thus we see Marty defending the Brentanian these are in all cases genuine instances of knowledge they are directly or indirectly experiential. Accordingly Stumpf says that he is an empiricist with regard to concepts and a rationalist with regard to judgments or (since we are talking about genuine instances of knowing) “cognitions” (Erkenntnisse). If, however, it may be said that Brentano is an empiricist in one sense and a rationalist in the other, as suggested by Stumpf, the very same could be said of Locke and Hume, though John Stuart Mill would count as a full-fledged empiricist, as Stumpf himself points out. 45. See the translation below. 46. Contrary to the division that had been taught for a long time in the German speaking world, whereby metaphysics is divided into a general branch (ontology) and three special branches (psychology, cosmology, and theology), Brentano views psychology as a distinct theoretical discipline of philosophy, though of course related to metaphysics. Moreover, he thinks that ontology, cosmology, and theology are to be prefaced with “transcendental philosophy”, which (in opposition to scepticism and Kantianism) is to show the possibility of metaphysics as a science. 47. See below, pp. 238 f. 48. Marty (1884a), p. 337.

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conception of philosophy in general and metaphysics in particular, with an appeal to Aristotle, who was indeed Brentano’s life-long guide through the labyrinth of philosophy. Moreover, though Marty’s publications were mainly concerned with applying Brentanian descriptive psychology to the study of language, he lectured on all the branches of philosophy, both theoretical and practical, as well as the history of philosophy. 49 It will be seen further below that metaphysics was indeed a very important concern of his. As regards some of the particulars of Brentano’s descriptive psychology, most important for a basic understanding of Marty’s philosophy of language are 1) Brentano’s thesis that mental phenomena (or acts of consciousness) are intentionally directed (as consciousness of an object), 50 2) his classification of mental phenomena into three basic groups: presentations (Vorstellungen), judgments (Urteile), and acts of love (Liebe) and hate (Haß), 51 as already indicated in the division of practical philosophy into three corresponding disciplines, 3) his characterization of all judgments as instances of acceptance or rejection which can be formulated in existential statements (“A exists”, “A does not exist”), 52 and 4) his already-mentioned view that every act of consciousness is inwardly perceived, though never inwardly observed, in the sense of being an object of attention. In addition, 5) an important ontological position held by Brentano in his both his Würzburg and Vienna periods should be mentioned here, namely his distinction between reality and existence. While he held that existence corresponds to truth in all cases, reality is limited to substances and everything that pertains to substances (i.e. whatever belongs to the Aristotelian categories). Accordingly anything that can be accepted in a true judgment can correctly be said to exist, including possibilities and

49. See Bokhove and Raynaud (1990), pp. 247-250. 50. Brentano (1874), pp. 115 ff. This thesis may be called the “intentionality thesis”. Though Husserl was no doubt the one who made the term “intentionality” current, Brentano does speak of Intentionalität in a list of relations (EL 81/13508), which had apparently been written in the 1870s. 51. Brentano (1874), pp. 256-265. 52. Ibid., pp. 279-289.

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impossibilities, whereas not everything that exists in this sense is real. During this time Brentano allowed for a host of irrealia, such as a lack, a possibility, an impossibility, the past, the future, etc. 53 Finally, 6) Brentano’s views on language, especially the ones put forward in his Würzbug lectures on logic (where communicative function is emphasized), 54 are to a large extent the basis for much of what Marty has to say in the philosophy of language. It would, however, take us too far afield to examine the contents of Brentano’s manuscripts in detail. There will be opportunities in the following chapters to point out additional aspects of Brentano’s philosophy which are clearly present throughout Marty’s work. The six which have just been emphasized will suffice for the present. It should be kept mind, however, that Marty’s later ontology of the non-real, to be elaborated on below, is a definite divergence from Brentano. Other aspects of Marty’s philosophy which were not taken from Brentano are his distinction between autosemantica and synsemantica, his notion of inner linguistic form, and his characterization of intentionality as “mental similarity” (ideelle Ähnlichkeit), 55 all of which will be examined in the third chapter of the present analysis. Brentano’s assertion that he also dissuaded Marty from an earlier theory on the origin of language and also from regarding “the things in the mind” (i.e. immanent objects, as will be discussed in the third chapter) and as “not obtaining and thus as fictions” 56 cannot be examined until Brentano’s manuscripts are subject to further study. After publishing his work on the perception of color, 57 Marty became a professor in Prague, where some of his students (such as Oskar Kraus, Alfred Kastil, Hugo Bergmann, and even for a brief period Franz 53 Brentano (1889), p. 62. 54. See Rollinger (2009a), pp. 83-89. 55. While I am thus in agreement with Cesalli (2009), pp. 132-133, where the same point is made, I do not agree that Brentano had not already explored the pragmatic aspect of language. My reason for this disagreement is elaborated on in the text cited in the previous footnote. 56. Brentano, (ed.) Mayer-Hillebrand (1966), p. 287. 57. Marty (1879).

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Kafka 58 ) also came to be followers of Brentano. In the following year Brentano had to resign as a professor in Vienna because he got married. Since he had earlier received holy orders, involving of course the vow of celibacy, his marriage was not acceptable in Austria, where there was no institution of civil marriage and Catholicism was dominant. Nevertheless, Brentano continued to lecture in Vienna until his full resignation in 1895. 59 In subsequent years Brentano developed a philosophical standpoint which Marty found objectionable. This was the view that only real things are conceivable and only real things can exist in the strict and proper sense. 60 Brentano therefore spent much of his philosophical effort during his retirement analyzing away all talk of irrealia, which he had accepted when he was active as an academic teacher. Marty, by contrast, retained the irrealia, though with certain revisions in light of his correspondence with Brentano. 61 Marty also corresponded with other students of Brentano, such as Stumpf and Husserl, 62 and of course with others in the wider philosophical and scientific community. Still the fact remains that Brentano was the dominant philosopher in his career. Marty’s writings often contain very extensive polemics against his opponents and those of Brentano. Sometimes these polemics resulted in bitter animosity, as in his interchange with Christoph Sigwart. 63 Sometimes Marty’s criticisms were received in good humor, as in the case of his very thorough-going and penetrating review of William James’ Principles of Psychology. 64 Whatever effects Marty’s polemical style had on his contemporaries, the great misfortune from a present-day 58. See Smith (1997). 59. This was the same year in which Brentano’s first wife, Ida von Lieben, died. 60. See Brentano, (ed.) Kastil (1933). 61. See the letters published in Brentano, (ed.) Hillebrand (1966). 62. See Schuhmann (ed.), 1994, 69-96. 63. See Sigwart (1888), pp. 30-35 n. 64. Marty (1892a). See the translation below. James was familiar with this review and in the annotations to his copy thereof he conceded that Marty was correct on various points. See Roback (1942), pp. 59 f.

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standpoint is that his own positive views become overshadowed by his criticisms of the views of others. With patience, however, it is possible to sift out from such criticisms his positive views on a number of philosophical issues. The extent to which these views are original cannot be fully assessed until Brentano’s literary remains are more adequately edited and published. Many of the views which were developed in Marty’s later work nonetheless diverged from Brentano’s early positions (as well as Marty’s own earlier positions), but also from Brentano’s later positions. 2. The Situation of Philosophy In the late nineteenth century Friedrich Paulsen could write the following in his widely read Introduction to Philosophy: There was a time, and that time is not very remote from us, when the opinion widely prevailed that philosophy had outlived its usefulness, that the positive sciences had taken its place. Its raison d’etre was conceded on the ground that it served as a preliminary stage to scientific knowledge, but it was held that we should no longer attempt to gain a knowledge of the world and objects by general speculation. Let philosophy eke out its existence as the harmless diversion of sterile minds that are not fitted for real scientific labor. Not all, however, who lay claim to scientific training ought to be required to busy themselves with philosophy. 65

Here the mention of “general speculation” of course harkens back to the idealist orientation which had prevailed early in the nineteenth century. While Brentano had to contend with the remnants of such speculation when he began to teach philosophy in Würzburg and indeed did so quite successfully as far as his effect on Marty as well as Stumpf and other students was concerned, the wider cultural climate was much more positivistic in the sense that the natural sciences and perhaps also the humanities were regarded as the only pursuits worthy of the name “science” and philosophy was regarded as something altogether discredited. Nonetheless, it must be borne in mind that this was the situation in the 65. Paulsen, (trans.) Thilly (1895), p. 1. This authorized translation was endorsed with great enthusiasm by William James, who wrote a preface to it (pp. iii-vii).

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German speaking world and not elsewhere. Philosophy in the English speaking world, which interested Brentano and Marty, was different. What was most important for them was the empiricist tradition which was kept alive by John Stuart Mill. 66 Though Mill was sympathetic to the positivism of Auguste Comte, he did not dismiss psychology as Comte had done. 67 Moreover, he breathed new life into certain other traditional philosophical disciplines such as ethics and logic. His System of Logic, first published in 1843, subsequently published in various editions, and translated twice into German, 68 was especially important to Brentano. By no means, to be sure, did Brentano adopt all aspects of Mill’s approach to logic. Nevertheless, he read the work with great interest and in large measure modeled his Würzburg lectures on logic after Mill’s “system” and even made an effort to meet Mill, though Mill’s death in 1872 did not allow for such a meeting to take place. Whatever flaws were to be found in Mill’s logic and psychology, Brentano found the empiricist orientation in general to be the right one and indeed the only one capable of restoring philosophy to its previous lofty status and also making it 66. Though the Scottish school of common sense, which had its roots in the philosophy of Thomas Reid, was quite prominent during much of the nineteenth century in the English speaking world, by end of the nineteenth century the Scottish philosopher and psychologist Alexander Bain was in fact very sympathetic to Mill’s empiricist orientation. The newly rising idealist philosophy in Britain at that time, which was very much inspired by Kant and Hegel, was not significantly within the intellectual horizons of Brentano and Marty, who were highly critical of that source of inspiration. 67. See Mill (1866). 68. Mill, (trans.) Schiel (1868) and Mill, (trans.) Gomperz (1872). Brentano made extensive use of the former volume, especially in connection with his lectures which had begun in Würzburg in 1869. The material in Brentano, EL 80 (wherein Mill is frequently cited, sometimes critically and sometimes favorably) contains much of his first lectures and also some material from his Vienna period. In Brentano (1874) the intention to use the logic lectures from the summer semester 1870/71 for a future publication is announced. Contrary to what has been believed since Mayer-Hillebrand (1956), unfortunately in some cases by competent researchers (see e.g. Chrudzimski [2005]), p. 53), the material in EL 80 is for the most part not from the late 1880s and must not be taken to represent his Vienna period. There are at best inserts in EL 80 from that time, apparently in connection with Brentano’s intention to publish this material. Here it cannot be determined when he finally decided not to follow through with this intention. The most extensive work in which Brentano’s logic was presented before the public is the short work of a faithful student, namely Hillebrand (1891).

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scientific. 69 Just as Mill gave attention to Auguste Comte’s “positive philosophy”, 70 Brentano likewise did so just a few years later 71 and found the hierarchy of the sciences contained therein to be an idea that could be adopted in a revised form. 72 While Comte ranks the sciences in terms of methodological complexity and considers sociology to be the most complex, Brentano regards psychology as the most complex and indeed most philosophically significant science. Though the old idealist systems of the early nineteenth century no longer prevailed in Germany at this time, there were, however, philosophical movements by the end of the century which both Brentano and Marty had to confront. One of these was the “back to Kant” movement which had been announced by Otto Liebmann in his influential work. 73 In their efforts to establish philosophy as scientific, in the sense of having no other method but that of the natural sciences, they often had to deal with not only Kant himself, but also with the various neo-Kantians whose orientation was rapidly gaining ground in the German speaking world. While philosophy had thus been considerably marginalized in the cultural milieu under consideration here, so was the situation with regard to one of its most cherished concerns in the curriculum of the young, namely logic. The Aristotelian logic, which even Kant – that great revolutionary in modern philosophy – regarded as all but perfected, had of course already been met with great contempt by Descartes and Locke. 74 After the collapse of German idealism, wherein Hegel offered his own metaphysically transfigured logic as part of his larger system, 69. Cf. Brentano (1889), p. 10: “the empirical school, to which I myself belong”. See also ibid., p. 14: “... we must above all seek the origin of the concept of good, which, like the origin of all our concepts, lies in certain concrete intuitive presentations”. 70. See Mill (1866). 71. See Brentano, (ed.) Kraus (1926), pp. 97-133. This article was first published in 1869. 72. Brentano (1874), pp. 28 ff. 73. Liebmann (1865). 74. Kritik der reinen Vernunft (B), p. viii.

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there was a diminishing respect for logic insofar as it made any pretense to be of assistance in the improvement of the understanding. As already mentioned, Mill’s System of Logic, in which induction had a prominent place, was gaining ground in the German speaking world and the old system of syllogism was increasingly seen to be sterile. Nevertheless, logics in which this system still was treated in one form or another were being published and being taught. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where both Brentano and Marty were teaching, Robert Zimmermann’s Philosophical Propaedeutic, which went through three editions, served as a textbook in secondary schools. 75 Though Zimmermann had earlier been a student of Bernard Bolzano and to some extent introduced some of Bolzano’s logical concepts in this textbook, 76 he was increasingly drawn to the philosophical system of Johann Friedrich Herbart. 77 Contrary to Zimmermann and many of the other authors on logic, however, Brentano was proposing a reform of logic based on his alreadymentioned theory of judgment. Though Marty himself was not directly concerned with logic, he did emphasize that a distinction is to be made between a statement (Aussage) and a judgment which a statement expresses. Contrary to certain philosophers and linguists who wanted to reduce thought to language, this distinction became of particular importance to him not only for his philosophy of language, but also for the defense of Brentano’s conception of logic as the art of judgment (i.e. a practical philosophical discipline, as already indicated above). The intermingling of logic and psychology was something that Brentano had in common with other outstanding philosophers and logicians at the end of the nineteenth century. Among them was Christoph Sigwart, whose Logic went through three editions in his own lifetime, not to mention a fourth that was published posthumously. Both Brentano and Marty, however, were very critical of this work which was for the most part very well received. In an unpublished letter to Marty (3 75. Zimmermann (1853), Zimmermann (1860), and Zimmermann (1867). 76. The great work in which these concepts were developed and explained at length was Bolzano (1837), which eventually came to have considerable influence on some of the most prominent students of Brentano, most notably on Husserl. See Rollinger (1999), pp. 69-82. 77. Though Herbart himself did not write an extensive logic, his views on the matter turn up not only in Zimmermann’s work, but also in Drobisch (1887).

Historical Background September 1882) Brentano says the following: I have also spent a lot of time with Sigwart’s work. It has some assets. Obviously he expended great diligence on the book and is also not an impotent and unindependent thinker. The mistakes, however, are colossal, and some errors poison the organism almost in its entirety. Though he correctly defines logic as art, he most impractically enters into metaphysical and psychological investigations which do not even serve his purpose. It is furthermore most impractical that he often arbitrarily changes the terminology (as analytic judgments, for instance, are for him immediate and synthetic ones mediated.) He moves about most impractically where the most necessary instruments of cognition are at stake, such as communicating in generalities with regard to the calculation of probability instead of the propositions of Laplace in the Philosophical Essay on Probabilities. Yet, those are the smallest deficiencies. It is worse that he confuses necessity of thought with evidence. He does, to be sure, want to separate logical and psychological necessity in this case. But it is of course impossible to reach solid ground there. Again and again he keeps mixing up what belongs to thinking and what belongs to language and thereby obscures the entire investigation. It is still worse that he wants everywhere to assert postulates as a surrogate for a rationally justified basis. A natural demand that it is thus all he can cite in support of the fact that we trust in the universality of the law of causality, etc., and this supposedly suffices. He is also an indeterminist and believes that a morality is incompatible with determinism. Wherever he wants to justify morality, however, he aims at what is correct and yet, like the majority, does not in this case hit the bull’s eye. He favors teleology and the existence of God. I fear, however, that under such circumstances his support of the good cause cannot be a very sturdy one. [Auch mit Sigwarts Werk gab ich mich viel ab. Es hat manche Vorzüge. Offenbar hat er viel Fleiß auf das Buch verwandt und ist auch kein unkräftiger und unselbständiger Denker. Aber die Fehler sind kolossal und manche Irrtümer vergiften schier den ganzen Organismus. Höchst unpraktisch lässt er sich, obwohl er die Logik richtig als Kunst bestimmt, auf metaphysische und psychologische Untersuchungen ein, die gar nicht dem Zwecke dienen. Höchst unpraktisch ändert er ferner oft in willkürlicher Weise die Terminologie (wie ihm z.B. die analytischen Urteile die unmittelbaren, die synthetischen die vermittelten sind). Höchst unpraktisch bewegt er sich, wo es sich um die nötigsten Werzeuge der Erkenntnis handelt, wie z.B. hinsichtlich der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung in Allgemeinheiten, statt die sämtlich Sätze des Laplace im Essai Philosophique sur les Probabilités mitzuteilen. Doch

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Marty’s Philosophy of Language das sind noch die gringsten Mängel. Schlimmer ist, dass er Notwendigkeit des Denkens mit Evidenz verwechselt. Er will dann zwar logische und psychologische Notwendigkeit scheiden: aber es ist natürlich unmöglich, da noch auf einen sicheren Grund zu kommen. Wiederum mengt er, was Sache des Denkens und was Sache der Sprache ist, fort und fort ineinander und trübt dadurch die ganze Untersuchung. Dass die Verkennung der Natur des Urteils auch bei ihm sich findet und viele üblce Folgen hat, versteht sich fast von selbst. Schlimmer aber ist es noch, dass er überall als Surrogat für eine vernunftberechtigte Basis Postulate geltend machen will. Ein natürliches Verlangen, dass es so sei, ist alles, was er dafür anführen kann, dass wir der Allgemeinheit des Kausalitätsgesetzes vertrauen usw. und dies soll genügen. Dabei ist er Indeterminist und glaubt, mit dem Determinismus sei eine Moral unvereinbar. Wo er aber diese begründen will, zielt er zwar auf das Richtige, trifft aber, wie die Mehrzahl, dann doch nicht ins Schwarze. Der Teleologie und dem Dasein Gottes ist er günstig. Ich fürchte aber, dass unter solchen Umständen seine Unterstützung der guten Sache keine sehr mächtige sein könne.]

Among the students of Brentano who continued to criticize Sigwart’s Logic was Husserl, though from a very different perspective. In the first volume of his Logical Investigations Husserl regarded this work and a good many others from the late nineteenth century as subject to psychologism, which for him was the view that logic, as a practical discipline, is based on no other theoretical discipline but psychology. 78 Though Husserl did not directly criticize Brentano’s conception of logic, Brentano did take issue with Husserl’s alternative to psychologism as this was found in the concept of “pure logic”. 79 Nevertheless, the rejection of psychologism did become a very powerful current in the early twentieth century. Marty, as we shall see, was also found guilty of succumbing to psychologism. At the same time it will be seen that his mature philosophy of language is in a sense a most radical antipsychologism. All forms of skepticism, relativism, and subjectivism were regarded by Brentano as anti-thetical to science and philosophy. Marty never at any time diverged from the Brentanian orientation in this regard, but unlike Husserl he continued to see philosophy as grounded in psychological investigations. 78. See Husserl (1900), pp. 56 f., 98 f., 124 ff. 133 ff. 79. See Rollinger (1999), pp. 45-48.

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One of Husserl’s inspirations in his critique of psychologism was Lotze, who was indeed a very important figure during the late nineteenth century. Lotze’s star began to rise shortly after the collapse of the idealist systems. He criticized Herbart’s ontology early in his career 80 and reached his pinnacle, shortly before his death, with the publication of his own system in a volume on logic 81 and one on metaphysics. 82 The relationship between Lotze and the school of Brentano was in large measure a harmonious one. Since Lotze also held that philosophy is to make use only of the scientific method, they had no disagreement in this regard. There were, however, issues on which the views of Brentano and those of Lotze could hardly be reconciled, as indicated in the following undated letter from Brentano to Marty: Stimulated by my lecture course on logic, I have begun to read Lotze’s Logic. Almost everything I have read thus far is wrong; some of it even in an astonishing way, e.g. when he says that a proposition of the form ‘S is P’, precisely understood, is absurd, and when he then wants to have understood it in the sense of an analytic, indeed tautological proposition. Here the old Antisthenes would again be given honor, who thought that one could predicate of every concept only itself. Here and there some of the truth peeks out at times, such as the acceptance of the existential proposition. Otherwise, however, everything is overcast and shrouded in obscurity. If he only had more talent in speaking illustratively and thus to facilitate attention! Thus the reading is often downright painful. 83 [Angeregt durch mein Kolleg über Logik, habe ich Lotzes Logik zu lesen begonnen. Was ich bisher gelesen, ist fast alles verfehlt; einiges sogar in staunerregender Weise, z.B. wenn er einen Satz von der Form S ist P genau genommen absurd findet und ihn dann im Sinne eines analytischen ja tautologischen Satzes verstanden haben will. Da ware ja der alte 80. See Lotze (1843). This article is reprinted in Lotze (1895) I, pp. 109-138. 81. See Lotze (1880). In a letter to Stumpf (8 May 1871) Brentano refers to Lotze’s confrontation with the Herbartians as “masterly”. See Brentano, (eds.) Oberkofler und Goller (1989), p. 17. 82. See Lotze (1880). 83. Brentano held his last lecture course in logic in the winter semester of 1884/85. Lotze’s Logik was first published in 1879. Accordingly, this letter was written no earlier than 1879 and no later than 1885.

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Marty’s Philosophy of Language Antisthenes wieder zu Ehren gebracht, der meinte, man könne von jeglichem Begriff nur ihn selbst anregen. Zwischendurch blickt manchmal etwas von Wahrheit, wie die Anerkennung des Existentialsatzes. Aber sonst ist alles trüb umwölkt und verschleiert. Hätte er nur etwas mehr die Gabe, anschaulich zu sprechen und dadurch die Aufmerksamkeit zu erleichtern. So ist die Lektüre oft eine rechte Pein.]

Moreover, by no means did Lotze share Brentano’s respect for the philosophical ideas which hailed from Britain. 84 Though Lotze was not a neoKantian, his philosophical endeavor was to a large extent deeply informed by Kant’s three “critiques”. 85 At a time and place where philosophy was by and large rejected or given the status as a “critique of reason” that reflected the Kantian enterprise in one way or another, Brentano and Marty were on a mission to re-establish philosophy’s previous status in the system of the sciences. This inevitably involved breaking not only the positivistic spell, but also the Kantian one to which many of their contemporaries had fallen prey. Their strategy for fashioning philosophy into a science was to set out from a psychology from an empirical standpoint, which was first and foremost a descriptive psychology and stood in contrast with various other approaches to the study of the human mind. Accordingly we shall now consider the situation in psychology in the late nineteenth century. 3. The Situation in Psychology As is well known, this was the time in which psychology began to break away from philosophy and assert itself as an independent discipline. Nevertheless, some of the older psychological theories which philosophers had put forward did not simply go away and were indeed to some extent taken up in the new psychology. The associationist psychology from Britain had a significant presence,

84. Lotze’s lectures on nineteenth century philosophy were strictly concerned with the work of German philosophers. See Lotze (1894). 85. Thomas (1921), p. xv: “The starting point of Lotze’s philosophy, and also that which sets for him its problem, lies in Kant’s philosophy”.

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as embodied in the work of James Mill 86 and later in that of Alexander Bain. 87 While Hume was content to formulate three laws of association (contiguity in space, contiguity in time, and cause and effect), 88 there were alternative formulations of such laws in the nineteenth century. With few exceptions, however, there was agreement that ideas or presentations were associated with each other according to definitely specifiable laws. Brentano and Marty were also in agreement with this view and indeed saw association as crucial to the development of language. The difference between them and the proponents of associationist psychology, however, was that for them descriptive psychology was not merely the attempt to formulate such laws and thereby to explain all psychical occurrences on this basis. Mention should also be made here of the lingering influence of Herbart regarding his psychological theories. 89 According to Herbart, there is such a thing as the unconscious mind in contrast with consciousness. This view, which was taken up by various thinkers in the late nineteenth century, especially of course Freud, was rejected by Brentano in his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. 90 Though he did find the hypothesis of an “unconscious consciousness” (unbewusstes Bewusstsein) contradictory, as this term might suggest, he maintained that the hypothesis in question simply fails to explain the phenomena which others tried to explain by means of it. While Marty, like Brentano, has no use for an unconscious consciousness in his psychological investigations, 91 what is of far greater importance to him is to assert Brentano’s classification of psychical phenomena in opposition to Herbart’s view that these are all presentations. As psychology gained greater independence from philosophy, the notion of a psychophysics or physiological psychology become more and 86. See Mill, (ed.) Mill (1869). 87. See Bain (1872). 88. See Hume, (ed.) Selby-Bigge (1978), pp. 10 ff. 89. See Herbart (1824) and Herbart (1825). 90. See Brentano (1874), pp. 131-202. 91. Marty (1908), pp. 423 n. ff.

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more prevalent. Gustav Fechner, with his defense of “Weber’s law” (whereby the intensity of sensations was specified in relation to that of the stimulus), was an early proponent of this current. 92 This law indeed became focal in much of the experimental work in the late nineteenth century. While Brentano himself thought that genetic psychology was to be dependent on physiology, he also maintained, as already indicated above, that physiology was not yet developed enough for such a purpose. With the publication of Principles of physiological Psychology in 1874 93 Wilhelm Wundt at the same time founded the first psychological laboratory, i.e. research institute, in which experimentation in psychology was to receive full attention. There was adequate funding, a director, researchers to work under his guidance, and a means provided for the publication of this research. This was of course a watershed in the history of psychology. While Wundt attracted many students from the German speaking world and also from abroad, he was also not without his opponents. Among his opponents were Brentano and Marty, for whom such experimentation was of little use without an adequate descriptive psychology, which was not to be found in any of the results from Wundt’s school, as far as they were concerned. By no means will it be possible here to elaborate on the many schools of psychology which emerged after Wundt’s founding of the psychological laboratory in Leipzig. It then became the fashion for universities throughout Europe and America to have such an institute. Two of Brentano’s students became prominent in this regard, namely Stumpf in Berlin and Meinong in Graz. Most of the work done in such laboratories, however, was regarded by Brentano and Marty as insignificant due to the lack of an adequate descriptive foundation. Though outstanding American psychologists had been trained in Wundt’s laboratory and subsequently in others in Germany, William James in Harvard took up the task of writing a two-volume work in which all areas of psychology, as it was conceived of at that time, were explored with varying degrees of penetration and depth. 94 This work proved to be a great stimulus not only in the English speaking world, but 92. See Fechner (1860). 93. See Wundt (1874). 94. James (1890).

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also among German speakers. Due to James’ close relation with Stumpf, it was recommended to some of Stumpf’s students, including the young Husserl, who was greatly inspired by it. James did not at all go the route of associationism, as this had been done previously by English speaking psychologists, but rather had some appreciation for other tendencies, including Brentano’s account of the unity of consciousness. In Marty’s extensive review of the work in question 95 he found fault with a number of James’ positions, above all a conception of consciousness which would not as a matter of principle allow for analysis. By no means do I wish to give the impression here that Brentano and Marty were in no way influenced by any of their contemporaries working in the domain of psychology or philosophy. As we already noted, Brentano adopted the Comtean conception of sciences in terms of a methodological hierarchy, though of course in a revised form. As regards psychology in particular, his definition of a psychology as the science of psychical phenomena, rather than science of the soul, was explicitly inspired by Friedrich Albert Lange’s notion of “psychology without a soul”. 96 In Marty’s efforts in descriptive psychology we likewise find attention given to psychical phenomena without any explicit mention of a substantial bearer distinct from human organisms. 4. The Situation in the Study of Language The eighteenth century and the early nineteenth were still very much under the spell of “general grammar”, as this had been advanced in the work from Port Royal in the seventeenth century. 97 This general grammar was in large measure modeled, at least in its program, 98 after 95. Marty (1892a). See the translation below. 96. Brentano (1874), p. 13. See Lange (1866), p. 165. In a letter to Marty (16 June 1883) Brentano writes that he is reading this work by Lange in its entirety for the first time. “What I have thus far read,” he says in this letter, “has often pleased me, though the bias of judgment and the over-confidence where there is often little thoroughness are to be met with disapproval [Was ich bisher gelesen, hat mir oft gut gefallen, doch ist die Parteilichkeit des Urteiles und die übergrosse Zuversicht bei oft geringer Gründlichkeit zu tadeln]”. 97. Arnauld and Lancelot, (eds. and trans.) Rieux and Rollin (1975). 98. It has been pointed out in Ricken (1994), p. 25, that the exectution of this

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the logic which had also been developed in the same school and thus gave priority to subject-predicate sentences. A crucial development away from this tendency, however, occurred in the attention that Wilhelm von Humboldt gave to the diversity of languages. 99 Though Humboldt no doubt still had much in common with the advocates of general grammar, his observations of languages were not at all tied to logical considerations as theirs were. 100 William Dwight Whitney accurately described the great advancement in the study of language during the nineteenth century, especially after Humboldt’s emphasis on the diversity, as follows: The restless and penetrating spirit of investigation, finally, of the nineteenth century, with its insatiable appetite for facts, its tendency to induction, and its practical recognition of the unity of human interests, and of the absolute value of all means of knowledge respecting human conditions and history, has brought about as rapid a development in linguistic study as in the kindred branches of physical study …. The truth being once recognized that no dialect, however rude and humble, is without worth, or without a bearing upon the understanding of even the most polished and cultivated tongues, all that followed was a matter of course. Linguistic material was gathered in from every quarter, literary, commercial, and philanthropic activity combining to facilitate its collection and thorough examination. Ancient records were brought to light and deciphered; new languages were dragged from obscurity and made accessible to study. 101

In this climate of extremely intense linguistic and philological research Marty embarked on his career in philosophy with his focus on language. While he was indeed critical of many of the prominent theories about language, it must at the same time be stressed that he drew upon grammar, which is primarily the work of Lancelot, actually resulted in a good deal of automony of grammar from logic. See also Hildebrandt (1976). Such an autonomy was precisely what was later asserted most vehemently in Steinthal (1855) and became crucial to the development of linguistics in the nineteenth century. 99. Humboldt (1836). 100. Graffi (2001), pp. 15-25. 101. Whitney (1884), p. 3.

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quite a few of the results of the research that was done by his predecessors and contemporaries in the study of languages. The many accomplishments which arose from the activities indicated by Whitney in the above-cited passage are too vast to be discussed here on any satisfactory level. Much of this involved not only the minute analysis of individual languages from all over the world and from previous historical periods, but also extensive comparison between them. Hence, the term “comparative linguistics” or “comparative philology” became applicable for much of the research regarding language in the nineteenth century. One of the fruits of such comparison was of course the development of the hypothesis of a proto-Indo-European language, 102 which continues to be an undying subject for linguistic research. By no means does Marty, amidst all his polemics against various views of linguists, condemn this hypothesis or the comparative research from which it arose. Indeed, he makes use of this work to his advantage. What interests Marty primarily, however, is what he calls “the philosophy of language” (Sprachphilosophie), “universal grammar” (allgemeine Grammatik), or “philosophical grammar” (philosophische Grammatik) in his main work, all terms which hark back to previous times, though understood in his own peculiar way. At the end of the nineteenth century in the German speaking world it was for the most part not considered to be scientific to take an interest in philosophy at all, as already indicated above, and this of course entailed that linguists avoided calling their work “philosophy of language”. 103 This would not be 102. The term “Proto-Indo-Germanic Language” (indogermanische Urprache) was more common, as this was prompted by the discovery between remarkable parallels between certain European languages and ancient Sanskrit and subsequently reconstructed by Bopp, Schleicher, Brugmann, and Delbrück. Though Marty has no doubt about the reality of this primal language, he is skeptical about drawing conclusions from its reconstruction regarding the earliest seeds of language. See Marty (1875), pp. 142 (below pp. 225). 103. It is observed in Frischeisen-Köhler (1912a) that, while distrust towards philosophy is decreasing among natural scientists, “the researchers in the humanities retain their aversion much more tenaciously towards everything that looks like philosophy” (p. 122). Among such researchers were of course linguists who did not wish to leave room for the philosophy of language. In the article just cited, however, the author continues (pp. 123 ff.) by arguing that there is nonetheless a need for the philosophy of language. Together with Wilhelm Wundt and Hermann Paul, Marty is regarded as one of thinkers who has attempted to meet this need (p. 123). Yet, in view Frischeisen-Köhler’s statement “From the relation of speaking to thinking, of grammar to

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suitable for a study of language in the scientific age any more than it would be for a physicist to speak of his work as philosophy of nature, as Newton had done. According to the prevailing view, philosophy deals in speculations, 104 while science deals in facts, and thus linguistics deals in the facts of language. Marty was thus in a minority already in his first work when he stated that his concern with the origin of language is a philosophical matter. 105 In his final article in the series On Subjectless Sentences he discusses his views in connection with those of Hume and Kant and addresses the question whether “existence” is a predicate. 106 This is of course a decidedly philosophical issue. By the time he was ready to write his great work, “philosophy of language” could be boldly printed in the title. At the same time, however, it must be kept in mind that not all in the German speaking world who studied language were timid about characterizing their work on language in such a manner. An outstanding exception in this regard would be Marty’s opponent, Heyman Steinthal, as well as his followers and associates. Both Steinthal and his brother-inlaw Moritz Lazarus also viewed their work, just as Marty viewed his own, as being psychological in character and therefore philosophical. 107 Their psychology, however, was by and large the psychology of Herbart, 108 whereas his was most emphatically the psychology of logic, there arises a host of additional problems which likewise lead beyond the boundaries of science of language and into the midst of philosophical discussions” (p. 126) does not at all square with Marty’s conception of the philosophy of language as part of the science of language and not in any sense as something somehow beyond the boundaries of this science. This conception will be examained in the following chapter of the present analysis. 104. Krause, (ed.) Wünsche (1891), though published in the late nineteenth century, was of course written by a philosopher who lived in the earlier part of the century in a climate of “speculation”, when idealism and romanticism were rife. 105. Marty (1875), pp. iii. See below, p. 251. 106. Marty (1895), pp. 19-50. 107. See especially Steinthal (1881), a work dedicated to Lazarus, in which the link between psychology and the science of language is made explicit in the title and the first chapter (pp. 1-28) is concerned with the task of philosophy and of the philosophy of language in particular. 108. Graffi (2001), pp. 24 ff.

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Brentano. In view of the fact that Brentano’s logic, defined as the art of judging, is developed in large part from his psychology, Marty’s philosophy of language is again much more closely tied to logic than were the philosophies of language from Steinthal and other psychologistic schools of the nineteenth century. This new tie with logic, however, is not the same as the old one that had been made in previous attempts at a general grammar. 109 In spite of the prevailing disgust for any mention of philosophy among linguists in the German speaking world of the late nineteenth century, there was at that time a growing interest in general linguistics. In some cases this was psychological in character, whereas in other cases it was not. Nevertheless, there remained considerable interest in comparative linguistics. Among the linguists who took interest in general linguistics as a matter of interest above and beyond comparative linguistics were Michel Bréal, 110 William Dwight Whitney, 111 and Philipp Wegener, 112 to mention a few. 113 Among these three Bréal was 109. This point is elaborated on Marty in (1893). The most important difference lies in the characterization of statements. While the older view involved the model of subjectcopula-predicate, Brentano regarded this grammatical form as a very misleading representative of the underlying act of judging, which for him is rather acceptance or rejection and best represented by statements of the form “A exists” and “A does not exist”. This is the reason why Marty finds it important in his early work to examine impersonals, such as “It is raining”, for he insists that these are best analyzed by making use of the Brentanian model rather than the older one. Marty’s approach to statements in his mature work will be examined more closely in the third chapter of this analysis. 110. See Bréal, (trans.) Cust (1900). 111. See Whitney (1884). 112. See Wegener (1885). 113. See Nerlich (1990) for an interesting study of the accomplishments of these three in particular in comparison with each other. The remark in this study that “Whitney and Bréal stood up against two trends in comparative linguistics: the older ‘mysticism’ (romanticism) (cf. Schlegel, but also Steinthal) and the younger naturalism (cf. Schleicher, Müller)” (p. 17) could very well apply to Marty’s stance as well with regard to the approach to language in general, as long as “naturalism” is taken to be equivalent to “materialism” or to refer to the failure to take consciousness and its peculiar features into account. The rejection of naturalism in this sense of course did not exclude the principle of allowing for no other method but that of the natural sciences.

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the most concerned with the relation between mind and language. For this reason and also for Bréal’s explicit focus on the function of linguistic signs Marty cites him with a considerable degree of sympathy. 114 As Bréal’s mature views on language were developed in the domain that he called “semantics”, 115 Marty’s were developed in the one called “semasiology”. These two terms may indeed be taken to be more or less synonymous. Among psychologists who gave attention to language as the subject matter of their investigation, the most outstanding example during Marty’s time was no doubt Wilhelm Wundt. Already in his pioneering work Principles of Physiological Psychology we find him attending to this topic. 116 Most important, however, was Wundt’s much more elaborate treatment of language as such as the first part of his famous “psychology of peoples” (Völkerpsychologie). 117 Though Wundt is of course best known nowadays as the one who established the first psychological laboratory as a full-fledged academic institute and thus the pivotal figure in experimental psychology, he maintained that the science of language was primarily to inform psychology rather than viceversa. 118 Marty’s view of course is quite the opposite of this. Accordingly, he not only agrees with Brentano’s rejection of much of Wundt’s psychology, 119 but also of Wundt’s view of the relation of psychology to linguistics. From Wundt’s perspective Brentano and his 114. Marty (1908), p. vii. 115. Bréal is in fact often given credit for coining the term “semantics” (sémantique). 116. See the twenty-second chapter (pp. 838-858) of Wundt (1874), which is concerned with “expressive movements” (Ausdrucksbewegungen). 117. See Wundt (1900) and Wundt (1904). 118. See the passage from Wundt (1901), p. 9, which is cited (erroneously as p. 8) in Marty (1910), p. vi. Wundt is, however, not nearly as radical in advocating the languageto-mind approach as others, whom Marty proceeds to cite. 119. Brentano (1874), pp. 9, 86, 134, 196-199, 223 n. For a study of the relation between Brentano and Wundt, see Titchener (1921), pp. 108-120. In view of the fact that Wundt’s views on a large variety of topics are under attack in many of Brentano’s manuscripts, there is still a need for further research regarding the connection between these two pivotal figures in the history of psychology.

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students were infected with “scholasticism” and “logicism”. 120 Among such students of Brentano who concerned themselves with language, Marty was not the only one. Husserl devoted his first “Logical Investigation” to the topic of expression and meaning 121 and the fourth one to “pure grammar”. 122 Though the treatment of language there plainly owes much to Marty’s work, especially On Subjectless Sentences, 123 it also involves the conception of meanings as ideal objects, which are, unlike real things, devoid of all temporal determination. In Marty’s main work he was very critical of this view of meanings. 124 Though Meinong did not make language a focal concern in his work, his student Eduard Martinak did so in his Psychological Investigations in the Theory of Meaning, 125 to which Meinong does appeal in support of his theory of assumptions. 126 Marty is critical not only of Meinong’s theory of assumptions, but also of this underlying theory of meaning as well. 127 As Darwinism took root throughout the intellectual landscape of Europe and elsewhere since the publication of The Origin of the Species, 128 the study of language was by no means immune to this movement of thought. Accordingly, it was not uncommon during Marty’s time for explanations in the linguistic sphere, e.g. regarding the origin of 120. Wundt (1911), pp. 511-635. 121. Husserl (1901), pp. 23-105. 122. Ibid., pp. 286-321. 123. A copy of this series of articles is to be found in Husserl’s private library in the Husserl Archives, Leuven. He read them very thoroughly and published reports on the last four. See Husserl, (ed.) Rang (1979), pp. 135 f., 236-258. Husserl also published a review of Marty (1908). See Husserl (1910) (republished in Husserl, [ed.] Rang [1979], pp. 261-265). Within the school of Brentano Marty’s work was for the most part well received. See Stumpf (1876) and Twardowski (1894), pp. 11, 19, 28, 36, 40, 75, 97 f. 124. See Rollinger (1999), pp. 230-234. 125. Martinak (1901). 126. Meinong (1902), p. 16. 127. Marty (1908), pp. 275 f., 492 n. f., 638 n. f. 128. Darwin (1859).

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language, to be Darwinistic in character. One of the works by Darwin himself was concerned with this topic. 129 Also Wilhelm Bleek wrote a widely received work on the origin of language from a Darwinistic perspective, to which Haeckel (the high priest of Darwinism in Germany) wrote a preface. 130 There were, however, notable exceptions to this trend, such as in the case of one of the leading figures of comparative philology as well as an outstanding Orientalist and founder of comparative religion, Friedrich Max Müller. According to Müller, who was to a large measure inspired by Kant, reason and language are but two sides of the same feature. On his view, the gulf between man, who has this feature, and the other animals, which lack it, is so vast that it could never be explained by the Darwinistic hypothesis. As Brentano also found Darwinism unacceptable because he found a lack of evidence for it, 131 it may of course be expected that Marty likewise did not find philosophies and theories of language based on Darwinism to be acceptable. While this is in fact the case, Marty attends only to the particulars of Darwinistic applications in this area and, at least in his published work, does not offer a sweeping critique of Darwinism. As is well known, Ferdinand de Saussure was also developing a revolutionary conception of general linguistics. Though he was a contemporary of Marty, the edition of his lectures on this topic was not published until after Marty’s death. 132 Here it may be said that while Marty’s interests were more psychological than de Saussure’s, they at least had in common a synchronic approach to language. While many of their predecessors and contemporaries were investigating language historically (i.e. diachronically), the work of Marty and de Saussure was concerned primarily with language as it is at a given time for those who make use of it. 129. Darwin (1872). 130. Bleek (1868). 131. See Brentano (1929), pp. 315-344. This edition is taken from lecture material (from Th 31 and Th 32), especially the lecture course that Brentano held in the winter semester of 1891/92 on the existence of God. As most editions of Brentano’s posthmously published writings, this one is a result of free-wheeling philological practice. 132. Saussure, (eds.) Bally, C. et al. (1916). See Saussure, (trans.) Baskin (1959) or more recently Saussure, (trans.) Harris.

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5. Concluding Remarks This chapter has hopefully provided enough background for the understanding of Marty’s philosophical work. Some readers, however, may find a lack of consideration of later developments in philosophy and linguistics as well as psychology. Language was, to be sure, to become a matter of extensive research for philosophers and linguists throughout the twentieth century and continues to be so at present. Philosophy, as we already mentioned, took a linguistic turn. Especially the enormous influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein comes to mind in this regard. Linguistics has branched out into semantics, syntax, pragmatics, and phonetics and has become increasingly refined and technical in many of its investigations. In the last few decades, especially through the pioneering work of Noam Chomsky, the idea of a universal grammar has also been revived, though understood in a new way. 133 More closely related to Marty is Karl Bühler. 134 The relation between these two still awaits a thorough-going examination. As regards psychology, Brentano’s dismissal of an unconscious consciousness has by no means been convincing to future generations, thanks to the work of his own student, Sigmund Freud, in making the unconscious or “subconscious” mind a prevailing hypothesis among academics and laypersons alike. Moreover, there arose other schools of psychology in the twentieth century, in which consciousness took a back seat to other topics of investigation, e.g. behavior. Descriptive psychology, as advocated by Brentano and Marty, is nowadays primarily of interest to philosophers rather than psychologists (and, as already pointed out, has for this reason been unduly construed as analytical). For a few decades now consciousness and intentionality in particular have become a respectable subject matter for philosophical discussion. Brentano’s thesis that consciousness intentionally relates to objects, as found in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, 135 accordingly gets 133. Regarding Chomsky’s theory of grammar (at least during one of its phases) in relation to Marty’s philosophy of language, see Kuroda (1972). 134. Bühler (1934). 135. Brentano (1874), p. 115.

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quoted and made the starting point for discussions again and again by philosophers introducing the concept of intentionality often to a wide readership. 136 Though few of them follow up their quotation with further explorations of his results, they nonetheless testify to the relevance of Brentanian descriptive psychology to contemporary concerns. The same can very well be said of Marty’s philosophy of language built upon this descriptive psychology. While it would no doubt be of great interest to examine Marty’s work in connection with all subsequent developments in linguistics and the philosophy of language, this would also require vast erudition which very few scholars, if any at all, have at their disposal. Such an undertaking is by no means what is aimed at here, where Marty’s philosophy, especially his philosophy of language, is examined in its original context, though not always with an interest in his distracting polemics. At the risk of being labeled a “historicist” or unduly concerned with “dead philosophers”, I am convinced that the ideas of thinkers from the past should be appreciated on their own terms and considered as responses to the situation in which they arose. The rapid assessment of such ideas from a contemporary perspective, as we too often find this in philosophical literature, produces distortions and even delusions, however “interesting” the results may be. By no means, however, do I wish to deny that it is possible to evaluate and even to some degree assimilate past systems of thought, provided that they are properly understood from a historically informed perspective. If the present analysis prompts philosophers and linguists, as well as historians of their respective disciplines, to examine Marty’s philosophical work further and perhaps even to bring it into contact with 136. See, for instance, Bechtel (1988), p. 42, Dummett (1991), Nelson (1992), pp. 33 ff., p. 264, Dennett (1993), p. 20, McCulloch (2002), pp. 5, 89, Crane (2003), p. 31, Van der Heijden (2003), pp. 16 f., Crane (2006), p. 4.

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subsequent developments in various disciplines, this will be a highly gratifying result of my endeavor.

II. THE CONCEPT AND TASKS OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE We now turn to Marty’s concept of the philosophy of language and the tasks that he ascribes to this endeavor in his magnum opus. This massive work, of which more than 750 pages were published as the first volume, was for a long time in preparation. 1 As is usual in Marty’s publications, many of these pages are utilized for the sake of polemics. The entire appendix consists of more than 200 pages which are devoted to a critique of Wundt’s doctrine of regular and singular change of meaning and are taken as an opportunity to respond Wundt’s critique of the “teleological consideration of language”. 2 While we may be tempted to rank the work in question, in terms of length, with Husserl’s Logical Investigations, the polemics are a great obstacle to such an evaluation. Even when Marty enters into lengthy arguments which are relatively free of polemics, his prose is by no means a model of good philosophical writing. Though Husserl hardly presents himself to us as a model writer, the thrust of his arguments tends be shine through much more brightly than is the case in Marty’s work. It would in fact have been a great service to his readers had Marty trimmed down the work to half its size or even less. The result would have been a very powerful statement of his philosophy of language as worthy of consideration as any other that has been produced by Marty’s contemporaries or successors. As matters stand, however, we 1. For a discussion of Marty’s plans for publishing his magnum opus, including his letter to the publisher and earlier drafts, see Funke (1965). 2. This teleological view was of course the one that Marty advocated. The textual focus of Marty’s criticisms in the appendix of his main work is both the first (Wundt [1900]) and the second edition (Wundt [1904]) of the first and very extensive part of Wundt’s Völkerpsychologie, wherein the author mentions Marty by name only once in passing in each edition (Wundt [1900] II, p. 217; Wundt [1904] II, p. 222 n.) and refers to Jerusalem (1895) for a critique of the Brentanian theory of judgment. Concerning the critics of Wundt during his lifetime, what James said about them in a letter to Stumpf (6 February 1887) is an apt remark: “Whilst they make mincemeat of some of his views by their criticisms, he is meanwhile writing a book on an entirely different subject. Cut him up like a worm, and each fragment crawls; there is no noeud vital in his intellectual oblongata, so that you can’t kill him all at once” (Perry [1935] II, p. 68). While this is no doubt true, a good case can be made that Marty’s criticisms of the “reflex theory” that Wundt and other nativists had advocated were ultimately very effective. This theory shows no sign of life at present, whereas Marty’s teleological alternative may well have a future.

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must make an effort to struggle through his prose and cite the clearer passages. Philosophy, after all, is a peculiar kind of literature, or rather family of literatures, which try the reader’s patience to an extraordinary degree. Anyone familiar with even a few classic philosophical texts will know that such a struggle can be rewarding. 1. Language as a Subject Matter of Philosophy There has been so much written in the philosophy of language, and there have been so many perspectives put forward in this area, that no one can be expected to know what is at stake in this endeavor until it is explicitly stated. The explication which is thereby desired must involve the clarification of 1) what is meant by “language”, and 2) what is meant by “philosophy”, more specifically what philosophy, as distinct from other types of inquiry, such as linguistics or history of language, is to tell us regarding the same subject matter. Marty states at the outset of his magnum opus that he understands language first and foremost to be the intentional expression of inner life via signs which must be learned through habit and tradition. 3 Unintentional expressions, such as the cry of an infant in response to pain, are thereby excluded from language in the primary sense, as are signs which do not require habit or tradition in order to be intelligible to others. Though Marty’s concept of language in the strict sense 4 could include formal symbolic systems, such as the ones we find in mathematics and logic, the focus of his philosophy is natural language. 5 In this regard he differs from many of the currents that have arisen from the linguistic turn, though not from all of them. What we miss in the above-stated concept of language stated by Marty in his magnum opus, 3. Marty (1908), pp. 3 f. 4. In Marty, (ed.) Funke (1905a), p. 79, the broadest sense of “language” is to be found in “every sign that allows for inferring the existence of something from something else”, whereas in a narrower (though not the strictest sense indicated above) language consists of signs which indicate mental processes, whether they indicate this through voluntary or involuntary behavior. 5. Cf. the negative assessment of mathematical logic in Brentano (1911), pp. 158164.

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however, is a lack of any mention of the systematic or syntactical character of natural language, though we shall see that Marty does appreciate the importance of this. Another instance of language which does not at first seem to fit Marty’s definition is that which occurs when someone in isolation writes or merely imagines speaking. According to Husserl, for instance, the signs which thereby occur certainly have meaning and therefore belong to language, although it would be wrong to say that these signs actually manifest inner life. 6 To state Husserl’s view in his own terms, the signs used in solitary speech do not make up an indication (Anzeige) or manifestation (Kundgabe) of particular mind-functions of the person in question. While Marty thinks that such an argument involves a confusion regarding the concept of meaning (which will concern us further in the following chapter), he also significantly adds: … the person in isolation uses the words of language also as tools of communicating items of knowledge, resolutions to himself for his own future. Here too, where our later self receives from the earlier one instructions or inspirations and incitements, there is tied with the “meaning” of the linguistic signs also an indicative function thereof. 7

Such a use of language is therefore not taken by Marty to be a counterexample of his definition. The philosophy of language, says Marty, is to be characterized by two features: 1) Like any other philosophical enterprise, it always involves psychological considerations, what has been called “analysis of mind” in the introduction of this study. 2) It consists of generalizations about language. A scientific inquiry into language which lacks one of these features belongs to the science of language, but not to the philosophy of language. 8 If, for example, generalizations about language are made 6. Husserl (1901), pp. 35 ff. 7. Marty (1908), p. 495. Though Marty does not mention Husserl by name here, he is most definitely thinking of Husserl. The term “indicative function” (anzeigende Function) does occur in Husserl (1901), p. 83. As Marty is also well aware, Husserl’s view of the meaning of a sign as something timeless that lends to the assumption that a sign can have meaning and thus belong to language without the intention to communicate. Concerning Marty’s rejection of this theory of meaning, see Rollinger (1999), pp. 236-240. 8. Marty (1908), pp. 4 ff.

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without any psychological considerations at all, these will be little more than physiological ones. If, on the other hand, such considerations come into play concerning this or that language rather than language as such, the results will be the history of language. It must be emphasized here, however, that for Marty the philosophy of language is also a branch of the science of language. In this regard he differs not only from many of his predecessors, who thought that philosophy is to be more “profound” than any empirical inquiry, 9 but also from various contemporaries and successors. Certainly it is uncommon today to include the philosophy of language among the branches of science of language (or, as we now say, linguistics). What will no doubt be most objectionable from a contemporary standpoint is Marty’s characterization of philosophy in general and the philosophy of language in particular as a psychologically oriented discipline. The psychology which Marty has in mind, however, is first and foremost the descriptive psychology that Brentano had in large measure developed. In view of the fact that this is a psychology of intentionality, this will certainly make Marty’s philosophical orientation more palatable. The concept of intentionality, after all, is central to much that is currently done in the philosophy of language. Nevertheless, the mere mention of psychology will leave a bitter after-taste for certain philosophers. The great hero of contemporary logic, Gottlob Frege, had a great deal of contempt for the intermingling of psychology and logic and also extended his inquiries into the domain of natural language with only rather brief glimpses into the mental. Marty is proposing a much more elaborate analysis of mind, to be examined further below. Be this as it may, it must be kept in mind that for Marty the psychological aspect of philosophy at best only represents a “heuristic unity” (heuristische Einheit), 10 which can be taken to indicate a matter of convenience from a methodological point of view or, as is also said, “in the interest of an expedient division of labor”. 11 He is careful not to say 9. See below, p. 129. 10. Marty (1908), p. 36. See also Marty (1908), pp. 11 and 19. Cf. pp. 238 ff. in the translations below. 11. Marty (1908), p. 6.

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that philosophy simply is psychology. While his conception of the unity of philosophy may be rather weak in this regard, it is perhaps the best that can be done. What was called “philosophy” in Marty’s day and that to which we append this label nowadays (which are to some degree identical) do in fact represent a very weak unity of disciplines, if indeed they represent any true unity at all (unless of course they are approached from the standpoint of a particular system which only a few would find acceptable). The linguistic turn and also the closely related logical or semantic orientation in philosophy are indeed analogous to Marty’s conception of a heuristic unity of philosophy in its psychological character. While one may wish to characterize philosophy in terms of its linguistic, logical, semantic, or (more vaguely) “analytic” procedure of inquiry, it would be amiss to think that such a characterization allows for unity as strict as this is found in other disciplines such as physics. It is perhaps tradition which holds philosophy together more than anything else, always with a touch of fashion of course. Marty, however, is much more enthusiastic about the unity of philosophical disciplines. He acknowledges that there are certain tendencies in history, such as NeoPlatonism and Hegelianism, which would suggest that his characterization of philosophy is unacceptable. He points out, however, that these tendencies belong to times of decline and for this reason cannot be taken to be representative. 12 The rejection of psychologically oriented philosophy was especially prominent among Neo-Kantians. For this reason it is no surprise that Marty was branded as one of the proponents of “psychologism” (Psychologisten) 13 by one of these philosophers. 14 In response to this charge Marty makes several points to clarify his own position. 12. See below, p. 242 n. 13. The German term Psychologist cannot simply be translated as “psychologist”. Here I use “proponent of psychologism” for the lack of a better translation. It must be borne in mind, however, that it was not the habit of prominent thinkers to call themselves Psychologisten. As observed in Wundt (1911), this term was appliced by the view in question. Though it is said in Husserl (1900), p. 52, that the term psychologism in that work is being used “without any derogatory ‘coloring’”, the effect’s of Husserl’s arguments therein make such a coloring inevitable. 14. According to Marty’s citation, he is quoting from a text written by Erich Adickes and published in Berliner Literatur-Zeitung (1898), pp. 155 ff. The periodical, however, is most likely the Deutsche Literaturzeitung.

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He explicitly says, first of all, that he also regards psychologism as objectionable if this is the identification of prescriptive rules of logic and ethics, for instance, with laws or general-necessary facts with regard to mental processes. 15 If, for instance, it is discovered that human beings reason in a specified way under certain conditions, this law, on Marty’s view, is only a psychological one and by no means a logical one. A logical law, according to Brentano and Marty, can only be understood from the perspective in which logic is regarded as an “art of judging” (Kunst des Urteilens), i.e. as a rule concerning how we ought to judge, not about how we actually do judge. If logical laws are misconstrued as psychological laws of judging, the consequence of this, according to Marty (in agreement with Husserl), is subjectivism and relativism. 16 The same consequence, says Marty, will arise from psychologism in yet another sense, namely as the identification of the evidence of a judgment with a certain feeling that accompanies this judgment. Though Marty is again in agreement with Husserl on this point, Brentano had already attacked this view of evidence long before Husserl engaged in the criticism of psychologism. 17 Furthermore, Marty asserts, “It would be a reprehensible psychologism that evidence is the criterion of truth in the sense that only what is evident to us human beings by the testimony of inner experience is true”. 18 The truth of a judgment is therefore regarded by him as an “objective property” (objektive Eigenheit) thereof, whereas evidence can belong to the judgment of one person and not to that of another person, though both judge in precisely the same way. Someone may, for example, make use of a mathematical theorem simply on the authority of mathematicians, i.e. without evidence of the judgment, while the judgments made by the mathematicians are indeed evident to them. Evidence is accordingly in a certain sense subjective. The same can be said of the analogue of evidence which Marty, like Brentano before him, finds in 15. Marty (1908), pp. 7 f. 16. Brentano (1911), pp. 165 ff. 17. See Brentano (1889), pp. 79 ff., where Sigwart is taken to be the chief representative of the view under attack. 18. Marty (1908), p. 9.

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certain phenomena of love and hate. 19 While this analogue may obtain in the case of one person’s love or hate, it may also fail to occur in another person’s love or hate though both of these persons love or hate exactly the same thing. It is, for instance, possible for one person to follow moral instruction on the basis of authority alone, whereas someone else might follow the same instruction on the basis of insight. An additional sense in which psychologism could be understood would be the identification of the contents of judgment with psychological facts (or the identification of the contents of phenomena of love and hate with such facts). 20 While much philosophical investigation is indeed concerned with psychological facts, e.g. the classification of judgments in terms of evidence, Marty does not wish to say that philosophy is exclusively concerned with facts of this kind. Philosophy is simply united by psychology, according to him, in the sense that all philosophical investigations involve psychology, not in the sense that these investigations are exhaustively psychological in character. The question remains, however, how we are to understand contents of judgments and other contents of consciousness if these are not psychological facts. We shall return to this question in the following chapter of the present study. In Marty’s confrontation with neo-Kantianism, he makes further comments about the relation between philosophy and psychology which are of interest here. 21 While the neo-Kantian characterizes psychology simply as concerned with whatever is given in inner experience, Marty maintains that natural science in fact also proceeds from certain inwardly experienced data, namely sensations, 22 and at best only infers the 19. Marty (1908), pp. 9 f. 20. Ibid., pp. 10 ff. 21. Ibid., pp. 11-18. 22. Here a confusion might arise. If colors, sounds, and other physical phenomena are outwardly perceived, how could sensations be inwardly perceived. In order to understand this, we must bear in mind that for Marty sensations are acts of consciousness and physical phenomena are the objects of these acts, as he especially makes clear in Marty, (eds.) Eisenmeier et al. (1916a), p. 21: “The fact that the two are distinguishable cannot indeed be denied here anymore than – as others have stressed – in the case of the memory of something heard or seen last year there is a justified distinction between the act of remembering, which is present, and what I remember, to which a completely different temporal determination belongs. The act of remembering is also a psychical

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existence of an external world from these data. 23 In this regard he shows a faithful adherence to Brentano’s epistemology, in which perception in the strict and proper sense is only inner perception. 24 While the neoKantian thinks that epistemology (Erkenntnistheorie) – wherein the extent, value, sphere of validity (Geltungsbereich) and truth-content (Wahrhheitsinhalt) of our knowledge is examined as regards its conditions of possibility – must precede both natural science and psychology, Marty insists that any epistemology in this sense, if indeed it is permissible, 25 will inevitably involve psychology. Here again Marty is event; that which is remembered can also be physical events. The latter is indeed also true in the case of the sensation of a color: the content – the color – would be something physical if it existed; the act of sensing is without a doubt something psychical”. On this point Marty clearly stands in opposition to the phenomenalism of Ernst Mach. See his letter to Mach (3 April 1896) in Thiele (ed.), pp. 592-596. 23. Cf. Marty, (ed.) Funke (1950), pp. 90 f.: “It is by no means immediately evident that an external world exists; also what it is like is not evident, nor that colors and tones exist. It is, however, immediately evident that I have color sensations, that I have tone sensations: in short, my own psychical states, which are shown to me in inner experience, are immediately evident. This is immediately certain, the only certain basis not only for the psychologist, but also for the natural scientist. The natural scientist as well can only start from sensations: these are what is immediately certain; in order to explain the regular coexistence and succession of these sensations, he assumes that an external world exists. This world-picture of the natural scientist has already often been reshaped and transformed when new experiences are added to the earlier ones. In the last two decades [of the nineteenth century] physics underwent great crises. Our own psychical facts are the stable pole in all this; these immediate facts are that from which psychology primarily sets out”. (In this translation I have removed the cumbersome emphases which occur in much of this text in German.) A comparable point can be found in Brentano’s early manuscripts, namely in his assertion that a consequence of ignoring the evidenz of inner perception that natural science loses its basis (Brentano, Ps 50/52144). 24. Brentano (1874), p. 119: “Inner perception is not merely the only immediately evident kind; it is properly the only perception in the proper sense of the word”. 25. Marty (1908), p. 12: “The concept of knowledge means … not only a correct, but also an insightful judging, i.e. one whose truth or correctness manifests itself to us. In its case the question about its validity or truth-content is no longer an open one. Whoever still asks, while speaking of ‘knowledge’, whether it is also valid has obviously omitted the moment of evidence. The judgments he names thus are blind ones. They can incidentally be correct, but also incorrect, and here it is of course first to be investigated in the particular case whether and much this thing or the other is valid.” Cf. Marty (1916a), p. 32, where it is asserted that the term “critique of knowledge”

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following Brentano. While the neo-Kantian speaks of “appearances” in reference to both inner and outer perception and accordingly gives no privilege to the inwardly perceived, Marty maintains that it is fundamentally wrong to speak as if something appeared inwardly which might not be there in reality. As Brentano had said, in line with the Cartesian tradition, in consciousness there is no distinction between the real and the phenomenal, 26 Marty whole-heartedly endorses this epistemological position contrary to Neo-Kantianism and presumably contrary to Kant himself. 27 The philosophical differences between Marty and the followers of Kant are accordingly vast. Though Marty’s psychological orientation may be alarming to some nowadays, a careful understanding of this (Erkenntniskritik) and similar ones, e.g. “critique of reason” (Vernunftkritik), involves a misunderstanding of the nature of knowledge. “For knowledge in the proper sense … cannot be the object of a critique”. There is no sense in which someone may criticize, for instance, what is evident through inner perception. Husserl, by contrast, finds such terminology acceptable already before he took a transcendental turn. See, for instance, Husserl (1901), pp. 18, 167, 471, 473, 479, 569, 638. 26. See Brentano (1874), pp. 215 f.: “... it was the great mistake of Herbart and, before him, Kant that they regarded the phenomena of inner perception in the same manner as the phenomena to which so-called outer percpetion is directed, as mere appearance which indicates an existence, but not as something that is itself real, and made this the basis of their researches”. The term “phenomena” here is a translation of Erscheinungen, whereas “mere appearance” is a translation of bloßen Schein (in the accusative case here). The terms are obviously related and it would in many instances be best to translate Erscheinungen as “appearances”, thereby suggesting that there is something real to be inferred behind them. Cf. Marty (1916a), p. 46 n.: “The term Erscheinung is also ambiguous. What is often meant by it is not something merely presented in contrast to the real, but rather something inferred in contrast to the directly experienceable. Thus the actual substantial differences of things are not experienced, but rather inferred from events and effects of which the potencies and powers lie within them. And those directly experienced events and effects we thus call Erscheinungen wherein the hidden essence manifests itself”. When Brentano speaks of Erscheinung der inneren Wahrnehmungen, any suggestion that inner perceptions involve (possibly erroneous) inferences would of course be catastrophic, since his point is precisely the contrary. In Stumpf (1907a) Erscheinungen were no longer considered to consist of two classes (physical and psychical), but only of the contents of sensation and corresponding contents of phantasy presentations, while “mind-functions” (psychische Funktionen) – a term which Brentano used profusely in his manuscripts – are no longer classified as Erscheinungen. 27. Cf. Marty (1916a), pp. 47 f.

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psychology as primarily an analysis of mind will help to make his view of philosophy more acceptable. At the same time, however, we must stay on guard against construing this analysis as too “analytical” in a contemporary sense, as has been emphasized in the previous chapter. Moreover, the fact that he sees the philosophy of language as belonging to the science of language and therefore as continuous with the rest of science, as opposed to Kant and other transcendentalists, also makes his position considerably more palatable than what might at first be suggested. By contrast, however, Marty is far more confident in the epistemic status of inner perception than philosophers are at present. Philosophical fashions have thus changed to his advantage in one respect and to his disadvantage in another. Be this as it may, we must bear in mind that inner perception for Marty is not at all an active mental turning to current mind-functions, but rather an ever-present direction of the mind to itself as a secondary object. It would be very wrong to saddle Marty with introspectionism, which would indeed suggest that he proposes a scrutinizing activity regarding current states of mind. 28 What must especially be noted with regard to the critical confrontation of Brentano and Marty with Kantianism is that they found it absolutely incontestable that the Kantian system in all its varieties involved a psychology, 29 e.g. in the distinction between intuitions and concepts, in the notion of a judgment, and in many other aspects. This system is accordingly susceptible to criticism from an empirical standpoint. 30 This must also be pointed out most emphatically to current philosophers who view Kant as a great innovator in philosophy or even one whose enterprise is somehow continuous with theirs. 31 In spite of a common perception that prevailed during Marty’s day, 32 the Kantian 28. Rollinger (2008a), pp. 82-85. 29. An important work in which this thesis was elaborately stated was Meyer (1870), which is cited in Brentano (1874), pp. 105 ff., 340. See also Stumpf (1892). 30. Kastil (1912), p. 3: “Present-day philosophy discerns more and more clearly that the most considerable shortcomings of the Kantian system are rooted in his imperfect psychology”. 31. See Hanna (2001), where Kant’s “semantic mentalism” (p. 13 n.) is by no means ignored. 32. Cf. Heinze (ed.) (1902), p. 312: “A group of thinkers finds in psychology the basis for all philosophical sciences, especially also, in contrast with the Kantians, for

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orientation in philosophy is no less psychologistic than the Brentanian one. 33 Here it will also be instructive to take cognizance of the psychologism of one of the emerging proto-Fregean heroes of contemporary philosophy, namely Bernard Bolzano. 34 Though Husserl took much of his inspiration from Bolzano in his attack against psychologism, Bolzano himself is very explicit in his assertion “that logic is at least dependent on psychology, if not on any other science”. 35 Again and again we encounter psychological concepts and theses – not as merely extraneous asides, but as central to the matters at hand – in his monumental Theory logic and epistemology. Among them Brentano has found particular resonance with his views which have been developed further in different respects by his students.” See also Ruggiero, (trans.) Hannay and Collingwood (1921), p. 95: “Brentano is the founder of psychologism”. Moreover, in Natorp (1901), p. 270, it is asserted of “the task, to which Husserl assigns to ‘pure logic’ , is fundamentally the very one that we at present designate as that of critique of knowledge”. 33. Cf. Cohn (1900), p. 2: “In Germany Lipps confesses to this Very widespread is a somewhat less clearly outspoken psychologism, as it in the case of Brentano, for instance, but also in that of many who call themselves neoKantians”. Such neo-Kantians could indeed be seen as ones who are true to their master. Though much of the more blatant psychology in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft was eliminated in the removal of the transcendental deduction in the first edition, there still remains much psychology – indeed, one could even say empirical psychology – throughout the work. Cf. Strawson (1989), p. 20: “Kant’s idiom is psychological ...”. This idiom, however, cannot be replaced with another one without changing the entire Kantian enterprise. It is accordingly impossible for a Kantian to postpone or preface psychological investigations altogether by first engaging in a critique of knowledge. 34. See Coffa, (ed.) Wessels (1991), pp. 21-40. 35. Bolzano (1837) I, § 13 (p. 54). In the sentence before the one quoted it is apparent that the psychology on which logic depends is empirical psychology. Here it must of course be conceded that Bolzano conceives of logic as a much more inclusive enterprise than most logicians do. For this reason it is convenient, from a contemporary standpoint, to sift out his logic in accordance with more recent standards, as this is skillfully done in Berg (1962). While there is certainly nothing objectionable in such an endeavor, it must still be pointed out that there is no substantial part of Bolzano (1837) wherein the reader will not stumble across psychological conceptions. Even in his “elementary doctrine”, which involves the least psychology, involves the notion of a “presentation in itself” (Vorstellung an sich), which is taken from the psychological sphere just as the concept of a “proposition in itself” (Satz an sich) is taken from the linguistic sphere.

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of Science. In the mind Bolzano finds presentations and judgments, 36 among other mental actions (geistige Handlungen). At a time when Bolzano was almost completely unknown, even in Austria, Benno Kerry found parallels between Brentano’s psychology and that of Bolzano, most notably in the sharp distinction between presentations and judgments. 37 The parallels between Bolzano and Brentano were again highlighted in Twardowski’s short but highly influential work On the Content and Object of Presentations: A Psychological Investigation. 38 If Marty’s concept of philosophy is to be dismissed simply because he assigns to psychology a central role therein, it will accordingly be necessary to dismiss much, if not all, of Kant’s work as well as Bolzano’s, not to mention vast portions of the history of philosophy. Though this is hardly the place to engage in a full-scale defense of a psychological orientation in philosophy, it is only to be stressed here that one must not be delusional about what has really gone on in the work of so-called great philosophers and must accordingly apply the same standard across the board when expelling some philosophers and extolling others. It is indeed hard to see the limits of how much in the history of philosophy would suffer from expulsion if one were to purge philosophy of all psychological considerations. Such a thorough-going iconoclasm may well be suitable for the likes of Wittgenstein, but hardly for anyone else. While the term “philosophy of language” has been thrown around for decades now and is thus a commonplace item within our intellectual horizons – much more so than “philosophy of history”, for instance, which was at one time regarded as one of the most essential endeavors for a philosopher – it is easy for us to lose sight of the fact that Marty was making a bold move in publishing a tome that was explicitly meant 36. See Rollinger (2008a), pp. 233-242. 37. Kerry (1891), pp. 135 ff. n. It is pointed out in this passage that both Brentano and Marty have failed to make note of the parallels in question. At this time Kerry was enthusiastically following lectures of Brentano and engaging psychological discussions with Alois Höfler (also a student of Brentano, but more particularly a student and staunch defender of Meinong). See Rollinger (1999), pp. 125-128. 38. Twardowski (1894). The subtitle of this work can hardly be stressed enough. As regards the hitherto overlooked Brentanian influence on Twardowski, see Rollinger (2000c).

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to lay the foundations for the philosophy of science as well as universal grammar. As we have seen in the previous chapter, he lived in a time when philosophy as such had been severely discredited and the practitioners of various disciplines, including linguistics, were doing their best to dissociate themselves from anything with the slightest hint of philosophy. There was science on the one hand and philosophy on the other. Yet there were some contemporaries, and indeed ones outside the school of Brentano, who shared Marty’s confidence that philosophy could regain respect by allying itself with the concerns of science. A salient case in point is Ernst Mach. While Mach humbles himself by stating plainly that he is a natural scientist and not a philosopher, 39 he nonetheless gives a place for philosophy in relation to the sciences. The philosopher, he says, “seeks a world-encompassing orientation, as complete as possible, regarding the totality of facts, 40 though he cannot avoid executing his construction on the foundation of specialized scientific borrowings”. 41 Such a characterization of philosophy would indeed be palatable from a contemporary standpoint. Marty, however, finds it unacceptable not only because it would demand that a philosopher must be a polymath, albeit one who systematizes and schematizes vast domains of knowledge. Many a philosopher has, to be sure, been a polymath, as Marty concedes, but he adds that it is possible for a philosopher to contribute to one domain without in any way producing a whole system, as Mach’s definition of “philosophy” would demand. 42 Here it may be said in support of Marty’s criticism of Mach that philosophers were often polymaths long ago simply because the totality of science was still manageable from a single individual’s standpoint. Consequently mathematicians and physicists were polymaths as well. 39. Mach (1905), p. vii. 40. The term “totality of facts” (Gesamtheit der Tatsachen) occurs in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus-Logico Philosophicus, 1.1 and 1.12. It certainly cannot be decided here, however, whether it was actually taken from Mach. 41. Mach (1905), p. 3. Since Mach in the work cited is attempting a worldorientation of the kind described here, the implication is of course that he is in fact a philosopher. 42. Marty (1908), pp. 35 ff.

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Science, however, has grown to such an extent that it is simply impractical to expect anyone to gain the all embracing world orientation that Mach expects from the philosopher. Marty’s concept of philosophy, by contrast, is much more realistic. For Marty it is indeed possible to be a specialist in this or that area of philosophy. Any concept of philosophy, such as the one proffered by Mach, which would not allow for the possibility of specialization therein, is unacceptable. There can be specialists in logic, in ethics, in aesthetics, even in metaphysics, and of course in the philosophy of language as there can be specialists in chemistry, in physics, etc., not to mention much more narrow areas of these disciplines as they continue to develop and expand. Moreover, Marty urges that it would be wrong to succumb to prejudice simply by forgoing any mention of philosophy at all. Though Hermann Paul says of the term “philosophy of language” in his highly influential Principles of the History of Language, “Our philosophical age readily suspects under such a title metaphysical speculations of which the historical investigation of language needs to take no count”, 43 Marty maintains that denying such a title of his own investigations in his magnum opus would be entirely unacceptable. “It seems to me more appropriate,” he says, “forcefully to insist upon the true meaning of the word ‘philosophy’ and ‘philosophizing’, and in making reference to it by calling my investigations ‘the philosophy of language’ my fear of being discredited by the designation is not sufficiently great to keep me from this nomenclature”. 44 For Brentano, Marty, and indeed for all the 43. Paul, (trans.) Strong (1888), p. xxi. Here I cite a translation of the second volume of Paul’s work, which went through numerous subsequent editions and was accordingly a very well received work in its time. Paul belonged to the neo-grammarians (Junggrammatiker), in which language was approached from the standpoint of the individual and the older conception of language as an organism was entirely cast off. Though Marty and Paul (as well as other neo-grammarians) are no doubt engaged in very different investigations concerning language, there is certainly no prima facie reason why these two types of investigation, one philosophical and the other historical, cannot complement each other. This compatibility is evinced by the fact that Marty’s critique of Wundt’s theory of language won the support in Paul (1920), p. 87 n. For a short overview of the neo-grammarion movement, see Gardt (1999), pp. 278-288. 44. Marty (1908), p. 40. In the cited passage Marty uses the adjective spachphilosophisch, which I translate with a substantive because adjectives of that kind are very awkward in English. Moreover, in view of Marty’s exclusion of purely historical concerns from the domain, it goes without saying that he ultimately thinks that Paul himself was correct in avoiding the term “the philosophy of language” for the

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prominent Brentanists philosophy is something of such great dignity and high nobility that avoiding the mention thereof or diminishing its role in any way would be on a par with decapitating science. 45 That being said, Marty does concede that there is a sense in which philosophy is more general than other disciplines, and this is of importance for the philosophy of language, as he explains in the following passage: To put it briefly, the philosopher’s considerations aim at being more encompassing than those of many other investigators in the sense in which the general concept is more encompassing than the special one and a more general law encompasses more areas than a special one, but not as a complete collection and classification of all facts is more encompassing than one that is restricted to a certain domain. Philosophy gives in many respects the most general outlines for that world-picture that all sciences strive towards in unison; but it is unable to offer a complete picture without the other branches of knowledge just as these are unable to do so without it. This is of course my view regarding the philosophy of language and the world of linguistic phenomena. It is not to aim at offering a picture, elaborated on in every detail, and a closed whole in this sense while the other disciplines would offer only parts. What it too legitimately offers is only a contribution to the whole (although it may be of special and foundational importance), and in this sense the philosopher of language too is only a particular kind of special investigator, namely the special explorer of general characteristics pertaining to the psychical of language and languages. 46

By no means did Brentano and Marty stand in isolation in their psychology-based conception of philosophy in opposition to both neoKantianism and positivism. A salient case of such an advocate of this conception among their contemporaries is Theodor Lipps, who managed to exercise considerable influence as a professor in Munich and became the teacher of the Munich phenomenologists (who allied themselves strongly with Husserl). According to Lipps, the domain of philosophy investigations. 45. Here I borrow a turn of phrase from Husserl, (ed.) Biemel (1976), p. 7. 46. Marty (1908), pp. 37-38.

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consists of the mental, while he assigns the domain of the physical to the natural sciences. 47 Moreover, Lipps came to make a distinction between descriptive and explanatory tasks in psychology, 48 as Brentano and Marty had done so. While these and perhaps other parallels are undeniable, Marty takes issue with Lipps on the knowledge of other minds. This problem is of course of considerable interest in the philosophy of language as Marty conceives of it, for he defines language as essentially communicative and therefore involving the notion of epistemic access of one mind to another mind. Such access is identified by Lipps as a process of “empathy” (Einfühlung), which he sometimes characterizes in a very epistemologically forceful manner. For instance, Lipps speaks of “the perception of another’s anger or another’s pain”, 49 and also says, “By seeing and grasping … a manifestation of life (of someone else), e.g. the gesture of sadness, I grasp therein also the affect”. 50 By contrast, Marty adheres to the Brentanian view that only inner perception is perception in the strict and proper sense. Insofar as we have access to other minds, this is strictly by means of analogy and cannot be direct. 51 The grounding of the philosophy of language and ultimately all philosophy and empirical science in inner experience, according to Marty, does not entail that absolutely any concern with language from the standpoint of inner experience is the philosophy of language. While the philosophy of language accordingly involves the theory of meaning, it is not by converse true that all considerations of meaning belong to the philosophy of language. On this point Marty elaborates: 47. Lipps (1883), pp. 4-8. 48. Lipps (1903a), p. 5. 49. Ibid., pp. 111-112. 50. Lipps (1906), p. 23. 51. Marty (1908), pp. 178 f. Shortly after Marty’s death, there arose in the phenomenological movement, particularly in Scheler (1915), pp. 3-168, and Scheler (1926), a critique of the Cartesian view of perception that Brentano and Marty, among others, had advocated. According to Scheler, there is in fact an immediate knowledge of other minds. Brentano’s theory of inner perception is indeed under direct attack in Scheler (1915), pp. 44 f. Further discussion of this topic, however, would take us too far afield in the present discussion.

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… the theory of meaning is one of the major subject matters of the philosophy of language. For since our mind-functions and their contents are what the tools of language express and mean, it is understandable that here psychology must predominately have a say. Yet, again the converse would not be correct, namely that wherever meaning is treated we would be concerned with the philosophy of language. If the semasiological question is a concrete one, it certainly belongs to the history of language in the broadest sense of the word. And it must not be forgotten either that there can be questions which concern linguistic form rather than meaning and yet extend into the philosophical domain because they, aiming at what is general, are at the same time of such a kind that they predominately require psychological work for their solution. Also the concern with phonetic laws can partly be assigned to the philosophy of language. This is not because all speaking is a voluntary and chosen action and in this sense a psycho-physical process, but rather because the causes of the origination of a particular sound and its change are now more of a more physiological, now of a more psychological nature and thus the relevant laws are now physiological ones, now also psychological ones and to be examined by the psychologist. If we adhere to the definition and delineation of the philosophy of language given by us, it is coordinated with the physiology of language and both stand as abstract sciences, or sciences of laws, of linguistic phenomena in contrast with exclusively or predominantly concrete linguistic knowledge or the history of language. 52

While meaning and to a lesser extent linguistic form, particularly inner linguistic form, will be discussed in the present study, we shall not be concerned with the other aspects of the philosophy of language which Marty mentions in the above-cited passage, simply because he himself gives them little attention. It is, however, of interest to know how he views the entire domain of the discipline under consideration, including its theoretical as well as its practical aspects. The aforementioned continuity of the philosophy of language with the rest of linguistic science and also its application to linguistic praxis is thereby highlighted.

52. Marty (1908), p. 20.

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2. Practical Philosophy of Language According to Marty, the philosophy of language consists of two main divisions: theoretical and practical. 53 Though his focus in his magnum opus is theoretical, he does take care to survey the various concerns of practical philosophy of language. Throughout this survey, the following point is crucial: We said that by “language” in the science and the philosophy of language it is the manifestation of inner life that is first and foremost meant. The primary intention in this manifestation, however, is a corresponding influence on the mental life of someone else. One usually externalizes one’s own presentations, judgments, and feelings in order to evoke in other psychical entities presentations, judgments, and feelings, more particularly ones that are analogous to one’s own or correspond to them in another manner. This influence on other psychical life is the primary intention of speaking, whether this intention be more egoistic or altruistic and as such more or less ideally motivated. Yet, the distinctions of this motivation are not in every respect indifferent to practico-nomological considerations of language, since the peculiar perfection of the means can also differ along with the end. 54

One of the purposes of language, says Marty, is “the production of aesthetic enjoyment via beautiful presentations”. 55 There is accordingly a branch of the practical philosophy of language which is concerned with establishing the rules of such production. This branch is the aesthetics of language (Sprachästhetik). By no means does Marty wish to say that such a discipline is all that is needed for reaching the goal of the beautiful in linguistic usage, for he appreciates the role of innate feeling for this as well as a sufficiently rich imagination. 56 Though Marty himself does not develop an aesthetics of language (which he finds desirable, even in cases of natural talent), the appreciation of the 53. For a diagram of Marty’s division of the tasks of the philosophy of language, see Cesalli (2009), p. 125. 54. Marty (1908), p. 22. 55. Ibid., p. 23. 56. Ibid., p. 23 n.

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aesthetic aspect of language was crucial to his early argument against the thesis that changes in the designation of color names from ancient times onward can only be explained by the hypothesis of an evolving capacity to perceive colors. 57 Another practical application of the philosophy of language, according to Marty, has to do with language “as a mediator of truth and knowledge”. 58 Language can be used as such a mediator, whether one is communicating to another person or to oneself at a future time. While judging and conceptual presenting are not as such identical with the use of language, 59 they are nonetheless enriched by such use. The input from other minds is of course enriching, but the striving to formulate judgments and concepts in words is likewise enriching. It helps us in particular to distinguish various concepts and also to store them in memory for further use. There is yet a further advantage in the use of language. “Linguistic signs”, Marty explains, “often also perform for us important services as elements of symbolic or surrogate presentations wherever the proper bringing-to-mind of a content is laborious or timeconsuming or where it is downright impossible, whether this be due to excessive complication of thought or for some other reason”. 60 Here 57. In Kraus (1916), p. 20, it is claimed regarding Marty (1879): “It owes its orgination to an incidental cause, a visit to the aesthetician Zimmermann”. See especially the second appendix of this work (pp. 130-150) which is focused on the use of colors and forms in poetry. Another important part of his argument in Marty (1879) was based on his adoption of Hering’s physiological theory of color perception (especially elaborated on in the first appendix, pp. 112-129). See Hering (1878). According to this theory as opposed to the one advocated by Hermann Helmholtz (which Marty’s opponents adopted), there are three types of neural color-recteptors: red-green, blue-yellow, and white-black. This theory, which has been subsequently confirmed in the physiology of sight, is used to refute the view that had gained prominence, according to which the ability to perceive color develops from a receptivity to one extreme of the spectrum to that of the other extreme. For further discussion of Marty’s work on this matter, which lies beyond the scope of the present study, see Wenning (1990). 58. Marty (1908), p. 23. 59. Though this may seem obvious, Marty had to face considerable opposition on this point, for it was not uncommon the in late nineteenth century to regard linguistic signs and corresponding thoughts as belonging together in an “essential unity” (Wesenseinheit). See Marty (1884a), pp. 58 ff. 60. Marty (1908), p. 24.

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Marty is making use of a very important concept, which had been crucial for Brentano’s reflections on mind and language. 61 Such symbolic presentations, according to Brentano, were needed for us to conceive of God, for example, but also for us to present very large numbers to ourselves. As Brentano had also maintained that one of the pitfalls of the use of language is the possibility of confusion through the equivocation of signs, Marty is likewise aware of this. It is indeed due to this imperfection as well others in language that it is desirable for practical philosophy of language to concern itself with making improvements in order better to conceptualize and ultimately to make correct judgments. This aspect of the practical philosophy of language belongs to logic, which is indeed sometimes in conflict with aesthetic concerns. 62 To logic (understood as the art of judging 63 ), says Marty, “belong the attempts at a theory of a scientific nomenclature as transparent as possible and expedient in every respect and the doctrine of definition as the correct and most official way of clarifying names, which are in some respect less intelligible”. 64 It has long been a desideratum, as early as the seventeenth century, to construct an ideal scientific language, a characteristica universalis. While Descartes thought that such a language would be unobtainable, Leibniz was much more optimistic about it. Marty says the following on this matter: In truth it is neither anticipated as easily and quickly as Leibniz thought, nor completely impossible as Descartes believed. The scientific ideal61. See Rollinger (2008a), p. 34 n. Cf. also Marty’s use of the concept in question in his criticism of William James psychology (below, pp. 287 f). 62. Marty (1908), p. 25. 63. Ibid., p. 63: “‘Logic’ has been conceived of by all great logicians from Aristotle to Mill – in agreement, if not verbally, in terms of the matter under consideration – as instruction for correct judging”. This is of course Brentano’s characterization of logic. Marty does not mention Brentano (who came after Mill) here, presumably because Brentano never managed to publish his logic. Mill actually explicitly conceives of logic in terms of its concern with reasoning (i.e. inferring), whereas many others characterized it as a discipline concerning the laws of thought. Brentano in fact thinks that neither one of these characterizations is acceptable and that logic is rather the art of judging, though he also acknowledges that to some extent it must be concerned with presentations (e.g. in the treatment of definition). 64. Ibid., p. 26.

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language is a matter to be taken seriously as belonging to advancing scientific methodology. It is possible in the sense of a system of signs based upon the exact analysis of our psychical processes and their contents which is modeled as much as possible according to their composition from the relatively simplest elements. But of course it is not to be realized just now and in midair, but rather only hand in hand with the advance of science and especially of descriptive psychology. The fundamentals concerning this art, however, … belong to that part of the philosophy of language affiliated with logic. 65

While the task just indicated by Marty has by no means been abandoned, philosophers are seldom inclined anymore to seek the construction of an ideal language in the analysis of mind. Insofar as such an ideal concerns the “material” of our thoughts, it is much more popular to see a physicalistic reduction as the goal that is appropriate to science. 66 Moreover, there is an inclination of many today to see this ideal in the development of formal languages (inspired, once again, by Frege), which had not been highly prized by Brentano or Marty. Be this as it may, it is important to note that Marty’s concept of a scientific ideal-language and the more formally oriented ones are by no means incompatible, whereas the physicalistic program, at least from the standpoint of its most radical advocates, would have to exclude Marty’s approach altogether. The ideal under consideration, however, only at best amounts to a desideratum that is entertained by only very optimistic thinkers. Here we therefore encounter one of the many issues which remain unsettled in philosophy. Yet another purpose of language is to communicate in the areas of ethics and politics. As the previously mentioned ideal is yet to be attained, the demands for languages to be effective in these areas are also yet to be met. Marty himself does not make any attempt to meet these demands, except to mention in passing that viewing humanity as one great family is the orientation for any ethicist or politician with broad vision. 67 It is in this light saddening that he died just a couple of months 65. Ibid., p. 27. 66. Yet another option, which is not as widely accepted as it once was, would be the construction of the scientific ideal-language from references to sense-data. This option gained a lot of ground in the work of Russell and also in the Vienna Circle. Earlier than that, it had been advocated by Ernst Mach, whose work met with considerable criticism from both Brentano and Marty. 67. Marty (1908), p. 28.

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after the failure of European leaders to gain such a vision had resulted in the First World War. A final issue that should be taken into account in the practical philosophy of language is whether an artificial world-language, e.g. Esperanto, is desirable. 68 Such a language would presumably be designed to suit the purposes of ordinary communication and would therefore be distinct from the ideal language for the sciences. Though Marty does not dismiss the possibility of developing a world-language, he also sees a number of problems connected with such a project. Since the construction of this language involves using the materials and also criticizing various natural languages, this task is not one that belongs exclusively to the philosophy of language but also in large measure involves history of language. He also maintains that such a language could never reach the aesthetic level of natural languages. Moreover, he says that in designing a world-language there must obviously be an effort to remove the ambiguities and other shortcomings from which natural languages suffer. The more and more such problems are confronted, however, the more the world-language approximates the ideal one. Nevertheless, Marty insists that they should in principle be kept distinct. Since a natural language, namely English, has in the meantime come to prevail as the world-language, it may be thought that the area of practical philosophy of language concerned with a world language is altogether out-dated. There is, however, no telling how English will progress as more and more non-native speakers acquire it and make revisions in it. In this light there may be a future for this particular branch of practical philosophy of language after all. 3. Theoretical Philosophy of Language As regards theoretical philosophy language, Marty emphasizes that the concern of this area of investigation is first and foremost semasiology, in which linguistic form and especially meaning is the focus:

68. Ibid., pp. 28-33. Further elaborations are to be found in ibid., pp. 751-757. These, however, are too extensive focused on considerations of literature of the time on the topic at hand and would thus take us to far afield from our analysis of Marty’s philosophy of language.

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For all considerations of the nature and genesis of the tools of language as such are in fact semasiological. A sound, the movement of articulation, and the mere presentation of a sound, apart from their function, are indeed not a linguistic form. They become this only through the meaning and are consequently only as linguistic forms an object of consideration when the form in connection with the function or in interest of a study concerned with the latter is under consideration. And as this is true of the outer linguistic form, it is no less true of those peculiar aids of the mediation of understanding which we shall come to know as inner linguistic forms. By converse, however, the meaning as such is not to be torn from any expression or sign, and the psychical processes without this connection to a being-designated and a designating are of course simply the object of psychology, not of the philosophy of language. General semasiology or theory of function, however – conceived in such a way that in it the various ways and means of semantic representation and the pathways whereby they come into being and pass away as tools of language come into consideration in the most general features along with meaning – obviously receives the lion’s share of what deserves the name “psychology of language” or “theoretical philosophy of language”. For what the psychologist has to say about the nature and genesis of linguistic signs apart from their function is quite inferior in value and – if not at present, certainly later – in quantity. 69

In the next chapter we shall enter into the substance Marty’s theory of function, which is the very heart of his philosophy of language. We may note in the passage just cited, however, that Marty speaks of the nature and genesis of linguistic signs as such. He thereby indicates two distinct tasks of the philosophy of language, one of them concerned with the nature of such signs and the other concerned with the genesis thereof. These two branches are respectively called “descriptive” and “genetic”. As we have already encountered the distinction between descriptive and genetic psychology, the one between the two branches of theoretical philosophy of language should not be difficult to grasp. Descriptive philosophy of language is simply an extension of descriptive psychology into the linguistic domain, whereas genetic philosophy of language is an 69. Ibid., pp. 51 f. The reasons why sounds are given priority as tools of designation are explained at great length in Marty (1875), 127-133 (translation below, pp. 215-219). In Mauthner (1912), pp. 367 f., these reasons are confirmed by a philosopher with a very different perspective on language.

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application of genetic psychology, including a good deal of physiology, in this domain. The former is absolutely indispensable to the latter, whereas the descriptive philosophy of language can be pursued without consideration of the genesis of linguistic signs as such. Many of Marty’s contemporaries and predecessors, however, had much to say about such genesis without a solid basis in descriptive semasiology. Without going too deeply into considerations of his polemics, the following example of this error may help to make it clear how crucial it is to distinguish the two domains of theoretical philosophy. In Marty’s efforts to clarify the nature of impersonals, he finds that certain predecessors and contemporaries wished to say that sentences such as “It is raining” really do have a subject because they once had one. If we cannot identify the subject in the sentence of this kind, says Steinthal, this is due to the fact that we are relying on our “developed languages”. Such a subject was nonetheless there “for language-oriented thinking, and in order to seek it we must place ourselves in language’s naïve manner of thinking and viewing”. 70 To this proposal Marty replies that what was once in our presentations when speaking is no indication of what our sentences mean in the present. While what was once thought of in man’s distant past or in the individual’s childhood may indeed be relevant to explaining how a given expression originated, this is an entirely a different task from description. “And however much more value the latter [explanation] may have, the description of the fact has its justification”, especially since it is prerequisite for explanation. 71 As we have noted above, descriptive psychology for Marty is for the most part an empirical undertaking, though one that does not exclude a priori considerations. This is no less the case with respect to descriptive semasiology. In this regard he has misgivings about attempts to make a substantial contribution to the philosophy of language in a purely a priori way, as we find this in Husserl’s notion of pure grammar, which is meant to be an important contribution to pure logic. 72 As Marty 70. Steinthal (1860), p. 84. Steinthal’s theory of language, including its relation to Marty’s, is discussed in Christy (1988). 71. Marty (1884a), p. 88 f. 72. Husserl (1901), pp. 286-321. In Steinthal (1855) it had been argued very extensively that grammar must be distinguished from logic. Though this separation of grammar from logic became the prevailing trend in the study of logic during the late

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understands Husserl’s concept of pure logic, this discipline is to consist of all a priori truths. In that case, all of mathematics as well as the insights of chess players would all belong together in one single discipline. 73 Pure logic in this sense, according to Marty, would be a convenient class of truths. If indeed we take pure logic in the Husserlian sense to include formal ontology, which is concerned with “formal objective categories” (formale gegenständliche Kategorien), as well as the discipline which is restricted to “semantic categories” (Bedeutungskategorien), 74 it would indeed seem that there is a grain of truth in Marty’s understanding and perhaps even his rejection of pure logic. It must be pointed out, however, that pure grammar for Husserl is not only a priori, but its subject matter is specifically meanings (Bedeutungen). While logic may concern itself with propositions (which are for Husserl also meanings) and entailment relations among them, pure grammar is concerned with smaller units of meanings, which are divided into dependent and independent ones. Be that as it may, the results of pure grammar are, as far Marty is concerned, considerably less impressive compared to the ones which he achieves through the application of Brentanian descriptive psychology. 75 In comparison with Husserl’s pure grammar, a much better arrangement for Marty would be to allow a priori laws concerning meanings as part of semasiology along with its empirical parts. When Marty speaks of the foundations of the philosophy of language nineteenth century, Husserl’s concept of logic as distinct from psychology again reclaims a good deal of grammar for logic. Marty, by contrast, was by and large willing to let Steinthal have his way in separating grammar from logic, though Marty still found the logic according to the Brentanian conception and above all the Brentanian psychology which was the basis for this logic to be of much greater importance than mere grammar in the study of language. 73. Marty (1908), pp. 63 f. As Marty understands “object theory” (Gegenstandstheoerie), as this was put forward in Meinong (1904) and Meinong (1907), this discipline would suffer from the same shortcomings as those of Husserl’s pure logic. See Marty (1908), p. 63 n. As discussed in Rollinger (1999), pp. 199-207, Meinong and Husserl were well aware of the fact that they were entering the same territory of “objects as such” and did not restrain from criticizing each other in their results. 74. Husserl (1900), pp. 243 ff. The term “formal ontology” was later contived by Husserl in order to characterize the a apriori science of objects as such. 75. Marty (1908), pp. 64 ff.

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and universal grammar, it is precisely such a solid descriptive and predominantly empirical basis that he has mind. It is to consist of a descriptive theory of linguistic function, including a consideration of linguistic form and especially of meaning. Though we have thus far only hinted at the substance of his descriptive semasiology, the following chapter will bring this into focus. 4. Concluding Remarks In our consideration of Marty’s conception of the subject matter and tasks of the philosophy of language we have rigorously adhered to his own words. This branch of philosophy is, in short, a branch of science of language and has as its subject matter language as a product of human intentions. As any other branch of philosophy, the philosophy of language makes use of the same method as that of natural (or empirical) science. As such it has a descriptive component and a genetic one, both of which are taken from psychology as the science of mind-functions. In the following we shall continue to elaborate on Marty’s philosophy of language without assimilating it to other programs which philosophers have either proposed or developed for the examination of language and especially for the theory of meaning. In order to see how problematic such an assimilation could be, let us briefly consider a distinction which seems to be well received among philosophers who fully embrace the linguistic turn. This distinction is stated as follows: I distinguish two topics: first, the description of possible languages or grammars as abstract semantic systems whereby symbols are associated with aspects of the world; and, second, the description of the psychological and sociological facts whereby a particular one of these abstract semantic systems is the one used by a person or population. Only confusion comes of mixing these two topics. 76

This distinction between two types of theories of meaning – between semantic theories and foundational ones 77 – is not at all the same as 76. Lewis (1970), p. 19. 77. Speaks (2010).

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Marty’s primary division between the descriptive and genetic tasks of the philosophy of language. In a certain sense Marty’s division is made entirely within the scope of foundational theories, for he conceives of language as a product of human intentions and accordingly adheres to mentalism throughout his philosophy of language. Psychological facts or, rather, general psychological features of human beings are never abstracted away from his subject matter. It would moreover be wrong to consider Marty to be confusing two distinct approaches to language, for an explicitly made identification – in Marty’s case the identification between language and signs which are meant to express intentions – is not a confusion. Though further explorations concerning Marty’s philosophy of language in relation to more contemporary ones are not dismissed here as unworthy of pursuit, it should be clear now that such a task should prove to be most difficult.

III. DESCRIPTIVE SEMASIOLOGY With the theme of the function of linguistic expressions in mind, Marty devotes his descriptive semasiology to two aspects of the tools of expression. The first of these is their inner linguistic form. The second is their meaning. In this chapter his views on both of these aspects of language will receive attention, though Marty’s theory of meaning is by far the most important aspect of his philosophy of language and will therefore be discussed at much greater length than inner linguistic form. 1 For the most part the published volume of his magnum opus will suffice for our analysis. 1. Inner Linguistic Form As already indicated, Humboldt conceived of inner linguistic form as something belonging to a whole language and expressing the spirit of the people from which the language in question arises. 2 The inner linguistic form in this sense embodies the world-view of a people. While various linguists and philosophers of language during the nineteenth century arrived at various alternative conceptions of inner linguistic form, these were nonetheless by and large inspired by Humboldt’s conception. In Marty, however, we find a very different notion of inner linguistic form, which is only remotely related to the Humboldtian one. According to Marty’s conception, it is not a language as a whole 1. An introduction to Marty’s philosophy of language with the focus on his concept of inner linguistic form is already available in Funke (1924). Though I think that Marty’s theory of meaning is of greater importance, this work is nonetheless to be recommended as one in which Marty’s philosophy of language is analyzed with a different emphasis from the present one. 2. Humboldt (1836), §§ 11-12. It is of course difficult to assess how seriously the notion of a spirit of a people or the metaphorical description of language as an “organism”, as we find these in the first half of the nineteenth century in German literature, are to be taken. See Kraus (1916), p. 14: “Humboldt had explained language as an original and unconscious emanation of the mind, similar to the mystical and obscure manner in which Savigny explained law as an organic product of the unconsciously active spirit of a people”. Whether this is an acceptable interpretation of Humboldt’s position cannot be decided here. Suffice it to say that Marty seeks to describe language by avoiding metaphors of the kind in question and at least disagrees with Humboldt as the father of nativism. See pp. 136-140 below.

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which has an inner linguistic form; rather, it is in each case a particular linguistic expression which has this. The inner linguistic form, he tells us, is in each case “a presentation that serves as a bond of association between the externally perceptible sign and the meaning”, 3 though he also characterizes such forms in his mature philosophy of language as “those special features of the method of expression which can only be experienced inwardly”. 4 There are two basic kinds of inner linguistic form, according to Marty, namely figurative and constructive. The class of figurative inner linguistic forms is again divided into two subclasses: metaphors and metonyms. Examples of metaphors in language are of course very easy to find. I can, for instance, ask someone for a hand, as I can also say that something is on the tip of my tongue or that I am wavering in my judgment about some matter. Such images which are obviously not the meaning of the expressions in question, says Marty, “have in part the purpose of evoking aesthetic enjoyment, in part (and this was what was more original and is the case for the majority of the cases) the purpose of mediating understanding, thus to serve as a bond of association between the sound and the really intended meaning”. 5 There are of course a lot of instances in which mind-functions are described by evoking images of physical things and events, as in the case of wavering judgment or being shaken by something horrible. These images are easily accessible to everyone and help us to bring home to others what is going on in our own mind. While metaphors always involve an association by means of some sort of similarity or analogy, metonyms produce images which arise 3. Marty (1884a), p. 298. The term “etymon” is also used as a synonym for “inner linguistic form”. 4. Marty (1908), p. 121. This latter characterization is in fact the one he prefers in his magnum opus. Since it is very difficult nowadays to persuade philosophers to acknowledge inner perception or to see its merits for the sake of philosophical investigations, it may well be better to prefer Marty’s earlier characterization of inner linguistic form in terms of an associative bond. This will also have the advantage of avoiding grave difficulties in its contrast with the outer linguistic form (with also the genetic properties) of an expression. These difficulties will not be discussed here because they would take us far afield into Marty’s polemics. See Marty (1908), pp. 121-133. 5. Ibid., p. 135.

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through relations of contiguity. 6 A child may, for instance, use the expression “bow wow” to refer not only to the sound that a dog makes, but also to the animal that makes this sound. Another example may be found in saying that the White House has approved of a bill from Congress. Here we in fact mean that the president, who of course resides in the White House and is thus contiguous therewith, approves of the bill. Inner linguistic forms of this kind are again of service to us for aesthetic reasons, but also in some instances they may help us to understand what is meant. Since it is the sound of a dog, for instance, which is readily imitated by spoken language, it is convenient to make use of the imitation of this sound for wider purposes. Such a transference in meaning by means of a sensory phenomenon, whether children do this completely on their own or are taught to do so by adults, seems to be one of the most natural things in the world for human beings. As regards constructive inner linguistic forms, it may be said that these are simply whatever is produced in the mind by means of linguistic (including of course syntactical) constructions, whether these be inherent in the language as such under consideration or the results of individual style. 7 In a language where the verb is placed at the end of a sentence, for instance, the listener may be left guessing what the speaker means until the sentence is completed. The intervening guesses would presumably be inner linguistic forms of the constructive variety. Marty frequently speaks of fictions in connection with constructive inner linguistic forms. Such a way of describing them need not be pejorative, but it is obviously frequently so. A case in point is the subject term of impersonals. When someone says that it is raining, for instance, the suggestion is made by such a linguistic construction that there is something that is raining. Hence, various philosophers have gone on a wild goose chase speculating about what it is which is raining, snowing, etc., whereas the sentences in question only tell us that certain occurrences, such as raining or snowing, exist. Another instance of a linguistic fiction would be suggested by the subject-predicate form, which of course is hardly to be dispelled from language, but frequently misleads philosophers into thinking that there is a substance-accident relation in cases where there is in fact none. All of these instances will be further discussed below in 6. Marty, (ed.) Funke (1965), p. 96. 7. Marty (1908), pp. 144-150. Cf. Marty, (ed.) Funke (1965), pp. 97 f.

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connection with Marty’s theory of meaning. The notion of linguistic fictions which thus comes into play is of great importance for Marty in his critique of philosophical theories. We may take the liberty here to point out an excellent example of such a critique in Twardowski’s treatment of “nothing” in On the Theory of Content and Object of Presentations. 8 While this term has the outer appearance of a name and may accordingly suggest that it names something, it is actually really not a name at all. It is in fact equivalent to “not something”. Though Twardowski concedes that there are names which can be constructed through negation, e.g. “non-smokers”, he says that in all such cases they name something which belongs to a higher genus. Passengers, for instance, may be divided into smokers and non-smokers. There is, however, no higher genus to which something and not-something belong. If there is any highest genus at all, it is simply something. Nevertheless, we have seen in twentieth century, e.g. in the work of Martin Heidegger, 9 that the linguistic fiction produced by “nothing” can lead us astray. 10 It may also be suggested that Marty’s notion of a linguistic fiction invites a comparison between him and Wittgenstein. Though there is indeed good reason to see a parallel here, it must also be approached with certain caveats, which will be elaborated on below. While constructive inner linguistic forms may prove to be misleading, 8. Twardowski (1894), p. 21 f. 9. See Heidegger’s inaugural address of 1929, as reprinted in Heidgger (1998). 10. Another way of understanding the term “nothing”, however, would be as a synonym of “non-being” rather than “not-something”. We could further follow Marty in the understanding of non-being by considering it to be a content of judgment or, as one prefers to say nowadays, a state of affairs. (See the section in this chapter on statements.) In this sense the term “nothing” would be a general name, the extension of which would include the non-being of unicorns, that of round squares, etc. If, for instance, I say that death is nothing, I mean to say that that my death will be the non-being of myself, your death the non-being of yourself, etc. In this case, however, Heidegger’s thesis that it is best to say that nothing “nothings” (nichtet) (for it presumably does not do justice to the concept of nothing to say that nothing is not) is unacceptable. If an object is not, its nonbeing is. If death is nothing, it will nonetheless be, just as the being of the mortal entity prior to death is. I still think, however, that Twardowski’s analysis of “nothing” as a synsemanticon suffices for various uses of the word. Either way, Heidegger’s thesis must be rejected without any need to resort to a dubious principle of verifiability or to the confusion of metaphysics as such with bad metaphysics, as was done in Carnap (1931).

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the same point that had been made regarding the aesthetic value of figurative inner linguistic forms should also be made with respect to the fictions produced through linguistic construction. Though there may be no philosophical or scientific merit in much of the literature about Nothing or Nothingness, room must be left for the poetic expression of inward desolation and the like. Those who see philosophy as something more akin to poetry rather than science will inevitably make extensive use of such fictions which certainly do have the power to bring home certain thoughts and feelings that can hardly be awakened by dry straightforward prose. However one approaches such matters, it is best to know when one is using poetry and when one is engaged in science. As we have already seen, Marty is fully aware that the aesthetic purpose of language can be at odds with the scientific one. Though he himself is of the opinion that philosophy is to serve the scientific purpose and will at least in this regard gain some sympathy from contemporary “analytic” philosophers, this conception of philosophy is to this day not the only one that is advocated and certainly not the one that has broad appeal for a wider public. Here we are reminded of what Marty pointed out at the outset of his inaugural address “What is Philosophy?”: While laypersons may give credence to specialists in a large number of disciplines, philosophy remains an area in which they often regard themselves as masters. In view of this situation we should not expect the scientific conception of philosophy to be the only one around, especially since philosophy has yet to produce experts in any convincing way. Be this as it may, Marty’s notion of inner linguistic forms and especially the constructive ones give us a glimpse into how an ideal language could be constructed from his standpoint. By identifying pernicious and pervasive inner linguistic forms which lead to wild speculations, his empirically oriented philosophy of language can keep us from the excesses which had given philosophy a bad name in the past. A closer look at his theory of meaning and its accompanying descriptive psychology and ontology will confirm this impression. As regards the world-view of a people, Marty opposes the Humboldtian (and generally nativist) thesis that this is to be found in inner linguistic form. According to Marty, it is rather to be found in the meanings which are realized in a people’s language. 11 Nor are 11. Marty (1908), pp. 157 f.

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differences in concepts to be found in inner linguistic form. 12 If in Sanskrit an elephant is called that which drinks twice or has two teeth, this only indicates a difference in the presentations that help us to know what is meant, not a difference in concepts. A difference in concepts, Marty tells us, is rather at work when we call one and the same thing, for instance, an animal, a mammal, and an elephant. Concepts, as we shall see below, are for Marty the meanings of names and do not pose any great mystery when understood in a philosophically proper way. As crucial as inner linguistic forms are for an understanding of the phenomena of language, it is clear from Marty’s consideration of them that meaning is of greater importance for descriptive semasiology and for the philosophy of language in general. 2. Autosemantica Marty’s theory of meaning in his magnum opus is most elaborately worked out in connection with so-called autosemantica. These are the expressions which have meaning independently of other expressions or, what amounts to the same for Marty, ones which manifest mental occurrences of the speaker, whereas he also identifies other expressions, called “synsemantica”, which do not express such occurrences or have meaning in isolation. 13 While the former are exemplified by names and whole sentences (and in some cases even parts of words 14 ), the latter can be found among particles (e.g. “the”, “but”, and “of”) and inflected forms (e.g. “sits”). 15 According to Marty, the autosemantica are of three different types and each of these corresponds to a class of mental occurrences. The first of these types is to be found in statements (Aussagen), corresponding to 12. Ibid., pp. 158 ff. 13. Ibid., pp. 205-225. 14. Ibid., pp. 208 f. 15. In Marty’s earlier work he had rather adopted the traditional distinction between categorematic and syncategorematic expressions, which was in fact better tailored to the older logic and the older grammar (wherein the model of subject-copula-predicate prevailed) and accordingly did not suit his philosophy of language based on Brentanian descriptive psychology. See ibid., pp. 206 f.

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judgments (Urteile), while he identifies the second one as consisting of “emotives” (Emotive) or “interest-demanding” (interesseheischend) expressions, corresponding not only to emotions, but also volitions (in Brentanian terms, love and hate). The third type of autosemantica which Marty examines in his descriptive semasiology is to be found among “presentational suggestives” (Vorstellungssuggestive), corresponding of course to presentations. Prominent among the presentational suggestives are names, but we shall see that Marty also includes certain non-nominal expressions in this class. It may seem best to begin our examination of Marty’s theory of meaning with a discussion of the third type of autosemantica, for an autosemanticon of any other type must apparently contain a name. In psychological terms, presentations are the foundations for mindfunctions of the two other classes. In Marty’s magnum opus, however, presentational suggestives are in fact the last class of autosemantica to be investigated. Statements are investigated first, and then emotives receive attention. This order is presumably followed because Marty followed Brentano in identifying statements and emotives as examples of speech (Rede), whereas the remaining autosemantica were not regarded as genuine instances of speech, in spite of their status of having meaning independently of other expressions. 16 That is to say, simply naming something is not as such speaking. One does not speak until one actually says something or asks, requests, or perhaps commands something. If one says a name, the listener will want to know what is actually being said (asked, commanded, etc.) regarding the named object. Though names have meaning independently of other autosemantica, they do not serve any purpose in language until they are actually used in the context of non-nominal autosemantica. Moreover, we shall see that, with regard to the ontological side of Marty’s philosophy of language, the two types of speech (statements and emotives) exhibit analogies with each other which are not to be found among presentational suggestives.

16. If, however, the historical order, as Marty understands it, were to be followed emotives would be treated first, followed by statements, and names would be treated last. See ibid., p. 477.

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2.1. Statements Statements, according to Marty, normally express judgments on the part of the speaker. The obvious exception to this rule is of course the case where the speaker is lying. However, in view of Marty’s interest in developing a theory of meaning, this exception does not appear to be of great significance. There are in addition two senses in which a statement can have a meaning, as indicated in the following passage concerning linguistic signs as such. “Linguistic signs,” says Marty, “do not only immediately manifest the psychical life of the speaker; they primarily have the intention of evoking corresponding psychical states in the listener, and this function and also the content of those mental states to be evoked we call meaning”. We shall henceforth speak of the function as meaning in the communicative sense, whereas the content will be called meaning in the ontological sense. It will at once be seen in the case of statements that it is well justified to use the term “ontological” in reference to their meaning in the second sense, which is indeed the topic that takes up most of Marty’s treatment of statements. Before we examine Marty’s views on meaning in either of these two senses, however, a closer look at the Brentanian theory of judgment will be helpful. Brentano is, to be sure, nowadays known as the one who introduced the concept of intentionality into modern philosophy. His distinct concept of judgment, however, was given no less weight by him and also by Marty, as it was indeed regarded by the critics of Brentano’s school of philosophy as a focal point of attack. 17 It must first of all be born in mind that for Brentano a judgment, just like a presentation or loving and hating, is an act of consciousness. 18 The act of judging is 17. See Sigwart (1889); pp. 72 ff. n., Erdmann (1892), pp. 186, 286-291; Enoch (1893); Jerusalem (1895). Much of Marty’s polemics is spent on a defense of Brentano’s theory of judgment against such criticisms. Since too much attention to his polemics will distract us from our analysis of his philosophy of language, however, we shall for the most part avoid discussion of his critical exchanges outside of the school of Brentano. By no means, however, do I wish to give the impression that attention to them would not be worthwhile in another context. 18. The term “judging” and even its plural may used as translations of Urteil and Urteile in Brentano’s terminology and Marty’s as well. See Mulligan (2004). While the act-character is thereby brought out, these terms are still naturally translated as “judgment” and “judgments”. To avoid the risk of them being construed as references to contents or products or whatnots of judging acts, we simply state plainly at the outset that they are for the most part to be understood here in reference to acts of judging.

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moreover characterized by its peculiar relation to its object. This relation, according to Brentano, is in fact an acceptance (Anerkennung) or a rejection (Verwerfung) of an object. Though this act is founded upon a presentation of this object, the act of judging cannot be reduced to a presentation or to a combination of presentations. Though philosophers have, at least since Aristotle, regarded judgments as mirrored in language by the form of subject-copula-predicate and in modern philosophy there has been a temptation to view the copula as indicating a combination of a presentation (represented by the subject term) with another presentation (represented by the predicate term), Brentano and Marty maintain that acts of judgment, which are for them inwardly perceivable, are not in fact mirrored by a statement’s structure of subject-copula-predicate. Moreover, since the acceptance of X is best expressed by the existential statement “X exists” and the rejection of X by the existential statement “X does not exist”, Brentano and Marty maintain that existential statements more accurately reflect judgments than do predicative ones. The only thing presented in a simple existential judgment “X exists” or “X does not exist”, according to them, is simply X. Obviously not all judgments are as simple as “X exists” and “X does not exist”. In traditional logic four types of judgments were identified. Brentano took it upon himself to reformulate these existentially. All universal judgments, according to Brentano, are instances of rejection. If, for instance, someone judges that all human beings are mortal, what occurs here is actually not merely a combination of the presentation of human beings and that of mortality, but rather a rejection of human beings which are not mortal. The judgment that no human being is a plant is likewise a rejection of a human being which is a plant. Particular (as opposed to universal) judgments are characterized as instances of acceptance. The judgment that some human beings are learned is an instance of acceptance of human beings which are learned, while the Moreover, since Brentano and Marty do not remain entirely shielded from possible ambiguities in their usage of the terms in question, it is best to use the recommended translations which leave open the possibility for such ambiguity. The same could be said of Vorstellung and Vorstellungen. While one should certainly avoid killing all thought of act-character by translating them as “idea” and “ideas” – in spite of the advantage of historical precedent (cf. Simons [2004]), the other extreme would be to translate them as “presenting” and “presentings”. In the present volume I rather use the terms “presentation” and “presentations”, which must first and foremost be understood as acts, but do not close off every possibility of ambiguity.

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judgment that some men are not learned is an instance of acceptance of human beings which are not learned. Thus, while traditional logic had allowed for universal affirmatives and particular negatives, Brentano’s theory of judgment calls for a reform of this logic. Yet, Brentano and Marty also found it necessary to allow for certain judgments which were not encompassed in the scope of traditional logic. They held that there are also double judgments (Doppelurteile), e.g. “This flower is red”. 19 When such a statement is made, an acceptance is already manifested by the subject term. The predication, e.g. the ascription of red to the subject, is built upon this acceptance, though Marty does not propose to analyze such double judgments into two judgments. They are, in his estimation, “an elementary and irreducible feature of our psychical life”. 20 Other statements which posed difficulties for traditional logic and the theory of judgment were the so-called impersonals or “subjectless sentences”, e.g. “It is raining”. While philosophers have sought in vain to identify what the subject term represents in this case, Marty in a series of articles, which was interrupted for a decade due to the heat that his polemics generated, 21 engaged in extensive criticisms of their attempts and argued that impersonals can easily be accommodated by Brentano’s theory of judgment. Brentano and Marty were not alone in this enterprise. From linguistics they had the support of the Slavist Franz Miklosich. 22 Such support is of course of considerable importance for the philosophy of language, as Marty conceives of it, for it helps to confirm his view that this branch of philosophy is not some sort of speculation cut loose from the science of language, but rather a special area within this science and therefore continuous with the other special areas contained therein. The philosophy of language, as Marty conceives of it, is supplemented and enhanced by the history of language (or, better, 19. Such judgments are already briefly indicated in Brentano (1874), pp. 284. See also Marty (1895), pp. 63-85, 263-291, in which double judgments are discussed amid extensive polemics. Cf. Marty (1897), pp. 179 ff. 20. Marty (1895), p. 67. 21. The first three articles were published in Marty (1884a), whereas the following two were published in Marty (1894) and the final two in Marty (1895). 22. See Miklosich (1883), pp. 18, 22, 67. See also Brentano (1889), pp. 111-122.

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languages) and vice-versa. One of the most important distinctions which Brentano identifies in the sphere of judgment is that between blind and evident judgments. 23 Someone can, on the one hand, merely believe something, and on the other, really know it. When we know, i.e. when we judge with evidence, there are two basic ways in which this can be done. Evidence can be immediate, as is obviously the case in inner perception. Whenever I have an experience, it is immediately evident to me that I am having it. Another way in which something can be immediately evident, according to Brentano, is when we know the law of non-contradiction, the law of the excluded middle, and a host of other axioms. Such evidence was acknowledged by Leibniz in his concept of vérités de raison and by Hume in his concept of relations of ideas. In this case the judgment is apodictic. Not all evidence, however, is of the kind we find in inner perception or apprehension of axioms, for it is also possible to judge with evidence by means of inference, whether this be by means of deduction or induction. Now that we understand the theory of judgment which Marty is applying to his views on the meaning of statements, we may proceed to consider these views. All along, however, we must bear in mind that Marty is most emphatically saying that the meaning of a linguistic expression is not something in one’s head so to speak or, in the case of the meaning of a statement, not the act of judging which this statement expresses. It is very important to bear this in mind in view of the fact that contemporary philosophers tend to stress this point and often hold Frege up as one of the first, if not the very first, who got clear about it. Further below we shall briefly say more about Marty’s theory of the meaning of statements in comparison with Frege’s and also with the views of certain other notable philosophers. In the communicative sense the meaning of a statement is for Marty what is ultimately intended by the speaker. This is not merely the expression of the speaker’s judgment, but rather the intention to evoke a like judgment in the mind of the listener. Thus, if I make the statement to someone that it is raining, the meaning of this statement is: that the listener should judge that it is raining. 24 Here we of course see why 23. Brentano (1889), pp. 19 f. 24. Marty (1908), pp. 288 ff.

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Marty speaks of meaning as a function. In this regard his views may be favorably compared to those developed by the later Wittgenstein, whereby meaning is characterized as use. It is of considerable importance to note that a judgment has certain features which cannot, according to Marty, be communicated. As we have already seen, Brentano had maintained that a judgment is in all cases either evident or blind. Marty fully endorses this view regarding judgments. 25 But he also maintains that the evidence or blindness of the speaker’s judgment is not something that can be conveyed through communication. Speakers can indeed communicate judgments which are evident to them and these may also be evident to the listeners. If, however, the listener understands the statement and even judges in accordance with the speaker, this exhausts the possibilities of effective communication. The speaker can of course say, for instance, “It is evident that God exists”. In this case, however, he only communicates the judgment that it is evident that God exists and not the evidence itself, if indeed the speaker’s judgment is evident. The same can be said about apodicticity, 26 which is for Marty in fact evidence of a special kind, namely the kind that goes with necessity or impossibility. If the speaker judges that it is apodictic that there are no round squares, what is thereby communicated to the listener is merely the judgment that it is apodictic that there are no round squares and not the apodicticity of the judgment itself. Before we proceed to consider meanings of statements in the ontological sense, it should be observed here that a statement in the sense of a declarative sentence is not necessarily what Marty calls a “statement”. In view of the fact that various types of elliptical speech are possible, not to mention words such as “yes” or “no” and of course rhetorical questions, a statement need not be a declarative sentence or a whole sentence of any kind at all. Moreover, we shall see below (in the consideration of presentational suggestives) that a declarative sentence for Marty can belong to another class of autosemantica altogether. It is accordingly a matter of great importance that Marty is first and foremost concerned with the function of a statement in his 25. Ibid., pp. 289 ff. 26. Ibid., pp. 290 ff.

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characterization of its meaning in the communicative sense. In the ontological sense, however, the concern is with a class of entities which Marty identifies as the meanings of statements. These entities in fact receive far more attention in his treatment of statements. One may indeed raise the question whether he should in fact characterize meaning as function, in view of his ontological elaborations with regard to the entities now to be considered. While we may indeed have serious misgivings about Marty’s characterization of meaning in the communicative sense as the “broad” one and that of meaning in the ontological sense as the “narrow” one, 27 the two senses are obviously related. That is to say, a statement is made in order to evoke in the listener a judgment which has a certain content. This content is for Marty the meaning in the ontological sense. The type of entity which Marty posits as the meaning of a statement in the ontological sense is indeed what he himself calls a “content of judgment” (Urteilsinhalt) and comparable to what Stumpf and Husserl called a “state of affairs” (Sachverhalt) 28 or what Meinong called an “objective” (Objektiv). There are indeed importance differences between Marty’s contents of judgments and these other items, but there is certainly an affinity between them to the extent that contents of judgments are indicated by infinitives. If, for instance, someone judges that A is B, it is the being-B of A which makes up the relevant content of judgment, whereas the not-being-B of A is the content of the judgment that A is not B. If someone judges simply that A is, it is the being of A which is the content of this judgment, whereas the non-being of A is the content of the judgment that A is not. States of affairs and objectives have indeed been described in the same way by the aforementioned philosophers. One difference, however, between Marty’s contents of judgment and states of affairs or objectives lies in the fact that Marty adheres strictly to infinitival constructions in his description of them whereas his fellow 27. Ibid., pp. 291 f. 28. See Rollinger (1999), p. 313; Stumpf (1907a), pp. 30 ff.: Husserl (1901), pp. 312, 347 369, 378, 380, 385, 387, 393, 395, 401, 405, 410, 412; Meinong (1902), pp. 150-211. The term “state of affairs” is at present the preferred one for the alleged entities in question. See Reicher (2009) for an overview of the problems connected to this difficult notion. See also the various contributions in Reicher (ed.) (2009) for recent attempts to grapple with this notion.

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Brentanists also allow for “that”-clauses for the same purposes. There is of course a problem whether an infinitival construction, e.g. the being of A, and the corresponding “that”-clause, e.g. that A is, really do refer to one and the same entity (if indeed these expressions should be taken to be referring ones at all). There are, to be sure, many instances in which they can be substituted for each other. If, for instance, the being of God can be proved, it is likewise the case that it can be proved that God is. In our analysis of Marty’s philosophy of language, however, the difficult question whether such substitutivity is a matter of great ontological significance need not detain us. 29 His magnum opus simply does not provide us with a textual basis to pursue the matter. While Brentano had taken pains to analyze away contents of judgments as well as other non-real things, Marty does not follow his mentor in this regard and rather offers an alternative ontology. According to this ontology, there are in fact two classes of entities, namely those which are real and those which are non-real. 30 Contents of judgment, according to Marty, belong in the class of non-real objects. Here it is important to note that he distinguishes between existence and reality. If something exists, this is equivalent, he tells us, to whatever can be correctly accepted or, as is also said, the object of a true affirmative judgment. To say, for instance, that space and time exist is to say that the acceptance of space and time is correct. It is not required, however, that the affirmative judgment is expressed or even passed. As long as it is possible to pass such a judgment, what would thereby be accepted exists. Real things, moreover, are only some of the things that exist. It is even possible to speak of real things which do not exist, but this only amounts to saying that such things would be real if they did exist. (If, for instance, colors and sounds existed, they would be real.) Be this as it may, the class of entities (i.e. objects which exist) also includes non-real ones. The question therefore arises as to what distinguishes the real from the non29. In Marty (1908), p. 208, it is said only: “A ‘that’-clause, such as ‘that you have not told me this’ and the like, can at one time be a proclamation, at another time a mere dependent clause and synsemantic”. Again, in Marty (1908), p. 279, such clauses, as in the sentence “It is false that A is”, are listed among presentational suggestives along with certain words and phrases of the poet. This may at best be a hint that they are potentially names for contents of judgment, but Marty proposes to treat them later, presumably in the second, never-published volume of his magnum opus. 30. Ibid., pp. 316-321.

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real. When Brentano spoke of the real, he was plainly drawing from the Latin res and thus had in mind things or substances. In the strict sense only things exist, while in a looser sense accidents of things, such as qualities, quantities, etc., can be said to be real. While Marty himself says that one way of characterizing the real is indeed by saying that it is whatever is a substance or whatever pertains to substances, he sees this characterization as one that will not be readily accepted by his contemporaries, for whom such scholastic manners of thought were (and still in large measure are) alien. 31 According to him, there is an easier route which certain contemporaries have indeed suggested, namely by an appeal to the concept of causation. 32 In this sense the real is whatever can cause something or whatever can be caused. Our mental states, for instance, are real insofar as they are effects or causes. If I see the color red, for instance, this event of seeing is caused by light-waves entering my retina and by subsequent neuro-physiological occurrences from the eye to the brain and again in the brain itself. A mental event can also presumably cause other mental events or also events in the external world. We can voluntarily move about and thereby bring about such events, which are thus caused by our volitions. Physical things and events, if they do exist, are likewise real entities because they are presumably causes and effects. Non-real things, by contrast, are not causes or effects. While something physical or mental is brought about and brings other things about, the being or non-being of such a thing is not brought about or does not bring anything about. The same of course goes for the non-being of something. Yet, Marty concedes that there is a special kind of “co-becoming” which can be attributed to the non-real. 33 If a real thing is brought about, this means of course that its being likewise comes about. This cobecoming, as Marty understands it, is not at all of the same order as the causal relations among real things. It has accordingly been referred to by commentators by using such concepts as “epiphenomenon” and “supervenience”. 34 If, for instance, drawing on a piece of paper has a 31. Ibid., p. 319. 32. Ibid., pp. 320 ff. 33. Cf. ibid., p. 101. 34. See Chrudzimski (2009).

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drawn line as its effect, the being of the drawn line thereby co-becomes. If the line is erased, the line and likewise the being of the line go out of existence. Accordingly, while Marty regards contents of judgments as non-real and as such not belonging to the causal order, as real things do, he does characterize them as in principle non-temporal. While Marty is well aware that other philosophers have developed similar concepts and have given other names to entities of this kind, as we have indeed already mentioned, he still prefers a term that could suggest an element of undesired psychologism. That is to say, if the meanings in the ontological sense are in fact contents of judgment, this would suggest that they are contained in certain mental acts and therefore dependent on these acts. Though Marty most emphatically does not wish to make this suggestion, there is a certain sense in which his terminology is appropriate to his theory. For he stresses that in order for us to conceive of contents of judgment it is necessary for us to reflect on the relevant acts of judging. 35 We cannot conceive of the being of X, for example, unless we reflect on the judgment that X is, and likewise we cannot conceive of the non-being of X unless we reflect on the judgment that X is not. In this regard contents of judgment are similar to truth, for Marty stays within the Aristotelian tradition in which truth is to be ascribed to judgments, on the one hand, but the objectivity of truth, on the other hand, is fully acknowledged in opposition to any sort of subjectivism or relativism. Marty’s notion of the non-real is applied not only to contents of judgments, but also to a number of other entities. We shall soon see that he also makes use of it in his view on the meaning of emotives. Aside from linguistic considerations, however, Marty maintains that the following entities are best characterized as non-real: collectives, relations, space, and time. 36 When he died he was in fact developing an ontology of space and time wherein he opposed subjectivist views on these topics, 37 such as the ones which were put forward by Berkeley and 35. Marty (1908), pp. 312-319. 36. See Smith (1994), pp. 101-113. 37. Marty (1916a). As regards Marty’s treatment of space in this work, see Egidi (1990). See Simons (1990) for a discussion of Marty’s final theory of time. It has certainly not been left unnoticed by commentators that Marty’s views on these matters are very Newtonian, which is no surprise since he died before the general theory of

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Kant, but also all attempts to analyze such entities away in the interest of defending the thesis that no other entities besides things are even conceivable. In Marty’s rejection of the latter position he directly and explicitly criticizes the views which Brentano was developing in the last couple of decades of his life. 38 Though we do not find such an explicit confrontation with Brentano in Marty’s magnum opus, already the very notion of contents of judgment as he formulates it entails an implicit rejection of Brentano’s reism. Before we close this discussion of the meaning of statements in the ontological sense, some consideration of Marty’s concept of contents of judgment in relation to comparable concepts in the work of other philosophers will be helpful. As the name of Bernard Bolzano became increasingly prominent in the school of Brentano and won great respect from such thinkers as Kerry, Twardowski, and Husserl, Marty was compelled to confront Bolzano. While Bolzano spoke of sentences as linguistic tools which are appropriate for expressing judgments, he also spoke of sentences or propositions in themselves (Sätze an sich), which are distinct from the uttered sentences and also from judgments as actions of the mind (Handlungen des Geistes). Marty naturally sees an affinity between his contents of judgment and Bolzanian propositions, while at the same time he stresses that his views differ from Bolzano insofar as this philosopher conceived of propositions as existing in some other mode from that of the real thing. 39 Though Marty of course thinks that contents of judgment are non-real, he still maintains that they certainly do exist insofar as it is correct to accept them and thus in the very same way in which real things exist. It is indeed significant that Marty avoids Bolzanian terminology. From the standpoint of someone who wishes to accept this terminology relativity was published. Be that as it may, Marty does have some things of interest to say in this work with regard to the weaknesses of alternative views and also with regard to psychological and epistemological matters. 38. See Brentano (1907), pp. 51-98, which is the focus of the critique in Marty (1916a), pp. 86-97. See also Brentano (1911), pp. 131 ff., which is the focus of the critique in Marty (1916a), pp. 202 f. 39. Marty (1908), pp. 321 ff. Strictly speaking, in Bolzano (1837) propositions in themselves are said to have no existence (Dasein) at all.

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and is at the same time prepared to speak of states of affairs as distinct from propositions, it would be wrong to say that Marty confuses these two classes of entities. Much more accurate would be the statement that he simply maintains that everything that can be described by using the concepts of contents of judgment (i.e. states of affairs) does not require a fuller description by appeal to propositions as something in addition. In a word, it is Marty’s view that there are no propositions, but there are states of affairs. 40 In view of the prominence which Frege has gained in contemporary philosophy, there will of course be curiosity among philosophers of language and logicians to know how Marty “measures up” to that great thinker. In his magnum opus, however, Marty has nothing to say about Frege. Yet, in his series of articles on subjectless sentences Marty did make some critical remarks regarding a crucial thesis which Frege had put forward in his celebrated Begriffsschrift, namely that negation does not at all belong in the sphere of judgment and rather belongs entirely in the content. 41 In Brentanian terms this amounts to the view that all judgments are in fact instances of acceptance. If, for example, I judge that there are no unicorns, I accept the proposition that there are no unicorns. Since Marty wished to uphold the Brentanian view that some judgments are instances of acceptance and others instances of rejection, he did not find Frege’s views on this matter acceptable. 42 At that time, however, Marty had not formulated his notion of meaning in the ontological sense as we find this in his magnum opus. This is not to say that Marty could have fully allowed for Frege’s view in this work. 43 40. This is a response to the charge: “All Austrians constantly confuse proposition with state of affairs” (Reinach, [eds.] Schumann and Smith [1989]) I, p. 526). Though Marty was from Switzerland, he nonetheless belonged to the school of Brentano, which was sometimes known as “the Austrian school”, hence the protest against this practice in Jerusalem (1894), p. 164. If Reinach’s charge does apply to anyone, it does to Meinong and his school in Graz, which was of course centered in Austria. Regarding Reinach’s relation to Meinong (a very important connecting point between the school of Brentano and Munich phenomenology), see Salice (2009). 41. Frege (1879), pp. 1-5. 42. Marty (1884a), pp. 185 ff. 43. Of Frege it is said, for instance, in Marty (1884a), pp. 187 ff. n.: “He seems to be be focused too much here on mathematical judgments, which do, to be sure, have relations as their objects. If he (Frege [1879], p. 2) says ‘house’ cannot be regarded as the

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Nonetheless, Marty does speak of the non-being of X as a content of judgment and therefore no longer sees negation as something entirely belonging to the act of judgment. Accordingly Marty could say that if I judge that there are no unicorns, I reject unicorns and may express this rejection in the statement “there are no unicorns”, and at the same time the content of my judgment is the non-being of unicorns. While he can thus allow for negative contents of judgment, he certainly continues to characterize judgments as belonging to two distinct classes, acceptance and rejection. Here of course extreme caution is warranted against confusing content and object in the case of judgments. What is rejected, if Marty is to be coherent in developing his theory, can only be the object and not the content of a judgment. If I judge that there are no unicorns, I thereby reject unicorns and not the content of this judgment, which is the non-being of unicorns. 44 Regarding the nature of contents of judgment Marty is particularly critical of various positions taken by Meinong in On Assumptions. 45 In this work Meinong speaks of objectives rather than contents of judgments, as we have already noted. He prefers this neologism because he wishes to avoid any suggestion that these are somehow contained in judgments or other mind-functions. While Meinong ascribes a timeless “subsistence” (Bestehen) to objectives, 46 Marty’s contents can come into and go out of existence. While Meinong characterizes objectives as truthbearers, 47 Marty remains in the Aristotelian tradition wherein truth is judgable content, but only a concept such as ‘the circumstance that there are houses’, he seems to believe that every real judgment presupposes a presentation of a judgment”. This view is one that Marty finds objectionable. 44. Here it may be pointed out that the rejected object in the case of a true judgment is an object that does not exist. Accordingly, a case can be made that when Marty’s theory of judgment is stated most coherently, in full awareness of the problems that it must confront, it cries out for the concept of non-existent objects, as first put forward in Twardowski (1894) and more elaborated on in much of Meinong’s work in the twentieth century. Marty, however, wants nothing to do with such a concept. 45. Meinong (1902). Marty refers to this edition, not to Meinong (1910), which was of course published later than Marty (1908) and contains some significant revisions. 46. Meinong (1902), pp. 166, 189. 47. Meinong (1902), pp. 192 ff.

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held to be “in thought”, more particularly in judgments. 48 Meinong also makes an effort to construe evidence and certainty as properties of objectives, 49 whereas Marty does not diverge from the old view that these properties belong to judgments. 50 Finally, Meinong’s view that objectives cannot even properly be objects of presentations is rejected by Marty, as we shall see below in the discussion of presentational suggestives. Since Marty’s views on contents of judgment in relation to Husserl’s have already been dealt with, this need not occupy us at great length here. To sum up, what has already been said elsewhere, Marty’s approach to meaning is much less Platonistic and much more deeply rooted in the empiricist tradition than Husserl’s. Be this as it may, it is possible that Husserl can be of assistance to Marty in the very defense of an empiricist position. Someone who is committed to the view that experience is the only source of our concepts might, after all, very well raise the question: How is it possible for us to have a concept of a content of judgment? Marty’s answer seems to be that we have such a concept through reflection. Yet, if reflection is a turning of the mind to its own acts, reflection would at best yield only a concept of the act of judging, not the content thereof. Already in the Logical Investigations Husserl finds a way to deal with this issue as well as others by intro48. Marty (1908), pp. 404 ff. However, sometimes there is a tendency in this work to speak of the truth of the contents of judgments. See, for instance, Marty (1908), p. 414. Truth in this sense would presumably be the same as existence, corresponding to truth in the proper sense, i.e. to the truth of the relevant judgment. Marty’s overriding theory of truth, such as it is, may be formulated in the thesis that acts of judging are the truthbearers while contents of judgment are the truth-makers. Contrary to certain contemporary theories, Marty maintains that in all cases of true judgments there are truth-makers. The being of the White House makes it true that the White House exists. The non-being of unicorns makes it true that there are no unicorns. Whatever other merits this theory may have, it seems more satisfactory than allowing for truth in some case with and in other cases without truth-makers, and more satisfactory than theories which require Platonic truth-bearers. See Simons (2006), p. 168: “Despite its pecularities and some drawbacks, Marty’s theory is a quite elegant compromise between ontologically inflationary and deflationary accounts of truth, and deserves to be better known”. For an excellent discussion of recent theories and classical ones as well with regard to the concept of truth, see Künne (2003). 49. Meinong (1902), pp. 192 ff. 50. Marty (1908), pp. 295 ff.

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ducing the notion of categorial perception (kategoriale Wahrnehmung). 51 Experience, especially for empiricism, must first and foremost be perception. If we cannot perceive an object under any circumstance at all, we cannot – on the empiricist view – have a concept of this object. If we perceive only things in the narrow sense, whether this be construed in terms of the notion of substance or in that of whatever belongs to the causal relationships, it is difficult to see how we could ever have a concept of a content of judgment. Husserl, however, says that we do in fact perceive states of affairs. We may of course perceive a piece of white paper, but we can just as well perceive that the paper is white. If we allow for this broadened notion of perception, it is accordingly easily seen how Marty’s contents of judgment can be rescued from the empiricist criticism. The traditional concept of experience is too narrow, not only because it is restricted to sense data and immediate data of consciousness, but also because it is closed off from the non-real, which a candid phenomenological account opens up for further inspection. Yet another way in which Marty’s view on contents of judgments could profit from Husserlian phenomenology would be by adopting the notion of categorial reflection. 52 While there is indeed a sense in which reflection has access only to acts (and possibly other immediately given data of consciousness), in a broader sense we can indeed reflect on the contents of our judgments and related items. If someone asks me what I am judging, it obviously only requires reflection on my part to reply that I am judging that such and such is the case. Such reflection does not even require categorial perception or any kind of apprehension of something 51. This term is used in Husserl (1901), p. 616. He has a preference, however, for the term “categorial intuition” (kategoriale Anschauung). His indication that such intution or perception, however, is “supra-sensory” (übersinnlich) is best avoided, especially if one wishes to de-Platonize Husserl. If I, for instance, perceive that a piece of paper is white, this occurrence in my consciousness is no less sensory than my perception of white paper simpliciter. There is, on the other hand, good reason to speak of categorial perception as an act of higher order or its object as an object of higher order. See Husserl (1901), p. 649. 52. Husserl, (ed.) Panzer (1987), pp. 80 ff. This is from a lecture course that Husserl gave on the theory of meaning in the summer semester of 1908, probably inspired by his reading of Marty (1908). While Husserl shows much respect for Marty in the review, he naturally maintains that Marty does not treat his topic as well as it could have been treated from the phenomenological point of view, as this had been developed in Husserl (1901).

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that transcends consciousness. If I am judging that the sun revolves around the earth, for instance, I know that what I am judging is that the sun revolves around the earth. I know this just as certainly and immediately as I know that I am judging. It makes no difference at all that my judgment is false. I know what I am judging whether I am judging correctly or incorrectly. 53 There is unfortunately a tendency among many, even very well educated people, to think that a philosopher offers us a systematic unity wherein all the concepts and theses proffered therein stand or fall together. This, however, is most emphatically not the case. One can adopt much, if not all, of Aristotle’s ethics, for instance, without at the same time accepting his archaic biology. It is likewise possible to adopt Husserl’s notions of categorial perception and categorial reflection without at the same time accepting his Platonism. If Marty’s philosophy of language could be revived it would fare well with these notions and still remain empirically oriented. This may, to be sure, sound rather eclectic. All original philosophical ventures, however, involve a degree of eclecticism. Marty also criticizes the views of his fellow student from Würzbug and later the teacher of Husserl, namely Stumpf, concerning the nature of contents of judgments. Stumpf prefers to speak of states of affairs rather than contents of judgments. According to Stumpf, these are immanent to judgments. 54 Though Marty again and again insists that we cannot conceive of states of affairs unless we reflect on judgments, he also makes it clear that for him certain contents of judgment can exist 53. See Husserl, (ed.) Rollinger (2009), pp. 141 ff. The text cited here is the first series (pp. 141-162), probably from 1910, on the question concerning what is judged about in pure logic. There is also a second series on the same question (pp. 176-209). While Husserl had thought in his previous work, Husserl (1900) and Husserl (1901), that pure logic judges about meanings as species of acts (or speceis of parts of acts), due to his shift in the theory of meaning in 1908 (see above note) he found it necessary to rethink his older theory. Here I do not wish to recommend his views on pure logic, whether these be the older or the newer ones. What I do recommend, however, is the concept of categorial reflection as one that could supplment Marty’s view on the meaning of statements in the ontological sense. By and large it seems to me that the members of the school of Brentano could have profited from each other more than they did. 54. Stumpf (1907a), p. 32.

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independently of the mind. 55 The general problem with all of the misconceptions of contents of judgments, according to Marty, lies in the fact that they arise through being misled by language. 56 While substantives provide us with useful inner linguistic forms, as they do when we speak of meanings, they seduce philosophers into positing meanings as if they were real entities or curious analogues thereof to which a special mode of being is ascribed. As a result, a false ontology is imposed on the notion of meanings in the construction of such monstrosities as Bolzanian and Husserlian propositions “in themselves”, Meinongian objectives, or Fregean “thoughts” (Gedanken). 57 Marty’s empirical approach assures him of only one world that consists of causally related entities which have only non-real by-products, so to speak. Though a full-scale evaluation of his approach in comparison to the others just mentioned can hardly be attempted here, from the standpoint of parsimony in the sphere of ontology the alternative that Marty offers us is certainly a most appealing one. This may be taken as a very strong, though not definitive argument in favor of his view on the issue at hand. Though Marty is critical of his fellow Brentanists, especially Meinong and Husserl, as regards their respective ontologies of objectives or propositions, it is nonetheless difficult to avoid the conclusion that he was to some extent influenced by them. In his work during the nineteenth century he hardly spoke of the contents of judgment, and when he did so there was no implication at all that these were entities which somehow existed beyond consciousness. 58 Moreover, though Marty at that time had allowed for the non-real, this was not something ontologically cut loose from the “mental”. 59 What intervened between this early work and 55. Regarding other criticisms that Marty makes of Stumpf (1907a) and Stumpf (1907b), see Cesalli (2009), pp. 134 ff. 56. Marty (1908), pp. 354 ff. 57. See Frege (1918/1919). This article was of course published some years after Marty’s death. There can be no doubt, however, that from his perspective it would have been regarded as a continuation of the reprehensible ontology that had already been promoted by Bolzano, Husserl, and Meinong. 58. See Marty (1894), pp. 460 f. n., Marty (1895), p. 86, Marty (1897), p. 187 n. 59. See especially Marty (1884a), pp. 172 ff.

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his magnum opus was the publication of Husserl’s Logical Investigations and Meinong’s On Assumptions. Marty had, to be sure, been corresponding with Brentano all along and continued to do so. Brentano, however, was not only expelling the non-real from consciousness; he was analyzing the non-real away altogether. Husserl and Meinong, on the other hand, were giving the non-real a place outside of consciousness. Most likely due to them did Marty come to the view that there are contents of consciousness existing beyond consciousness (though not conceivable without reflection on consciousness, more particularly judging). This is, at the same time, by no means to say that he simply adopted the views which Husserl and Meinong developed on such matters, for Marty obviously diverges from these views insofar as they see the non-real as ideal and he sees it as belonging to the temporal order together with real things and events. What has just been said about Marty’s rejection of Platonistic theories of meaning, especially his charge that they result from being misled by language, suggests an affinity with Wittgenstein, which certainly has not escaped the notice of commentators. 60 While this affinity should certainly not be denied, we must at the same time be on guard against ascribing to Marty an unduly “analytic” orientation, wherein no empirical discoveries or even no discoveries of any kind at all are to be made. As we have already emphasized, Marty’s descriptive semasiology is based on Brentanian descriptive psychology and is as such meant to be first and foremost an empirical endeavor. This orientation is hardly compatible with Wittgenstein’s assertion that philosophy does not even deal in theses. 61 There is yet another important respect in which Marty emphatically differs from Wittgenstein. While Marty divides the autosemantica into three distinct classes and thus thinks that all language-games (to use Wittgenstein’s term) can be understood with reference to these three classes, Wittgenstein regards language as far too complex and intricate to be susceptible to such classification. 62 The very point of his analysis is rather to show that a philosophical problem arises because “language 60. See Mulligan (1990), pp. 25 f. 61. Philosophische Untersuchungen, § 128. 62. Philosophische Untersuchungen, §§ 23, 27.

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goes on a holiday”, 63 i.e. that we are using language outside of the contexts in which it has meaning. Marty, by contrast, points out only incidentally how philosophers have gone astray in the course of his empirical inquiry into language. Classification for him is one of the results of such inquiry and thus an end in itself. While Marty is like a naturalist trying to see some kind of order in the vast complexity that we have before us in linguistic phenomena, Wittgenstein is content to compile his album of sketches. We have thus far dealt with a number of theses which Marty proposes on the basis of empirical observation. Outstanding among these are of course the ones, according to which 1) statements normally express judgments, 2) they have a communicative function and are thus meant to evoke like judgments in the mind of the listener, and 3) the judgments thereby expressed have contents, which are non-real (not ideal) entities. Now let us further examine what other empirical results Marty claims in his descriptive semasiology. 2.2. Emotives As Marty regards statements as autosemantica which manifest judgments and communicate to listener that they are to judge in the same way, he characterizes emotives or interest-demanding expressions (interesseheischende Ausdrücke) in a similar way. 64 It will be helpful here at first to elaborate on the class of mind-functions under consideration, as Brentano and Marty understand them. Phenomena of love and hate, according to Brentanian descriptive psychology, include not only emotions, but also volitions. The more prevalent view during the nineteenth century (at least in the German speaking world), whereby a sharp distinction was drawn between feeling and willing, is explicitly rejected. Inner perception, according to Brentano, teaches us that feeling and willing make up a unitary class 1) because it shows us intermediate states whereby a continuous transition can be made from one extreme to another, 65 and 2) because it reveals to 63. Philosophische Untersuchungen, § 38. 64. Marty (1908), pp. 363-392. 65. Brentano (1874), pp. 308 ff.

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us that they relate to their objects in the same way. 66 As an example of the continuous transition Brentano points out that sadness is a feeling which can come progressively closer to willing through longing for the missing good, hoping for its attainment, desiring to do so, courage to undertake the attempt to do so, and finally (at the extreme of volition) the decision to do so. 67 As regards the same character whereby emotions and volitions relate to an object, this is to be found in an analogy to judging. While judging is in each case an acceptance or a rejection, emotions and volitions both relate to their object as agreeable (gut genehm) or disagreeable (schlecht ungenehm). 68 A very important difference between these phenomena and judgments, however, lies in the fact that there are intermediate degrees between agreeability and disagreebility, whereas there is none between existence and non-existence (or truth and falsehood). However, Brentano maintains that, as judgments can be evident or blind, an analogue to this distinction can be found among emotions and volitions. 69 When Aristotle, for instance, says that all men by nature desire knowledge, this is an indication of an instance of loving which has (or can have) the analogue of evidence. It is not merely “a matter of taste”. Just as statements have a meaning in the communicative sense and thereby indicate to the listener that he or she is to judge as the speaker does, emotives also have a meaning in the communicative sense and thereby indicate to the listener that he or she is to feel or will as the speaker does. 70 As far as examples of emotives are concerned, these are to be found among questions, imperatives, and expressions of our wishes. If, for instance, I ask someone to pass me the salt, the meaning of this request is that the listener should desire the same thing that I desire, namely that he should desire to pass me the salt. Here one might of course object that the ultimate purpose in the

66. Brentano (1874), pp. 311-214. 67. Brentano (1874), p. 308. 68. Brentano (1874), p. 312. 69. Brentano (1889), pp. 20 ff. 70. Marty (1908), pp. 363 ff.

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utterance of an emotive is not to bring about some sort of mental state in the listener, but rather some sort of change in the external world. If I ask someone to pass me the salt, for instance, I want the other to execute an action, the result of which is that I receive that for which I ask. As long as I receive this, I should be happy, whether or not there are mindfunctions occurring in another consciousness. The aim of my asking may thus be regarded as the execution of this action. However, Marty points out that an action is already something that involves volition on some level, which is of course something belonging to the mind of the agent. 71 Accordingly whenever emotives aim at actions, this ultimately involves evoking a certain mental state in the listener. Of course Marty is here considering the usage of language as we normally understand it. He does not take into account the possibility of regarding other people as robots or “philosophical zombies” and thus not even believing that they have mental states. Such a person (or rather pseudo-person) could respond to our utterances by behaving outwardly just as a real person does. From Marty’s perspective there would be no communication here and thus no genunine occurrence of language. In an age of artificial intelligence we would of course like to see this issue addressed with greater focus than it could be in previous times. Such an inquiry, however, lies beyond the scope of the present analysis. As we have seen that statements for Marty have an ontological sense as well as a communicative one, he also says the same of emotives and attaches much weight to this point in connection with the theory of values. In this regard the following passage is of great interest: Is an analogue of the content of judgment really missing in the realm of interest? I don’t believe it is. To be sure, a thoroughly subjectivistic and in this sense erroneously “psychologistic” view is very widespread, which does not accept the distinction between what is merely loveable as a matter of fact and what is worthy of love, and between a blind compulsion and an “ought” in the sense of a norm of correctness in this realm. However, even though it calls itself “value theory”, it is still unable to give a satisfactory account of the concept of value and disvalue just as the analogous psychologistic doctrine in the realm of epistemology is unable to give such an account of the concept of the true and the false. Only if value and disvalue are truly analogues of the true and the false … can there also be in the realm of interest an analogue of 71. Ibid., pp. 365 f.

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correctness and incorrectness, and both are possible only if there is something independent of the subjective phenomenon of loving and hating and in this sense objective that establishes that correctness of mental conduct, just as the being of the object is the objective foundation for the correctness of the acceptance thereof, its non-being for the rejection thereof. Without such a firm basis and standard, all talk of value and disvalue, good and evil, and also of what is in accordance with duty and what is against it, etc. would be without natural justification and sanction. 72

Thus we see that in his descriptive semasiology of emotives Marty puts forward a very important axiological thesis. The mention of epistemology in the passage quoted should also not go unnoticed. The acknowledgment of evidence and its analogue in the domain of love and hate allows Marty to identify certain mind-functions as genuine instances of instances rather than merely fleeting psychical episodes. There is accordingly a very strong sense in which Marty’s descriptive semasiology involves a forcefully stated anti-psychologism in all domains of philosophy. The price of this anti-psychologism, however, is an ontology that allows for non-real entities, whether they be the objective correlates of judgments or those of interest. Marty’s concept of contents of interest as analogues of contents of judgment – the former as “states of value” (Wertverhalte) and the latter as “states of affairs” (Sachverhalte) 73 – must especially be highlighted in the context of not only the school of Brentano, but also in the wider context of Austrian philosophy. The theory of values had already been a focus of the Austrian economists late in the nineteenth century, who played an important role in the development of Meinong’s 72. Ibid., p. 370. While there have been many who have advocated a non-cognitivist theory of values, which is under attack in the cited passage, Marty mentions no one specifically. In his immediate vicinity (in fact as a colleague in Prague) was his fellow Brentanist, Christian von Ehrenfels, who published a two volume work, Ehrenfels (1897) and Ehrenfels (1898), in which precisely such a theory is advocated and explicitly opposed to Brentano’s cognitivism. While he does not explicitly mention this theory of values, he does not shrink away from criticizing Ehrenfels (1890) in Marty (1908), pp. 109 ff. See Cesalli (2009), pp. 146 f. Here we encounter Marty’s rejection of the notion of Gestalt qualities, which had parallels in the work of other Brentanists. Cf. Ierna (2009b). 73. Marty (1908), p. 427. Cf. Marty, (eds.) Eisenmeier et al. (1916a), p. 45.

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“psychologico-ethical value theory”. 74 Marty’s starting point in the theory of value, however, is rather the theory of the origin of moral knowledge, as this is familiar from one of Brentano’s publications. 75 Accordingly he allows for the analogue of evidence in acts of love and hate. But he also takes a further step by allowing for states of value as non-real entities in their own right. Such a step had certainly not been made by Brentano in his earlier work, and it was altogether unthinkable in his later theory, according to which it is impossible to conceive of anything execept a thing and all of our talk of irrealia involves fictions whereby we in fact ultimately refer to things. By allowing for states of affairs as non-real entities which exist apart from consciousness, Marty already parted from the teachings of his mentor. Though there was in this regard already a precedent in the work of Husserl and Meinong, Marty’s specific notion of states of value was something entirely innovative in Austrian philosophy. 76 Meinong also came to adopt a similar notion, though not in his initial attempts to state his object theory. 77 This notion 74. See Meinong (1894). In this work (p. 5) Menger (1871) and Wieser (1889) are cited, but also criticized for restricting the definition of value to the economic realm. For further discussion of the link between Austrian economics and value theory, see Eaton (1930) and Grassl and Smith (eds.) (1986). 75. Brentano (1889). 76. In Eaton (1930), where Marty is only mentioned once in passing (p. 89), the innovation on Marty’s part goes entirely unnoticed. The following passage from Fabian and Simons (1986), pp. 52 f., must be emphatically rejected: “Marty himself made no original contributions to value theory, his main published work being the Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie of 1908 ... Here he does indeed treat of expressions connected with interests (which usage he advocated), such as commands, expressed wishes, questions, requests, and other such speech acts. Apart from this, Marty merely expounds and defends Brentano’s triple classification of mental phenomena and presses its paralles with a classification of linguistic expressions”. Though Marty’s explicit divergence from Brentano with regard to value theory is acknowledged in Kraus (1937), p. 217, the author of this work, though once a student of Marty, became a resolute disciple of the later Brentano and thus does not see Marty’s divergence in this regard as meritorious. At the same time Kraus proceeds to criticize Meinong (pp. 220-233) and Husserl (pp. 235-246) for allowing for objects which are in fact comparable to Marty’s states of value. Here we see an example of how Marty’s originality got overlooked in the heat of the polemics among the orthodox followers of Brentano against heresies. 77. See, for instance, Meinong (1904) and Meinong (1907), in which he only acknowledges two classes of objects (Gegenstände): objects in the narrow sense

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is likewise by no means alien to Husserl’s thought, though not prior to the publication of Marty’s magnum opus. 78 For better or for worse the state of value, as analogous to the state of affairs, is apparently Marty’s brainchild. It is interesting to note also that “emotivism” in the twentieth century came to be associated with an extremely non-cognitivist position regarding values. 79 The view that values are ultimately the correlates of our emotions is not usually seen as a way to rescue ethics, aesthetics, or general axiology from the clutches of subjectivism, relativism, and skepticism. Marty, however, regards values as such correlates and is at the same time committed to an extreme cognitivism and indeed objectivism in his theory of values. The focus of his magnum opus, however, was not a theory of value as such, but rather a descriptive theory of meaning or what is also called a descriptive semasiology. As the evidence of judgments cannot be communicated, according to Marty, the analogue of evidence in the case of love and hate cannot be communicated either on his view. 80 Other issues, analogous to the theory of statements, arise with regard to emotives. As we have recommended borrowing from Husserl in order to improve upon Marty’s theory of statements, it may be suggested that the same can be done here. In this case, however, we face the difficult question concerning exactly how to formulate the values under consideration. Inevitably we seem to fall back on the being-valuable of X or the not-being-valuable of X and similar formulations. Yet, these are, strictly speaking, contents of judgment. Though Marty allows for the possibility of formulating judgments on the basis of love and hate, he insists that emotives as such do not express (Objekte) and objectives (which we have already discussed above). In Meinong (1917), however, we find further elaborations of the theory objects, wherein dignitatives and desiratives (comparable to Marty’s states of values) ultimately had to be admitted. See Meinong (1920). 78. See Husserl, (ed.) Melle (1988). Husserl frequently uses the term Wertverhalt, beginning in the year 1908. In ibid., p. 345, he specifically refers to Marty (1908), p. 427, where this term occurs. Cf. Husserl (1913), pp. 168, 198. The term also occurs in Scheler (1921), p. 32. 79. Stingl (1997), p. 150: “… emotivism and its descendents are often referred to as non-cognitivist theories of ethics”. See Ayer (1971), pp. 104-120. Cf. Stevenson (1944). 80. Marty (1908), pp. 375 f.

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judgments and therefore do not as such have contents of judgments as their contents. 81 Here he fails to give us an explicit formulation of the contents of interest, which indeed his theory ultimately demands. 2.3. Presentational Suggestives The class of autosemantica to which names belong is designated by Marty as “presentational suggestives” rather than simply “names”, for in this class he includes certain experessions which in fact differ significantly from names (and will be further discussed below), though names are certainly prominent throughout his treatment of the class in question. Before we enter into a discussion of the contents of presentation, however, it will be helpful to elaborate somewhat on Marty’s views concerning presentations. As Brentano had conceived of this class of mind-functions very broadly as obtaining wherever something appears and also as the foundations of mind-functions of all other kinds (namely judgments and acts of love and hate), Marty does so as well. Moreover, Marty further elaborates on this class of mind functions in his Untersuchungen as follows: We thus distinguish among the presentations: 1. intuitive or perceptive ones, and include therein all of those presentations of what is real, which are not general through abstraction or individual merely through synthesis, 2. imperceptive ones, i.e. ones which are obtained through abstraction from perceptive ones (such as something colored, something sounding out, something judging, something loving, etc.), 3. comperceptive, i.e. those of what is not-real (such as the relations of equality, difference, and the like), which are, however, not reflective, 4. reflective, such as those of contents of judgment and those of interest, 5. ones formed by synthesis, where the elements can be imperceptive or comperceptive or reflective ones. … 81. Ibid., pp. 308 ff. Husserl is criticized here for construing emotives as statements. See Husserl (1901), p. 692.

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A consideration of these various classes of presentations will be helpful here. The perceptive ones are intuitive. As at least sensations were understood under this heading, Marty also speaks of “sensory intuitions” (Sinnesanschauungen). 83 In addition to these, there are “intuitions of our psychical conduct” (Anschauungen unseres psychischen Verhaltens). 84 We must note here, however, that these intuitions are not themselves inner or outer perceptions, but rather the presentations on which such perceptions are founded. As instances of knowledge, inner perceptions are as such evident judgments and not themselves presentations. As instances of blind judgments, outer perceptions likewise involve the acceptance of something and are therefore not themselves presentations. Other philosophers and psychologists have also included among intuitions those phantasy presentations which correspond to the sensory or inner presentations. Brentano himself held that phantasy presentations approximate the latter, 85 though it is unclear from Marty’s published works whether he adheres to this view. Imperceptive presentations come into play when we abstract from what is intuitively presented. The result of such abstraction, according to Marty, is the formation of concepts, though it need not be. Moreover, he stresses most emphatically, “The most primitive acts of abstraction are independent of all language”. 86 This was a very important point to make in Marty’s day, but also at present, for the view that thinking ultimately depends on language seems to resonate. As has already been said, Marty does not deny that language is helpful for thinking and not merely for communication. Nevertheless, language is for him ultimately the product 82. Marty (1908), p. 435 f. n. 83. Ibid., p. 16. 84. Ibid., p. 12. Cf. Marty (1884a), p. 367. 85. Rollinger (2008a), pp. 30-37. 86. Marty, (eds.) Eisenmeier et al. (1920), p. 105.

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of thinking and not vice-versa. It was of course a matter of great concern for the Brentanists to work out a closer description of abstraction, which can generally be characterized at least as that process whereby general concepts are obtained. While Meinong for a long time adhered to the attention theory, as put forward by Mill, 87 and made an effort to defend this theory against such neo-Humeans as Hans Cornelius, 88 and while Husserl abandoned this theory, which he had held in his early work, 89 in favor of allowing for an irreducible intuitive grasp of general objects, 90 Marty is hesitant in his published work to put forward a detailed theory of abstraction. He was of course fully aware that Brentano had also worked out a theory of general concepts in his lecture course on logic in 1884/85, 91 for they corresponded on this topic. A treatment of Marty’s theory of abstraction would accordingly involve drawing upon relevant materials from both his own and Brentano’s manuscripts, which would take us far beyond our focus here on Marty’s magnum opus. Comperceptive presentations are not simply presentations of the nonreal, but of those non-real objects which are not presented by means of reflection. Our presentations of contents of judgment and of interest, for example, are not comperceptive, whereas our presentations of relations and collectives are so. Though Marty does not acknowledge the nonreality of time and space in his magnum opus, his posthumously published work indicates that the presentation of them should ultimately be classified as comperceptive. As regards reflective presentations, we have already encountered these in the presentations of contents of judgment and of interest. Finally, synthetic presentations are the ones which are expressed by relative clauses in the formation of names. They are also called “attributive presentations”. The synthesis that is achieved in such presentations, however, is not to be regarded as a mere combination of 87. See Rollinger (1993), pp. 34-83. 88. See ibid., pp. 137-182. 89. Husserl (1891). 90. Rollinger (1993), pp. 84-136. 91. This is the material to be found under the signature EL 72.

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presentations, e.g. as this occurs in association. These presentations are synthesized in an irreducible way, just as predication in the case of double judgments is not in any way reducible to some more elementary mental activity. Marty’s remark that the elements of synthetic presentations may involve imperceptive or comperceptive ones does not require further elucidation, since the presentations involved may obviously be general ones as well as presentations of non-real objects. The possibility of reflection coming into play in synthetic presentations is to be seen where negative ones is concerned. If, for instance, I present people who are not learned (and thus produce an imperceptive presentation), I am apparently presenting people of whom it is false to judge that they are learned. This synthetic presentation therefore seems to involve the reflection on a judgment. 92 Likewise, the presentation of the relation between two perceived colors (which are thus perceptively presented) is comperceptive, but when this presentation is expressed by such a name as “the relation which is not an instance of similarity”, the resulting presentation is the synthetic one of a relation, of which it is false to judge that it is an instance of similarity. Some have also presumably distinguished between a priori and a posteriori presentations. This distinction, according to Marty’s interpretation, was made by Kant in his transcendental aesthetics, where the presentations of time and space are given an a priori status as opposed to the sensory qualities, which are thus given an a posteriori status. 93 As far as Marty can assess this view, it merely amounts to the old theory of innate ideas. While he at least allows for the logical possibility of such ideas, he sees absolutely no need to posit them. The a priori he restricts to the domain of judgment, where it only has to do with the ability to make a judgment with evidence from the underlying presentations alone, as we have already mentioned, and has absolutely nothing to do with innateness. A presentation, Marty tells us, does not have a content in the sense of an immanent object, 94 which would be construed as some sort of 92. Marty (1895), p. 71. 93. Marty (1916a), pp. 29-35. 94. As a point of interest, this term had been used before Brentano in Hartmann (1871), pp. 18, 60, in which there is strong alliance with Kant and German Idealism.

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Doppelgänger for the presented object. 95 If, for instance, someone imagines a unicorn, there is presumably no object outside of the mind, but in such a case it had been suggested by Brentano and Marty himself (in an earlier phase) as well as others that there is nonetheless an object that exists in the mind. Indeed, on their view there is always an immanent object wherever there is conciousness-of-something. In his magnum opus Marty no longer holds this view and rather maintains that wherever there is consciousness of something, consciousness is either actually related to something that really does exist or it has a relative determination (relative Bestimmung), i.e. it would be related to an object if this object did exist. 96 A relative determination, says Marty, is not only to be found in consciousness, but also, for instance, when a picture is a good likeness of someone who has passed away. Though such talk indicates what seems to be a relation, it turns out that it is not really so since one of the relata does not exist. Accordingly, imagining a unicorn is the consciousness-of-something only in the sense that it would be related to a unicorn if a unicorn did exist. Moreover, if the relation of consciousness does in fact obtain, as it presumably does whenever there is a mind-function concerned with something real or something non-real, the type of relation is what Marty calls an “mental assimilation” (ideelle Verähnlichung). 97 In some sense the mind-function, he maintains, is similar to the object, though not in the proper sense in which something red is similar to something else that is red. The kind of similarity that obtains in the consciousness-of-something is for Marty sui generis. While this notion is without a doubt extremely obscure, it is in fact the one that he wishes to replace with the notion of the immanent object. When we say that there is an object “in the mind”, unless we are talking 95. Marty (1908), pp. 384-416. 96. Ibid., pp. 417 ff. 97. Both of the terms which Marty uses in German are highly problematic. Ideell here means having to do with the mental sphere and has nothing to do with ideals as the things we find worthy of striving towards or with that which is ideal in a Platonic sense. (Cf. the usage of the same term in Martinak [1901], pp. 9 f.) Verähnlichung may appear as a neologism, but it is in fact archaic. This noun and the corresponding verb can in fact be found in a good many nineteenth-century texts. While they were used to indicate any kind of making or being similar, they were also used in the biological sense. Hence, “assimilation” (see Sporschil [1830], p. 674), not an English neologism, is an acceptable translation here.

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about a mind-function which is strictly and properly in the mind, what we are in fact indicating is that a mind-function ideally assimilates an object or would do so if the object existed. Though it is acceptable still to speak of an object in the mind, this is only so insofar as the expression has an inner linguistic form which connects it with its actual meaning, namely as indicating ideal assimilation or the corresponding relative determination. Just as we go on saying that the sun goes up and the sun goes down, fully realizing that the earth in fact revolves around the sun, we may also go on speaking of objects in the mind. The fictions produced by inner linguistic form are detrimental only if they are not understood to be fictions. However difficult Marty’s theory of intentionality is to understand, espcially insofar it involves the notion of ideal assimilation, it should be pointed out that it stands in contrast not only with the immanentism that he and Brentano had upheld earlier, but also with other theories in the school of Brentano. As we know, Twardowski wrote a short book that was to become a crucial turning point in this school. 98 Though Twardowski adopted Brentano’s distinction between content and object, 99 he also confronted the thesis that had been argued by Bernard Bolzano that there were “objectless presentations”. 100 While the early Brentano was satisfied with saying that there were indeed presentations which do not have external objects, but which do nonetheless have contents, Twardowski asserted in addition that all presentations not only have contents, but also objects. 101 Even the presentation corresponding to contradictory names, e.g. “round rectangle”, or general names, e.g. “the triangle”, have objects on Twardowski’s view. 102 Contradictory objects 98. Twardowski (1894). In this work (p. 4) Twardowski cites Höfler and Meinong (1890), § 6, where the distinction between contents and objects of presentation is made. In Höfler (1905), pp. 327 ff., it is asserted that this distinction was an original product of the authors of the work from 1890 and set the stage for the rejection of psychologism, whereas Marty finds both points objectionable. See Marty (1908), pp. 388 ff. 99. Rollinger (2008c). 100. Bolzano (1837) I, § 67. Though Bolzano used the term gegenstandlose Vorstellung, Twardowski and others after him have used the term gegenstandslose Vorstellung. 101. Twardowski (1894), pp. 20 ff. 102. Ibid., pp. 102 ff.

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and absurd objects, however, are not said to exist. This thesis, that something can be an object and nonetheless fail to exist, was further taken up and developed by Meinong, 103 much to the chagrin of almost every other prominent student of Brentano. 104 The early Husserl too had also been provoked by Twardowski to formulate a view regarding the alleged objectless presentations. In his attempt to do so in 1894 he maintained that such presentations only had objects “under assumption” or “under hypothesis”, but not in the strict and proper sense. If we speak of Zeus as the highest Olympian god, for instance, we do so and thus our presentation has an object only according to Greek mythology. 105 However, Husserl later formulated the notion of a noema, which was indeed in some sense a return to Brentanian (“scholastic”) immanentism. 106 Marty utterly rejects Meinong’s view that we may speak of objects which do not exist. 107 In fact he is much closer to Bolzano than he is to other students of Brentano in his view on intentionality, for he is fully prepared to say without qualification that the presentation corresponding to the name “round rectangle”, for instance, has no correlate. The presentation in such a case has a relative determination rather than any relation to an object. 108 As for general presentations, Marty sees no need to posit

103. Meinong (1904) and Meinong (1907). 104. See Stumpf (1907b), pp. 40 ff. See also Rollinger (1999), pp. 199-207. 105. Husserl, (trans.) Rollinger (1999). 106. Husserl (1913), p. 185. 107. Without going into detail, Marty seems to be sympathetic to much of the criticism which was put forward in Russell (1905) in opposition to Meinong’s theory of non-existent objects. It is interesting that in the account of the school of Brentano in Coffa, (ed.) Wessels (1991), pp. 85 ff., the Twardowskian and Meinongian theories of intentionality are presented as if they were the final word of on the subject in this school. Surely Marty’s account deserves some attention before condemning the psychological orientation of this school (as opposed to the semantic one, allegedly initiated by Bolzano), as is done in the book just mentioned. 108. Brentano’s later characterization of consciousness as involving something relation-like (Relativliches) also seems to be closely related to Marty’s view on the matter. See Brentano (1911), pp. 122 ff.

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a special class of general objects or universals, for on his view these presentations ideally assimilate more than one object and do not require anything over and above this. 109 If we present “the triangle” in general, this presentation is ideally similar to every right triangle, every acute one, and also every obtuse one. Now that we have some understanding of how Marty conceives of presentations, let us look at his views of the meaning of names. In his lectures from 1904 Marty sums up much his theory of presentational suggestives as follows: In the broadest sense “names” (e.g. “house”, “horse”, “tree”, “sun”, “person”, “something red”) mean that the listener should present something, more particularly as a rule what is the proper object in presenting, which is manifested by the utterance of the name as given in the speaker. As a rule – for the speaker does not always also have the appropriate presentation when a name is uttered by him; this restriction must be made. Another explanation is needed when it was just said: the listener should present something, for this “should” may not be understood as an imperative. If even most words have gotten their meaning voluntarily, it is not the will that connects a meaning in an individual case with a sign. It is much more fitting to call a name a “suggestive”; it should suggest a presentation to us, in a certain sense by means of summoning the laws of association. Hence, when I say that the listener should present something, this means that the name is determined and able to evoke, by the laws of habit and the association of ideas, a certain presentation in the listener. This is what we designate as the meaning of a “name” in the proper sense. In connection with this, we speak in a narrower sense of the meaning of names and call the content of presenting, which is associated with the name, the meaning. This content of presentation is also designated as the meaning of a name. In descriptive psychology we divide presentations into intuitive and conceptual ones, and here the question arises: do the names of our language mean now intuitive presentations and now those of a conceptual make-up or in all cases only one of these types? Linguists usually take the view that the names of language mean intuitive content (particularly on primitive levels and, for instance, in the case of a child), whereas their meaning is of a conceptual nature as mental life progresses. However, I must contradict this opinion and assert that the names of human language always mean only conceptual content, never something 109. Marty (1908), pp. 442 f.

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intuitive; for an intuition in the strict sense of the word is not at all communicable. What is communicable through language must (already according to Aristotle) be common to all. An intuition in the strict sense of the word, however, is, as said, not communicable because it can be infinitely varied. Concerning the intuition of a physical phenomenon, Leibniz already said that no leaf in the world is equal to another one. So it is precisely with our intuition. It is always concepts that we thus communicate to each other through the names of language, or else we could never perfectly communicate with each other and the possibility of communication would only be very approximating. Whoever therefore thinks that intuitions are represented by our language is in error. 110

In this passage we apparently see analogies between presentational suggestives and the other two classes of autosemantica. The analogy regarding the communicative sense of “meaning” is rather straightforward, whereas the one regarding the ontological sense of a presentational suggestive is more problematic. The meaning of a presentational suggestive in this sense, as distinct not only from its meaning in the communicative sense, but also from the named object, is for Marty a concept (Begriff). As many before him had noted, names can name one and the same object via different concepts. Aristotle can be named “the teacher of Alexander the Great”, but he can also be named “the most famous student of Plato” or “the founder of the Lyceum”. 111 These names accordingly have the same object (or, as more recent philosophers would say, have the same reference), but they clearly differ in terms of their meaning (or sense). The problem for Marty is whether this meaning or concept is an entity in its own right, as contents of judgments and of interest clearly are for him. Marty attempts to solve this problem by distinguishing between two senses of the word “object” (Gegenstand). 112 If, for example, we speak of white things, we may 110. Marty, (ed.) Funke (1965) pp. 115-117. 111. These examples of course contain proper names, which we shall discuss further below. 112 Marty (1908), pp. 448 ff. Here may note that “object” for Marty is strictly a relational term. Nothing is conceived of as an object unless it is thought of as something presented. We may say that someone conceives of red as a color, but hardly that red is thereby conceived of as an object. If someone does conceive of red as an object, this is

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identify various objects, e.g. pieces of paper, clouds, and milk. In one sense the object of the presentation which is thereby summoned up is each one of these things in its entirety. A particular piece of paper in all its concrete details, such as shape, size, location, etc., is accordingly the object of the presentation “of a white thing”. In another sense, however, the object of this presentation is strictly that aspect of this piece of paper, of a particular cloud, etc., which qualifies it as a white a thing. In this case we could say that the whiteness of the paper is the object of the presentation “of a white thing”. It is the object of a presentation in this second sense which is for Marty the concept or meaning of the name corresponding to the presentation in question. If we understand a concept in this way, we avoid having to posit an entity over and above the named object in the concrete sense. Let us consider a familiar example which Husserl used in order to illustrate the difference between what a name names on the one hand and what it means on the other. The two names “the victor of Jena” (shorthand for “the victorious general at the Battle of Jena”) and “the vanquished of Waterloo” (shorthand for “the vanquished general at the Battle of Waterloo”) both name Napoleon. 113 Yet, they differ in their meaning. If, for instance, we say that the victor of Jena was victorious in the Battle of Jena, this is a tautology. If, however, we say that the victor of Jena was also the vanquished of Waterloo, this is clearly not a tautology. The two names under consideration name one object, if we are speaking of the object in the broad sense. Yet, they mean two different objects in the narrow sense. As meanings, the objects in question occupy two different portions of time. The victor of Jena existed before the vanquished of Waterloo. These two objects are no more timeless than the object in the broad sense, i.e. the object in the sense in which the victor of Jena and the vanquished of Waterloo are identical. Nor are the objects in the narrower sense any less real in Marty’s sense of the word “real”. The victor of Jena caused his forces to win the battle he fought, whereas the vanquished of Waterloo succumbed to the opposing forces and was thereby causally affected by them. These two objects are meanings. They are also concepts. Yet, they are just as temporal and just as real as those done only in the context of psychological reflection. This point of course is crucial to his dismisal of Meinong’s theory of objects. 113. Husserl (1901), p. 47.

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objects which are neither meanings nor concepts. In view of this conception of the meaning of names in the ontological sense, it turns out that there is not a full-blown analogy between names and the other autosemantica. While statements have contents of judgments as their meanings and emotives by analogy have contents of interest as their meanings and these contents are in both cases non-real entities, the meanings of names require no special ontological category outside of the objects perceived by inner and outer sense. As we have contrasted Marty’s view regarding statements and particularly contents of judgment, we may here briefly point out that his theory of names is ontologically much more economical than those of Bolzano, Frege, and Husserl. 114 While these three see the necessity of acknowledging certain non-real (or even ideal or abstract) entities in order to account for the meaning or “sense” of a name as opposed to its reference, Marty sees absolutely no necessity of such an acknowledgement. His theory of names is indeed one of the most anti-Platonistic aspects of his philosophy of language. Though Marty is not a Platonist, he nonetheless belongs to the Aristotelian tradition and thus does not restrict our ability to expand our conceptions beyond that which is presented in inner or outer sense. Such far-reaching presentations were called “improper” (uneigentlich) by Brentano. 115 As there is an improper presenting and conceptualizing, there is also, says Marty, an improper naming. “If it is asked, however, what kind of distinction there is between proper and improper presenting,” he further explains: I would reply that it seems to me to belong to those which allow for degrees and where there prevails full clarity concerning the extremes, but not regarding the middle positions in which the boundaries are to be drawn. Certainly we call a presentation “improper” if it is neither an intuition of the object nor created from an intuition thereof; in an area where an 114. There are of course very important differences among these three, though they are hardly relevant in the present context. Alluding to Husserl without mentioning his name, Marty says, “Such ‘meanings in themselves’, which supposedly do not come into and go out of being, seem to me just as fictional as Bolzano’s ‘presentations in themselves’” (Marty [1908], p. 495). 115. See Rollinger (2008a), pp. 34 f.

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intuition is impossible from the outset and for every intellect (e.g. whatever is contradictory and in conflict). If someone born blind calls the sensation of red, which he often hears spoken of in a characteristic manner, a sensation “like that of a trumpet tone”, this is perhaps not inappropriate with regard to the effect on feelings. Assuming, however, that this actually hits upon a proprium of the sensation under consideration, it is nonetheless not what is called the proper concept of red, but rather only an improper presentation thereof. The person suffering from the sensory defect cannot at all grasp the proper concept, since this person lacks the corresponding intuition from which alone the concept is to be abstracted. Yet even if someone proficient in colors designates the sensation of red, for instance, as the one that is evoked by the rays of the greatest wave-length of the solar spectrum, this does not elucidate the proper content of the presentation of red and rather replaces it with an improper concept. It is likewise an improper presentation of black or gray when I say that it is the color of my frock or my trousers, in short, when I grasp the color according to an accidental relation or a relative determination that belongs to it. Or if I only say of something that it is what is presented by me or the subject matter of discussion or what is designated by this or that sign. But also when the relation or the relative determination is not, like those in the stated examples, a merely passing and incidental one, the statement thereof is still to be regarded as a merely improper grasp of what stands in the relation (or what participates in the relative determination), as when I conceive of God as the cause of the world and (physical) light as the (possible) cause of my visual sensations. 116

One of the great advantages of language is indeed the fact that it gives us a symbolic means for thinking about matters which are beyond the bounds of human intuition. While the Platonic tradition makes great claims about the ability to comprehend such matters with some sort of intellectual immediacy (usually ascribed to a very small elite), the Aristotelian one, to which Brentano and his closest disciple belong, fully acknowledges the possibility of high achievements of the human intellect through laborious cognitive efforts by the use of symbols. The question may be addressed here why Marty speaks of presentational suggestives and not simply of names. This is because 116. Marty (1908), pp. 455 f. Marty had already acknowledged improper (surrogate or symbolic) presenting and naming in his earlier work. See below, pp. 287 f.

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names for him make up only one class of presentational suggestives, whereas there are others which may in some cases be exemplified by whole sentences. 117 If the whole sentence is understood without at the same time judging in accordance with the judgment which is thereby expressed, the resulting mind-function, says Marty, is the presentation of a content of judgment. In fiction, in games, in indirect proofs, and in many other human endeavors we merely present contents of judgment. While Meinong and his followers thought that such activities called for a whole new class of mind-functions, called “assumptions”, 118 which lie between presentations and judgments, Marty argued extensively that whenever there is no judgment corresponding to a sentence that has the outward appearance of a statement there is nothing else but a presentation. While this presentation is not simply of A, but rather of the being or non-being of A, for instance, it does not have properties which make it anything other than a presentation, contrary to Meinong’s view that in the cases under consideration there is an affirmation or a negation, though without conviction (Überzeugung). As regards Marty’s objections against Meinong’s theory of assumptions, it may be said on Meinong’s behalf that there is a highly important semantic distinction between names and those sentences which, according to Marty, express presentations of contents of judgment. The latter can be used for the formation of hypothetical sentences, whereas the former cannot. We can say, for instance, that if the Third Reich had been victorious in World War II this would have been a most unfortunate outcome. We cannot, however, replace the antecedents and consequents of such sentences with names, however complex they might be. We can moreover make use of the hypothetical sentences in deductions, but we are unable to deduce anything by using mere names. This difference, I think, can be pointed out in defense of Meinong’s theory of assumptions. It is at the same time important to concede Marty’s point that this theory is not a simple matter of exhibiting what we know from inner perception. As Brentano had insisted in his lectures on descriptive psychology, this discipline is in fact a very difficult one. Seldom is it possible to establish a class of mind-functions with such ease and readiness as Meinong 117. Ibid., pp. 474 ff. 118. Here again the relevant text is Meinong (1902), whereas the revised edition, Meinong (1910), was published after the first volume of Marty’s magnum opus.

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suggests. Moreover, though assumptions in the Meinongian sense can accommodate hypothetical sentences and above all hypothetical reasoning in a way that presentations, contrary to Marty’s insistence, cannot do so, many of the criticisms which Marty makes of various aspects of Meinong’s theory of assumptions cannot be dismissed out of hand. There are indeed many instances in which presentations or judgments seem to be at work, e.g. in play and art, where Meinong would unjustifiably replace them with assumptions. As Marty is opposed to Meinong’s attempt to expand the classes of mind-functions to include assumptions, he is likewise opposed to Husserl’s view that there are only two such classes, namely presentations or “objectifying” acts on the one hand and “non-objectifying” ones on the other. 119 Husserl’s classification, however, involves an extensive critique of Brentano’s thesis that every mind-function that is not itself a presentation is based on a presentation. 120 Marty does not reply to the particulars of Husserl’s argument that had been put forth against Brentano’s thesis and ultimately in favor of the two-fold classification just mentioned. Be this as it may, Husserl’s distinction between onerayed and many-rayed acts, as well as his theory of positing names, 121 may be seen as attempts to come to grips with the same phenomena which concern Marty in his philosophy of language. Moreover, Husserl’s philosophy of language in the Logical Investigations, whether it more effectively deals with names or not, misses the communicative aspect of language, which remains focal in Marty’s account of names as well as statements and emotives. For many who are occupied with the philosophy of language the question will no doubt arise how Marty deals with indexicals, i.e. expressions such as “this” and “I”, which vary in their reference depending on who is using them and under what circumstances they are being used. Though Bertrand Russell’s assertion that these are in fact the only genuine names is hardly acceptable anymore, 122 these are expressions 119. Ibid., pp. 369 f. 120. See Rollinger (1999), pp. 52-56. Further considerations of this critique may be prompted by newly published materials in Husserl, (ed.) Rollinger (2009). See also Rollinger (2009b). 121. For critical remarks concerning these notions, see Rollinger (2008a), pp. 51-71. 122. Russell (1911), p. 121.

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which refer to their objects and are therefore in some way comparable to names. I may, for example, use the first-person singular pronoun to refer to myself, while someone else may refer to exactly the same object by using my name. A theory of names without some account of indexicals will indeed strike many as a result of a philosophy of language which is still in need of significant supplementation. While I do not by any means wish to defend Marty’s theory of names or his philosophy of language in general as somehow a complete and satisfactory account of all linguistic phenomena, we should note that he had already to some extent dealt with indexicals in his earlier work in the doctrine of double judgment. A statement such as “This flower is red”, according to the doctrine in question which we have already mentioned above, expresses an affirmative existential judgment in the indexical, while the rest of the statement expresses a predication based on the existential judgment. It therefore appears that for Marty indexicals are better dealt with in the context of a theory of statements rather than one of names. However, to say that “this rose” in the sentence just indicated is already an expression of a judgment that a particular rose exists can hardly be considered a final account of the matter. If such an expression were replaced, for example, by “the existing rose” or “an existing rose”, this would not by any means be equivalent to the indexical expression under consideration. In his magnum opus Marty again encounters the indexicals under the heading of “occasional expressions” as opposed to “usual” expressions. 123 While he identifies different senses in which this distinction can be made, 124 he says of pronouns such as “I” and demonstratives such as 123. This distinction was made in Paul, (trans.) Strong (1888), pp. 65-66: “The possibility, we may even say the necessity, of change in meaning, springs from the circumstance that the meaning which attaches to a word each time that it is employed, is not necessarily coincident with that which usage attaches to it considered in itself. As it seems desirable to adopt distinct names for this discrepancy, we shall employ the expressions ‘usual’ and ‘occasional’ ... We understand then by ‘usual meaning’ the entire contents of the conception bound up in any given word as it presents itself to the member of any body of individuals speaking one common language: by the term ‘occasional meaning’ we understand the contents of the conception which the speaker, in uttering the word, connects therewith, and which he expects the listener to connect with it likewise”. Indexicals are indicated as examples of expressions which have occasional significations (pp. 66 f.). 124. Marty (1908), pp. 498-501.

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“this” that they are occasional in the sense that their meaning changes from one circumstance to another. 125 They are comparable to proper names insofar as one and the same name can be used to designate a certain individual under certain circumstances, but a different individual under other circumstances. This approach to indexicals, however, seems to be less than satisfactory, for it would be possible for us to live in a world where every individual had a unique proper name whereas indexicals, which vary in their reference from circumstance to circumstance, are apparently altogether indispensable for communication. There are situations in which there is plainly a need for expressions such as “I” and “you”. Of course if we all knew each other by our proper names and these names were in each case unique, each person could be referred to in each case by the relevant proper name. Such a scenario, however, is the stuff of science fiction. Indexicals accordingly seem to be essential to the communicative situation of human beings. 126 Yet another context in which Marty again encounters indexicals is found when he speaks of the application of analogies of proportion throughout language. 127 As a king has a certain relationship to his kingdom, a lion is king in the sense that he stands in the same relationship to his domain, or a figure on a chessboard is also king in relationship to the other pieces. Here in fact belongs the usage of personal pronouns, such as “I”, “you”, and the demonstratives, such as “this person”, of the first in the mouth of every speaker for himself, of the second of every addressee and of the last-mentioned for a third person who is neither the speaker nor the addressee. For here too a sameness of relationships for things that are absolutely different leads to the usage of the same sign. It is like this with 125. Ibid., p. 499. 126. Husserl calls indexicals “essentially occasional expressions”, but by this he means that they are in all conceivable situations occasional. It is unfortunate that Husserl’s theory of indexicals is very briefly dismissed in Marty (1908), p. 499 n. 127. In the Aristotelian tradition, which Marty of course highly values in many ways, such analogies were contrasted with ones of attribution, as exemplified by calling various things “healthy” in different senses. Food is healthy insofar as it causes health, whereas people are healthy insofar as they have health and their physical appearance is healthy insofar as it is a sign of health.

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the usage of the terms “here” and “there”, “early” and “late”, “now”, “yesterday”, “tomorrow”, etc. “Being there”, “being here”, “being now” mean now this, now that which differs locally or temporally in absolute terms, as long as its local or temporal determination exhibits the same relationship to a certain place or a certain time which figures as the center of determinations of measure. 128

While this topic surely requires further discussion, the view that indexicals are to be understood in terms of analogies of proportion seems to be a lot more promising than the comparison with the same proper name in reference to different individuals under different circumstances. As contemporary philosophers of language point out the distinction between the use and the mention of a name, Marty makes the same distinction and related ones by drawing upon scholastic philosophy (via Brentano). 129 When a name is used to name itself, this is the suppositio materialis. A name, however, can also be used to name the corresponding concept. We may say, for instance, that man is a general concept. This is the suppositio formalis. Morever, likewise a statement can be named, just as an emotive can. In the case of a statement “X exists”, this can be used not only to name itself, but also the content of a judgment or even the act of judging. While the same can be said of emotives, names are not as a rule used to name the act of presentation which they express. However, a peculiar feature of any name “X” is that it can also be used in order to designate something called “X”. 130 One could speak of Frankfurt, for instance, and simply mean a city that has this name, whether it be Frankfurt am Main or Frankfurt an der Oder. In this case the name is no longer a proper one. This would indeed be a clear-cut case in which different individuals would be subsumed under the same concept. It may thus appear that proper names, from Marty’s standpoint, denote their objects, but they do so without having meaning, as names of other kinds do. The problem of proper names arose in the school of Brentano from considerations expressed in John Stuart Mill’s System of Logic. There Mill made a distinction between connotation and denotation 128. Marty (1908), p. 504. 129. Ibid., pp. 507 ff. 130. Ibid., p. 509. See also Marty (1888), p. 249.

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of a name. The former consists of certain properties which are implied in using the name, whereas the latter is simply what the name names. 131 Mill put forward the thesis that a proper name, strictly speaking, does not have a connotation. If I call someone “Robin”, for instance, there is no indication of what properties this object might have. It simply names the object and does nothing else, whereas this is not the case if the object in question is named “human”. In this case it is indicated that it is a mammal, an animal, etc. While Husserl responded to Mill’s theory of proper names by saying that such a name nonetheless has a meaning, he could do so only at the price of his Platonistic theory of meaning. 132 The meaning of a name for Husserl is not at all something that inheres in the named object, as its properties do, but rather a species which is instantiatesd by the act of nominal presentation. Since Marty refuses to avail himself of such an ontological luxury as a species (as understood by Husserl), Mill’s theory is a much greater concern for him. He also will not allow himself to construe a proper name such as “Robin” as “something called Robin”. In view of this situation he seems to be compelled to concede that a proper name as such is, strictly speaking, altogether meaningless. “However, this also”, he says, “would not be the correct interpretation of the facts, on my view”. He continues to explain this view in the following way: Here there is no lack of a presentation which the naming of the single object conveys (and this presentation must of course be an individual one). But it is left up to the situation exactly which presentation is evoked, whereas the name is in this respect not determining in isolation. It is in isolation not only equivocal in the sense that it leaves undecided which of the things called “Heinrich” or “Fritz” is meant, but also by which individual presentation the thing in question should or might be presented. The general presentation “something called Heinrich or Fritz” may indeed be evoked by the name, but it belongs on my view to the aids which convey the meaning, thus to the inner linguistic form. 133 131. A System of Logic, I.i.§5. 132. Husserl (1901), pp. 57 ff. 133. Marty (1908), pp. 438 f. n. This passage is cited in Gabriel (1990), p. 71. The translation there (by Ronald Feemster) is very different from mine. As far as I can tell, Marty wants to say that it is the naming that conveys the presentation and not vice versa, and also that this presentation, not the naming (Nennung), is an individual one. Moreover, in Gabriel (1990), p. 70, the meaning of a name is inaccurately identified with

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The inner linguistic form here would presumably be a constructive one. When someone tells me, for instance, that he took a train to Frankfurt, I may at first only think of “a city called Frankfurt”, which is as such a general presentation and in this case a constructive inner linguistic form. I know in fact that the speaker wants to say more than merely: “I took a train to some city called Frankfurt”. As communication progresses and I am informed, for instance, which train was taken from where and in what direction, I am able to form a certain individual presentation which as such establishes the meaning of “Frankfurt” by means of context. Accordingly Marty thinks that proper names do in fact have meanings, but they vary from one situation to another as indexicals do. 134 Whether this is ultimately a satisfactory theory of proper names will not be decided here, though it does certainly seem to be prima facie preferable over a Platonistic theory.

a presentation, though not in a psychologistic sense. This raises a question: In what sense would a presentation as the meaning of a name have to be understood? The Platonistic option of course is readily suggested, but it is clear that Marty does not see this as a viable alternative for semantics. It is also clear from the preceding discussion that Marty dismises Bolzanian presentations in themselves, which may not as such be bound to an out-and-out Platonistic view, but rather somehow hover about in some sort of ontological Never Land. While I concede that it is not abundantly clear from the cited passage that the meaning of a proper name is not a presentation, it has already been established that the meaning of a name for Marty is an object in the narrow sense and the named object is an object in the broad sense. Thus if someone names Salzburg, for instance, it is a city in Austria, in all its inexhaustible features, that is named, but perhaps only the birthplace of Mozart that is presented. Salzburg as the birthplace of Mozart for a person who understands the proper name in question in this way would be the meaning of this proper name. This person will of course be fully aware that the object in the broader sense, i.e. the named object, has countlessly more features than the ones included in his presentation. 134. This context-dependent aspect of proper names is fully appreciated in Landgrebe (1934), where it is indeed developed beyond Marty’s restrictions. Cf. Gabriel (1990) and Cesalli (2009), pp. 154 ff.

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3. Synsemantica In Marty’s magnum opus his treatment of austosemantica is followed by a brief chapter on the synsemantica. 135 Before closing our treatment of Marty’s descriptive semasiology, it will be of interest to see how he deals with such expressions, which had already been characterized as ones which, unlike the autosemantica, do not alone express psychical phenomena. This aspect of Marty’s contribution to descriptive semasiology is an important aspect of his views on syntax, by which he means “the circumstance that in language combinations of signs are and have been formed which have as a whole a meaning or co-meaning, briefly a function, which does not belong to the particular elements as such”. 136 As we have already observed, Marty does not define language in such a way that it necessarily involves syntax. 137 If language would necessarily involve syntactical structures, the language of children as well as that of humanity in the initial stage of language-formation would not count as language. Nor does Marty see syntax as such to be somehow what distinguishes humankind from other animals. The key to understanding this distinction lies in the human ability to think abstractly. This ability, which is for him not as such dependent on language at all, is one that Marty nevertheless sees as connected to syntax, namely whenever the complexity which syntax introduces corresponds to the complexity in thought. 138 It is in this context that Marty examines the role of synsemantica. There is, however, a distinction, says Marty, between logically grounded synsemantica and ones which are not logically grounded. While the former are the most interesting ones for descriptive semasiology, he does not want to downplay the importance of the latter in the role of making our tools of communication more convenient and

135. Marty (1908), pp. 532-541. 136. Ibid., p. 533. Cf. Marty (1875), p. 107 (p. 202 below). 137. Marty (1908), pp. 533 ff. 138. For further thoughts on Marty’s views on syntax, see Spinicci (1988).

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more aesthetically pleasing. 139 What Marty says in the published volume of his magnum opus about the distinction between the two types of synsemantica is unfortunately very sketchy and devoid of examples. In posthumously published material Marty does, to be sure, continue to develop his theory of synsemantica. Before closing our discussion of his descriptive semasiology, let us briefly look at this material in search of illustrations of his notions of logically grounded synstemantica and of ones which are not logically grounded. In the material under consideration here Marty attempts to organize his treatment of logically grounded synsemantica by dividing them up in correspondence with the three classes of autosemantica: statements, presentational suggestives, and emotives. Let us here consider an example from the sphere of statements. In their simplest form these are of course expressions in which something is named and also said to exist or not to exist. If the judgment thereby expressed is the acceptance of what is presented (“X exists”), the quality of this judgment is affirmative. If, by contrast, the judgment in question is a rejection (“X does not exist”), the quality is negative. Aside from the quality, the judgment has matter, which is of course represented by the name. 140 The sign that must be added to an expression to make it a statement, and thereby suited to express a judgment, is for Marty an outstanding case of a logically grounded synsemanticon. In the statement “X exists” the term “exists” would thus be a synsemanticon of this kind, as would “does not exist” in the statement “X does not exist”. Yet Marty also adds that the sign that represents the matter is also synsemantic. In the case of simple existential statements this sign would of course be the name. Names, however, had already been treated as autosemantica. If it is said here that the sign that represents the matter is a synsemanticon only in the context of a statement (or perhaps an emotive), this would require a revision of what had been said before. For names are only used in such contexts and never alone. Here we see that we are plainly dealing with a work in progress. Marty of course maintains that statements can be much more complex than the ones considered thus far, especially when the subject-predicate 139. Marty (1908), pp. 537 f. 140. Marty, (ed.) Funke (1965), pp. 127 ff.

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form is brought into play. 141 As we have already indicated, Brentano thought that statements of this form could be reformulated, although both he and Marty came upon a peculiar class of statements in their attempt to demonstrate that such reformulations were possible. This class consists of the statements which express double judgments, as already mentioned above in our considerations of Marty’s views on indexicals. Here again Marty puts forward a view that presents us with a difficulty, for he says that the subject term that is used in expressing a double judgment is yet another example of a logically grounded synsemanticon. This would of course mean that in the statement “This rose is red” the expression “this rose” is a synsemanticon of this kind. This may very well be the case, but it does seem to indicate that a fuller treatment of indexicals is needed. As far as synsemantica which are not logically grounded are concerned, these are also found in great abundance. Unlike the logically grounded ones, these do not correspond to any sort of articulation or division of the thought that is expressed by the linguistic sign. Outstanding examples of such autosemantica are the modifying adjectives, adverbs, predicates, etc. which could easily suggest a synthetic presentation, but are in fact nothing of the kind. 142 If, for instance, there is a conference in which a particular lecture is cancelled, one may of course speak of the cancelled lecture. In this case, however, it is actually not a lecture at all that is under consideration. We may also speak of the first lecture, the longest lecture, the most entertaining lecture, etc. In cases such as these, the lectures are specified by determining features, whereas the term “cancelled” is modifying rather than determining. While we may distinguish lectures by regarding some as boring and others as entertaining or interesting, the distinction between lectures which were cancelled and ones which were not cancelled can't be a division between two types of lectures. A cancelled lecture is in fact not a lecture at all. While it may now be clear how Marty conceives of the difference between synsemantica which are logically grounded and ones which are not so, there remains much material in his unpublished and posthumously published writings about synsemantica to be further 141. See ibid., pp. 129 ff. 142. See ibid., pp. 209 ff. This is yet another distinction that Marty took from Brentano. See Brentano (1874), pp. 288 ff.

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investigated in subsequent research. 143 The focus of the present chapter, however, was his elaboration of the three types of autosemantica. 4. Conclusion In this chapter an attempt has been made to analyze Marty’s descriptive semasiology in its mature form, which is in fact the very core of his philosophical work. Both his theory of inner linguistic form and especially his theory of meaning, above all in connection with autosemantica, have been examined and also contrasted with the more Platonistic options which he confronted, particularly as these were found among his fellow Brentanists. Though Marty stays very close to Brentano’s descriptive psychology in working out the results, his ontology of the non-real which is thereby reached is certainly different from many other ontologies, including ones in the school of Brentano. It should thus be made clear from our analysis that Marty’s philosophy was not merely a clearing house for Brentano’s ideas. The question of course remains whether Marty’s philosophy of language presents us with a viable option. By no means is it to be taken entirely as it is. This should be clear in cases where I have pointed out assets in the work of Meinong and Husserl, however much these two were anathematized by Brentano, Marty, and subsequent disciples of Brentano. Be this as it may, it has hopefully been seen here that there are aspects of Marty’s philosophy of language – I would especially emphasize his anti-Platonistic ontology (contrary to Meinong and Husserl as well as others), but also his nonintrospectionist mentalism 144 – which could be put to good use in the 143. Due to time-constraints, such research could not be pursued in the present volume. However, I do intend to examine Marty’s views on synsemantica further and still other aspects of his philosophy in future publications. 144. See Rollinger (2008), pp. 73-86.

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effort to advance philosophy as a science upon a solid empirical foundation, provided that this desideratum is not merely a quixotic dream.

TRANSLATIONS

ON THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE 1 Anton Marty Translated by Robin D. Rollinger Preface When the problem of the origin of language is taken up again, after a lengthy period of silence, from the vantage point of philosophy, which reflected on it long ago, this should not be undesirable for the majority of those investigating language. For nowadays it is almost a universal conviction that the role of psychological considerations is completely essential here. Several investigators of language have already themselves entered into such considerations in detail. Some of them (such as Steinthal and most recently the Dane Madvig in connection with Lotze) have put special emphasis on their contact with modern psychology. Nevertheless, there is from this very vantage point also much missing in these expositions, and I have made it my task here to indicate these shortcomings and make up for them. I have thus, in the critical as well as the positive part, directed my attention completely to points of interest and difficulty for psychology and conducted the analysis to the point where, I hope, a lack of clarity and intelligibility is nowhere to be found. I must rather expect the reproach of “lacking in depth” from those for whom whatever cannot quite be understood appears to be deep. Let that be charged against me! But not, I pray, on the note which has recently been struck from different sides in our matter of dispute and is strongly reminiscent of the manner in which Jacobi and Schelling once conversed “about things of God”. Philosophy itself is interested in the problem under consideration chiefly because this problem offers it one of the finest cases of application and testing of psychological principles. It would more directly be concerned with another investigation about language: about the influence that language has on thinking by being useful, but especially also by being harmful, in order to utilize the insights thus acquired for the sake of logic and metaphysics. Here, however, I have in all cases left aside this question, in order perhaps to discuss it separately on a later occasion, as well as the additional question as to how articulate 1. Translator’s note: This is a translation of the book that was first published as Marty (1875).

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sounds, after they had arisen as a means of communication, gained such influence upon solitary thinking. This separation between the investigation concerning the origin of language and the one concerning its influence upon thinking is a divergence from some recent treatments of our problem; the fact that such a separation was possible and consequently required, however, may be seen from the essay itself. Since I mentioned Madvig, I wish to remark that his Short Philological Writings, 2 in which five lengthier treatises are – in part explicitly, in part incidentally – concerned with questions relevant here, have been published only towards the end of the printing of my work. It is clear from this publication that the meritorious philologist has expressed himself for a long time concerning more general problems of the science of language and indeed in a manner corresponding to modern empiricism (the first treatise appeared in Danish in 1835). It is regrettable that his sober views were unknown to the German public for all this time; they would have helped to accelerate the fermentation initiated by Humboldt. This is an addendum to the historical part of my work. In the substantive part his apt statements concerning the relationship of spoken designations to thoughts, concerning the primary purpose of language as a means of communication, and about other matters as well would have given me the opportunity to refer to them by way of comparison, and I would have particularly cited his investigation “On the Origination and Nature of Grammatical Designations” 3 in § 4 of Chapter II. Thoroughly considering the processes to which we give special attention here, the origination and gradual development of communication as such, and analyzing the forces at work in these processes, however, were matters remote from the philologist. Göttingen, June 1875

2. Translator’s note: Madvig (1875). 3. Translator’s note: Ibid., pp. 98-290.

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Introduction Of everything that distinguishes us from other species of living entities, nothing has appeared to human reflection as early and universally important as the artificial means whereby we communicate to each other our thoughts and feelings: articulate spoken language. Not only did one admire in it the faithful representation of the invisible play of thoughts for other people: it seemed to be most intimately interwoven with the individual’s thinking. Not a few considered that form of presenting called conceptual or abstract thinking to be inseparably connected with the word of language; and also those who do not pay homage to this view conceive of the relationship as intimate, insofar as they, wherever they want intelligibly to depict the nature of thinking or of certain special acts of thinking, designate it as internal speech. 4 No wonder that one regarded the possession of spoken language also as the most excellent characteristic of human mental life, indeed as the source of all else that elevates human existence above that of animals. However much is askew and exaggerated in these views, they can be understood in their origination and can also to a certain extent be justified. From the outset the rich mutual communication, as it occurs among human beings via spoken language, is indeed the most obvious expression of their richer inner life, and not only this – it is also one of the sources of this inner life. Every one of us owes the greatest part of his intellectual and ethical development and a great abundance of his joys of life to the circumstance that others communicated to him and instructed him to open up to them his burgeoning mental life. And there prevails no dispute about the fact that the all-round exchange of thoughts among contemporaneously living human beings and the continuous passing down of acquisitions of earlier generations to later ones is the main condition for the progress of the whole species. Insofar as spoken language offers to this exchange a convenient and perfected instrument, a large part of those blessings involved in interaction for the individual and the species are attributable to it. Moreover, even though it is questionable whether the connection between words and thoughts is any other but that of association, and whether this is indispensable for the progress of thinking, it is conceded 4. Plato, Theaetetus, 190 A, and the doctrine of the verbum mentis in Augustine and the scholastics.

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by almost everyone that this linking of thought with spoken designations is an excellent aid also for solitary thinking. Thus language certainly does appear to be intimately interwoven with the development of all human culture, essentially among the conditions for its advancement, and in turn being advanced by it. Insofar as the human mind has examined the history of its own culture, it has from time immemorial been rightly interested in how this important isntrument for its mental elevation has come into being. From Plato to the most recent times the question has occupied many and there still prevails dispute nowadays about the precise formulation of the answer. In attempting once again to give a satisfactory solution, it is of importance at first to form a judgment concerning the greatest theories formulated thus far in order to draw from them for our investigation everything of use which they can offer positively or negatively. Historical and Critical Survey § 1. On those Views concerning the Origination of Language which Arose in Ancient and Modern Times up to the Emergence of Comparative Linguistic Research Where no tradition or direct observation says how something originated, its origin at first becomes the subject of myth and then of scientific hypothesis. Thus it was earlier thought of language, as well as the foundations of the civil order and other things whose beginning lies beyond history, that it has been planted among human beings immediately by the hand of divinity. In sharp contrast to this view, which sprang from the poetry of a faithful heart, there stands the first hypothesis mediated through reflection, which emerged in the blossoming of philosophical speculation in Greece and remained the prevailing conviction in the scientific circles of ancient times. It saw in language, just like in the political order, a product of human art and inventive talent. There was then the popular and widespread controversy whether designations are formed in correspondence to the nature of their objects or not; yet, there prevailed among philosophers (if we

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exclude Epicurus) 5 universal conviction that the giving of names was from the beginning and onward the work of conscious human intention. A thorough-going exposition of the origination of language conceived of in this manner, however, was not attempted. Even the investigations of the Platonic dialogue Cratylus do not lay claim to this name. 6 We encounter such attempts in the second half of the eighteenth century, where questions of the earliest cultural history were given preference in discussions, and among them at first a treatise by Maupertuis, 7 which got talked about more because of its shortcomings rather than its merits. Two difficulties had to impose themselves at first on reflection: As far as our observation reaches, nature has not attached any expressions of articulate sounds to our thoughts. Thus it appears as if man had come on the idea through reflection to establish such connections, and we know of no other motive for this but the purpose of communication. This, however, could first arise if mutual understanding and consequently language was already there. What more decisively threatens to get us caught in a circle is that we seek to explain not only how it was generally possible to use certain articulate sounds as a means of expression, but rather precisely the ones familiar to us. For these are, as Aristotle had already said, 8 for the most part not at all similar to thoughts, but rather owe their meaning only to the general habit of a certain usage. But how else could this habit be initially established but by mutual agreement, and would this not presuppose a language? Maupertuis gives the following solution to such problems: In the earliest of times gestures and articulate cry-tones, which are natural signs of our states, served to mediate the most necessary exchange among human beings; and starting from these one occasionally also used gestures and cry-tones with voluntary signification. As this was continued for an extensive stretch of time, the inventive talent of human beings strengthened, and it finally occurred to them to utilize the more 5. Cf. Steinthal (1863), pp. 318 ff. 6. Cf. Benfey (1866), especially VII and VIII. 7. Maupertuis (1756). 8. Aristotle, De interpetatione, chapter 2.

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convenient means of articulation for the formation of distinct signs. From the already existing storage of intelligible means of expression there arose the ability to agree about the sense of these new, purely conventional means of expression. This solution was already at that time unsatisfactory, as we have indicated; and Süssmilch remarks, in a treatise which he presented to the Royal Academy in Berlin two years after Maupertuis, 9 that under Maupertuis’ hypothesis it is impossible to understand that all human beings, who had in the meantime greatly multiplied and dispersed, traded off the already habitual means of expression for articulate speech. Agreement between different tribes would thus not have been possible, because in their dispersal they had developed the language of gestures and crying-out in different ways, unintelligible to each other. But most people then would not have been clever enough to see the advantage of articulate speech over the other forms of communication and active enough to trade off something already habitual for something new. Süssmilch, however, goes yet further; he attempts to show that language as such is by no means to be understood as the work of man and must consequently be regarded as a direct gift from God. His argument is crystallized in the statement that the invention of language could only be “the work of a very great and perfect understanding”, but without a developed language no rational thought is possible. 10 And he did not stand alone in thinking this. The attempt, made already earlier by Condillac, 11 to explain language from familiar human powers had already stirred such misgivings in Rousseau, who lost all hope that such a derivation would be possible at all. 12 But also Lord Monboddo, who in the initially published parts of his 9. It appeared in 1766 also in print under the title “Attempt at a Proof that the First Language had its Origin not from Man, but rather only from the Creator”. 10. Cf. Süssmilch (1766), pp. 19-58. 11. Condillac (1746), p. ii. 12. Rousseau, (trans. anonymous) (1766), p. 52: “if Men stood in need of Speech to learn to think, they must have stood in still greater need of the Art of thinking: to invent that of speaking”. The same difficulty was cited also at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the traditionalists as proof that language must originate directly from divine revelation. Cf. Bonald (1838) I, pp. 163 ff.

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work On the Origin and Progress of Language (1773-92) calls language a human invention, finally in the course of his investigation, due to being immersed more and more in the difficulties of this assumption, arrives at the conviction that it could come about only through supra-human help. Nevertheless, other thinkers, especially de Brosses, Herder, and Tiedemann, adhered to the natural origination of language. Herder’s Treatise on the Origin of Language, 13 a work that won an award from the Academy in Berlin, was prompted by the one by Süssmilch; and with clear reference to this work, Tiedemann also wrote his Attempt at an Explanation of the Origin of Language. 14 The core of the latter work is the reply to the objection, raised by Süssmilch and Rousseau, that the invention of language presupposes the use of reason, which in turn, however, presupposes the possession of language. Contrary to this view, Tiedemann attempts to show that also without the use of words man can grasp those concepts closer to sensory intuition (but not the most abstract and completely general ones). “By means of these”, he further deduces, “the [first] words are produced, and through them reason” (i.e. for him: cohesive general considerations and inferences), which then gradually “brought order and cohesiveness into language”. 15 Tiedemann thus concedes that language in the conception in which it now confronts us certainly reveals itself as the work of rational calculation; yet, he submits for consideration that it, starting from crude beginnings, was perfected “with time, lengthy experiences, and diverse experiments”. 16 A speechless thinking could produce those beginnings; this thinking was in turn advanced by them, and thus “human beings, having become cleverer by means of the initial foundations of language, improved their language more and more. I do not see”, the author remarks, “why time and experience, which have brought order and cohesiveness into the remaining sciences [he names geometry, philosophy, etc.], cannot also have imparted language to them”. 17 13. Translator’s note: see Herder (1772). 14. Translator’s note: see Tiedemann (1772). 15. Cf. Tiedemann (1772), pp. 165-169. 16. Ibid., p. 173. 17. Translator’s note: Ibid., p. 174.

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From the thorough-going exposition of the path that languagedevelopment took, according to him, the only thought worth mentioning is that the first words were taken from natural interjections and mimicry, something that also Brosses 18 and Herder assumed. The proofs for this are of course uncritically bundled together and do not withstand the judgment of a more exact etymology and unbiased manner of reflection. § 2. The Humboldtian View of the Essence and Origin of Language The investigations concerning the origin of language mentioned thus far set out for the most part from philosophy. In the nineteenth century, however, they belong more to the advocates of the comparative study of language, which rapidly and brilliantly blossomed when it first became a science in the proper sense at the beginning of the century through the discovery of the correct method. Yet, as the study of language and psychology must necessarily go hand and hand, the prevailing psychology was sometimes followed by those engaged in the study of language. Prominently we encounter Wilhelm von Humboldt here. As regards his view on the origin and essence of language, which very much diverges from the earlier ones, it is especially true that it is comprehensible only when one takes certain views of the prevalent philosophy of the time together with the discoveries of the science of language. With the help of an improved method, this science had gained a totally new understanding for the internal organization and development of languages. Insight into this development encouraged investigators in the conviction of the human origin of language, but at the same time it seemed to make evident that this production of man is to be conceived of in a way completely different from how one had previously done so. Not only did Tiedemann’s theses, as well as those of so many others, about the invention of grammatical forms and syntactical rules collapse before it; there was now seen in the gradual construction of languages a continuity and lawfulness, in view of which it seemed altogether impermissible to regard them as something made by human inventiveness; they seemed comparable only to organisms which bear in themselves the law of their 18. Brosses (1765). Cf. vol. I, pp. 218 f.

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completed structure. 19 In addition, that structure and regularity was also found in languages of rough peoples, who certainly could not have any awareness of it and were much less able to produce it consciously. Thus there appeared, to be sure, a great wealth of reason embodied in language, but it could not, as was conceded, be a work of reason as other mental products are. Here the set of ideas popular at the time offered the notion that reason as a blind cause, not as a conscious one, 20 produced language or that both , essentially belonging together as the inner and the outer, arose especially from the “depths of the mind”. 21 Such a relationship did in fact seem to be favored by the earlier asserted indispensability of the word for thought, 22 and favored by that intimate entwinement with which language and spiritual peculiarity of peoples presented themselves for deeper examination. 23 Humboldt accordingly says: Language, indeed, arises from a depth of human nature which everywhere forbids us to regard it as a true product and creation of peoples. It possesses an autonomy that visibly declares itself to us, though inexplicable in its nature, and, seen from this aspect, is no production of activity, but an involuntary emanation of the spirit, no work of nations, but a gift fallen to them by their inner destiny. 24 Language is the formative organ of thought. Intellectual activity, altogether mental, altogether internal, and to some extent passing without trace, becomes, through sound, externalized in speech and perceptible to the senses. Thought and language are therefore one and inseparable from

19. Cf. Humboldt, (trans.) Heath (1988), pp. 48 ff., p. 77, and other passages. 20. In Heyse (1856), p. 62, it is called “reason in its foundation of nature or general objective spirit”. 21. Cf. Humboldt, (trans.) Heath (1988), p. 42. 22. “Intellectual activity ... is also intrinsically bound to the necessity of entering into a union with the verbal sound”, etc. (Humboldt, [trans.] Heath [1988]), p. 54). Cf. also ibid., pp. 56 ff. 23. Ibid., p. 46. 24. Ibid., p. 24.

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each other. 25 … The inseparable bonding of thought, vocal apparatus, and hearing to language is unalterably rooted in the original constitution of human nature, which cannot be further explained. 26

Humboldt did not remain alone in this view. It has often resonated into recent times, and of related expositions those of K. Heyse and E. Renan in particular can be named. Heyse expresses himself as follows: Speaking and thinking is for man by his nature one, a simple act, of which the former is only the external aspect, the latter the internal aspect. Speaking is thinking-become-sound, thinking-in-appearance… 27 A sound is not the accidental or arbitrary sign, but rather the necessary, essential expression of the mental. 28 …the production of language occurs by necessity without premeditated intention and clear awareness, from the internal instinct of the mind, hence in the form of an organic activity of nature. 29

Also Renan prefaces his doctrine with the statement: It is natural for man to speak, as it is natural for him to think; and it is as unphilosophical to attribute an origin in human intention to language as to thought. Who would assert that the abilities of man are his invention? And it was just as impossible to invent language as it was to invent a faculty. Since language is the expressive form and the exterior garb of thinking, we must hold that both of them have come about simultaneously. 30

25. This sentence is intelligible only if the immediately preceding one is taken to mean that a kind of essential connection between thought and word (as between essence and appearance) is to be expressed through it. 26. Humboldt, (trans.) Heath (1988), pp. 54 f. 27. Heyse (1856), p. 40. 28. Ibid., p. 35. 29. Translator’s note: Ibid., p. 62. 30. Renan (1858), p. 91.

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Language is thus, according to Renan, certainly “the work of internal forces of human nature, acting unconsciously and as if under the living influence of Divinity”. (Tout y est l’oeuvre des force internes de la nature humaine agisant sans conscience et comme sous l’impression vivante de la Divinité.) Elsewhere he indeed calls it also a product raison spontanée (raison, qui ne pas présente et elle meme) and the like. 31 What we must in advance make explicit with regard to the Humboldtian account and related ones 32 is that in sharp terms they reject the earlier view that language is brought about through thinking, but do not positively clarify how language originated. We are told that a power equally original with that from which thinking flows – the “faculty of speech” 33 (faculté de la parole) – wrings from corporeal tools the articulate sound, 34 that we understand the talking of someone else because the sound we hear stirs that power within us, 35 and that its growth is even the basis of children’s acquisition of language. 36 However, this power of speech becomes an obscure agent in the soul for which we know no law by which it, while at work in different ways under different circumstances, brings about those phenomena that we are to comprehend from this law. It is an exact analogue of the vital force, which was at one time to explain – via its varied conduct, its growth, its expiration, etc. – the changing phenomena in the organism. For if it is also said that the faculty of language is nothing but reason, active only instinctively and unconsciously (an intellectual instinct of reason, or reason in its natural foundation, or raison spontanée), this does not help us since this very operation of 31. Cf. ibid., pp. 92, 98, 99, and elsewhere. 32. Cf. Steinthal (1868), pp. 78, 96, 110, and 123. 33. Translator’s note: The term “Sprachsinn” is translated here in accordance with the French phrase in paratheses. Though “Sprache” alone is always translated as “language”, its combination with other words sometimes necessitates that it should be translated as “speech”. 34. Humboldt, (trans.) Heath (1958), pp. 65 and 95. 35. Ibid., § 54. Cf. Renan (1858), pp. 90 f. 36. Humboldt, (trans.) Heath (1988), p. 58.

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reason is for us a new power for which we know no laws. The foregoing is not meant as a denial that valuable contributions to the solution of our problem with regard to details, good observations concerning the development of language as such and the peculiar routes it takes in various peoples, are found in Humboldt and thus also in Heyse and Renan. All of a sudden, however, they stand by a theory which is incapable of illuminating the concrete phenomena and conversely receiving illumination from them, because it only negatively specifies the forces at work in the development of language and attempts no analysis thereof. Not only is it to be pointed out regarding the theory in question that it does not explain the facts. It obviously contradicts them by regarding thinking and language as equally original gifts of man, indeed as being together in an essential connection. The example of deaf-mutes alone clearly shows that a sound is not an “essential and necessary expression of the mental”. Other signs serve them as aids of abstract thought as words serve us. Moreover, if language is to be the external phenomenon of thinking in yet another sense, narrower than that of a process externally attached to it and a sign, it cannot be understood why all languages of the world do not continually run parallel to each other as the external phenomena of thoughts, since there is, after all, just as much reason for one of them as there is for the other. And it cannot be understood why a Frenchman does not conceive of a wolf differently and does not think of the concepts of one and two in a different way from that in which a German does, for he does, after all, name them differently. If, however, an appeal is made to education and habituation, which would favor the so-called native language, this is the psychological explanation for the whole matter. That mystical essential unity simply drops out of the picture. The German child learns German, just as it learns many other things without language. A child learns French, if it is born and raised in France. However, I hope that all this will hardly require elaboration anymore after the relevant polemics which recent investigators of language have directed against this view , once popular in their own camp.

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§ 3. Discussion of Recent Views When we look back on the opinions that we have heard up to recent times regarding the origin of human language, these can hardly be thought to be more diverse, some of them having come to light simultaneously, others in succession. But also the investigations which the present has brought to us, e.g. those of Steinthal, M. Müller, Geiger, Whitney, and others, diverge so much from each other in terms of methods and results that at first glance there seems to be hardly anything considerable that they have in common. Nonetheless, in opposition to the diversity of opinions in earlier times a mutual convergence is noticeable at present. All scientific treatments are united in the endeavor to understand language from purely human powers. There is also agreement on the fact that the source of language does not lie in an essential connection between production of thoughts and production of sounds. There still prevails, to be sure, dispute as to whether conscious and intentional or unconscious and involuntary production of language is to be assumed, but whoever speaks in favor of the latter does not conceive of it any longer as a result of an intrinsic necessity of thoughts to “objectify” themselves or to make their appearance, but rather as the simple effect of innate mechanisms. 37 Also, in connection with the results of historical research concerning language, this manner of origination is restricted to the pre-grammatical constituents of language. Hence, the area of dispute seems to be narrowed down. By comparing present states of language with familiar earlier ones, exact etymology has, as is well known, found laws of development which direct us back, when we think of them also as applicable to earlier times, to a period where a relatively paltry number of sounds designated the objects without further grammatical determination, similar to the gestures of deaf-mutes and words of children. 37. Only M. Müller goes so far as to deny the rationality of deaf-mutes because they lack articulate spoken language, which is related to conceptual thinking as color to body. Yet, he does not adhere to this relation of word and thought in the formulation of a theory of the origin of language. Cf. Müller (1862) II, p. 74 and other passages with Müller (1862) I, pp. 388 ff.

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Through composition, figurative application, and phonetic transformation of such roots, the entire stock of words and word-forms that later times exhibit have thus come about. Regarding this composition and metaphorical application, there is general agreement at present that it was done for the purpose of communication, hence with consciousness, although judicious reflection is thought by some to be more active, by others less so in this process. Opinions diverge, however, as to how the roots themselves (if not the ones etymology has in fact inferred somewhere, something analogous to them in function) have come about. Some assume that for the first human beings determinate articulate sounds were involuntarily connected to determinate intuitions or thoughts, while others seek to explain the origination of the earliest words without such innate mechanical connections between them and presentations. We shall designate the first assumption with the name of “nativitist”, the second with that of “empiricist”. The terms can also be applied to earlier theories. Tiedemann, Maupertuis, and others should thus be designated as resolute empiricists, Humboldt’s conception as an extreme nativism. I. Exposition and Critique of the Nativist Theory It is preeminently advocated by H. Steinthal, M. Lazarus, M. Müller, and W. Wundt, and the origination of language on their view in the sense of intentional communication by means of articulate sounds is to be derived as follows: By uttering a determinate sound repeatedly upon the emergence of a determinate presentation, prehistoric man gradually obtained the power to produce it voluntarily and to utter it under circumstances which did not as such evoke it, as a child gains mastery of screaming which pain initially drew from it. At the same time an association is made between the presentation of the sound and the thought which usually evokes that sound. By this means there will be a dawning of mutual understanding if we think of equally constituted beings in society, and intentional conveyance will be added when there are for the individual motives for wishing such understanding from others. For some of the advocates of the nativist theory, especially for H.

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Steinthal and M. Lazarus, this derivation is extensively elaborated on and described: how sounds, once associated with thoughts, became an aid for the renewal of the latter. Prior to that, however, we are interested in the question as to how those assumptions which apparently make the explanation of the origin of language so easy are justified. Max Müller, 38 who is to concern us first, due to his isolated place, makes only a weak attempt to justify his presuppositions concerning the original constitution of man by demonstrating its analogy with certain experiences. There is a law, it has been said, which runs through nearly the whole of nature, that everything which is struck rings. Each substance has its peculiar ring. We can tell the more or less perfect structure of metals by their vibrations, by the answer which they give. …It is the same with man, we are told, the most highly organised of nature’s works. … He possessed likewise the faculty of giving more articulate expression to the general conceptions of his mind. That faculty was not of his own making. It was an instinct, an instinct of the mind as irresistible as any other instinct. Man loses his instincts as he ceases to want them. … Thus the creative faculty which gave to each general conception, as it thrilled for the first time through the brain, a phonetic expression, became extinct when its object was fulfilled. 39

In a footnote he himself remarks that the analogy he makes can serve as an “as illustration only, and not as an explanation” 40 of the instinct of language. In fact we cannot attach any weight to the analogy, because it would always apply, if it ever applied, whereas the instinct of language has, according to Müller, vanished from the race. He thus continues : “The faculty peculiar to man, in his primitive state, by which every impression from without received its vocal expression from within, must be accepted as an ultimate fact. That faculty must have existed in man, because its effects 38. Müller (1862) I, pp. 345-395. 39. Ibid., p. 387 n. 40. In the prefaces to the 5th and 6th editions of the Lectures Müller explicitly objects against the claim that he has ever made the above thought, brought up by Heyse, his own. Indeed in a most recent article, Müller (1875), p. 10, he declares that he does not regard the origin of language as instinctive.

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continue to exist”. It seems to Müller as something in particular proved by comparative history of language that the earliest roots of our languages were not imitative sounds. From this he concludes that they must have been introduced either by convention, which would, however, presuppose a language prior to language, or must have an instinctive origin. Another route in grounding the nativist assumption is taken by Steinthal, Lazarus, and Wundt. It is not to be justified, as they understand it, chiefly by asserting that it is the most certain explanation of the phenomena, but rather that there can still at present be exhibited in us an analogue for that which is postulated in prehistoric man. They point out that in every one of our psychical states, independently of intention and habit, bring about movements and especially determinate sounds. If we think of this as having been so extensive in the case of prehistoric man that at that time different presentations produced clearly distinguishable sounds, we have in this scenario the seeds of the first language, and hence this is, as Steinthal expresses himself, 41 an (innate) sound-mimicry and falls as a special class under the well known general species of reflex movements. 42 That the spontaneous expression of inner life in fact had this extent and character in prehistoric man, however, is a thesis that one seeks to make probable by means of the demonstration that in present human beings the more distinct traces emerge the more their state resembles that of the first human beings in other respects. In order to be able correctly to assess the significance of this justification, we rigorously stick to that conception which different people give to this general basic thought, though the accounts of Steinthal and Lazarus allow themselves to be joined together more closely. Lazarus introduces his proof as follows:

41. Steinthal (1871), p. 396. Cf. Steinthal (1855), p. 311. See also Wundt (1874), pp. 849 and 857. 42. Here, in harmony with the mentioned researchers, we use the term “reflex movements” for all movements which proceed due an innate mechanism from a psychical state independently of volition and habit. Otherwise reflexes are, as is well known, usually defined as those movements which come about without mediation of a sensation or a feeling, through a purely corporeal transmission of the stimulus from a sensory to a motor nerve.

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We remember that the stimulation of the sensory nerves have reflex movements in the motor nerves as their consequence; we also already know that these reflex movements can take place in the organs of voice and speech. If therefore feelings of pleasure or displeasure have as a consequence an emission of tones, this is a result of reflex movements. Not only feelings, however, but also sensations and intuitions become reflex movements, while affects and desires have concomitant movements in the sensory organs as their consequence. … We shall soon discuss the different kinds and causes of reflex movements in the production of sounds; however, we first only have to establish the general fact that every, at least every new intuition of a thing will also be accompanied by the production of a sound corresponding to the received sensation… The lower the level of a person’s education, the more excitable his body and the stronger and more frequent the movements of association and reflex; uneducated people contort their entire face when writing; all Mediterraneans speak with continual accompaniment of gesticulations; the focus of our consideration is man at the initial stage of mental development; from this it therefore follows with assurance that the liveliness and versatility of organic movements will be the greatest here, as also our children, as soon as they can speak, almost constantly speak, even when they are alone. It can therefore be asserted with complete justification that according to the general physiological laws of the human organism the soul will receive no impression through it and will execute no movement through it unless the organism in this process erupts at the same time in tones. And these tones, brought about involuntarily in accompaniment of feelings, intuitions, etc., these original and purely natural sounds are the very elements of language. 43

We encounter a similar train of thought in Steinthal. 44 He starts from the remark that the sensory stimulations we constantly receive require a certain equalization and that nature has to some extent created this by connecting muscle movements to them, whereby affections of the respiration muscles and vocal organs take a prominent place. Accordingly he believes it permissible to expect “that prehistoric man accompanied most vivaciously all perceptions and all intuitions received

43. Lazarus (1857), pp. 72 ff. 44. Steinthal (1871), pp. 363-393. Steinthal (1855), pp. 254-259, 292-294.

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by the soul with bodily movements, mimic postures, gestures, and especially tones, even articulate tones”. 45 He continues as follows: … we have no complete standard in ourselves in particular for reflex effects. Education … gradually suppresses and weakens the stimulation to superficial movements. We learn to have perceptions soberly and without any stirring, but our children already teach us how apparently the most indifferent things make an impression on uneducated minds. Such a small creature is observed in the third or fourth year of life. Such inexhaustible mobility! And how every change of the given state of consciousness through perception or memory is accompanied by language! However, what is told of uncultivated peoples, e.g. of the Tartar tribes of Siberia, shows an excitability as we can observe among ourselves only in neuro-pathological states. The reflex movements of the negro literally execute what we by hyperbole regard as effects of excitations, such as turning cartwheels upon perceiving something joyful. Such hyperbole is therefore based on experience among us as well, albeit only very inferquent experience. And if all this should not make perceptible that sounds … should come about as a consequence of reflexes of perceptions, I remind you of the mute and blind child Laura Bridgeman, who, although she did not hear her reflex sounds, had for every person of the institute in which she lived a special call, which was so determinately formed that it was understood by these persons in her environment in a certain way as the proper names given by the child. Hence, it will not be found all too bold of us if we think, first of all, that in the case of prehistoric human beings no excitation of the soul took place without a corresponding reflex corporeal movement, and secondly also that there corresponded to every determinate special movement of the soul a determinate corporeal one, which was physiognomic and at the same time sounding-out. 46

It is seen that Lazarus and Steinthal come very close to each other in their conception and justification of their theory. The only difference is that Steinthal thinks of the sound issuing forth by reflex upon an intuition as always initially connected to a feeling that accompanies the intuition, 47 whereas Lazarus thinks that “also without any connection 45. Translator’s note: Steinthal (1871), p. 366 f. 46. Translator’s note: Ibid., pp. 368 f. Marty’s emphasis. 47. Ibid., pp. 375 and 396. Steinthal (1855), pp. 310 ff.

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with a determinate and specialized feeling the intuition itself, simply by virtue of its own strength or novelty, can issue forth in sounds”. 48 Both, however, are in agreement on one point, which we still have to mention, that between the reflex sounds and the intuitions whereby they are triggered off there is an affinity, either a direct one or one rooted in the similarity of the accompanying perceptual feelings. 49 Let us proceed to make an assessment of what has been contended. Steinthal does no doubt have a true feature of our psychophysical organization in mind if his opinion is that every perception arouses a feeling and every feeling has some effect on motor nerves. It is, however, just as certain that, at least in the case of man as we observe him, that feeling and its effect on the organism are only at times so strong that they become noticeable and distinguishable. Also this effect is not always an affection of the vocal organs, and it is even less of such a kind that every perception would produce a new sound, clearly distinct from that of every other one, even a sound that would be similar to the content of perception. Steinthal and Lazarus believe nevertheless that they may assume that this was so in the case of prehistoric man because he was at the lowest level of psychical development and experience shows that reflex movements are “all the more powerful, pervasive, and hence also more determinate” 50 the lower the degree of education. In this whole line of argument and the points made to prove the single statements, however, there are decisive gaps. First of all, it is not evident that the excitability and fidgetiness of children, Mediterraneans, and savages, to which an appeal is made, simply has its basis in a lack of education. In some cases the contrary is obvious. Italians too, who are not behind us in education, accompany their speech with gestures to a much greater degree than German or English people, for instance, usually do. Differences of corporeal organization which depend on climatic circumstances seem to be at work here. This is certainly one of the factors that come into play when certain 48. Lazarus (1857), p. 87. 49. Ibid., pp. 88 ff. Steinthal (1855), pp. 312. Steinthal (1871), pp. 376 ff. 50. Cf. Steinthal (1855), p. 259.

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savage peoples respond with particular vivacity through movements and the like to external impressions, for in the case of some others which belong to an equal level of psychical development this is not again observed. Also in the case of children, however, it is very questionable whether their greater fidgetiness has its basis only in a lack of education. A child is not only in the process of psychical development, but also in that of corporeal development; its pulse is more rapid, its metabolism livelier, and the greater excitability could be connected with these factors. There is therefore no justification simply to put prehistoric man on a par with it, unless we should think of him as a child. This is not to deny that a primitive mental life will be accompanied under otherwise equal circumstances by more reflex movements than one more advanced in development, but it was necessary to be reminded that this fact does not justify us in ascribing to prehistoric man anything we encounter anywhere at all as excitability and indeed to think of it in his case as existing to a much greater degree. There is, however, also a second error in the above line of argument. An appeal was made in it to expressions of children, Mediterraneans, etc. as if these were reflex movements, while it is questionable whether such expressions have this character. In order to avoid going into detail, we shall select what best seems to support the assumption that man connects “by nature a determinate corporeal movement with each one of his intuitions” – a movement that is moreover allegedly similar to the latter. This support lies in the picturesque gestures with which many accompany their speech, indeed also their solitary thoughts. These are obviously only in part reflexes, i.e. involuntary products of an innate mechanism; they are in part just like the words which they accompany: summoned up by the intention to make oneself understandable. 51 And in part they result by habit, as we indeed sometimes unintentionally speak in reflection. It cannot be emphasized enough that habits, if we look only at the result, are often indistinguishable from inborn dispositions or instincts, and indeed a deeply rooted habit is therefore called “second nature”. And thus certain utterances under particular circumstances can arise just as unintentionally and regularly as reflex utterances simply because 51. Especially uneducated people have a tendency to use imitations as means of expression. On this point, see the discussion below.

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we have earlier often executed similar movements under similar circumstances. Hence, if the tendency towards imitation or the intention of communication or some usage that is by experience expected from a movement often prompted the execution of it in the case of a certain mental state, it will later occur unintentionally upon the recurrence of a similar state. Steinthal attaches yet more weight in particular to his observations of a child who uttered “lu lu lu” upon seeing rolling barrels and later designated other rolling and round objects with this sound, and to other similar phenomena. 52 We should first remark here that it is certainly wrong to regard the utterances of children so unhesitatingly as unintentional and even more as reflexes. Certainly more reflex movements occur in their case than in the case of adults, but soon they try to repeat them also for the sake of some pleasant effect which they experienced upon their first occurrence. Many of these attempts have their motive in the enjoyment of lung and muscle activity which seems to be especially intense in the case of children and young animals. This to a large extent explains a good deal of crying, squirming, and jumping, as well as it explains the punishment there is for them in keeping quiet and sitting still. Children are led further to make all kinds of movements by the tendency to imitate through their own activity what they see and hear, a tendency that is explainable by various factors, 53 and there are yet other motives which we cannot list here one by one. All these exercises can again establish habits which are formed particularly quickly and easily in early youth, and hence there is no justification to regard all unintentional behaving and acting of children without further ado as reflex.

52. Steinthal (1871), p. 382. Elsewhere Steinthal seems to distrust such observations of children. For in ibid., p. 399 he says: “The child knows, for instance, the dog, the horse. It calls this ‘bow wow’ or ‘hee hee’. Has it ever been observed that a child has given these names? I suspect that it was always the adults who spoke these sounds to the child”. 53 The tendency towards imitation is apparently not a simple basic tendency. Below the opportunity will offer itself to attempt an analysis of this whereby it will also be explainable that it is strong, as experience shows, especially in the case of undeveloped mental life.

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Now let us look at the vocal utterances observed by Steinthal regarding that child. From his report itself it is completely clear that they are intentional imitations of a tone 54 or repetitions of them mediated through association with similar things. Motives for both were not lacking; the intention to direct others to the imitated object might have been at work, in another case also merely the enjyoment of the tone itself, and everywhere there was the additional experience of the parents enjoying every utterance, which can already by itself prompt the child to make further attempts. If an appeal is finally made to the conduct of deaf-mutes in support of the nativist theory, this is fully inconceivable to me. This is indeed the clearest proof for the thesis that nature has not connected articulate sounds by reflex with the perception of colors, movements, figures, odors, etc. According to Lazarus’ teleological interpretation, 55 while these sounds would not be uttered because a deaf-mute does not in fact hear them, the organism (in which purpose prevails) nevertheless strives for a reflex movement perceptible also to it and thus for a visible one. No one will be satisfied with this. Of teleological explanations of this kind it is true what Bacon said of all of them. They are similar to a consecrated virgin: beautiful, to be sure, but unfruitful. We come to one last and decisive shortcoming of the nativist line of argumentation. Let us also suppose that everything that Steinthal and Lazarus mention with regard to children, Mediterraneans, and savage peoples could be considered as reflex movement and would have its basis in lower psychical development, and thus it would be so with regard to prehistoric man. Would this empirical data coincide with the presuppositions under dispute? Obviously only to a negligible degree. Lazarus does in fact assume that in the prehistoric state of mind every new intuition was accompanied by a corresponding sound. 56 And Steinthal says the following: 54. It would indeed have to be more precisely verified whether the child reacted, as Steinthal thinks, to the visual perception of the rolling barrels with his “lu lu lu” without ever having heard the tone (which would, however, be peculiar onomatopoeia). 55. Lazarus (1857), p. 89. 56. Ibid., p. 73.

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Let us think of the psychophysical mechanism of prehistoric man as being ever so perfect …, the intuitions ever so lively, their reflex effect on the vocal and speech organ ever so fine and determinate, and thus upon every special perception a special articulation, and indeed the clearest one, …issues from the mouth, as we must of course imagine it ... 57

Now consider everything that is thereby asserted. Through innate, mechanical relations special sounds are allegedly connected not only with auditory perceptions, but also with perceptions of movements, shapes, colors, smell, sound, taste, etc., and these sounds are indeed, as is added, similar to those perceptions. But what unambiguously conceivable similarity obtains between tones and colors, figures, movements, etc.? Steinthal emphasizes that the affinity of the intuition and the sound that it prompts by reflex is primarily rooted in the feelings accompanying both. 58 We also believe that there are such analogies, based on feeling, between perceptions of different senses; but if one extends this as far as one likes, and farther than we have distinct experience of it, these analogies are certainly not able to make it so that there corresponds to every particular perception a particular, clearly distinguishable sound which could serve as a sign for that perception. For if tones, colors, odors, movements, etc. produce similar feelings, then perceptions of tone, color, odor will also summon up similar, not clearly distinguishable sounds since similar feelings have similar reflex sounds as a consequence. And if we disregard the circumstance of similarity and the special difficulties connected with it, what an enormous number of different kinds of sound would be needed for a special sound to be able to correspond to a special intuition, capable of being a sign for it both to us and to others? Even the richest language, as is well known, covers the diversity of our thoughts only imperfectly. And it in fact makes use not only of various sounds, both proper and metaphorical, but rather – what is especially important – the medium of syntax. When there is a complex thought, combinations of sounds, which already exist for the single parts of that thought, are formed, not new expressions again and again. What memory could grasp new words for every new complex of presentations? 57. Steinthal (1871), pp. 369 f.; cf. also p. 405. 58. Ibid., pp. 376 ff.

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We are not yet finished. Only among the simple sensations 59 and abstract concepts is complete equality found; what we call “intuitions” changes continually and two completely equal ones never recur. If sounds therefore mirrored the diversity of prehistoric man’s intuitions, did they in fact also have to change continually? If, however, we assume such a parallelism of sound with the variety of intuitions, what will be its use? It will obviously not be a basis for understanding, for this – at least as far as communication of intuitions and feelings is concerned – is essentially based also on only similar states of mind being externalized in the same manner; neither intuitions nor feelings are ever the same, even less so among different entities. As soon as we get clear about the nativist presuppositions in this manner, we are not only far from finding adequate proofs for it in the explanation; it is even plain that whoever would decide to make special assumptions in order to make the explanation of the origin of language easier would have to formulate them differently from the way in which it is done here. In face of all this, it is impossible to suppress the question how such esteemed researchers came upon the disputed hypothesis, and this is settled when we consider that here and elsewhere extremely daring assumptions have arisen from the tension between important truths. It can only be advantageous to the reasonableness and the completeness of the critique and to our own investigation as well, if we here gather together the truths, which nativism has the merit of emphasizing, while at the same time we point out their exaggeration insofar as we have not already done so. Psychical states, independently of intention and habit, can produce all kinds of movements and also especially vocal utterances. In different individuals and in the same one these become all the more prominent the lower the psychical development is, while they become suppressed through increasing education. By this connection of muscle actions with inner excitations nature has provided a beneficial distraction for the latter, 60 but by doing this it also 59. If a sound corresponded to every simple sensory perception (which, incidentally, does not seem to be the opinion of Steinthal and Lazarus), what happened when one had several of these at once? 60. Having a good cry in painful agitation brings noticeable relief, and even joyous emotions of great intensity, the natural expression of which we are to inhibit, are felt as pressure. For some people this need for certain externalizations is also already noticeable

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at the same time reached the goal of making possible for us the voluntary execution of movements. We cannot produce movements in advance, but only after they have occurred without our help can we reproduce them by summoning up again the psychical states to which they are attached. If sound-forming movements were not by nature connected with our inner life, then language – i.e. the intentional utterance of sounds as signs of psychical states – could not arise. From the observation that mental excitations within us often externalize themselves in corporeal movements and preferably in tones, and all the more so the more primitive the mental life is, Steinthal proceeded to the assumption that in prehistoric man “there corresponded to every determinate, particular mental stirrung a determinate corporeal one, which … was … sounding”, 61 and we have already pointed out the mistakes of this inference. But also another consideration – and this was not mentioned earlier – played a role in Steinthal’s presuppositions, 62 namely that “our intentional movements are all only reflex movements which a goal puts in its service”, 63 as he expresses himself. From this he apparently concludes that if communication should arise through articulate sounds nature also had to connect articulate sounds by reflex with inner states. 64

in the case of moderate excitations, and inner turbulence vents itself not only in more frequent reflex movements, but also in a more abundant occurrence of habitual movements, in much speaking, gesticulating, etc. Cf. Lotze, (trans.) Hamilton and Jones (1885) I, pp. 601 ff. 61. Steinthal (1871), p. 369. 62. Cf. Lazarus (1857), pp. 55. 63. Translator’s note: Steinthal (1871), p. 367. 64. In the notion that in the case of so-called voluntary movements we intentionally use only those relations arranged by nature between inner states and corporeal actions, Steinthal follows the lead of Lotze. But when he believes to have found also in this investigator (Lotze [1852], p. 293) the above-mentioned supposition that language, in the sense of a connection of determinate articulate sounds with determinate thoughts, was originally innate, he does not understand him correctly. The cited passage, considered already in isolation, cannot be interpreted in this way, and it would be possible to cite others in great abundance which would leave no room for doubt about their meaning. Cf. Lotze (1851), p. 462, a passage that Steinthal oddly enough cites, but especially Lotze (trans.) Hamilton and Jones (1885) I, pp. 658 ff., also p. 605.

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(The original reflex sounds were for him therefore “distinctly and determinately articulate”, though only unrhythmic. 65 ) Also this consideration is unconvincing and seems to forget that the totality of movements we execute voluntarily must have occurred unintentionally before, but not necessarily in the form and connection in which we later exercise them. In the case of our children we do not see “distinctly and determinately articulate” reflex sounds connected with psychical states (for although constituents analogous to the elements of the alphabet in the sounds they utter by reflex are distinguishable, no one who wants to keep with customary linguistic usage will call them “distinctly articulate”). Nonetheless, through exercise, but only through exercise, they arrive at articulation, when they succeed in detaching from the clusters of sounds, which nature offers by way of reflex, ever simpler elements and combining them voluntarily. Distinct articulation is to such an extent a matter of exercise that only the continuous habit of communication, which necessitates understandable pronunciation, secures the possession of what is obtained therein. People who have been cut off from interaction for a lengthy stretch of time lose the ability of distinct articulation. There is also no need to assume in the case of prehistoric man readymade dispositions towards various articulate sounds. If we think of him as constituted by analogy to ourselves, when he strove (either for the sake of communication or merely in play) to repeat the sounds which followed involuntarily upon his inner excitations there occurred all kinds of divergences from their earlier form. If diligence was again also applied with respect to the production of divergences, the soundcomplexes that had initially been the only things available loosened up more and more in the course of exercise, and progressively simpler constituents became detachable from them. 66 The development of the human voice into articulate speaking is similar to the development of the agility of the fingers into piano playing, for in this case too it is a matter of isolating through exercise a group of 65. Cf. Steinthal (1871), p. 367. 66. The same effect was made by attempts to imitate sounds of other entities by repeating the constituents which were recognized therein. In the case of the growing generation there was the additional imitation of the articulations already more common to the adults, and this played an increasingly important role in the formation of the vocal organs.

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movements which nature has fused and keeping them separate in order to be able to combine them subsequently in diverse new ways. We have only to add one last remark which can throw light on the emergence of the nativist hypothesis in the form disputed here. Steinthal and Lazarus assume that man by nature accompanies his intuitions not only with certain sounds, but precisely with similar ones, and it is reasonable to wonder how, in spite of insufficient experiential proof, they came to add this completely new constituent which must be justified separately. It greatly reduces the preliminary probability of the main notion. There was here too, as this is especially clear in the case of Steinthal, a general consideration at work, but this time it was not a misinterpreted truth, but rather a prejudice taken to be axiomatic, with the effect that the similarity of the reflex sound with an intuition was regarded as something obvious and not as a new assumption. For Steinthal seems to assume that the effect is always necessarily similar to the cause. Only in this way can I understand the following argument: It can presumably be expected that in the case of intuitions in which there lies a sound-sensation this is preeminently reflected. It can, however, be presumably taken for granted as generally true that the reflected sound will have a similarity with the intuition, and this is thus the essence of onomatopoeia. But this similarity is not a consequence of imitation, where intention is always presupposed, but rather it is a sound-reflex, where the speech organs conduct themselves like a mirror, like the retina of the eye [!], by mirroring back what has effect on them. 67

In the newer work 68 Steinthal allows for the similarity between intuition and reflex sound to be preeminently rooted in perceptual feelings, by which both are accompanied, and here too his account is tacitly supported by that false presupposition. Here he says: 67. Steinthal (1855), p. 312. Cf. the same playing-around with the different meanings of the words “reflex” and “reflected” in Steinthal (1867), p. 76: “If the roots of language are reflex sounds, there is reflected in them a mental excitation, and this is their meaning. But what is reflected in every root sound-product, what emits these rays of sound, can ...”. 68. Steinthal (1871).

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We know that every perception and memory is also feeling [and by virtue of this feeling, according to Steinthal, it produces the reflex sound] … In addition, also the perception of the reflex movement itself in turn arouses a feeling. In fact it seems obvious that the feeling from which the reflex is initiated and that into which it is transmitted will be akin as much as possible. If we apply this to the spoken sound insofar it is a reflex, there would dwell within the perception of every simple sound-formation, and even more so of every more complex one, a feeling, which stands in affinity with the feeling that is given with the reflected objectperception… What is meant here is … the … phenomenon of so-called onomatopoeia. 69

Now that we have thoroughly examined the nativist hypothesis in the form that Steinthal and Lazarus have given it, let us take a look at the more careful version of it in W. Wundt. According to this psychologist: The spoken sound, just like the gesture, originates from the irresistible drive in man to accompany his presentations with movements which stand in an immediate relation to them and thus, by means of subjectively produced analogous sensations, to enhance the sensory impression that the perceived object brings about. Originally all these movements arise no doubt in the form of a reflex and only gradually does the secure steering of the will gain control of them. As touching a stimulated place of our skin is a reflex, man in nature involuntarily points to the object of his attention and accompanies this movement with a sound which enhances the mute gesture. Or he causes a reproduced presentation to become livelier by copying the object thereof via depicting pantomimes and by adding again an equally significant sound. Still today we can observe this process at times in the case of people with a vivid imagination when they accompany their thoughts in solitude with gesticulations and words. In language they already come upon the word which that first man in nature, as we are presupposing him here, brought forward in the form of a natural gesture. 70 The linguistic utterance is tied to the process of apperception to a greater degree than any other form of expressive movements. No presentation is 69. Translator’s note: Ibid., p. 376. Marty’s emphasis. 70. Translator’s note: Wundt (1874), p. 849. Marty’s emphases.

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designated through language and gesture which would not have been previously apperceived, i.e. elevated for inner focus from among the numerous presentations which fill consciousness. … Spoken sound and gesture are reflexes of the organ of apperception. … We have forfeited the sensory vivacity of prehistoric man who once produced language. Something of that language-forming power, however, still stirs in every one of us. 71

From these passages it is clear that in Wundt’s opinion prehistoric man fashioned certain presentations independently of the intention of communication by means of words and gestures, but what reason there was for this is not clear. For it is first said that it was the drive to enhance presentations through the production of analogous sensations – and thus those utterances would be voluntary motions based on experience. Immediately after this, however, they are also designated as reflexes, and thus we would have to take it as an ultimate irreducible fact that they were evoked by the apperceived presentations. Unable to harmonize these different statements, we shall in advance focus on the latter one, which alone can properly be designated as nativist. What justifies the assumption that for prehistoric man the apperceived presentations produced reflex sounds similar to them? It is hardly believable that this property is immanent to the apperceived presentations, as may be seen in the general observation that reflex movements arise more frequently, the smaller the degree of attention and mental concentration (in microcephalics, new born infants, in sleep, etc.). Nor can it be substantiated by any special experience. If that “sensory vivacity of prehistoric man” is not something completely unheard of, it should presumably be found still today, perhaps among young people. Let us therefore observe a child, particularly at a time when it elevates into the “focus” of attention single parts of the presentational complex which are already before its mind. We do not notice that every impression that draws our interest produces a reflex sound similar to it. Wundt appeals to the fact that people with a vivid imagination accompany their thoughts with words and gesticulations also without the intention of communication. What is at work here, however, is in fact not 71. Ibid., p. 853.

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an underivable law that vivid presentations externalize themselves in sounds, but rather habit. The uttered word is is, after all, one that is learned and already often used for communication. 72 If there were such a law, determinate sounds would have to be by nature connected to determinate presentations and triggered off by them. There is more truth in Wundt’s speaking of a drive that we feel to enhance presentations through the production of something analogous, but this drive is not to be regarded as an ultimate underivable fact. Not in the case of every presentation, not even every apperceived presentation, do we feel the tendency to enhance it via a simulation, but only where we expect by experience some usage from the greater vivacity of the presentational image, e.g. in the case of pleasant presentations, which generate for us more intense pleasure the more vivacious they are. Prehistoric man may have enhanced these through simulation and may have brought about understanding without his intention. It may be doubted very much, however, that this isolated fact suffices to make the origin of language understandable. This certainly could only be proved by experiment, which, however, we do not find conducted here, since Wundt himself in fact did not intend to attach such decisive weight to that single circumstance. The result of our critical consideration of nativism is that no mechanical connections between determinate thoughts and determinate articulate sounds are at present innate to man, and that whoever wants to assume such connections for the earliest state in order to explain the origin of language must consequently believe that they vanished from the race in some unknown, yet not inconceivable way. Had it not been the concern to test the proofs one by one which have been adduced for the contrary and to highlight the true and the false in them, we would have been able to substantiate this consequence also simply by reference to the history of language. For if that natural expression of thought remained innate, language could not have removed itself from it as much as this has everywhere 72. By this we do not mean to say that what sometimes drives us to speaking upon enthusiastic reflection is always the purposelessly resonating habit of communication. It is often experienced that the visual (and also auditory) word serves us more forcefully as an aid for re-awakening and distinguishing our abstract thoughts. In this case, however, it is doubly clear that it is not a reflex movement under consideration.

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been done. Most sounds of our language have no similarity with their meaning, and many words and word-constituents even have a mere independent function. It is therefore to be assumed that in the intentional application of sounds, which have originally come about by reflex, their onomatopoeic form has been discarded, new meanings assigned to them, and the originally ones forgotten, etc. Yet, this very abandonment and forgetting of the original form and meaning of sounds which was so important for the development of language could not have taken place as long as an innate connection between them and certain intuitions remained in existence. For even if this became less and less effective in the older generation (due to growing self-control, as Steinthal would have it), it nonetheless asserted itself with new vigor in the growing one. Since the children uttered the spoken sounds again and again in the original form and meaning, the adults were not only reminded of them anew, but also prompted to hold on to them. Children are always successful in determining to some extent the language spoken in the family circle. Their special expressions are adopted, new forms as well as distortions of proper names and of other already customary words, partly due to enjoyment of everything the little darlings produce, but partly and primarily to make understanding easier for them. In addition to these motives, there is another powerful one if the sounds the children produced had the power and attraction of something innate for the older generation. II. The Characterization of Recent Empiricist Theories Among the researchers who have recently spoken in favor of the view that language is to be regarded as a human acquisition, such as Herbart, 73 J. Grimm, 74 Lotze, 75 Darwin, 76 Bleek, Whitney, L. Geiger, Tylor, and others, the last four mentioned made it their task to account for its initial origination. 73. Herbart (1825), Section II, Chapter II. 74. Grimm (1852). 75. Lotze, (trans.) Hamilton and Jones (1885), pp. 601 ff. 76. Darwin (1871), pp. 51-61.

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We mention them here together because, as already indicated, they eliminate not only the Humboldtian doctrine of a necessary connection of thinking and speaking, but also in contrast to present-day nativism do not evoke the help of innate connections between determinate thoughts and (articulate) sounds in the case of prehistoric man. As for the rest, they disagree partly in the assumptions which they make within the above stated boundaries, partly in their manner of attempting to derive the formation of language from these assumptions; and if we are to pass our judgment equally regarding these attempts, we cannot designate any of them as flawless. J. Bleek sets out in his treatise On the Origin of Language 77 from the conviction that man has developed psychically and physically from a lower form, and the research concerning the origin of language seems important to him as research concerning that “which lifted us above the animal world”. 78 This essentially also determines the direction of his investigation, which preeminently revolves around the question how it first came about that “the sound expressive of a sensation was … voluntarily employed for the purpose of calling up the accompanying sensation, 79 or the corresponding one which was presumed to be felt by a companion”. 80 For Bleek regards this as belonging to the “first attempts at language” and to “human development”, whereas sound for animals, on his view, is in all cases only an involuntary expression of feeling. 81 And the path on which this important achievement was obtained is to his mind the following: In order for there to be an ability of the will to use the sensory sound as a sensory sign, “the sound came into consciousness, distinguished

77. Bleek, (ed.) Haeckel, (trans.) Davidson (1869). As is well known, Bleek was occupied for long years with comparative research regarding the southern African languages. 78. Translator’s note: Ibid., p. 44. 79. What is meant here is the memory of it. 80. Bleek, (ed.) Haeckel, (trans.) Davidson (1869), pp. 49 and 64. 81. Ibid., pp. 49 ff.

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from the sensation to which it naturally belonged, and yet as having a necessary connection with it”. 82 How could this have come about? Let us suppose a being endowed with a very strong capacity for forming sounds, but with a tendency towards imitation such as we find among the species of animals that stand next to man, it is not conceivable that a union of the two faculties should fail to take place in it. Imitation of sounds we find even among parrots; but their capacity for imitation is of quite a different character from that of the apes, which is limited to the imitation of beings similar to themselves — a limitation which we regard as highly important. ... If, now, such a creature, whose nature it is to unite particular states of feeling with vocal utterance, imitates similar sensory sounds coming from animals of its own class, the sound which it thus produces is one to which its organs are already accustomed. The particular feeling, however, which was wont to occasion it, has not produced it this time, but it owes its origin to the tendency towards imitation. … But, as it was formerly called forth by that sensation, it becomes so accustomed to its accompaniment that this 83 arises when the sound is produced in other ways. When, then, through this imitation, there sprang up a consciousness of the sound, and its production was only followed by the presence of the sensation, whereas, formerly, the sound was merely an involuntary accompaniment of the sensation – then it was that the sound came into consciousness, distinguished from the feeling to which it naturally belonged, and yet as having a necessary connection with it. The involuntary utterance of a sensation thus became a sign of a sensation. … This positing of the sound as a separate entity, which is transformed by the volition laying hold of it, into its instrument is the first step in the process whereby man became man. 84

An all-round assessment would first have to emphasize here that there is a much simpler way than the one described here whereby a sound can be distinguished from the feeling producing it and can become a sign for this feeling and that there is thus no need to assume that those beings, which Bleek may regard as our primal ancestors, first arrived at this 82. Translator’s note: Ibid., pp. 48 f. 83. The memory image is presumably meant here. 84. Translator’s note: Bleek, (ed.) Haeckel, (trans.) Davidson (1869), pp. 47 f. Marty’s emphases.

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point through the processes depicted by him. For this distinction certainly nothing is in fact needed but to perceive both elements separately, and this can be done in more than one way without (and before) imitating that sensory sound of other beings which is similar to our own. In this historical overview we only ask in face of the different theories whether the powers assumed here or there for the explanation of the origin of language are demonstrable in experience, and if so, whether the explanation based on them is satisfactory. 85 This goes also for Bleek’s derivation. If one presupposes, as Bleek does, that the entities from whose mouth the first seeds of human language sprang imitated sounds of their fellow species members, either solely or even by preference, we may doubt this. For though they were presumably equipped with the formable vocal apparatus, as Bleek assumes, they were no doubt successful in imitating sounds of other entities and tones of inanimate nature as well, and it is probable that by their novelty, their melodiousness, etc. they often stimulated more than feeling-sounds of species members for their imitations. Occasionally, however, such sounds were also certainly imitated, and Bleek may start his deduction from these. This deduction is correct only insofar as a detour ultimately also leads to the goal. Yet, it does not thereby explain, as Bleek believes, the beginnings of specifically human language and thus does not reasonably constitute the focal point of a consideration of these. There is no doubt that a lot of animals distinguish the involuntary expression of their inner states from these states themselves and through the imitation of this expression voluntarily reveal these states and sometimes external facts as well. Indeed, a dog, for instance, expresses its feelings and their natural externalizations to such an extent that it even fakes. That is to say, it intentionally copies such externalizations also in cases where it does not have the corresponding feelings. We can observe such things directly, but it is also clear that animals often distrust our caresses, which is not something they could do if they were not themselves able to give false signs of inner states.

85. Has a theory correctly evaluated everything that can be drawn upon for the explanation of obscure phenomena? This must be shown in the course of our own attempt at derivation.

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Thus Bleek would rather have to show how it was possible to go from the repetition of sensory sounds to a system of designative tools suitable for encompassing the abundance of our thoughts and presumably for reproducing their diversity distinguishably; and though his indications of this are occasionally correct, they are nonetheless on the whole held too generally to be satisfactory or even to allow for a sharper assessment. W. D. Whitney, in a lecture course devoted to our problem, 86 initially raises the question (which Bleek neglects) why man primarily uses his voice as a means of expression, and he answers it by remarking that spoken sounds prove to be most useful. However, it was furthermore most natural on his view and is therefore to be accepted as a fact that intrinsically undertandable sounds were first chosen as designations, as offered by natural interjections, the imitations of sounds of other living beings and of tones in inanimate nature, and symbolic imitations of other phenomena through sounds. From these the apparently conventional signs have come about through various changes. The second point he illustrates well by indicating the analogous development of gesture language and of writing from immediately understandable signs. E. B. Tylor is also inclined to assume that the first spoken designations were immediately understandable ones and were chosen for the sake of this property, and he also calls attention 87 to the importance of the above cited analogies. In two chapters of the new work concerning the beginnings of culture he is primarily engaged in assembling examples of how spoken language has sought and (insofar as it belongs to uneducated masses of people) still continually seeks to indicate all kinds of objects in an immediately understandable way. He summarizes his view thus:

86. Whitney (1867). Cf. Whitney (1873), pp. 332-375. 87. Especially in Tylor (1865). Cf. Chapters II-VI. But also see Tylor (1871) I, pp. 210 ff. If, however, he wants to find a parallel (Tylor [1865], pp. 59 ff.) in the two types of gestures that are usually distinguished, the so-called demonstrative ones and the depicting ones, to the two classes of roots that linguistics separate, we cannot agree with him. The demonstrative gestures are also imitative (cf. below on this point), whereas the pronominal roots cannot be so. Hence, at least as far as the origin of their understandability is concerned, there is no analogy between them.

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I do not think that the evidence here adduced justifies the setting-up of what is called the Interjectional and Imitative Theory as a complete solution of the problem of original language. Valid as this theory proves itself within limits, it would be incautious to accept a hypothesis which can perhaps satisfactorily account for a twentieth of the crude forms in any language, as a certain and absolute explanation of the nineteentwentieths whose origin remains doubtful. ... A safer way of putting the theory of a natural origin of language is to postulate the original utterance of ideas in what may be called self-expressive sounds, without defining closely whether their expression lay in emotional tone, imitative noise, contrast of accent or vowel or consonant, or other phonetic quality. Even here, exception of unknown and perhaps enormous extent must be made for sounds chosen by individuals to express some notion, from motives which even their own minds failed to discern, but which sounds nevertheless made good their footing in the language of the family, the tribe, and the nation. There may be many modes even of recognizable phonetic expression, unknown to us as yet. 88

In the fight against too narrow a version of the concept of so-called onomatopoeia Tylor is certainly right. He could have also emphasized the usage of incidental associations as the source of the original designative tools. But this will be discussed later. In the mentioned collection of intrinsically expressive sounds from different languages, he seeks to avoid the danger of being deceived by the effect of habit and does so correctly by regarding similarities between sound and meaning as more than incidental only if they are found in different languages independent from each other. Here, however, one must also consider that sometimes the same sounds are apprehended and imitated in considerably different ways by different peoples. L. Geiger has formulated a very peculiar theory. 89 He not only denies what the nativist theories teach, that thoughts produced sounds from themselves through a natural compulsion, but also denies what empiricists usually assume, that one fashions sounds in different ways into designations, guided by the intention of communication from the beginning, and thus might have modeled them after the objects to be designated. 88. Tylor (1871) I, pp. 208 f. 89. Geiger (1868) and Geiger (1872); Geiger (1869).

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The only means which has served the purpose of designation, according to Geiger, is composition. Through composition of the roots the inflections and forms of derivation of all kinds arose. The roots themselves arrived at their different forms in a purely physiological way and not with respect to designation. 90 A sound that was equivocal or, better, omnivocal was differentiated through the effect of sound-laws, and when its various meanings were incidentally distributed in different forms there arose the first plurality of tonal signs with separate meanings. 91 Concerning this primal sound we hear him say the following: .

Language is initially an animal cry, but one that follows as such upon an impression of the visual sense. … The original stimulus of spoken sound is furthermore, however, not just any visual perception, but one of a special kind … The speech-cry 92 originally follows only upon the impression made by the sight of an animal or human body in spasmodic convulsion or powerful gyrating movement, of a vigorous fidgetingabout of the feet or hands, the contortion of a human or animal face, 93 especially the grimacing mouth and the twitching eyelashes. In the case of a great deal of the above-mentioned objects which prompt spoken sound, the movement understandably does not take place without a sound. … The initial spoken sound can therefore also quite well be explained as an imitation, but one must be cautious to understand by this the so-called “clangor-imitation”. 94 This is a matter of copying the special sound, whether this is done intentionally or not. Language, however, is not prompted by sound as such, let alone by its formable diversity, but rather only by convulsing, which presumably also makes sound when successful, and also by the play of gestures and countenances. 95 Perhaps it would be more correct for us to conceive of 90. Cf. Geiger (1868), pp. 182-192. 91. Ibid., pp. 219-232. 92. Translator’s note: The translation of Sprachschrei as “speech-cry” is taken from Wells (1987), pp. 104 ff. This volume contains a rare discussion of Geiger’s unusual views on the origin of language and at the same time completely neglects those of Marty. 93. Cf. Geiger (1869), pp. 141-173. 94. Cf. Ibid., pp. 144 ff., 159, 164 ff. 95. As is seen, for Geiger the important thing is by no means to regard the first vocal

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the imitation which is the basis of language as a grimacing along with someone else. 96

If now spoken sound and object (the sum total of designative tools and that of items to be designated) made contact in the speech-cry, which was prompted by the sound-forming play of countenances, then “both of them go their own separate ways of development, and the connection prevailing between the two remains in its particularity for every special case only a product of the laws of accident”. 97 “If we suppose that a visible event occurs in a human family, effective enough and apt to enrapture an individual from its midst (who was perhaps the most sensitive and most able one) to make a sound”, this sound reminded all of them of that phenomenon and became a means for them to call each other’s attention to it. Yet, it was not only that event which was designated by it, but everything similar and everything that appeared in connection to it and in connection to anything similar. The sound, advances beyond the wallowing and stumbling movement of the animal to the visible vigorous movement also of other things, insofar as these are not distinguished from animal movement. A rolling stone is not immediately discerned as inanimate, but is rather observed with the very same eyes as a running or wallowing animal. Sound goes from the more powerful impressions to the weaker ones, from the visible to the objects of other senses. 98

In the meantime, sound is “multiplied and transformed” due to purely mechanical factors. 99 There arises the possibility of applying one of its forms more often for one meaning, the other form for another meaning. And if this is done, there gradually arises from the original state of ambiguity, to which synonymy is then joined, a state analogous to the designations as fashioned after that which is designated. 96. Geiger (1868), pp. 22-25. 97. Geiger (1868), p. 28. Cf. Geiger (1869), pp. 164 ff. 98. Geiger (1868), p. 28. Cf. ibid., p. 42. 99. Ibid.

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familiar states of language, where different signs have different and separate meanings. 100 We see here the peculiar attempt to explain the origination of the earliest spoken designations not only without the unfamiliar instincts of nativism and the artificial agreements of which an inept empiricism had spoken, but also without the help of intentional sound-formation for the sake of designation. We do not strive for an all-round critique of this attempt, but only ask, first of all, whether the origination of the “speechcry” can be presupposed by analogy to familiar phenomena of prehistoric man, and secondly whether Geiger has succeeded in deriving the origination of familiar states of language from his assumptions. The first question, it seems to us, can be answered affirmatively, though with certain restrictions. It has not become clear to me how Geiger himself imagines the origination of the speech-cry and of what kind the sensitivity of the visual sense is which is for him the condition of this cry. 101 Nor do I understand how from everything Geiger lists, e.g. fidgeting-about of the hands and feet, a spectator could be enraptured to make a sound which did not arise from fear, astonishment, etc. (and this is indeed characteristic of the speech-cry according to Geiger 102 ). However – and this is the only thing that matters – some of the events which are designated as stimulating the speech-cry could actually have had this as their consequence. One might have “grimaced” along with another’s play of countenances either through the effect of habit or as a consequence of the law (which we shall discuss later) that the lively presentation of an action can entail this action. If that play of countenances was a sound-forming one, it might well be thought that also the imitative one was accompanied by a sound which could subsequently be reminiscent of those gestures and be used as a means for designating them and similar things. We arrive at the second question: Has Geiger demonstrated the possibility of a “purely phonetic formation of roots” via a mechanically resulting differentiation of the primal sound and of a purely incidental 100. Ibid., pp. 219 and 232. Cf. Geiger (1869), pp. 68, 51 ff., 64 ff. 101. In Geiger (1868), p. 83, he speaks of a special vulnerability of visual impressions. 102. Ibid., p. 22.

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distribution of its meanings? This is to be answered negatively, at least with regard to what has been made known to us from Geiger. 103 There is no doubt that, as Geiger argues, 104 for reasons connected with the nature of our speech organs and our vocal proclivities, vocal combinations are changed in their constituents, suffer losses and even growth through previously completely unfamiliar sounds, and thus from one word gradually many can indeed arise in a mechanical way. Geiger himself, however, remarks that this phenomenon is essentially based “on the property of the sound of being exposed to certain presentations when occurring together with other sounds” and thus calls composition the most outstanding source of that change. 105 Yet, he concludes from the history of language that, prior to the emergence of inflection, sounds have never been composed for the purpose of designation. How was the primal sound therefore differentiated and what initially brought different sounds together in different ways? Geiger is able to assert only very insufficient possibilities for this. 106 It can be further conceded – as Geiger proves by means of many examples 107 – that synonymous words can gradually take on different meanings for which they first alternately served. This is done when one of them is more often used in this context, the other one in that context, and such context attaches to each a special sense. However, what is called context is nothing but the explanatory and determining effect of other already understandable circumstances and signs which, when existing together with that synonymous and homonymous one, demand a special sense for it. How were such conditions for the explanation and determination of the primal sound? Geiger does not give a satisfactory account of this.

103. The larger work, Geiger (1868) and Geiger (1872), remained incomplete. 104. Geiger (1868), pp. 135-192. 105. Ibid., pp. 156 and 171. 106. Ibid., pp. 187 ff. 107. Ibid., pp. 227-232. Cf. Geiger (1869), pp. 52-90.

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In the smaller work The Origin of Language 108 Geiger refers to the imitative gestures as an aid for the understanding of the first ambiguous spoken designations. He says: If one thinks of the role assigned to gesticulation in this primordial age, one will assume this to be at least no smaller than it is natural for us all in a lively expression of thought still at present. At a time when people still had nothing to express except such concepts as “biting”, “rubbing”, “grabbing”, “scratching”, and “stepping”, the immediate urge to express, the inner form of the presented movement, must indeed have completely of itself led to a co-movement which involved the foot in scratching, the hand in grabbing or hitting, as this is not at present remote from an emotionally charged representation. With this, as is easily seen, a significant support is given for the understanding of an intrinsically ambiguous sign. 109

Yet, how strange it is to call upon imitative gestures for the grounding of the first understanding, but to reject imitative sounds, while the same motives must have led to both! In the work just mentioned he also gives much more validity, than he had given earlier, to the notion that, since the character of a vocal utterance depends on the positioning of the mouth and all kinds of movements of facial muscles and since the first speech-cries were uttered by means of involuntarily imitating someone else’s muscle movement or facial excitement and the like, such cries might have been characteristic for these movements, for which they subsequently became signs. And he believes that this circumstance was at work as a motive in the soon emerging distribution of meanings. 110 It is obvious, however, that such concessions shatter the basic notion of the whole theory, namely that omnivalence was the original state of spoken sounds and that the “special meaning” they acquired in the course of time was always a result of mere accident 111 and determinate concepts 108. Translator’s note: Geiger (1869). 109. Ibid., p. 251. 110. Ibid., pp. 160-172, but especially pp. 170 ff. and 252 ff. 111. Ibid., p. 90.

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were never stamped in determinate sounds especially assigned to them. 112 Nevertheless, every derivation of the origin of language will learn many a correct and valuable notion from this account. III. Orientation regarding the Direction to be Taken In the foregoing we became familiar with the most outstanding attempts at a solution of our problem and arrived at the point where we ourselves must take a position. If the accompanying critique was essentially correct, this choice is likewise not difficult any longer. It may be taken as a decided matter that that the origination of language is not definitively to be investigated along the path of historical research. However far etymological analysis may reach back in the study of earlier states of language, we can never discern by such means whether or not we have – in whatever it has come upon at a given time – the earliest spoken designations. The decision on this matter will depend on our idea of the origin of these elements by way of their hypothetical derivation from assumed forces. Hence, we always rely on the method of hypothesis and deduction and on the principles which must be valid for this method of research. We have encountered three hypotheses in the historical overview: 1) According to one view, the beginnings of human speech come directly from divine communication. 2) According to another one, they flow from innate instincts. 3) According to the third one, man has gradually acquired them through his own efforts. In favor of which one of these hypotheses, exhausting all possibilities spoken of in this general framework, do we ultimately have to decide? And how is it to be formulated more precisely? The positive investigation must yield this result. However, according to the discussions already attended to and in connection with the principles of healthy method as such, the general direction for this investigation can no longer be a matter of doubt. In accordance with such principles, we must first see whether the origination of language can be explained by the activity of forces that are familiar and also still active elsewhere in an analogous way. Since not 112. Ibid., p. 65.

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only the hypothesis of an immediate divine intervention has the character of a new assumption in every case where it is called upon for help, 113 but also in no form does any experience speak in favor of an innate instinct of language, we tentatively rely on the standpoint of empiricism. Some have gone before us in the attempt to conceive of language as a human acquisition. Let us see if the lacunae of its derivation, which others sought to fill by means of new assumptions, are more successfully filled by us by means of a more correct evaluation of familiar forces we find at work both in the history of language and still at present wherever something analogous to spoken language is produced. Positive Account Various means serve man in the purpose of manifestation of his inner life. If we speak of language in the broader sense, we include every such communication by whatever signs it may occur. 114 Language in the narrower sense or what is preferably called human language is a special 113. Even the theist, after all, can regard the immediate intervention of God in the course of nature only as an exception. He will believe in its actual occurrence in a particular case only when he takes it to be proven that natural forces could not bring about the relevant effect. 114. This definition needs justification. First of all, we would say more precisely: Language in the broader sense is every intentional utterance as a sign of an inner state. For we call even the speech of a liar and the demeanor of a hypocrite “language”; however, they do not communicate their thoughts and feelings, whereas they do make utterances as signs (simply as false signs) of inner states. But a lie is an abuse of language, not its original purpose, and for this reason the above definition may remain intact in accordance with the rule a potiori fit demonitatio. A second objection is more important. Not only the manifestation of our inner lived-processes, but also the communication of external facts is called language, and the latter occurs more often among us than the former does. Yet, only by being a sign of a psychical act can an utterance, through mediation, also be a designation for an outer object, which stands in relation to that act and is thought, willed, etc. in it; and if we use the words of articulate language, as is certainly usually the case, as signs of various phenomena of the external world, we nonetheless guarantee the listener (except in the case of the liar) a look into our presentations and judgments without intending to do so. If the signs of language are by our intention thus also frequently signs of what is thought, they are always only so insofar as they are signs of thinking. And this goes for all psychical functions in contrast with the objects to which they stand in relation.

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form of that manifestation which makes use of the articulation of the voice and in fact exceeds all other forms through its outstanding perfection and encompassing application. Whoever makes it his task to explain its origin from the familiar forces of human nature has to answer three questions in order to give a complete solution: 1) How was it possible for any communication, mutual reception and manifestation of inner life to originate among human beings? 2) How could they bring the tools of communication into that form which articulate speech has? 3) How did the spoken signs in particular take on this development and prevailing application? It can only be conducive for the investigation if these questions, which are separable for everyone who does not regard communication and spoken language as identical, are treated by us separately as well. Chapter One: Of the First Origination of any Communication among Human Beings In order for there to arise in a being the intention to manifest its inner life to another one, it must know something of the other’s psychical life and of the significance which this life has for its own experiences. What is meant by this is certainly not an insight into general laws concerning this connection; it suffices if it is has been discovered in single concrete cases. It is a known fact that the more frequent perception – indeed, to a certain extent also the one-time perception – of something establishes a tendency to make the same assumption again under similar circumstances: e.g. with regard to a phenomenon, which earlier brought about another one, to expect this other one again as a consequence or also, by converse, to presuppose for similar phenomena similar antecedents. The common man in large measure allows himself to be guided by this habit, the small child and the animal perhaps completely, and this accumulation of concrete experiences of the connection of phenomena is indisputably dependent on the help we get from linking our thoughts with spoken designations. Also for the first human being, prior to the possession of any language at all, his perceptions therefore did go into oblivion, but rather they had the effect of him slowly accepting much without experiencing it at the moment or directly. How easily and rapidly he came to presuppose

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a psychical life elsewhere analogous to his own, of which he had no direct perception, and took an interest in influencing it, this depended in part on what the earliest conditions of existence of our species were like. In order to make our investigation independent of the decision of this difficult question, we therefore do not ask how initial human interaction originated as a matter of fact, but rather we seek to show that the familiar forces of human nature were sufficient to bring it about even under the most unfavorable circumstances conceivable. Every human individual was originally constituted just as it is still today, such that corporeal movements of many kinds were involuntarily connected to psychical excitations and that it soon acquired the ability to initiate such movements voluntarily as well. Even in the case of prehuman animals, which the theory of descent presents as the progenitor of the human species, such abilities had indeed to have existed for a long time, since in the range of animals existing at present we find these abilities in all of them, certainly in all the higher ones if we do not wish to include the abilities in question among the characteristic features of animals as such. 115 Let us now suppose that two people, who are developed to such an extent that they have gained a certain mastery over their limbs and thus 115. The dispute concerning how an entity gains the experience that it can produce certain movements through its desire for them – for this is the basis for the voluntary exercise of them – is better excluded from our task. Some believe that a host of movements are by virtue of natural predispositions triggered off by the desire for them. Certainly not all movements which gradually come under our power originally occur in this manner, as experience clearly shows. It is in particular obvious that the isolation of certain muscle actions which are normally executed together (such as the movements of the fingers and the vocal organs) require protracted exercise. Some people, however, believe that they can do completely without the hypothesis of pre-established harmony between the desire for movement and movement itself. They believe that nature has initially attached the movements to certain feelings and that we can produce them again only by renewing these feelings, though opinions can again vary concerning the nature of these feelings. Under the last mentioned presupposition A. Bain has recently sought an explanation of the obscure phenomenon. Certain connections of physical processes with psychical ones, however, are always presupposed here as innate to the individual. And it is an additional and new question whether and to what extent they can be represented as acquisitions of the species. This is the question around which Darwin’s investigation of expressive movements revolves. However, we can leave all this aside. For psychophysical movements of this kind, such as contortion of the face and crying in pain or trembling in fear, belong to the things we must think of as already existing even in the most unfavorable case, as soon as people or indeed higher animals are spoken of.

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also over the external world, meet each other. How will social interaction between them arise? Person A, who has intentionally executed movements and saw other ones in certain mental states occur in himself independently of his will, will connect by habit with the perception of similar movements of person B the presentation of corresponding psychical phenomena. He will assume that person B feels joy, sorrow, etc. and intentionally intervenes in the external world, and as he himself experiences pleasant and unpleasant effects from this world, he will again presuppose of person B, in a similar situation and in the case of analogous behavior, also that he undergoes such effects. Indeed, once the habit has established itself in him to think of person B (and therefore every other individual similar to him with respect to appearance and behavior) as analogous to himself, such assumptions will be made very rapidly and determinately; he will uncritically at once also presuppose for person B his own feelings under related circumstances and expect actions from him similar to his own without making a special discovery of this in a precisely corresponding case. Every type of habit, even the one of connecting similar assumptions to similar phenomena again as earlier, is formed most rapidly and is most intensively effective at lower levels of the development of mental life, as this is sufficiently observable in the case of children and uneducated people. One of the achievements of education is to make ourselves free of the excessive influence of habit on our assumptions as well as our tendencies. A consequence of this is that children and uneducated people as such are very much inclined to conceive of the changes in the external world vitalistically to a much too large extent. For the presentation of an intention, of a will, is for them connected early and intimately with the perception of movements, and this especially favored habit busies itself with attributing psychical motives to every similar corporeal change in the external world. Yet, not only the vitalistic conception of nature, which we find in the case of the child and of whole peoples in earlier periods of culture, is the consequence of hasty habitual assumptions, but also the tendency that more or less holds sway over everyone, most of all, however, over someone inexperienced: the tendency to judge his fellow human beings too much by analogy to himself. The difficulty of this is not presupposing a psychical life analogous to a person’s own psychical life, but rather restricting this transference to the correct extent and executing it with perfect accuracy in single cases.

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Let us return to our deduction. Person A and person B will mutually attribute their externalizations to psychical life and also especially to the will to bring about such and such a convenience, to ward off this pain, etc. Simply by the fact that both interact with the external world, but also directly in many ways, it is fitting that they have effect on each other. If the effect of person B on person A is agreeable in nature, the latter will wish for it to continue, and wish of an unagreeable one for it to cease, and when he notices that it depends on the volition of person B he will seek to have an effect on person B’s will. Experiences of himself tell him whatever it is whereby this will can be led to an action or deterred from it. Let us thus suppose that person A seeks to stop person B from a certain action by inflicting pain on him. It is only a group of obvious experiences involved in the fact that person B understands this attempt at resistance. If we suppose a peace-loving attitude in his case, he will consider this and now abstain from his effect on A and also abandon a certain action later, when he notices that it is unpleasant to his companion who would again be prompted to resistance. Person A will attract interest by making a threat or simply by manifesting his pain, when experience leads him to expect that this makes person B subservient to his wishes. If person B is hostile and opposes the resistance of person A, struggle will at once ensue. Upon the victory of one of them, however, the previous situation will obtain again. The victor sees that the weaker person is submissive to him, as soon as the latter notices the victor’s wish or even his will to enforce what is wished once again. Accordingly the victor will reveal his wish or will. The weaker person will seek to avoid the damage he is threatened with and will manifest his compliant attitude. The first human beings, if we ascribe to each one only a certain mastery over his limbs, must have gained some mutual knowledge of their inner life and found the interest and the means of communicating among each other, and requisite for this was only the effect of association and habit, not by any means general insights and rational inferences. In connection with the manifestation of internal states there developed also some communication of external facts. Since our thoughts and feelings often refer to physical events and are for a large part also conesquences thereof, both the natural utterances tied to those psychical states and those we intentionally connect with such states are signs for

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the corresponding physical ones, as the cry of pain of another person is not only a sign of his pain, but also a misfortune that has befallen him. When person A notices that the expression of psychical states brings him and others to think of external facts connected with such states, the means of drawing the attention of person B to these facts thus accrues to him. 116 As interaction develops further, these communications gain a prominent position. The signs for this or that domain of contents to be communicated had of course to have been initially rough and intrinsically ambiguous. Yet, the lack of clarity in the means of interaction in these early situations was compensated by other circumstances. All understanding is based on the analogy of one’s own and someone else’s mental life. Even the most cultivated language does not allow us to penetrate into someone else’s inner life beyond the clues offered by analogy to our own. A simple mental life, after all, has relatively equal forms and contents. In similar external situations one has similar needs, thoughts, and wishes. Rough signs therefore suffice for the sake of communicating these. Even a mother, after all, understands a few clear signs of her child, because long ago she already had access to the sphere of the child’s thoughts. If, however, a sign produced understanding, association was at work not only for the inventor, but also for everyone who had understood it, with the result that he again used it in all related cases, provided that another sign was not already available to him. It therefore quickly became current in the small group in which initial human interaction developed (for such exchange obviously did not ensue all at once in a large mass; this would be explainable neither by the above circumstances nor as such). Motives for the communication of physical events were offered by analogy to those for the manifestation of inner states when it was noticed that the familiarity with such events prompted others to a desired action (help, cessation of hostility, etc.). We have thereby indicated only the most obvious and crudest motives for communications of both kinds. Gradually a host of others were developed. We shall not consider whether completely selfless motives for our action and thus also for communication are also conceivable or not. What we seek in interaction with others, however, is certainly not 116. Even animals communicate concrete external events to each other and to us. In the case of dogs, for example, there is indeed no doubt about this.

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only help, but also advice and instruction, confirmation and correction for our own thoughts and intentions. And if no such external or internal help beckons to us, the individual seeks company in order to elicit communications from others because the look into the psychical life of others is more alluring than seeing or hearing, 117 as Aristotle calls this the source of joy, 118 and our own thoughts and feelings thereby receive inspiration and enrichment. Thus, more or less simple motives for communication can easily be found from everyday observation in the case of joy and sadness, hate and fear, etc., which impelled all, gradually awakening with interaction, to a more extensive cultivation thereof and to further development of its means. In the foregoing we made the assumption, unfavorable for the origination of social interaction, that the first human beings in isolation developed the usage of their limbs and then encountered each other. The state of things was, however, in fact more favorable, as we may also think of the origin of our species. Reality was most similar to this imagined situation if we think of the human species as immediately created by God. There several people, each armed with the power of voluntary action, would encounter each other and enter into hostile or friendly relations. We say “armed”, for since they did not enter life under the protection of maternal instincts it was necessarily unavoidable for their preservation that they were able at once to exercise control over movements. They could be put in the world neither in the state of an infant nor in that of an adult who lacks power over his members, but rather certain skills gradually acquired by us had to have been immediately provided for them. Thus the isolated development of the individual as imagined by us was not there, and the conditions for the origination of mutual understanding and diversified influence were immediately given at once. If, however, such prerequisites are necessary, it is a short step to the assumption (from which we, as mentioned above, abstract) that language itself was created for man. Be this as it may, someone who assumes human creation could 117. Animals (dogs, cats, etc.) also, as is well known, love to play together, and the enjoyment that they find in this certainly has one of its reasons in the pleasure of perceiving another psychical life. There is only in addition the joy of the rapid change of positions (danger, victory, etc.) which playing involves. 118. Metaphysics A 980 a.

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still establish the origination of interaction and communication along natural lines. In this case the given development remains in force. If we assume that man evolved from a lower form, the origination of interaction was thus shortened by facilitating circumstances in comparison with the state presupposed by us. For it is natural to think that the parents of the first man, wherever we may set the boundary marker between man and animal (which would indeed be more or less arbitrary in this case), already had some understanding for his mental life 119 and sought to fulfill his wishes with instinctive love; and these diverse accommodating effects offered the conditions under which interest in communication as well as communication itself could develop also in man in his youth. Hence, utterances in its service were among the earliest voluntary actions. The way the first man learned to understand the mental life of others and its significance for his own prosperity and adversity and obtained means of influencing it was similar to the development of our children. The thirsty or hungry child involuntarily emits tones of crying. Since it is satisfied by the mother who is familiar with its needs, the presentation of crying is then linked by the child with the memory of satisfaction. And it will repeat crying in order to procure help for itself. Of course we shall not yet call this language, not even in the broader sense of the word, since it is not an intentional manifestation of inner life. However, the child soon notices that between crying and the comfort that accrues to it there is the activity of the mother who gives it sustenance, and by analogy to the intentional character of its own movements 120 it ascribes to another’s action the will to help it. It therefore expects that the mother, as soon as she knows of its wishes, is attentive to their fulfillment, and it becomes interested in manifesting

119. In higher species of animals there does no doubt occur social interaction, as mentioned. 120. If a child has arrived at the execution of various types of movement, it easily supposes intention also in the case of movements of other beings and rapidly adds to this analogy other ones, without inquiring into special experiences. Hence children seem without further ado to assume, for instance, that the beings they once began to think of as related to themselves understand their utterances. We therefore see them get quite angry when their manifestations are not at once correctly interpreted. Since they understand themselves, they obviously expect immediate understanding from us as well.

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these to her. If, however, it makes an utterance with this intention, this is communication or language. Chapter Two: The Development of the Means of Expression into the Form of Spoken Language The production of a system of signs, such as the one exhibited by spoken language, seems more difficult to grasp from the familiar forces of human nature than the origination of just any communication at all. Three aspects must be emphasized which distinguish this form of communication from that rudimentary one, the origination of which we have already considered. 1) In contrast to the poverty of that rudimentary one, it has a great abundance of designative tools at its disposal. 2) These signs are for the most part not intelligible without explanation. 3) Some of them have only a dependent function, in that they mean something only together with others, but thereby greatly enhance the simplicity and determinacy of expression. With regard to these peculiarities, essentially common to all languages, even those of the most barbarous nations, some assert that spoken language, if it should at all be formed by human intention, could only be the work of great intellectual labor, of which we, in accordance with all experience, could not regard the peoples who make use of it as capable. In addition, they point out that language, if it is a human product, had to be invented eo ipso by a speechless thinking, but one that is extremely imperfect and by no means sufficient for such an accomplishment. There are indeed psychologists of no small number who think that, without sensory signs associated with our thoughts, we are incapable of general judgments and of inference. We shall first concern ourselves in the following section with the lastmentioned difficulty. Then, in the sections after that, we shall seek to explain the three distinguishing features of spoken languages mentioned above from an empiricist standpoint.

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“Language supposedly arose from thinking, but this presupposes language, and thus there results circularity”. Let us see whether this circularity is so dangerous. Above all, this objection is supported by the most far-reaching presuppositions regarding the usefulness of spoken designations for the occurrence of our solitary thoughts. Not all psychologists subscribe to these presuppositions. Herbart denied any such usefulness. 121 Of course, few will agree with him on this point; yet, there are quite a few respected researchers who hope, to be sure, to gain a valuable support of abstract thinking from the link of sensory signs with our presentations, but still regard the beginnings of such thinking as independent of this link. It is a question that requires thorough-going investigation whether they are right or whether the ones who call language not only an instrument, but rather the instrument of abstract thinking, are right. Fortunately we do not have to decide this here, for even if we assume that the extreme view is the correct one there is for us an escape from the dreaded circularity. It is to be considered that language developed gradually and through many stages. For the formation of certain rudimentary designative tools, as we saw, that concrete thinking which is completely independent of support from spoken designations was sufficient. If, however, these beginnings are given, there will also be a beginning of their effects upon thinking, which are so highly esteemed. In this way a previously inaccessible level can be reached therein. This accomplished thinking can now in turn have an effect on the accomplishments of the tools of language, and the more accomplished language can make possible a new advancement in thinking. It is consequently altogether incorrect to say that language, if we mean by this the accomplished form of communication that we use, had to have been invented by speechless thinking. Rather, between language and the development of the understanding there could have been mutual enhancement which appears as circularity only to a superficial consideration. 122 Both propositions of the alleged circularity can be confidently affirmed, but they can both also be denied insofar as the view is maintained that there is language and then there is language, and also that there is thinking and then there is thinking: the elementary kind and that of which Steinthal writes: “Thinking is hard”. 123 Tiedemann also gave a similar answer to Süssmilch and to Rousseau (see above), and he believes that man actually, by becoming capable of intelligent deliberation through the acquisition of unaccomplished language, applied such deliberation to the accomplishing of language and that its development can be understood in this manner alone. As regards the second point, we cannot follow him. Rather, we believe that, while a form and accomplishment analogous to spoken language could have been given to signs of some kind, of which the rudimentary beginnings jointly facilitated the initial interaction, this was done for the most part without intelligent reflection upon them and therefore especially without clever calculation. Hence, abstract thinking, which such signs made possible in their further development and advancement, directly effected their own accomplishment only to a small degree. This will become clear as we now proceed to consider the development of spoken language in detail and to consider it initially with respect to the first of the above mentioned distinguishing features.

from the practice of excellent acts. Also by converse, however, accomplished acts cannot be practiced before a correspondingly accomplished skill has been acquired. The solution is simple. Even the unaccomplished act leaves behind a skill – for no act vanishes without a trace – and establishes the facilitation of the next one. This is subsequently practiced more perfectly and leaves behind a correspondingly more accomplished skill. Thus the activity gradually perfects the habit and vice-versa. Or, to take a more specific example, I remind you of the familiar “circularity” of Aristotle: that one cannot be virtuous without ethical understanding and considers this in turn to be a skill acquired through virtuous living. 123? Translator’s note: Here Marty cites the motto on the title page of Steinthal (1855).

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§ 2. How One Could Arrive at a Variety of Sharply Distinguished Signs What makes spoken language admirable from an external point of view is the rich diversity of well distinguishable signs that it contains. Some have believed that under the empiricist presupposition only clever calculation could have led to this. We remind you, however, that here the fashioners of language, even if we conceive of them by analogy to us, had to invent less than to use what offered itself without being sought. Daily observation shows that something corresponding exactly to an earlier utterance is more difficult to produce than something that diverges from it. While we must apply diligence and practice to the former, the latter occurs spontaneously. Hence, when we seek to get control over something already produced without calculation, something new arises once again without our foresight. If a modest number of signs were thus formed for different contents (and we shall later come to know of ways of such formation), there easily resulted various modifications in their application; and if we think of this as taking place among a growing quantity of human beings and over a long stretch of time, it was possible for a great abundance of resulting formations to arise. The intention to communicate needed only to stick to these and take them into its service. The objection will be raised that when a larger amount of unfaithful repetitions clustered around an utterance these approached each other to a correspondingly increasing degree and were harder to distinguish. In this way, however, they lost the ability to be applied as new signs since sharply distinguished tools were needed for expression. Yet, the reply is obvious. The more attention towards expressions of a particular type in the interest of communication, the greater sharpness of the apprehension for its more subtle distinctions, and it was possible for these to be become useful for the enlargement of the stock of signs without any damage to clarity. In all areas the finer distinguishing of impressions is a matter of practice. It is acquired when we occupy ourselves at length with the genus of objects under consideration and become accustomed to attending to their likeness or difference. We Europeans find individuals of another race, e.g. Negroes, strikingly similar to each other. They, however, have a good eye for various differences in traits of those of their own kind, while we make the impression of monotonous uniformity on them. Another example is yet closer at hand. When we

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hear a language unfamiliar to us, we initially as a rule have the impression as if a few sounds especially striking to us were repeated continuously in a few different combinations; it is only sustained attention that teaches us to distinguish a greater diversity of sounds and to sort out a few divergent combinations thereof. The sense of the fashioners of language for the utterances which they used as signs of their thoughts thus also had to be accomplished to that degree to which demands were made on it. In the history of language it is clear how a transition was made from sounds which were more sharply contrasted with each other, the production of which, however, also required greater exertion, gradually towards the usage of softer nuances of sounds which the organ produced automatically as soon as one let oneself go. The vowels e and o, for example, seem to be more recent phenomena. Others are even more so, clustered around them and wavering among a, i, and u. 124 The same is true of a group of finer nuances among consonants. In addition, the obtained signs could be diversely combined in significant ways. These were combinations which participated in the easy distinguishability of the elements and were again themselves a new host for new differentiation. § 3. How One Could Come to Use Intintrinsically Unintelligible Signs in an Intelligible Way We arrive at the second point. It is for the most part understanding by habit, rather than by nature, which belongs to spoken language’s designative tools. Their meaning is, as usually said with brevity, arbitrary or conventional, and the question is how it was possible from the beginning to establish the habit on which such meaning is based.

124. Translator’s note: The letters here represent German vowels. In English these would be approximated by replacing “e” with “a”(as in “hate”), the German “i” with “ee” (as in “feet”), and the German “u”with “oo”(as in “boot”). The German “a” approximates the “a” in “father”.

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The understanding of so-called conventional signs, as we see before us from the history of language and the history of writing and of some gestures, can be dated back to where they arose from intrinsically intelligible ones. The tools of the first rudimentary interaction were of the latter kind. If under our presuppositions we can grasp that their number was considerably increased, and if the analogy opens up various routes for familiar phenomena whereby it was possible for them to lose their original character, it will for a good part be grasped how a class which came to be exploited to a special degree could become so filled with conventional signs as spoken language is. 1. Immediately Intelligible Signs Thus far mention has been made of the following as immediately intelligible designative tools: the repetition of involuntary utterances (e.g. a cry) and of voluntary actions (e.g. in the case of a threat) which usually accompany certain psychical states. They are initially expressive for these inner states, then also for outer events standing in relation to them. Yet, for the latter they are not unequivocal. A cry, for instance, can remind us of various events which are now and again causes of pain. For the further expansion of interaction it was advantageous to possess more determinate signs for the various objects of outer experience, partly for the sake of being able to manifest something about these as such, in which there was more and more interest, partly for the sake of being able to communicate more faithfully about inner life. This life indeed acquires its diversity predominately by being related to such objects which are its contents. A. For External Objects It was possible for utterances to become immediately intelligible signs for objects of the external world by being made similar to such objects.

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The first thing was to imitate tones, movements, forms, locations 125 by means of one’s own spoken utterances, movements, positions, and it was possible for imitations to be applied directly as designations for those tones, movements, etc., but also indirectly for other things to which the imitated item was related as a part, a cause, or an effect: in short, in a connection of regular accompaniment or consequence. It was thus possible through the imitation of an action to designate the agent and that on which it was performed, and through the imitation of a sound to designate the sound-giving object and many properties and phenomena that accompany it; and the unrestricted effects of association by contiguity provided a means of drawing from a small number of imitations a great abundance of objects into the realm of immediately intelligible designation. Examples of the imitative vocal designations from the most diverse languages have been gathered together by Tylor, 126 Pott, 127 and others. Such are, for instance, some names for animals and musical instruments. And not only the sound-giving object itself is designated by the imitation of its peculiar sound, but also many properties characteristic of it, whereby it becomes understandable how it was possible to obtain intelligible tonal signs for colors, shapes, etc. (It is similar when in the Chinese pictorial script the figure of the sun and of the moon designates “radiance”, a squinting eye by which only white is seen designates “white”, and when deafmutes designate “red” by pointing to their lips.). From tones which accompany certain actions or processes names are taken for these 125. The so-called ostensive gestures are to be conceived as a copy of an object’s spatial location and of the direction of our look. If someone answers my question where x has its place by putting his entire body or his hand upon the place under consideration, there is clearly an imitation. This is also the case if he is content with moving his head or arm as a representation of the direction that my look must take in order to find the location in question. What was to be designated here was the place. By its means, however, the object itself is signified, just as that which is formed in such and such a way is signified by means of the form. This is quite obvious wherever the ostensive gesture really has the full function of a sign and the object itself is not involved, as we evoke the thought of an object not present usually by pointing with our look or hand to the location that it customarily occupies. 126. Tylor (1871) I, pp. 200 ff. 127. Pott (1862), pp. 51 ff.

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motions themselves, for that which acts or moves, and for the objects which are brought into connection with them in some other way. In order to obtain the full concept of the many-sided applicability of imitations, we have only to consider that from every one of the positions, which an imitative sound obtains through association by contiguity, conquests are again made in the domain of the analogous and it is possible for associations by contiguity again to cluster around the points obtained in this manner. The history of language shows how conventional signs can start from one meaning and obtain an unrestricted abundance of functions. The neighboring members of the chain are in each case, to be sure, related to each other in an intelligible way. The more distant ones, however, are ultimately so heterogeneous that it has been said regarding such developments of meaning that there are hardly two objects so different that they could not ultimately be conquered along such twisted paths by the same sound. Yet, it was possible to have taken all these paths originally in the application of imitative designations. We have thus far spoken of proper imitations, where the imitative utterance belongs to the same genus of phenomena as that which they represent. It was, however, also possible to assimilate one’s own sounds and movements to phenomena of another genus and thus to use the former, for instance, directly for the designation of visual images and the like. The metaphors of our language unequivocally demonstrate that analogies are given to us among movements and phenomena of completely different genera and also among tones as well as contents of other senses, whether these be rooted in the presentations themselves or in the feelings which accompany them. We speak, for example, of high and deep, soft, hard and rough tones, of an extended and broken tone, of a trembling and also presumably rounded and broad tone, of dazzling and wild tones, etc. Wherever language transfers designations from another area of phenomena to tones or vice-versa, a certain improper imitation through sounds is also conceivable. It was also possible that these were originally applied and found understanding in connection with other clarifying circumstances. They sometimes served presumably to establish designations anew, sometimes also only to differentiate already existing ones and to adjust them to different meanings. In seeking examples of such symbolism among the designative tools which are customary somewhere, it is more necessary than in the case of looking for proper imitations to be on guard against being led astray by the power of habit and thus importing the meaning into

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the sign. Nevertheless, especially among the vocal tools of expression, certain traces can be found as when, by the length of a word or its elongated pronunciation or the accumulation of vowels in it, such things as the long duration of an event, the indecisiveness of an action, and the cumbersomeness of a motion are indicated, whereas the brevity of a word, rapid pronunciation thereof, the accumulation of consonants in it (whose pronunciation is in a certain respect like that of short syllables) point to short duration, decisiveness, quickness of phenomena, and similar things. Tylor mentions that the Siamese, by means of shorting and elongating, modify the meaning of the sound “non” with the result of it meaning in one case a closer location, in another case a more distant one and the Ho language forms the future tense by appending an “a” to the root and lengthening the sound of it (e.g. “kaje” – “kajeeá”). 128 Further, reduplication is a noteworthy means of symbolism which finds multifaceted application at the lower levels of language, as indeed also in the language of children. It means now longer duration, now greater extent, now repetition of something, and thus serves as the designation of the superlative, the plural, the falling of an action into two different times and in this way as a sign of the past, etc. 129 As many contents of other senses, e.g. movements, can be represented by tones, movements can also represent what is different from them in genus, e.g. tones. This is indicated by the fact that we transfer the designations of movements to tones and speak of soft tones, of a drifting and swaying thereof and the like. Whoever needs to give others visual signs which refer to tones, such as the conductor of a choir or an orchestra, thinks of many manners of movement that are suited for indicating distinguishing features of tones. Did it not, however, require reflection or calculation to create imitative designations which are partly of such a fine sort and apply them in such an ingenious manner? We do not believe so. It is in advance clear that no general insights or inferences whatsoever would be needed for thinking of the use of imitations as a means of designation. It was not even required that other, already pre-existing 128. Tylor (1871) I, p. 215. 129. Pott (1862).

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motives had led to imitations and that their memory-evoking power was directly experienced. It was necessary only to have noticed often that similar things remind us of each other and thus a habit was formed to accept this once again in analogous cases. If there was in this connection a sufficient experience of the power over our movements and we could thus expect to produce something similar to a certain phenomenon, all prerequisites were in place for attempting to imitate this phenomenon for the sake of making others think of it. Such a usage of imitations was of course suggested even more when already along other paths one came to produce much of what one saw and heard. There is indeed no lack of motives for this. An impulse to reproduce sounds and motions which were perceived somewhere awoke as often as those phenomena caused delight, for we seek to retain and multiply whatever pleases. 130 Another reason for the origination of imitations lies in the law that vivid ideas of actions are of themselves actualized, unless this tendency is paralyzed by other powers. Such phenomena occur wherever rational deliberation and expedient habits of acting are not yet sufficiently developed or momentarily too weak, hence especially in the case of an abnormal mental life (dreaming, somnambulism, states of passion), but also in that of a very primitive one. 131 A further tendency towards imitation is the striving to make it certain to oneself and others that one can do what they can do. This motive 130. Consider the playful exercise of children and even of some birds in the imitation of all kinds of sounds. It was possible that we had an interest in reviving presentations to which pleasure is not immediately connected and thus in imitating them. Thus the geometer finds from a more vivid presentation of figures a more powerful support for his abstract considerations concerning them, and hence, where drawings are not at his disposal, he reproduces them by means of positioning his hands in order to have, in addition to the faded memory-image, a present sensation. 131. Lotze (1852), pp. 293 ff. Bain (1872), pp. 339 f. Obvious examples are offered by the history of the development of some crimes, the execution of which is explained only by the power of a long-cherished and lively idea ultimately to actualize itself without the will of the one who has borne it, indeed in spite of a certain willful resistance. It can also be cited that, when on the edge of an abyss the idea of jumping vividly obtrudes, an exertion of the will is needed in order to protect us in the face of reality; that whoever holds a pendulum and lets it swing can keep himself from imitating the swinging with his arm only by closing his eyes.

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proves itself to be at work in the case of children and uneducated people preeminently regarding outward appearances. Furthermore, they do what others do because it seems good to them, and for this reason it recommends itself as feasible even to us under similar circumstances insofar as our own deliberation does not guide us. Thus we see crows and hares quickly take flight when their companions do the same. If, however, such motives and others – for many can yet be discovered – had repeatedly led to imitations, thoughtless habits of imitation easily arose, as can sufficiently be observed in the case of children and uneducated people, and everywhere abundant opportunity was offered for directly discovering the usefulness of imitations for communication. When only obvious concrete discoveries rather than far-reaching inferences were required for thinking of assimilating our own movements, sounds, etc. to outer phenomena for the sake of referring to them, was ingenuity perhaps needed for finding a greater wealth of imitable similarities and for utilizing the corresponding designations in multifaceted ways for related and analogous things? This is also to such a small extent the case that human beings of less developed thought must have been even more successful at the mentioned task, in other words, that similarities between their own utterances and the objects to be designated must have more easily occurred to them than to someone more advanced in education. Here is indeed a perception of obvious similarities, which thus occurred initially and with particular ease to the awakening grasp of things. For yet a large amount of differences escaped its notice. 132 The less someone is familiar with a class of objects, the more they make the impression of similarity on him. For only enduring exercise and attention allow the finer distinctions to come to light. It is well known that whoever sees the members of a family more often finds them much less similar than when he encounters them for the first time. The shepherd distinguishes every animal of his herd, whereas most of them appear similar to the layperson to the point of confusion. So it happens everywhere that objects strike one person as similar, while they do not make this impression on someone else who is used to attending to their differences. 132. The skillful execution of imitations was of course a matter of practice and developed together with the interest in them.

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What we say here of a special tendency of undeveloped thinking for discovery and therefore also for the utilization of imitable similarities is likewise confirmed in every way by experience. Savage peoples, whose languages generally follow rougher and obvious analogies in the formation of words, are very inventive in imitative vocal designations and inclined to adopt these again and again into the fabric of their speech. 133 In their case we find those diverse types of vocal symbolism, which is not so easily sensed by us only because education was early at work in directing our attention away from such similarities and towards more important common features and particularly to characteristic distinctions of objects. Savages manifest the same facility in communicating by gestures. One has had the opportunity to observe this especially in the case of the Indians of North America. In their unstable way of life and concomitant diversity of idioms they continually enter into the situation of communicating with other tribes whose languages they do not understand. They have resorted to an imitative language of gestures and have developed it into a significant stock. 134 Deaf-mutes achieve the same result by their own efforts, provided only that the drive to communicate receives sufficient stimulation and sustenance. 135 Children also develop a large number of imitative designations and sometimes develop a true virtuosity in the metaphorical application of these and of conventional signs. What is at work in all these cases is not thoughtful comparison and abstraction, but rather unsought association and the habit of seizing in every case upon what already had the desired result in some similar case. Finally, it is to be remembered from daily experience that under otherwise like circumstances uneducated people show in comparison with educated ones a special tendency and facility to summon up 133. In British Columbia there has arisen in the last 70 or 80 years a jargon (Chinook Jargon) which, as Tylor remarks, is full of imitative words which sometimes borrow from the languages of the native Indians and are sometimes formed on location through the joint efforts of Whites and Indians to make themselves intelligible (Tylor [1871], p. 193). Some of these products are vividly reminiscent of the nursery. 134. Tylor (1865), pp. 34 ff. 135. See testimonies in Burdach (1844) III, pp. 47 and 75, Tylor (1865), pp. 16 ff., Steinthal (1851), pp. 904 ff.

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similarities which are immediate – because they are obvious – between sound and meaning: raising and lowering the voice, loud and soft, excited and calm, rapid and elongated speech, rough and smooth pronunciation, picturesque gesturing, etc., for the sake of facilitating understanding, whereas an educated person seeks to make his thoughts graspable through suggesting profounder analogies. A similar contrast in the choice of words has developed between written and popular language. The latter adopts with facility imitative words, while the former is less amenable to them. Yet, the power of the popular at least comes through in that the sounds which were originally dissimilar to their meaning gradually approximate it wherever it allows for this. This has often been incorrectly exploited in favor of and thus occasionally also against originally imitative formation of language. 136 Thus we have every reason to assume that various imitative designations for external objects were easily at the disposal of the first human beings, without sophisticated computation, and were not sought. B. For Contents of Inner Experience We arrive at the discussion of the expressive designations, which were available for the objects of inner experience. As examples of these we have already mentioned the imitations 137 of reflex movements of expression (insofar as such imitations are possible) and of voluntary actions to which certain states as a rule impel. We still continually use both types of gesture for enhancing and replacing speech. We smile at the approaching person in order to indicate to him the joy of seeing him 136. Geiger (1869), p. 168. 137. We say “imitations”, for this is more precise than repetitions. Intentional smiling is merely similar to involuntary smiling and arises, even if unfeigned, only from a similar state, and the same is true, for example, of a threat as opposed to an actual attack. Hence, the words of interjective origin are idly distinguished as a special class from the so-called onomatopoeic or imitative ones, for they are also of this kind. It is occasionally pointed out that even the ostensive gestures turn out to be imitative, and thus we arrive at the result that all tools of expression which are directly expressive are imitative. The immediately understandable manifestation is based on the fact that through our own activity we are able to produce something that is similar to some feature of the object to be designated, to a part, to a cause or an effect, etc.

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again. The actor depicts anger by clinching his fists, fear by starting back (a beginning of fleeing), reflection (and sadness) by a posture that seeks to avoid the distracting impressions of the surroundings, etc. In the last three cases we clearly have before us the copies of voluntary actions which are often useful and favored for the states in question, in the first case also without a doubt the weak imitation of an expressive movement not invented by us, but rather originally predisposed by nature. To get a more precise picture of the mimic expression, which was innate to primitive man and was therefore in this regard available to him for usage, is not a matter of small difficulty. For in the course of time much else has become mixed with it to a point beyond recognition. The frequent exercise of actions, which have a purpose in certain states of mind, establishes a tendency to repeat them under similar circumstances, even if they do not serve that purpose. They become habitual and are thus, according to an apt expression from Harless, “moved to the boundary of involuntary ones”. 138 In the case of these purposeless repetitions, they in addition take on an attenuated and abbreviated form, and both work together to make their origin unrecognizable. Hence, they are now easily confused with reflexes. Such habits can now be developed from scratch in a single individual, whereas others have presumably come about in the course of earlier generations and are, like language, traditionally propagated by imitation for the sake of the signification attached to them; others can also be inherited, 139 and in this case there is a new moment which brings them close to the manners of expression predisposed from the very beginning. Like actions which served in certain states to ward off some evil and the like – and these were what we just had in mind – movements that had been invented and were applied from the outset for the sake of communication (e.g. symbolic ones) and those aimed at the suppression of natural eruptions of feeling could also suffer the same fate: it was possible for them too to become habitual and unrecognizable. Darwin in the previously mentioned book made the most far-reaching attempt to explain from such 138. Wagner (ed.) (1846), p. 605. 139. The possibility of such inheritance is indisputable. The acquired special disposition towards a movement is based on a certain change of the organs functioning in this case, and it is not inconceivable that such changes are transferred to descendents. In single cases unequivocal observation favors this view. Cf. the interesting example in Darwin (1872), p. 33 n. 8 f.

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habits (more particularly, from the inheritance of such habits) the involuntary expression of inner life, as such expression is at present peculiar to us. This investigation does not concern us further, for it is not a matter of controversy – and this is sufficient for us here – that corporeal changes are originally and prior to all intention and habit attached to our psychical states and it was possible to imitate some of these voluntarily. To this first class of means for designating inner phenomena there was then combined the unrestricted area of replicating purposeful actions. Through voluntary actions it was possible to imitate not only, as in these two cases, outer phenomena which stand in regular connection with psychical states, but also directly these states themselves. As is known and can be easily substantiated by means of examples from our ordinary manner of speaking, analogies between physical phenomena which we can produce and mental states are forced upon us. We do in fact speak of inclination and repulsion, crushed and uplifted spirit, wavering and firm opinions. The imagination of the uneducated person, who has not sharply drawn the boundary between the psychical and the physical, shows him such similarities with particular facility. Thus I believe, for instance, that the nodding of the head as a sign of affirmation is not, as Darwin suspects, 140 a rudiment of the head-bowing which is connected with the acceptance of nourishment in the case of infants, but is rather an imitation and arose because one felt the assent to the judgment of someone else as analogous to turning towards the other. Correspondingly, in order to express negation, we turn or withdraw from the speaker and defensively hold up our hand, etc. And what do metaphors, such as “being inclined towards a view”, “accepting it”, or “rejecting it”, indicate but the fact that affirmation appears to us as drawing near, negation by contrast as depicted by the opposite? Also the wavering hand and shoulder movement as a sign of the uncertainty of a judgment or decision may be of symbolic origin. For whoever indecisively doubts is like a body which teeters on an insecure foundation. Tylor mentions that savages designate “thinking” by moving the index finger across the breast. 141 This movement clearly symbolizes 140. Darwin (1872), p. 273. Darwin does not sufficiently attend to the symbolic gestures. Cf., for instance, ibid., p. 35, where he cites several of these, which are certainly imitative, as rudiments of purposeful actions. 141. Tylor (1865), p. 39.

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the procession of thoughts through the heart. According to Burdach, deaf-mutes designate forgetting by imitation, namely by putting a hand on the forehead and quickly pulling it away. 142 These examples will suffice. A fourth source of immediately intelligible signs has been offered with regard to the various contrasting states 143 which our mental life, especially the realm of feelings, exhibits. If some sign has turned out to be understandable for a state, and should an opposite state be manifested, it seemed obvious to keep the posture of the expression of the first state as distant as possible, and one was especially prompted to do this whenever one moved from one mood into the other. From this forceful abandonment of the earlier posture an independent sign could gradually develop for that opposite state. If the movements of expression mentioned thus far were understood as signs for certain states, they were of course applied also, like the designations for external objects, also for much that is analogous, e.g. the expression of nausea for the manifestation of repulsion or contempt, and there was an ability to manage splendidly with very little while the innumerable subtle differences of the life of feeling were ignored (for which also the most developed language still provides us quite meagerly with designative tools). The following can be assumed with considerable certainty concerning how spoken designations in particular arose for inner states. Some moods have their characteristic sounds, preeminently as a conesquence of the fact that the residual bodily emotions peculiar to them induce the simultaneously ensuing vocal utterance. These sounds could be used as signs, and languages of savage peoples in 142. Burdach (1844), p. 48. 143. A special principle of contrast for the explanation of certain movements of expression is formulated in Darwin (1872), p. 348: “The habit of voluntarily performing opposite movements under opposite impulses has become finally established in us by the practice of our whole lives. Hence, if certain actions have been regularly performed ... under a certain frame of mind, there will be a strong and involuntary tendency to the performance of directly opposite actions, whether or not these are of any use, under the excitement of an opposite frame of mind”. Such an extension of the effect of habit, however, is risky and not proved by any of the examples which Darwin is able to cite in its favor.

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fact offer examples of such usage. 144 One did not go beyond them until spoken language had conquered a good deal of the realm of outer experience; then the opportunity was offered to strike out on paths which we see most frequently followed in the familiar states of language, namely by depicting the affect through a designation for the gesture that accompanies it, such as foaming and the like for anger, or by relying on the above mentioned analogies between physical and psychical phenomena (cf. “inclination”, “becoming soft”, “hardhearted”). In the case of the more extensive and faithful manifestation of inner life, the designations for external objects, as is obvious, finally had to be drawn upon. For since the diversity of psychical phenomena is preeminently established by the diversity of external objects to which they are related, they can also to some extent be faithfully characterized by referring to such objects. 2. Various Ways of Destruction of the Immediately Intelligible Character It is seen that primitive thinking – in a certain sense this at least – could not be constrained from designating a large number of objects directly through imitations and applying these designations along various byways and detours also for those contents from which no imitable aspect could directly be extracted. With the latter suggestions, however, we have already also opened our view upon a course along which conventional signs sooner or later inevitably had to be reached. An imitative vocal designation of an object to which the sound was peculiar, for instance, was transferred to another one that did not conform with it in the imitated trait, but rather in other traits. This was easily done whenever these traits were as characteristic of the first object as the sound was or even more so. If in such a case the origin of the transferred usage was forgotten, as when the word in its original application became obsolete, it appeared to have arrived at the derivative function arbitrarily. However, also without such transference of a designation and obsolescence of its original meaning, the moment that determines and 144. Tylor (1871), pp. 167 ff. and Pott (1862), pp. 24 ff.

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explains it – the so-called “inner linguistic form” – can vanish from consciousness. The spoken designations in the case of lengthier usage undergo diverse changes as regards the stock of presentational elements associated with them. New features are adopted therein, while old ones disappear, whether this is due to changes in the designated things themselves or to a shift merely in our conception of them. The disappearance can even occur with respect to those features which were the reason for giving the name. The Romans called those who contended for a public office candidati because they had to appear in white clothing in the popular assembly. The name “candidate” for a man who contends for public office has remained, whereas the white clothing is no longer characteristic of those who are named in this way. In a similar way the objects named “paper” and “quill” have changed. If something analogous happened to the object of an immediately intelligible designation, it thereby lost this characteristic. Also the mere change of conception is easily corruptive with regard to the inner linguistic form. Since the formation of signs is usually aimed at an attachment to those traits of an object for which some intelligible designation already exists, it often depends on unessential relations and accidental events which concern the object or did concern it at some time. 145 As soon as association by habit is established in such cases, the circumstance that introduced it loses its practical importance and may easily, while being forced into the background by more essential ones, sink into complete oblivion. Such a disappearance, however, can occur also in the case of signs based on features that were regarded as essential. The conception of things in fact often changes in a completely thorough-going manner as knowledge progresses. Here we may think of names such as “spirit” (which actually means “wind”, “breath”), “polarization of light”, etc. It is easy to transfer all of these to the original imitative designations. We have thus far been considering change of meaning of the tools of designation; working together with this, there were also changes of form in the destruction of their intrinsically expressive character. Both the initial origin and the lasting naturalization could arise from the two sources for such changes. 145. Examples are words such as “guillotine”, “Gothic style”, “Arabesque” and so forth.

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As soon as a sign becomes so familiar through repeated uniform usage that it brings about understanding even in the case of less faithful reproduction, we begin considering in its production certain forms and sounds with respect to effort, saving time, what is likable to the ear or eye, and abandoning the original formation wherever it is at odds with these inclinations. However, this occurs so slowly and gradually that association can be retained throughout the change. The history of language provides the most diverse examples of this every step of the way; more particularly, the impulses here, as already indicated, are partly in the vocal organ’s preferences, partly in those of the auditory sense for certain sounds and successions of sounds. As a consequence, powerful sounds are softened, faint sounds are fully uttered, certain constituent parts of the complex replaced, or separated by the insertion of completely new members. Such reshapings surely occurred in certain imitative designations of the earliest times as soon as the understanding for these was widespread through a certain habit, most easily in all cases where, perhaps because there was a metaphorical application of the sign at stake, the imitated content was no longer in the imagination or at least no longer immediately therein, and therefore the tendency to make the sound into an echo of its meaning could in no way oppose the above mentioned inclinations. In a large number of cases here the original similarity of the sign with its object could be completely lost, all the more since it was often only imperfect by the nature of the matter at hand and was barely sufficient for initiating understanding. Etymology demonstrates such processes in some examples of originally onomatopoetic words, as does the history of writing in the fate of pictures from which it arose, and also as the observation of deaf-mutes does in the fate of numerous imitative gestures. 146 A second motive for the external reshaping of language’s designative tools is the consideration of distinctness, at work partly in initiating changes itself, partly in making those which arose mechanically, i.e. without consideration of the meaning, properly acceptable. If, for example, two imitative designations for different objects were very similar to each other and thus threatening confusion, it was natural to attempt 146. Cf. the abbreviation of Chinese pictorial writing: Endlicher (1845), p. 5. Concerning the contraction of gestures, see Scott (1870), p. 12.

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to avoid such confusion by bringing out the subtle differences more and more. If a sign had become ambiguous through transference – and this was indeed the case with regard to the first designative tools – differences which arose mechanically in the pronunciation were retained and restricted, as some motive incidental to the meaning could be added, one form gradually being allotted to this group of meanings, another form to that one. 147 It could likewise occur as often that a sign which was not by itself completely intelligible could have a second one added to it. More particularly, two different things are to be distinguished here. In addition to the first sign a second synonymous one could be applied, as we sometimes do this in language and in the domain of gestures. 148 In other cases, however, it was possible to add a determination that was not of the same meaning as the designation to be elucidated, but rather a determination that only by working together with this designation as a part less ambiguously signified that sense which this part by itself could indicate only indeterminately. This occurred, for example, when the concern was to denote action and its subject and object in various ways, all of which was at first expressed by the same imitative sound. Such was the beginning of grammatical word-derivation, though this is not the place to discuss this further. In both cases, however – and this is what we were getting at – an opening was made by such a supplementary combination of two signs for greater latitude for mechanical transformations of them. The striving for brevity and convenience (in connection with a preference for euphony or good form) easily brought about a certain fusion in which one of the elements, if not both, became unrecognizable. 147. Something like this has also occurred in later times, e.g. in the case of “break” and “breach”, “beet” and “bed”. From the history of German writing it is known that the two ways of writing, sein and seyn, which were first applied and one of them preferred instead of the other without any rule, were later restricted in such a way that sein meant the auxiliary word and seyn the verbum substantivum. 148. In this manner an intrinsically indistinct sign, e.g. an equivocal one, can serve to explain another one, as when we say, “It stimulates me” and “It attracts me”. The Chinese language uses a device of putting together ambiguous synonyms, which can together have only one meaning in common, in order to paralyze the ambiguity of their words. Cf. Endlicher (1845), pp. 170 ff. and Steinthal (1860), p. 124.

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As it has become clear in the course of this exposition, all these types of external and internal change, however, which worked towards the destruction of the naturally intelligible character of the first signs, were partly required by need more than they were later, yet facilitated in all respects at least by the lack of opposing forces. Such facilitation was due to the restriction of interchange to a small group. For a new form or function of a sign will be established under otherwise equal circumstances all the more easily, the less individuals there are making a place for it or displacing something else. Thus we see certain barbaric languages, which are spoken in the group of a few families and by no means fixed by written records, subject to such rapid change that a half a generation suffices to give them a completely new look. II. Whether Premeditated Introduction of Conventional Signs is to be Accepted We have thus far spoken of the fact that conventional signs could be understood because previously they had been naturally intelligible under another form or meaning and had gradually transformed in one way or another. And if one considers that every naturally intelligible sign could split into several conventional ones and also every sign that has become conventional could in turn – either by itself or by combination with others – become the basis for different new formations, it is understandable how in the case of a small number of initial elements a copious system of designations with apparently arbitrary meaning could be constructed in the course of time. However, we see in the course of the history of language also conventional signs being adopted which have acquired their intelligibility certainly not from earlier conditions, but rather they borrow from accompanying explanations upon their initial emergence and then come into their own through the power of habit. By means of the intentional statement of their meaning, arbitrary names are introduced, for example, in the sphere of special sciences and arts. “Arbitrary” not in the sense that there was no clue at all why one name was chosen for this content and the other name for that one. Never – as far as we know – has a group of random sounds been formed and then randomly assigned to a group of concepts. There is even a reason why in algebra the known values are symbolized by a, b, etc. and the

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unknown ones by x, y, etc. However, it is not always the ability of a word to establish or even prepare the desired understanding by means of it which decides the choice thereof. Here we may think of some names used in chemistry, botany, zoology, and other technical designations. Could such an introduction of arbitrary signs (“arbitrary” in the mentioned sense) not have already occurred at an earlier time and had some effect on making the form of expanded interchange something close to the conventional character of spoken language? Before unintentionally coming to use certain (seemingly) arbitrary designative tools, the thought of intentionally introducing them was – as will be conceded – completely remote. It was different when originally imitative designations forfeited the similarity with their meaning in such a way that they seem to have come to it arbitrarily. Here – we might believe – the awareness that habit can make any utterance into the representative of any thought would have to come into its own. Presumably from the example of the signs already in use, others also which were not intrinsiccally intelligible but recommended by other advantages got naturalized through an explanation that was later to disappear, as planned, due to its inconvenience. And this was all the more so when such an explanation of the unfamiliar by the familiar was presumably applied in relation to children (as this is done still today by us) for the sake of instructing them to understand and use those expressions which had become conventional along the path of transformation. However, insofar as language is a matter of the people, we observe no certain examples of such a procedure; and since we here have to seek the analogies for that which we may presuppose in the case of the first fashioners of language, we must have doubts about assuming anything like this in their case. Wherever we see a choice of tools of language, it seems to be motivated by the fact that what is chosen in advance somehow promises to evoke the desired association. 149 This choice, to be sure, is not scrupulous and sophisticated; it is satisfied with any remote analogy and incidental connection, which might convey understanding. An obviously unintelligible sign, however, is never made current by 149. The same is true of the language of gestures among deaf-mutes – an analogy that we can likewise invoke.

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means of explanations for the sake of other advantages. 150 An example of what we have just denied may most probably be seen in the introduction of certain words of children, such as papa, mama, nana, dada, tata, bibi, and the like, which occur in languages that are most diverse and independent of each other. In one case they mean “father”, in another “mother” or “uncle”, “nurse”, “breast”, “doll”, etc. It is assumed that they have penetrated into language because the older family members, in choosing spoken signs for objects of the infantile horizon, accommodated children’s weak ability of articulation and thus retained those which children already uttered. 151 What we have here in the particulars, however, is not an arbitrary choice, but rather a usage of incidental associations. Mothers and nurses – partly as a result of the habit of attending to every utterance of the child in order to fulfill its wishes, and partly as a result of a great faith in the understandability of their little darlings – are inclined to attribute to their vocal utterances meanings analogous to most of our names and thus perhaps in reference to particular objects and persons of the surroundings, although nothing of the kind is often intended by the child. This confident interpretation, which saw in pa, ma, and so forth the child’s call for father, mother, nurse, depending on whether the situation entailed it, has enduringly secured for these sounds one meaning or another. III. Significance of Accidentally Emergent Association Such usage of incidental associations which are not brought about by the speaker’s intention must still be considered here as a source of conventional designations.

150. We speak here only of class names. Arbitrary proper names (for persons, newly discovered countries, planets) are now, to be sure, a habitual phenomenon, but admittedly a more recent one, and popular speech still always loves proper names which designate types, as all were at one time. 151. Pa, ma, na, ta, bi and the like are, as is well known, the easiest articulations. The pleasure in euphony was partly what led to reduplication, partly the endeavor to make the sound more emphatic. It is presumably for the latter purpose that we too say, “Go, go!” and the like.

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We see that popular speech did not make unintelligible signs current by conscious intention, as we have already remarked. By contrast, it does occur that the attribution of meaning to elements which first run alongside expressive elements is made gradually through the context of these and through other explanatory circumstances, and such associations are by intention taken into service. In this manner the distinctions of word order have become significant, in some languages even important – a phenomenon that we shall yet discuss in the following. 152 § 4. Of the Origin of Syntactical Tools of Designation We have thus far attempted to explain how it was possible to arrive at various conventional designations for objects of outer and inner experience. This, however, does not conclude the art of human language. By speaking with each other we do not utter sounds which would independently of each other and uniformly summon up the thought of a simpler or more complex content. Our language presents itself as an assemblage, as syntax of multiple signs, and thereby different instances of these signs have different values. While some of them, the names, already by themselves call forth a presentation in the mind in a readymade fashion, there are signs such as inflections, particles (or more precisely: most inflected words and in each case the whole expression to which the particle belongs), 153 i.e. signs which are not independent, but mean something only in connection with other ones. We call them cosignificative. 154 Also the different order of the assembled words, 152. In a similar way changes in meaning, especially restrictions of meaning, frequently gain their entry. If one of several synonymous names is often used in such and such a context, while another one of them is used in some other context, the context quickly gives their sense a certain special coloring, which is then consciously retained. For this reason there is among simple names so few synonyms in the strict sense. 153. Thus the whole word patris or “went” or the whole phrase “in order to love” is unintelligible and vacuous all by itself; no one converses in this way with someone else. The matter is different in the case of amo or “forgive”. 154. What we have here designated as a “name” and obviously extends further than the noun of grammarians, by encompassing the verb, for instance, is called a “categorematical” sign by the old logicians. In contrast with this, they thus call a cosignificative sign “syncategorematical”.

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wherever it is significant, can of course help to mean something in such a manner. Syntax, in this most general sense of the word, and the merely co-significative signs functioning in it have a twofold task. First of all, by these means language forms expressions for judgments, wishes, feelings of every kind, decisions, etc. Since communicating judgments, feelings, etc. rather than evoking mere presentations is obviously the first and most important purpose of speech, it might for a moment be found as disagreeable and impractical that also the most elementary signs are not applied for the sake of the former functions. Yet, the expediency of the method followed by language in reality will at once be seen upon consideration of the fact that judgments, wishes, etc. require and include presentations. If we had a simple sign for a particular question, such as the one we now express with the words “Is there a golden mountain?”, we would need for presentations contained therein special signs distinguished from this one; in this case the number of signs would have to grow incalculably. Hence, wherever the system of elementary signs which by themselves signify something primarily express only presentations, we need only another series of supplementary formulae (such as “there is”, “might be”) or other tools whereby it is indicated that a judgment or a question is related to those contents of presentation. 155 It is clear that these additional signs can only be co-significative, for there simply is no judgment, etc. without a presentation and thus the sign for this presentation must certainly be there as well. Also for the contents of presentation, however, it is very beneficial for simplicity and economy in expression that a special simple name was not formed for each of them. Language expediently constructs for a large number of complex contents also complex names 156 from designations 155. With regard to a question often vented among logicians, it should be noted that the imperative, optative, interrogative formulae, etc. are not statements, although they can all be circumscribed by statements. A statement directly reveals the affirmative or negative judgment about a content, whereas those expressions directly manifest a question or emotion regarding the content. 156. For the sake of consistency – again differing from the usage of grammarians – every expression which contains independent as well as co-significative constituents we call a “complex name”, as long as it designates only the content of a presentation and not a judgment, etc. “The tutor of Alexander the Great” or “a wage-earner who has twelve children and no money” are examples of complex names.

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which otherwise serve on their own to name constituent parts of those contents, and alongside them there are also, once again, merely cosignificative signs functioning – here contributing to the expression of the pure presentation. These co-significative signs are of the abovementioned type which supplement or modify the sense of the remaining ones and thus allow it to be connected to a unitary whole for the listener. How was it possible to arrive at such a syntactical manner of designation and the intelligible usage of merely co-significative signs? I. Of Membered Expression of Presentations If at first we restrict ourselves to the last-mentioned membered expression of presentations, it hardly needs to be noted that some combined contents of presentations, which were later to obtain a syntactical designation (perhaps even unfolded in many layers), are certainly also already somehow designated before one was capable of all that. Back then they were simply designated by one sign, but of course not one exclusively dedicated to them. For the presentation, for instance, which we now express by means of the complex name “beating with a stick” one simple word served that in addition meant the “stick” simpliciter and “holding a stick”, “leaning on a stick”, etc. 157 Or, to make a connection with our earlier discussions, the imitation of a phenomenon of the outer or inner world, e.g. a tone in outer nature, was the common sign for a whole range of phenomena, to which it belonged and stood in relation only in some manner, for the occurrence of its production and the objects which were therein active or acted upon, etc. This was a procedure similar, though much more extensive, in comparison to the one we adopt when the word “healthy”, which initially designates a certain state of our organism, is applied by us to the facial complexion, to foods, to a region. When a designation was, however, transferred from one object to many other things that stood in relation to this object, the sense of this designation was more difficult to discern in the particular case, and the 157. The attempt was presumably made earlier to summon up the same thought by a gesture representing the entire occurrence or merely by pointing to the stick. However, here and in the following we take our examples from spoken designations, since spoken language alone arrived at syntactical development.

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interest in distinctness required remedies. Guided by the habit of reaching for similar tools under similar circumstances, one added a second, otherwise independent expression that could directly or indirectly denote that relation. As a simple typical example we note that when a word with the initial meaning “to guard” (*pa in the Proto-IndoGermanic language) had served also in cases where we use “guard”, a little word such as ‘this”, “the”, “he” (*ta in the Proto-IndoGermanic language) was thus added in this application in order to distinguish it from the former one. Thus, the burden of meaning that *pa had initially borne alone was divided between two expressions, which were, however, to be one unitary sign as intended by the speaker and thus to lose their independent meaning. Of course for the listener the two signs did not have the intended new force without further ado. It was at first only two seemingly independent images of equal value which were thereby presented to him. However, it must have something that never loses its importance even in the most developed language, namely the context, which quickly allowed the listener to interpret the unitary sense desired by the speaker. This meaning was ascribed to both signs, for they – either as such or in agreement with explanatory gestures and actions and the entire situation – allowed only for this reading. Similar things were done in other cases. For the thought “in the house”, for instance, an ostensive gesture was presumably of service at first and, if one wanted to apply a spoken sign, perhaps one that otherwise also meant simply meant “house”. Both manners of usage were later differentiated, when in the case where “house” designated something in relation to the house (the locations within its walls), a sign was added which somehow promised to indicate that relation. As the Chinese still say today, it was thus perhaps said “house inside” or “house center”, 158 and again the context had to assign a unitary meaning to both little words and to reduce them to a merely co-significant function. We say of both words that they forfeited their independent meaning, for this means nothing except that they were each made into a partial expression which reflected the idea of the speaker only in connection with others; we must therefore simply for this case call all signs “cosignificative” which anywhere work together to express a presentation. Yet, there is a certain distinction. Certain constituent parts of complex 158. Endlicher (1845), p. 216.

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names can secondarily be used also by themselves, and when they designate a part of what the complex expression to which they now contribute represents, they also appear here (where they serve as partial expression), at least to some extent, as independently significative in comparison other elements. This is true, for instance, of both “white” and “horse” in the combination “white horse”, of “go” but not “through” in “go through”, yet in none of the constituents in “at heart” and “to arms”. 159 These and still so many other parts of speech of developed language cannot at all be used by themselves, or if they can, the meaning that belongs to them is also not even partly identical with the one they claim as partial expression, but rather only stands in a certain relation to it, as the meaning of “healthy” when it is used for the region stands to its meaning when it is used for the body. Let us return to our argument. If the context had once given a unitary meaning to a combination such as “at heart” and “to arms”, frequent repetition established such a meaning for it forever and led to managing in other cases with analogous assemblages. A syntactical habit had arisen. Later quite a few metaphorical meanings were also added to the primary sense of such a complex expression. There was added to the designation of spatial and temporal relations, for instance, the indication of supra-sensory connections which appeared similar to those relations. (Consider the various meanings of “in”, as I, for example, bear a thought in myself – that is in my power – the truth lies in what follows – make the picture for me in such and such a format, etc.) Instead of phonetically separating the signs which were fused in their meaning, one was also able to pronounce them together; and later it frequently occurred that they were also gradually fused in their form, where the distinction of their importance also had the effect of the initial loss of tone of what was summoned forth for the sake of determination or modification due to its subordinate position. There followed then greater damage to its earlier form. In this way we should think of the origination of prefixes and suffixes as well as inflections and phonetic transformations. The latter are, as historical grammar has demonstrated in many cases, effects of accretion according to phonetic laws. Sometimes, however, they are not only diminished to an ending, but are rather quite gone. Only the vowel 159. Translator’s note: Here Marty gives examples (königlich and im Hause) which do not serve to make his point when translated into English.

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mutation was left over in the main root as a trace of the earlier compound. 160 The atrophy of the determining word-elements, by obliterating any reminder of their origin, contributed to making them suitable for their new place. The original meaning of other words imported for the sake of determination or modification, however, could also in this case be forgotten if they remained isolated. This was done all the more easily, the more remote their dependent function was from their independent one and the more this difference was felt. One was thereby prompted to drop the independent application; or if this was not done, the attenuation of the feeling for the affinity of both meanings led to a certain abbreviation or some other change of form in the sign in those cases where it served as a dependent expression. This transformation completely obliterated the memory of its origin, 161 and one had before oneself a word like our particles “in”, “with”, etc. Another means of syntactical designation that is of service to the expression of a presentation has up to now been left unmentioned, namely the difference of a word’s position. If the particles and inflections came about when one allowed oneself to be led by the association of what is similar and applied originally independent signs to the supplementation or restriction of others, with a childlike audacity of metaphors, which we, however, encounter wherever the power of distinguishing is weak, we have by contrast a usage of incidental associations in the application of position. By adding several signs and applying them in a crude manner as a unitary expression, one in general followed in the order of their combination (as we also still see this today in the case of deaf-mutes 162 ) the natural feeling for their varied degrees of importance. As a result, like 160. Translator’s note: The phonetic transformations (Umlautungen), of which Marty speaks, are presumably found in English in such cases as “mice”and “feet” as plurals for “mouse” and “foot” respectively. The term “vowel mutation” is here a translation of the familiar German Umlaut (including ä, ö, and ü corresponding to a, o, and u respectively). 161. If this had occurred, it facilitated its application for designating relations which were quite remote from its original meaning. 162. Cf. Schmalz (1848); Steinthal (1851), p. 922.

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and analogous positions cropped up again in different cases. Yet, wherever the difference in importance was too powerless to decide the result and a random order was seized upon, one quickly acquired the tendency habitually to repeat and emulate the one chosen before. Associations could be made with such recurrent positions – the prior word appeared, for instance, as supplementing or modifying the subsequent one in a determinate manner or vice versa (“ball game”, “game ball”, etc.) – but the selection of distinct signs offered was not all that large. The Chinese language has most extensively utilized the differences of position. 163 In other languages, e.g. Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, which have developed a large supply of inflections, there prevails on the contrary extraordinary freedom in word construction. 164 II. Of the Original of Special Forms of Expression of Judgment We come to the question concerning the origination of the designative tools which supplement the expression of presentations for the sake of the expression of an affirmative or negative judgment or of a command, of a question; however, let us restrict our suggestions only to the sign for a judgment. For it is initially seen at once that the origination of the formula for commands, questions, wishes, etc. is to be thought of as analogous to that of the formula of a statement, and hence what we say about the latter also sheds light on the former. Moreover, the expressions we intend to disregard are of much less importance. They can usually be rephrased through statements of little complexity, and language often handles things in this way, wherever it has to manifest a feeling or a desire. It would have been fruitless or even impossible to create special formulae for all different emotions, all nuances of desire and repugnance which may be harbored in relation to an object. Let us therefore dwell for just a moment on the special sign for a judgment. We emphasize “special”. As we noticed from the structured presentational designation, complex contents did not at all come to 163. Cf. Steinthal (1860), pp. 115 ff. 164. In the daughter languages of Latin, e.g. in French, where inflections, which also remotely indicate each other as well as the joining-together of words and thus do not fail to be effective in any random position, have partly disappeared, some differences of meaning appear again connected to fixed positions.

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expression for the first time by its means, but rather (at least in part) only to a more determinate expression. It is likewise true in the case of judgment that it did not all find a designation for the first time by means of the statement-formulae, but presumably a designation distinct from a presentation. The first spoken designations, e.g. the imitation of a sound from the world of animals or something of that nature, as already indicated at the beginning, were quite far from being purely presentational signs, although they were externally more like our simple names than like most statements; in the earliest times they were presumably meant to manifest a desire or feeling with regard to the imitated object, 165 then also a mere judgment about its existence. If one later wanted to indicate the negative judgment that the object is no longer there, it was the effect of habit also now to utter the sign which earlier had the effect of summoning up the thought of this object. There was, however, a need to add something that distinguished the present communication from the earlier one. Presumably with a reliance on some given association, a sign was seized upon which indicated something standing in a regular connection with the non-existence of the object, e.g. a cause or consequence thereof. Deaf-mutes indicate knowledge or understanding by pointing to the forehead and externalizing joy, ignorance by accompanying the same gesture with a sad facial expression; understanding, after all, brings joy, while a lack of clarity brings displeasure. A negative judgment is also manifested through pretending to look for its object or imitating the moving-away thereof, hence in the first case a consequence, in the second one a cause of non-existence. If, however, a sign for a negative judgment was established, that which had earlier designated an affirmative one together with the underlying presentation degenerated into the mere expression of a presentation, and there was a need to form a special designation for an affirmation, which could be done by analogy to what had been done previously. Languages in fact take the signs that supplement the names for the sake of the expression of an affirmative judgment from demonstrative roots which designate the relation of the judged object to the speaker, or also from expressions for breathing or something similar and for other 165. Crying out “water” or something of that nature in the mouth of a child also in fact has this function.

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circumstances that are connected as causes or consequences of the acceptance of its existence. These means of expression for a judgment could of course be put together or fused with the expression for presentations; 166 also position could acquire a function concerning the manifestation of a judgment. III. Possibility of the Origination of a Unitary Style in Syntatic Deisgnation The foregoing makes evident how it is possible that, through several independent signs being assembled into one presentational expression or name or into the unitary expression of the judgment concerning this or into a sentence, the merely co-significative parts of speech and the wordcategories of various values which grammarians gather in languages could arise. 167 The investigation of the further development of syntax must be left to the historical consideration of different languages and language-families. With regard to it, however, we encounter another

166. We note that such an expression, by its contribution in a sentence to the expression of a judgment, is only co-significative. A sentence is one expression; its parts are all co-significative, at least as long as they persist in this position. 167. Geiger has stressed very emphatically that derivative forms, such as those used for the formation of substantives, adjectives, etc., and forms which serve for the indication of grammatical distinctions, as we prefer to call them, first developed at a late stage and gradually out of designations for very tangible differences of meaning. Concerning this point, he says, “In a somewhat deeper analysis, we note that purely grammatical distinctions are at first secondary and come to be untangled and slowly sorted out at a late stage from a bunch of completely different classifications. The tribe that spoke Indo-Germanic had a category of names for relations, to which ‘father’, ‘mother’, ‘brother’, ‘sister’, ‘daughter’, the Latin levir (brother-in-law, as brother of one’s spouse), and others belong, and which is older than some grammatical categories. The question whether something is edible or not, or also whether it is wet or dry, is given consideration at much older stages in word-formation and grammar than whether it is a substantive or adjective, a singular or a plural. On the other hand, other languages exhibit but a few traces from a time when the conceptual difference that we express by means of grammatical inflection was not yet sharply divided from the root inflection, which we separate by completely different and unrelated sounds. There is, for instance, a group of adjectives which are irregularly graded, namely “good”, “better”, bonus, melior ... It is similar in the case of ‘I am’ and ‘I was’, and so forth” (Geiger [1869], pp. 75 f.).

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question of such a general nature that we cannot ignore it without leaving a gaping hole. 168 Various paths for obtaining syntactical means of expression were open: How, then, was it possible for a unitary style of syntactical designation, as exhibited by every language to a considerable degree, to blaze the trail? 169 Is it not to be expected that in the course of time one person resorted to this means, while another resorted to that means, and thus the entire grammatical apparatus of a language would have to exhibit a great incoherency? And this seems to be all the more the case in view of the fact that a developed grammar, if it is not the result of a clever calculation, but rather of many attempts which improve upon each other, could come about only through the cooperation of large masses of people at work through long stretches of time. The question how a syntactical means of expression came to be applied generally is essentially analogous to the question how a simple name obtained this position in spite of the fact that, linked to different traits of its object, still many synonymous appellations could have been formed which had an equal right to be adopted into the vocabulary of a language. The so-called forms and form-words, after all, have in common with names the fact that they are signs of determinate meaning, and this is the only thing that comes into consideration; it is irrelevant that the former are dependent. Yet, someone might object that the question just mentioned, how a syntactical form found general acceptance as the designative tool of particular force, is not identical with the question concerning the origination of a unitary grammatical construction of a language; for the latter delves into the origination of the harmony of all syntactical means of a language, not the naturalization of a single one. Yet, upon closer inspection, this comes down to the same thing. For what is this harmony but a unity of the artifice or of the method of designation? And if one language designates by means of prepositional phrases, for instance, what the other one expresses by means of inflections, this is not to be 168. Cf. Lotze, (trans.) Hamilton and Jones (1885), pp. 183-188. 169. With regard to this unitary grammatical construction, there is a proclivity in circles of extreme nativism to compare languages to organisms, and it was believed that this, in addition to other things, could be explained by assuming that they arise from the activity of an instinct innate in the entire people.

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called a unitary expression, but certainly a unitary means of expression, and its general acceptance is explained by similar reasons as the agreement in the application of a single expression is. The explanation of how a unitary method of grammatical designation took root in a language, in spite of the fact that there was a choice of several open to it, is therefore with good reason to be called analogous to the demonstration of how a name came into general application while many synonymous ones were possible. Since a grammatical method must be called a designative tool with an especially encompassing application and required a long time for its all-round development – two circumstances due to which its general acceptance was especially often and for a long time a matter to be questioned – we have before us in the former issue the most interesting, though also most difficult form of the general problem which thus requires in this form special consideration. For the attempt at a solution it will be advantageous if we divide the issue into two constituent parts by asking first of all how the unity of grammatical style would be explained if a single person or – since a solitary person has no motivation for the formation of speech – two people of an equal constitution, under the same influences, would have formed the language. The answer to this is not difficult. Just as association and habit determined the inventor of a simple name, once it had found understanding as a sign for a presentation and had been connected with this presentation, to use it again in the same and analogous sense in the case of recurrent opportunity, they led him to apply a syntactical expression and further a method of syntactical designation, which were previously shown to be useful and thus promised to be successful. The same effect of habit is very distinctly observable in the case of children who, upon single examples of inflection, at once treat all verbs or nouns analogously. But how did it occur, and this is our second question, that when a plurality of people contributed to the formation of a language this did not become an obstacle to the syntactical construction remaining in large part intact? First of all, it may be pointed out here that much of what had effect on a uniform development of a language is given in a people’s selfpropagating general disposition innate to everyone, or developed in a similar manner as the result of a common and enduring influence of the same circumstances in the case of each member of a people. Included here are special assets and drawbacks of the vocal organs, peculiarities

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with respect to imagination and conception of things, receptivity for novelty or conservative sense. Similarly like dispositions and common influences encountered by a people do in fact also bring about likeness of customs, fashions, artistic taste, etc. Secondly, this agreement in the development of a language, however, does not go so far that different individuals do not or would not produce variety, provided that other circumstances do not prevent this, but lively mutual interaction brings along with it those circumstances which partly prevent variety from arising and partly suppress it where it has come about. As long as a language-forming confraternity remains in contact and interacting, 170 something useful that one person produces also remains accessible to all others. Everyone gains experience and understanding of it and will appropriate it for obvious reasons by means of imitation if it is not already in possession. If several people independently of each other have created the same need for remedy and if synonymous syntactical designations and synonymous syntactical methods, like synonymous names, have thereby come about, these could compete with each other when all of them were understood and alternately applied; and the more useful one naturally gained the upper hand gradually. This could of course occur in various degrees, and thus we see, in addition to languages which rather faithfully exploit a method (such as Altaic and American ones), others which use now this one, now that one. To be sure, fully synonymous forms and turns of phrase are rare here; it is to be suspected, however, that they were initially more abundant and only later gradually applied in order to nuance more subtle differences of meaning, similar to the way in which a name among originally synonymous ones is usually preferred for this context and another one of them for that context. Yet, it is to be expected that in the course of time the best method – the one most perfectly able to guarantee determinacy of expression coupled with simplicity, which is the aim of all syntax – will be victorious. 171 Slowly but surely it will expand its dominance and make all other devices disappear. 170. Wherever this ceases or becomes too unconsolidated, the language falls apart into dialects. 171. We see languages, led by this striving for as much flexibility and determinacy of expression as possible, also abandoning a very developed method and relying on rudiments of an earlier one and bringing them in a more advantageous form once again into extensive application.

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The “best” we said, though this is only relatively true, in comparison with other methods for which certain sprouts in a language developed alongside each other and out of each other, before the society that participated in the formation of the language had become very populated. Something altogether novel hardly blazes a trail in large circles, and the worse custom retains its preference under such circumstances due to the evils that are attached to a revolution. In spite of the advantages of the duodecimal system, for instance, it will hardly ever supplant the decimal system, which has become dominant throughout the world due to the convenience of ten fingers. If a certain syntactical artifice thus did not arise in a language before a large number of people took part in it, access to it can be closed in spite of its decisive advantages; and we actually see in some languages a method less perfect in comparison to the tools of other ones unfolding itself with the full tenacity of an entrenched habit, without its even being challenged by beginnings of something better in its dominance. A striking example for this is the Chinese language, which laboriously extracts the tools of syntactic determination from distinctions of position and the application of isolated particles and makes absolutely no compounds, inflections, and the like. 3. This leads us to a final remark. Linguistic constructions such as the Chinese one, the Burmese one, and others seem to indicate that, quite generally speaking, there were from the beginning few syntactical methods at hand and their number grew only later. The first thing seems to have been usage of isolated determinations and of position; only subsequently would one have arrived at compounds, prefixes, and suffixes from which inflections and vowel mutations were then developed under cooperation of vocal and acoustic inclinations. If one language ventured off towards all these devices and thus repeatedly underwent thorough-going transformations of its syntactical construction (where presumably also rudiments of earlier stages remained) and another language persisted in an earlier form, this could be explained, as already indicated in passing, by the fact that the former language developed in a restricted circle whereas a large number of people soon took part in the latter, and this made it unreceptive to innovations at an early stage. The last-mentioned case occurred where a family that expanded into a tribe and into a people maintained a unitary bond; the previously mentioned case, where the brothers kept living separately for a long time (as we still hear from a very late time of

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Abraham and Lot). Something similar to this splintering of the family and of analogous consequences for the development of a language was the detachment of smaller parts of a people for the founding of colonies. It is everywhere observed in history that there prevails in colonies a much greater tendency towards innovations and flexibility in common undertakings than in the mother country, and this is something that partly goes together with the fact the one group is more contracted. Surely in them language also acquired an enhanced ability for development. However, let us leave this to the judgment and to the thorough-going investigations of the historical study of language. To summarize the result of our consideration of the issue treated last, we found preeminently two forces which had to be at work in the construction of language. Habit and, what is indeed included in this, transference to analogous cases were active beforehand. These, however, were supplemented by the law that, wherever there are several habits alongside each other, the more useful one extends its dominion more and more and finally alone claims the field. If the circumstance is added that, at least at lower developmental stages, there were only a few methods to be chosen from, and also the influence of similar constitution and equal external conditions upon the formation of language are taken into consideration, sufficient explanatory reasons may be given for the internal symmetry in the syntax of a single language insofar as it obtains. Chapter Three: The Reasons of the Predominant Usage of Sounds for Communication In our attempt in the foregoing to answer the question how tools of expression could be developed into the form and perfection which is peculiar to spoken language, it was such language that served us as an example. This was done because spoken communication alone has, after all, actually reached that complete development and special form which preeminently seemed in need of explanation, although man, devoid of the talent for articulation or of any voice at all, would have no doubt attended to another type of externalization with the same care and it would have developed, though more slowly and with greater difficulty, into an analogue of spoken language.

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He would have used the gestures which can so easily be applied for immediately intelligible communication. Hence, if members of different nations, for instance, seek for the moment a substitute for conventional language, they usually call upon gestures rather than sounds for assistance. What hundreds of generations could have acquired from this can be assessed by the success achieved therein by a restricted group of deaf-mutes in a short space of time. Be that as it may, it would not have been as easy to shape gestures into such a simple and determinate means of expression as words and inflexions are; and important advantages that the latter have for interaction will always be missing in a language of gestures. This special suitability of sounds for communication asserted itself from the beginning when use was made of voice, hand, and facial expression alongside each other, and the more it was felt, the more the attempt was made to meet the needs of communication by nothing other than designations by sound. Because of this, gestures remain at a correspondingly low stage of development, and upon the complete development of expression by sound they again easily forfeited even the part culture they had together with it and in addition to it. 1. Of the assets which gave vocal utterances the preponderance over gestures we shall first mention that they proved themselves to be more suitable, when applied as signs, for offering great diversity and easy distinguishability with little time and effort. This is connected above all with man’s talent for refined articulation, the ability to produce very refined sounds independently of each other and thus in the most diverse combinations. If we could utter only a few rigid vocal complexes independently of each other (as a dog, for instance, does), it would presumably be more comfortable to form various signs by means of different combinations of movements rather than by means of a changing assemblage of vocal conglomerates. However, when the voice was used for the purpose of communication or its exercise was also driven only by the enjoyment of hearing tones or of operating the muscles and lungs, more and more diversely modified sounds were offered, as was earlier incidentally indicated. In complex utterances certain constituent parts were replaced upon attempting to repeat them. And when diligence was again applied to the repetition of these modifications and the mutual shuffling of vocal elements was extended to constituent parts which followed each other with great

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density, more and simpler products and greater diversity in the combination of them kept offering themselves for selection. In this abundance of possible distinguishable modifications among utterances which take up little time and effort, the products of human sound-forming activity could not under any circumstances be surpassed or even equaled by movements. In addition to this, there are conditions under which there is often a desire for communication and gestures would have to adopt quite uncomfortable and time-consuming forms in order to offer a greater clearly distinguishable diversity. Such a condition is when we are at a great distance from each other. Utterances by means of articulate sounds, for the sake of rapid and easy executability and also for the sake of distinctness and sharpness, are available – without any equal – for such circumstances. 2. When man’s ability to modify densely connected successive constituents of a vocal conglomerate independently of each other made it possible for him to form spoken signs of little complexity amid all the diversity, these allowed the speaker to save not only time and effort, due to the mentioned advantage that could not be equaled to an analogous degree in the case of a gesture-language; but they were furthermore an invaluable aid for the greater ease of comprehension on the part of the listener as well. For the shorter the particular signs are, the easier it is to survey and interpret them simultaneously when several of them together are to supplement each other. 3. Another asset of sounds is that they are applicable under much more diverse circumstances than gestures are. A tone is heard, whatever direction it comes from; a cue meant for the eye misses its effect when the gaze is not first directed at it. And what directs it? In the dark and when objects intervene, the glance misses it altogether. 4. The eye is the sense which most of all reveals to us distinctions and peculiarities of external objects and which we therefore apply to the greatest degree for judging the external world. We would feel it as a burden if the eye would have to serve mutual interaction. We would therefore have to do without such interaction wherever the eye is claimed for other purposes, e.g. in work and the like. 5. While the ear of undistracted people is open for communication just as the eye is, the vocal instruments serve this purpose with much less inhibition than the limbs. The hands, whose movements are best suited for providing various designative tools, are also the instrument for reaching other important goals, and we would often in this case have to

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regret a conflict of interests. The voice, however, never serves more serious and necessary purposes besides the manifestation of inner life. 6. This brings us to the last and not unimportant remark. Vocal utterances offered the benefit that a fixed habit was rapidly formed of seeing in them manifestations or communications of someone else’s consciousness. Habits establish themselves all the more easily and certainly, the less the occurrences in agreement are not disrupted by opposite ones. It is true of facial expressions, to be sure, that they usually serve the expression of mind; however, as successful as they are in reflecting internal states in their entire peculiar coloring, they are not likewise suited for indicating external objects and not at all for becoming tools for a syntactically structured communication, as extensive interaction makes this necessary. For both of these ends movements of hands and arms would have had to become preeminently applied, and it was already mentioned that they are applied for other necessary purposes besides communication, 172 and this was obstructive to the formation of a habit of attending to them as tools of expression. One will often have refrained from looking upon them as tools of expression, simply because they often also had their purpose in and of themselves. A sound, however, serves only the purpose of manifestation aside perhaps from playful enjoyment, and the habitual adoption of them as signs therefore sustained few exceptions. But the establishment of such a habit was of great importance for the beginning of interaction where such imperfect and ambiguous tools came to have application. For wherever it was at work, the addressee also immediately searched for the special sense of externalization noticeable to him and was of course more rapidly led to it than when he would have been clueless. From this side as well the sound rather than the gesture was therefore desirable as a tool of expression. Thus a group of decisive assets of the human voice are shown, and regarding. It would be amazing if they had not in the progressive expansion of social interaction secured for it the preponderance over every other type of externalization. Naturally they led to the preference 172. It must also be emphasized that, while facial expressions stand as sounds do in an intimate naturally predisposed relation to mental life, movements of hands and so forth do not. The formation of the above-mentioned habit was likewise facilitated by the fact that the same sound, which is at hand for different types of imitation and is therefore intentionally called upon as a designative tool, is to a special degree made by nature, prior to all intention, for the echo of inner excitations (whether one sees therein a purpose or an accident, it is in fact the case).

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of a sound wherever it was just as intelligible as a gesture. Wherever both had to be joined together initially for bringing about understanding, the gesture was more easily abandoned than the sound as soon as habit had secured for this an association. Also in cases where a movement was much more intelligible than a sound, due to its other benefits the sound was joined to the movement, and any remote similarity or incidental relation whereby the sound was a reminder of the object was sufficient here to be the determining factor for its choice. If frequent repetition had made it sufficiently intelligible, it alone claimed the position. Thus, amid the temporary explanatory aids of gestures, the tool kit of expressions became infiltrated by various symbolic appellations, daring metaphorical applications of already intelligible words, and also the beginnings of syntactical vocal designation. Slowly, but inexorably the striving to provide for the needs of communication with spoken signs continued to have an effect, creating along its path new force from habituation, and the gesture was more and more pushed into the position which it still seems to occupy in the case of some peoples, namely into that of an aid that fills in the gaps of clumsy language, 173 while in the case of full development of language it is assigned to the realm of rhetoric. Concluding Considerations In face of hypotheses which wanted to explain the origin of human language by assuming a divine intervention or a constitution of prehistoric man which we at present no longer observe in ourselves, we made it our task to investigate whether this matter could not be understood from the perspective of demonstrable powers of our nature. Three things had to be examined here, and in each case the result turned out to be opposed to the necessity of resorting to assumptions of something unknown. Without such assumptions it is understood not only – about which we initially inquired – that the first human beings came to have social interaction, but also that they could develop the tools for this in a form such as the one peculiar to spoken language, and that finally spoken communication receives this paramount cultivation and position.

173. Peschel (1874), p. 111.

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The first and the third investigation gave less difficulty, whereas the difficulty of the second was not insignificant. With regard to the objection that only clever calculation, as it was certainly nonexistent prior to language, could have led to language, our attention was constantly directed to showing that for every step in the development of language (which was also indeed not equally accomplished) the formation of each of the peculiarities we admire in developed language required only that measure of psychical accomplishments for which there was already beforehand a disposition. Through every advance in the construction of language the power and the standpoint of the constructors was then once again enhanced. But can we, after all this, assert that language had to develop in this way or only that it could have gone this way? In view of the lack of all checking by means of historical tracking of these processes, does it not still remain possible that it originated along another familiar or unfamiliar, indeed inexplicable path? I think that someone who concedes that it could have originated along this path and never finds in this regard an essential gap will, upon a brief consideration, also concede that in the main it had to originate in this manner. This is absolutely and obviously true with regard to our standpoint, empiricism. For though other paths of explanation are conceivable a priori, i.e. without logical nonsense, and a direct verification is just as impossible for ours as it is for these others, an indirect verification is nonetheless given by the fact that these other standpoints need novel hypotheses especially for our inquiry. Logic says for such cases: If some path is possible which avoids this, those other paths are impossible. And further: If only one path without special assumptions is possible, it is necessary. Besides empiricism there can be only two standpoints: the assumption of supernatural interventions especially for the formation of language or instincts with this special aim. And it is clear that empiricism, if it is conceded in some form as a possible or sufficient explanation, is thereby accepted as the only and necessary manner of explanation. A further question now is whether this special form of empiricism, as we have developed it here, can be valid, with all its details, as the only possible one. We have, to be sure, found none of the earlier empiricist

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explanations to be flawless, but there could after all be other paths of flawless theories from the common standpoint. This is the case in a twofold way: either by assuming, instead of the forces to which we have appealed for help, other equally familiar forces, or by assuming the same ones, but in other proportions of their number and strength involved in the particular occurrences. In the former respect, we must again give a negative reply. If language arose from familiar forces of human nature, this could happen in general only by means of reflection, by means of the association of ideas and similar forces that operate without deliberation, or finally by means of forces of both kinds working together. Only the latter alternative, however, corresponds to reality, as is made clear from the fact that a fully separate operation of the two kinds of psychical forces does not at all occur, at least in man, except perhaps in the very first beginnings of thinking, such as in the initial time-periods of an individual’s infancy. Accordingly we have assumed, starting from pure associations, only gradually at later stages some reflections as contributive. Also in this regard, we may assert that no other path of explanation is possible. We concede, however, that the same forces and laws of which we have spoken could operate in other connections and with another distribution. Often enough we have indeed asserted several causes for the origination of some peculiarity of language, some of which seemed to us as especially necessary, others only as contributing factors; we have also sometimes indicated that the number of the latter can also still be multiplied by analogous factors. There will always be room within certain boundaries for debate about these determinations of number and measure; and this is all the more so, the more the phenomenon to be explained approaches the individual detail of linguistic peculiarities. Whoever wanted to deny this would in fact ultimately have to dare to deduce the particular roots psychologically in their entirety and understand why one of them is pa and the other one is ta. Only with regard to the most general types of forces do we believe ourselves in possession of certainty even for the given determinations of measure. In particular I mean the proportion of intelligent deliberation to mere association and habit, the relatively very small, almost infinitesimal participation that we ascribe to the former. Although at present language is most closely connected with so-called abstract

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thinking, 174 its origin should not be traced to this, but must rather be traced to the so-called lower forces of cognition. Since this determination is quite essential to the conception of the origin of language, since it, as we shall see later, in some sense gives the solution whereby also diverse antitheses in this issue become understandable, we shall, after the special proofs adduced by the preceding investigation, substantiate it also by some additional considerations. People in a large number are generally never creative in that which comes about through them in unison; they may well serve as manual laborers or soldiers, but they do not perform as master builders and generals. Still less, however, can the common masses be clever in their productions. All discoveries that opened up pathways with a single stroke, all endeavors that require the most arduous intellectual labor and felicitous talent for discovery arise from the minds of single outstanding individuals; however, whatever is the work of the masses is constructed hesitatingly and without foresight out of mutually complementary experiences. It will often and in some respects be similar to those results of judicious acumen; however, it comes about slowly in the life of many generations and through detours of half-successful attempts and revisions, whereas the finalizing procedure is like a well aimed shot traveling a measured trajectory and hitting its target. What has been said must preeminently be true of the tools of mutual understanding because they are in their entire nature a product of the whole collective to a special degree. We do not deny that single, more gifted people – partly because they feel a need for new tools of designation, partly because their imagination more willingly offers such tools – contribute more than others to the total treasure of tools of expression in a society. It is known, however, that not everything fancied by an individual is language. It must find understanding and imitation and be joined to the collection of what others have produced. And for this reason the talent of an individual for invention recedes here more than it does elsewhere. The origination of writing is very instructive here. It was at first glance to be suspected of it much more than from language 174. Most names in fact have abstracta as their content and are class names. Also the greater or lesser perfection of thinking to which a people has advanced can be measured by the generality (and correctness) of class names that are reflected in its language.

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that it is, if not entirely certainly in essential aspects, the work of sharpwitted deliberation. Yet, it has become apparent not only from its beginnings, but also from important steps of its development, that they are essentially mediated only by association and habit; and regarding the ones still left unexplained, one does not give up on understanding them too from an unplanned and uncalculated procedure, as the result of repeated attempts at improvements. Our assertion is directly confirmed, however, by the history of language, by the felicitous glimpses that recent research into the original features of syntactical tools of designation has achieved. We have followed their relevant findings in the earlier suggestions regarding the origination of syntax; and although the historians of language have not always used our terms, we have no doubt that the they are in agreement with us in thought, that it was everywhere not deliberation, but rather association and habit which led to the syntactical expression of thoughts. The comparison of different languages also shows how one rightly had misgivings concerning the inept empiricism of the eighteenth century and that the languages of rude nations are not beneath those of civilized peoples as regards their grammatical construction, as this would be expected if they were products of reflection and inventiveness like arts and sciences. The higher intellectual development of a people reveals its influence on the syntactical development of its language by bringing in its train a need for a greater sharpness of designative means. The more accomplished ability to distinguish perceives differences of thought, senses an indeterminacy of expression that is not evident to undeveloped thought, and presses on to further determination. Yet, accomplished thought is never applied to the invention of means more suitable for the felt need, but rather in an uncalculated manner, as the more refined requirement is met here just as the rougher one is met elsewhere. By analogy to the way in which the child immerses itself into the usage of already developed grammatical means of designation without having a concept of their function and of their greater or lesser expediency, a people once developed them; and as the children who learned the Greek language and the Hottentots acquired the imperfect language of their parents are in this respect equal to each other, those who created both languages are also in general equal to each other. Thus it happened that, due to favorable and unfavorable circumstances 175 contributing to the 175. We mean, for instance, the longer or the too short development in the restricted group.

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development of a language here and there, a people sometimes extracted the necessary sharpness and definiteness for its more accomplished thoughts from less flexible syntactical methods, whereas a less sharp thinking is broadened in flexible means. (One may compare, for instance, the Chinese language on the one hand and Yakut and other Scythian languages on the other.) As regards the origination of syntax, the results of the comparative history of language clearly confirm our general assertion that given associations were straightforwardly and artlessly made starting points in the development of spoken designations; as regards the choice of the earliest pre-grammatical constituents of a language, these results are invoked against this presupposition. Concerning this choice, the mentioned general thought leads to the assumption that it drew advantageously from imitation. 176 By contrast we hear, for instance, August Fick, the esteemed specialist of that family of languages which is most thoroughly studied up to now (Indo-Germanic), say in objection: “In accordance with the crude views of the origination of language, according to which it supposedly gradually emerged in its elements from the animal roar and the senseless imitative bleating of tones, we would have to see the onomatopoeic element come into greater prominence the further back we trace the development of languages. 177 To be contrasted with this, however, is the fact that the very opposite occurs at least in the Indo-Germanic languages. While more recent individual languages of this branch exhibit a great abundance of such products, we are at a loss when we wish to demonstrate clangor-imitation in the Indo-Germanic 176. It would be amazing and counter to all analogy, if, as Geiger would have it, certain tones of objects were supposedly not at all imitated for the sake of making others think of these. For aside from the fact that in this way the tones prompted usage of them as marks of the objects because they could be manifested in an immediately intelligible way, they were certainly often chosen as the basis of naming because they, as changes, drew attention to themselves over and above the uniformly enduring properties – an advantage which they have no less than motions, of which Geiger incomprehensively asserts that they alone “stimulated the ability for language”. Cf. Geiger (1868), pp. 42 f. and elsewhere. 177. Here Fick obviously has in mind a distorted picture of the onomatopoeic theory, and this, together with the justified contempt towards some uncritical attempts to demonstrate it, not infrequently seems to be actual root of the disparaging judgment with which one encounters the theory.

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proto-language … On the basis of the discernment of the earliest linguistic states, the thesis that clangor-imitation, except for a few cases, provided a considerable contribution to the development of language should be absolutely rejected”. 178 While there is still a certain constraint to be noticed in Fick’s opposition to the onomatopoetic theory on the basis of historical results, M. Müller quite confidently, with the support of such results, rejects this theory. 179 However, everyone will concede that this is unjustified as long as there is no proof that in the so-called roots of the Indo-Germanic family of languages we have before us the earliest or part of the earliest seeds of human speech; and how should this be something to be decided along the path of historical research? Other linguists earnestly warn against such an exploitation of historical results for deciding about situations which lie beyond all history. 180 It is also pointed out that the examination of other families of languages would lead to more traces of original onomatopoeia. 181 Be that as it may, if historical investigation can never in any considerable way directly confirm our assumptions about the character of the earliest spoken designations – in which regard we do not wish to express any expectation either pro or contra – it does give us instead of this a full-fledged indirect confirmation. If the entire immense supply of words and forms in the IndoGermanic languages derives its intelligibility from a small collection of roots, and if dependence on given associations is therefore the guiding principle in the choice and formation of designative tools, how probable is it here that in the emergence of these roots completely different laws are valid? If in later times a sound was summoned in every case of designating a new presentation and this sound was already habitually reminiscent of a similar presentation and thus by mediation promised also to lead to the first presentation, the only thing to be expected from the analogy to this is that, before it was possible to depend on already habitually intelligible expressions, tonal signs were chosen which 178. Fick (1870), pp. 930 ff. 179. Müller (1869) I, p. 387 and above in the historical overview. 180. Steinthal and Whitney do so. Cf. also Benfey (1869), p. 554 f., also Benfey (1866), pp. 290 ff. 181. Whitney (1867), p. 433.

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promise immediately to evoke the desired association wherever only these were the only signs available. Among the more general principles advocated here, the one to which we attached most weight we may regard this, after all, as fully secured, even though differences of opinion within certain boundaries are possible regarding the nature, number, and significance of the motives that brought about the different associations and habits and thus the different steps of the development of language. And now we wish to point out how this insight also sheds light on many of the antinomies revealed by the discussion of our problem, and how it allows us to know what is true in each of them. Already in ancient times language arose, according to some, by means of convention, and according to others as a product of nature; and recently there is a related debate concerning whether the science of language belongs to the natural sciences or the humanities. What is right and what is wrong in these theses will easily be seen by attending to the fact that language is a product of psychical factors, but not a product of arbitrariness or calculation. It thus comes into view what is true, in addition to what is erroneous, in the opposing theories we exposited and criticized in the historical overview in somewhat greater detail. Those theories which we called the empiricist ones are obviously correct insofar as they consider language as something acquired by man under the motive of the intention to communicate. The empiricists of the eighteenth century, however, were very wrong in comparing progressive formation of language, for instance, as Tiedemann did, with the development of geometry, and recent ones are no less wrong in appealing to the gradual perfection of building construction and the manufacture of clothing or the development of music as parallels 182 – since in all such cases thinking about the conducive formation of means for the various goals and the inventiveness of the individual was much more at work than in the case of the development of language. Nor does Whitney do well to allow the dispute with nativism to come to a head in the question whether language or, better, each of its designative tools is to be called an invention or not. 183 This word should be omitted altogether, since it gives preference 182. Whitney (1867), p. 420. Tylor (1871), p. 234. 183. Cf. in Whitney (1873), pp. 332-375, the remarks against Steinthal, who (Steinthal [1871], pp. 82 ff.) taboos the expression, that language is an invention, in favor

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to the above opinion. Erdmann (Psychological Letters) recommends that we should say, “Language has made itself”, 184 as an utterance meaning that it has been made and yet not made. If one wants to express oneself in this way – yet, the expression is not primarily the issue. Some of the theories to which we gave the name of “nativism” designate man’s earliest utterance of thoughts as reflexive, while others simply speak of an innate linguistic faculty, an instinct of reason common to all, out of which human speech grows as an organic product. Some of these statements, as was said earlier, contradict experience, while others offer a stone instead of bread, words instead of an explanation. After all, the names that Humboldt, Heyse, and Renan give to the faculties at work in the formation of language (such as “instinct”, raison spontanée, “unconscious operation of reason”) now obtain a certain sense that makes their choice understandable, though unjustified. Habitual acting, guided by concrete experiences, which is that whereby we in large measure think of language as coming about, does indeed have something similar to instinctive acting. Habits are, if you will, acquired instincts. In other questions as well the two are confused with each other. However, we see that the true nature of this so-called instinct was not discerned when Renan, for instance, places the raison spontanée above raison réfléchie, 185 and when Humboldt believes that “language cannot be regarded as a human work like other products of the mind” because it is “something higher”. 186 This was not the reason why it could not have arisen by reflection. Rather the reason was this: because it would otherwise have been perforce the work of the individual, and aside from the fact that an individual did not have any cause for forming a language he was not capable of this due to the enormous amount of labor needed for the construction of one. There are, after all, also other products which require little thought at each step, but a long time and the united forces of many for the wealth of detail they contain. (Consider the production of a logarithm table or the collection of rules of a cook book, of the nativistic view. 184. Translator’s note: Here Marty paraphrases a passage from Erdmann (1852), p. 314. 185. Renan (1858), p. 98. 186. Humboldt (trans.) Heath (1988), pp. 46 f.

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examples which are, however, to serve only as illustrations of the point just mentioned.) One may finally speak also of unconscious formation and manipulation of language, 187 insofar as one wants to call habitual actions unconscious. Yet, this is one of the most infelicitous expressions among the many that have been coined, created, made, and have grown or have “made themselves” in the matter at hand, for it easily forms an alliance with obscure ideas, such as those we find, for instance, in the case of Schelling and (with an appeal to Schelling) of Eduard von Hartmann. Here again an instinct belonging to a mass of people, which is meant to explain the unity in the construction of language, is spoken of, 188 as if this would be an explanation! Here we hear of a mind that created the Hebrew language and is distinct from the Hebrew. 189 Certainly this or that Hebrew did not create it, but the Hebrews did. We cannot conclude without having mentioned yet another question which not a few will at once pose in face of the view presented here concerning the forces at work in language-formation. If the laws of association and habituation sufficed for the development of abundant tools of expression which man uses, why have the higher animals, in which these are effective to a large degree, not developed a similar abundance? 190 Here it must be taken into consideration that the same or analogue forces accomplish very different things, depending on whether they are claimed more or less for a certain direction and other circumstances make their success easier or more difficult. 187. Cf. Steinthal (1871), p. 87, Geiger (1868), p. 9, inter alia. 188. “For the conscious labor of many, however, it [language] is too indivisible an organism. Only the instinct of masses, as exhibited in the life of the hive, the termite-hill, and the ant-hill, can have created it” (Hartmann [(Trans.] Coupland) (1893) I, p. 298]). We have familiarized ourselves above with the causes that have brought about the unity of language. 189. Schelling, (ed.) Schelling (1856), p. 51. 190. Concerning the rudiments of communication, which are to be observed also in their case and, after all, should not be underestimated, compare our remarks that occasioned the discussion of Bleek’s investigations.

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In the case of most animals association and habitual acting in the development of tools of expression remain far behind what the same forces achieved for man in this regard, because the inferior suitability of the organs for expression made that development more difficult. These disagreeable circumstances directly inhibited success, but not only this – they also weakened and deadened the enjoyment in exercise. For while the inclination is visibly strengthened for that for which one detects talent, the interest in pursuing what is attainable only with difficulty weakens. Another and altogether sweeping explanatory reason for the enormous advantage that man has obtained over the animals in the formation of signs is given to us when a greater abundance of communicable contents and more forceful and varied motives developed in him early on. Due to this, the forces at work for the development of tools of designation became much more exerted in him than in the animals. Finally, it should be noted that communication is not equally well accomplished with regard to all contents, and thus by means of their nature, as well as that of the organs, the success in language-formation is conditioned both directly and indirectly – the latter when through accomplishment or failure the enjoyment in exercise is either enhanced or weakened. Concrete contents of presentation, especially ones that belong to outward appearance, are more difficult to communicate than abstract ones. By “concrete” and “abstract” I here mean not only the individual presentations in contrast with the general ones and the concepts, but rather also those which have a whole, as it really appears, along with all properties as the content, in contrast with those which refer to some aspect or property thereof that cannot exist in isolation. We easily indicate to each other the size, the gait, the posture of a particular person and thereby bring our thought upon him, the concretum. But how should we denote this if we were not able in thought to prise apart some given trait from the others in order to display it by itself? Important psychologists in ancient and modern times denied animals of this ability of abstraction. According to them, an animal does presumably distinguish the concrete object here from the one over there, the large one from the small one, but it cannot separate in thought the location or the size of an object from its remaining properties. Testifying to this is the fact that dogs and horses, for instance, learn to understand our

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communications concerning something concrete, but they never understand the ones that have abstracta, such as the first principles of arithmetic or physics, as their content. (For the so-called arts of calculation of such animals cannot be regarded as real calculative operations, but rather only a training for certain movements, the sense of which they do not understand anymore than the parrot understands what he speaks.) If this lack of abstraction really and universally belongs to animals, this would be a new explanatory reason why their tools of expression lag far behind the level of development that human language attains. It would even be an explanatory reason in two senses: first because in this case an enormous area of contents to be communicated would be missing from their thinking, and secondly because what they would really have to communicate would be more difficult to communicate without abstractions. From the standpoint of our view regarding human languageformation, it is also clear that explanatory reasons present themselves for the fact that the communication of animals does not obtain the more accomplished form of human communication. Having shown this suggestively must be sufficient for us here. The attempt at a thoroughgoing solution of the problem would, as is reasonable, have to become a special investigation.

WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? 1 Anton Marty Translated by Robin D. Rollinger

Highly Respectable Assemblage! Kant 2 made note of the conspicuous fact that even those, who observe a cautious silence with regard to all other sciences in which they are not instructed as specialists, speak authoritatively and make decisions with full confidence in the field of philosophy. 3 The specialist might be inclined to be repelled by this, and certainly it has indeed had some bad consequences. If, however, we look into the causes instead of only attending to the consequences, we are also – in accordance with the proposition “To understand all is to forgive all” 4 – more benign in response to what we find here. 5 Indeed, we come upon 1. Translator’s note: This text is the inaugural address that Marty held at the Karl Ferdinand University in Prague. It was delivered on 16 November 1896 and published in the following year with additional comments in footnotes. A reprint of the entire text was published in Marty, (eds.) Eisenmeier et al. (1916b), pp. 69-93. 2. Translator’s note: English passages from Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics are here taken from the translation of Paul Carus. 3. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Preface, p. 12: “since all who in other sciences observe a judicious silence, speak authoritatively in metaphysics and make bold decisions …”. Cf. also ibid., p. 4. Kant speaks here, as we see, of one of the most disputed philosophical disciplines. What is said, however, can quite well be expanded, as experience shows, to psychology, ethics, aesthetics, in short, to almost the entire realm of philosophy. 4. Translator’s note: Marty cites this aphorism in French: Tout comprendre c’est tout pardoner. 5. For a part of the fact, namely the boldness of opinions, Kant himself at once gives the explanation by continuing in the previously cited passage (p. 12): “because their ignorance is not here contrasted with the knowledge of others”. Similarly, where metaphysics is spoken of as a domain (p. 2), “where everybody, however ignorant in other matters, may deliver a final verdict”, he adds: “as in this domain there is as yet no standard weight and measure to distinguish sound knowledge from shallow talk”. If, however, the exceptional confidence of the layman’s judgment is entailed by this, the inclination to speak here is not. Another one of Kant’s statements has bearing on the

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something that is quite gratifying. For this peculiarly different treatment which the area receives is to be understood only from the observation that its subject matter is something of general and lively interest more than all others. The situation of philosophy is almost like that of politics. If in this case too not everyone reads Aristotle’s eight books on the state, Spinoza’s Tractatus theologio-politicus or Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Law, he still has his newspaper and seeks to be informed about the events, and he confesses allegiance to certain principles and parties. It is similar in philosophy. 6 Many who know little of all the systems, which arose from the moving thoughts of prominent minds since Thales had the world originate from water, have nonetheless not left philosophical problems completely untouched. The great enigmas of human life and of the cosmos have stirred such people. In search of the solution, they have formed opinions, which then, cultivated for a long time and perhaps also shared by others in their surroundings, have ultimately taken on the garb of the full force of habit and feeling and have become established in their minds like something self-evident. But what is this philosophy in which so many are interested, even though they do not always sufficiently appreciate the difficult nature thereof and its demand for careful preparation? We just spoke of how almost everyone dares to judge with ease and boldness in this area. It is therefore strange, at least for the moment, that the seemingly simple and elementary question “what is philosophy?” is a great embarrassment for people. If, however, we turn to the professional philosophers rather than philosophical dilettantes, every one of them is, to be sure, ready to give an answer, but the answer of each one is different. In the case of Aristotle, we read, philosophy (in the strictest sense próté philosophia) is the theory of the ultimate grounds and causes of things. The stoics, however, defined it as the striving for virtue and epicureans as the capacity and art of living happily. And the philosophers of modern times do not agree with either of these schools or with each other. While for Spinoza philosophy is the contemplation of things sub specie reason for this, p. 5 of the same work: “it can never cease to be in demand, since the interests of common sense are intimately interwoven with it”. 6. Expositions of the history of philosophy find a much larger readership and consequently also much more frequent revision than the history of any other science. This fact may be regarded as a sign for the particular pervasiveness of the interest in philosophy.

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aeternitatis, for Schelling the science of the eternal primal images of things or the science of all knowledge, and for Hegel the thinking of absolute truth which is for itself as reason encompassing all being, it was defined in a pedestrian manner by Wolff, whose textbooks and teaching method dominated the universities of Germany throughout the decades of the eighteenth century, as scientia possibilium quatenus esse possunt, and by Herbart with equal sobriety as the revision of concepts. The contemporary Schopenhauer, however, calls it, again promising much more, the theory of the essence of the world and of the human mind (doctrina de essentia mundi et mente humana). Finally the attempt that we often hear of should be mentioned, namely the one that seeks to define philosophy by bringing it in peculiar contrast with specialized research, whether this be the notion of it treating the same questions as the specialized disciplines and only seeking to answer them according to another method, or the notion of its problems being unique, though of such universality that they commonly refer to all topics which are from other viewpoints the object of very different specialized sciences. It is disturbing to see this discrepancy. If the philosophers do not agree as to how they should solve the problems of their science, this still appears to be understandable in light of the difficulty of the questions and method. It is far more justifiable if we wonder how it is possible that they seem to disagree about what kind of problem they confront. Everything disturbing inspires reflection. And thus I hope that when I enter into the investigation of this matter you will follow it with some interest, all the more since it indeed concerns the clarification of a concept that includes endeavors in which, as we have seen, almost everyone occasionally astonishingly finds himself and to which the inclination is not extinguishable in any thinking person. Philosophy aims at obtaining knowledge. In order to be comprehended univocally together under the same name, the same things must have something in common; they must make up a unitary class. And the question concerning what philosophy is can be none other than this: What is this class of items of knowledge which it investigates and secures? If, however, we survey the disciplines that are called philosophical in the narrower sense (for there is a much more far reaching usage of the name, still common today at least in Britain, according to which all abstract natural science is also included therein 7 ), 7. The name “natural philosophy”, as is well known, should not be translated as Naturphilosophie, e.g. in the sense in which Schelling and Hegel spoke of it, but simply

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we see a colorful variety before us. Here is above all metaphysics. It is concerned with the most simple and universal concepts, such as those of being and of cause, and seeks out the first and most independent principles, the divine, which is perhaps the ground of existence for everything else. Yet, in addition to this we find psychology, which is concerned with the most complex and dependent phenomena. A psychical process is indeed – as is generally conceded today – dependent on physiological occurrences. These, however, exhibit physical and chemical laws in such complex entanglements that in comparison therewith the complication of effects of force in the case of the influence that the bodies exert upon each other in the highly visible world of stars appears to be simple and easily calculable. Here is already a powerful contrast . And it is not reduced when one considers the remaining disciplines. Though metaphysics and psychology were at least like each other in that they are among the theoretical sciences – similar to mathematics, physics, chemistry, and physiology – ethics appears to be practical in the eminent sense. It aims at a vitae dux, as already the ancients called it, at holding before us the goal and showing us the way for the entire conduct of life, and as it aims at giving prescriptions for the entirety of our life’s endeavors, logic does so in particular for the activity of judgment for the sake of testing and discovering what is true, aesthetics for the artistic and art-critical as Naturwissenschaft. Locke occasionally expands the name “philosophy” to include even all true knowledge (cf. Essay concerning Human Understanding, Epistle to the Reader). In the case of Aristotle as well the term, used without qualification, has another meaning than the usual one for us today. “Philosophy” without the addition próté or deutera, seems to have meant him the same as “theoretical science” as such, but he called science knowledge from fundamental reasons, i.e. a grasping of something as a case of most universal, ultimate laws (cf. Analytica Posteriora I, 9, 76a16). (It may be added that also this name has consequently changed its meaning since Aristotle. The Stagirite would not have been able to call the items of historical knowledge Wissen and Wissenschaft, as is generally done nowadays. Here we are interested much less in such a shift in the meaning of the word “philosophy” than the question whether its extension, as it is normally used on the continent today, according to which not only metaphysics, but also only psychology, logic, aesthetics, and ethics (including philosophy of law and politics) as well as the history of all of these branches are regarded as philosophical disciplines, is to be comprehended unitarily.

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activity, for the production and appreciation of the beautiful. In such diversity of groups there seems to be at first glance no common trait to be found which would unite them as a true class; the character of the different disciplines threatens to prove itself as altogether heterogeneous. And in this case of course, in view of the lack of unity of subject matter, a unitary definition which accounts for all applications of the name uniformly is likewise impossible. If, however, someone dares to give one, he will have to face the charge that it is one-sided, and depending on whether he gives special attention to one discipline or the other, the definition will essentially vary. The Aristotelian definition, for instance, is focused on metaphysics, hence one of the theoretical disciplines, whereas those of Zeno and Epicurus give preference to ethics and thus a practical one. And in this manner a variety of cases could be cited where the definition does justice now to only one, now to only another group of investigations which are at present united under the name “philosophy”. 8 Consequently the disagreement of philosophers in the interpretation of the concept of philosophy certainly seems in part reducible to a lack of unity of the items of knowledge under consideration, the lack of a true class to which they unitarily belong. And thus “philosophy” in the usage that is common today on the continent would also be, if not a word without meaning, at least without univocal meaning, i.e. an equivocal term which would necessarily have to defy every attempt at a unitary definition. If, however, the phenomenon of that disagreement is easily and perfectly understandable under this assumption, this is still no sufficient reason to assent to it at once. As there are different standpoints for the classification of the same objects, our items of knowledge can also be 8. Also the definition in Wundt (1893), p. 7, according to which (theoretical) philosophy seeks to solve the problems common to the different sciences, applies to one of the disciplines, namely metaphysics (and epistemology). The author himself of course believes that he has thereby also included the domain of logic which he designates along with metaphysics as the other half of theoretical philosophy. This is explained partly by the fact that he wants to see epistemology (which must, with regard to our knowledge, “investigate its foundations and determine its limits” ) taken up into logic. However, since he ascribes to this latter in addition also the usual tasks and gives it a place (ibid., p. 1) as “a normative science, similar to ethics” (“As the latter examines the feelings and determinations of the will, whose conduct psychology depicts, according to their moral value for the sake of finding norms for practical action, logic also separates …”), it does not seem consistent to me when he nonetheless aligns it with metaphysics and believes that he defines it by the above definition of “theoretical philosophy”.

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classified under very different aspects, resulting in a unification of many into one science. Under the purely theoretical aspect, which has in mind only the most natural overview of what is investigated, we unite into one science those truths which are intrinsically related. Here the recounting of particular historical events and the doctrine of general laws, and again under the laws which are prevalent in the different genera and species of objects, are separated into different disciplines. Under a practical aspect, however, propositions that are heterogeneous in relation to each other can be joined together for the sake of some goal which perhaps lies completely outside of the area of knowledge. It is like this in the case of the art of building. It includes along with certain mathematical and physical items of knowledge, which are indispensable to the master builder, also ones of a completely different genus, such as aesthetic knowledge and all kinds of knowledge that is concerned with hygiene and the needs and conveniences of social life, etc. But also medicine, as a sum of what a physician must know, seems to me to be a clear example of the unification of heterogeneous items of knowledge into a unity grounded by a practical goal. For even though the anatomy and physiology of a healthy and sick human being makes up the core of medical knowledge, it nonetheless also includes certain botanical, mineralogical, chemical, indeed also climatological items of knowledge and very special ones, such as those of the chemical composition of certain mineral springs, all kinds of knowledge which is the basis of surgical skills, and so forth. Here too a unitary practical consideration allows much, which is disparate from a purely theoretical standpoint with regard to the subject matter of which there is knowledge, to be comprehended univocally under a true class name. However, there are many possible practical aspects, and thus it does not seem to be such a quick and easy matter to rule out the suggestion that the unitary comprehension of all that is currently called a “philosophical discipline” appears to be truly justified under one such aspect. If the truths treated in different philosophical disciplines did not make up a true class under any aspect, either practical or theoretical, why would they have been unified as philosophical? If this were accidental, how could it be done so universally? For with respect to instruction we find the same subjects organized together for the same teaching position, not only everywhere in all German institutions of higher learning, but also in the cases of peoples of a completely different tongue. And also as far as research is concerned, it is clear that the different areas called

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“philosophical” are usually cultivated by the same thinker not only at present, but also in past ages. This fact demands an explanation, and with it the darkness will also then become illuminated for the sake our question. Indeed, I believe that I am not wrong to say that in the last remark we are shown the way to a solution of this problem. If we repeatedly allow certain disciplines to be exposited by the same teacher, this is done from practical considerations, because we think of this person as suitable to be the teacher for the entire group. And if certain investigations are constantly and universally united, as distinct from others, under the hands of the same investigators, we must conclude from this that this unification presumably corresponds with the practical interest of the division of labor in research. Those differences which become predominately decisive in the clearly laid-out ordering of truths according to their natural affinity are here, for the sake of the organization of labor, by no means of a significance as profound as would perhaps be ascribed to them by many who fail to consider the matter thoroughly. It is not the difference between concrete-historical and abstractlawlike truths. Chemistry treats general laws, while the history of chemistry treats particular historical events, and yet only the chemist can appropriately expound on the history of chemistry. 9 Nor is it the difference between theoretical and practical under consideration here. Chemistry is a theoretical discipline, and yet only the great chemist Liebig could import into the practical science of agriculture those formidable advances which tillage owes to him, and another representative of the same subject, Pasteur, became the potent promoter of pathology and therapy as well as the great benefactor of mankind through his investigations concerning the phenomena of fermentation. Also Helmholtz, who as a physicist and physiologist cultivated 9. Another example: The truths of astronomy are in large part concrete in nature – a cosmography and geography of the heavens – whereas mathematical research is elevated to the highest degree of abstraction and its considerations extend quite generally to relations of magnitude belonging to every genus, no matter if there would be an example thereof in the real world or not. Nonetheless, it was great mathematicians who established significant advances in astronomy and discovered quite special facts, such as the elliptical shape of the course of planets, through the aid of calculation. And thus certain items of knowledge can in various ways provide the indispensable methodicalpractical help for the solution of quite different problems which do not belong together with these items from the standpoint of purely systemic arrangement.

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theoretical branches of knowledge, created the ophthalmoscope, which is so important for ophthalmology. In general, lots of eminently practical instruments, e.g. the telescope, the thermometer, the pendulum clock, the electrical telegraph, and others, came into being at the hand of theoretical investigators. Thus it is perfectly consistent with the unity of philosophical disciplines from the standpoint of the most expedient division of labor when we see the philosopher doing theoretical research in psychology and giving prescriptions for practical conduct in ethics, logic, and aesthetics, and when we encounter in metaphysics universal-lawlike problems, in the history of philosophy by contrast historical-narrative works. First of all, as far as those practical disciplines are concerned, they are in truth from the viewpoint of correct organization as intimately connected with psychology as medicine is with theoretical biology, agricultural science with chemistry. Judgment and its evidence which occupies the logician – choosing or preferring and the criterion of their justification which occupies the ethicist – finally, presentational activity and the aesthetic pleasure which is connected with this activity under certain conditions, all of this indeed obviously refers to the study of psychical processes. It might rather be asked: How does metaphysics join this union of theoretical psychology, which is analogous to the group of biologicalmedical subjects, and into that of the medicina et dialectica mentis built upon it? This seems to be the more difficult part of the problem, the part that was in fact more open to doubt and error. A closer consideration, however, yields the result that also metaphysics and psychology, in spite of the difference of their subject matters, closely belong together from a heuristic viewpoint and that the psychologist is the very one, more than any other researcher, who appears to be suited to formulate and solve metaphysical problems. Already if it is asked with Kant whether we have besides analytic judgments also synthetic ones a priori, and whether the latter are perhaps, like the former, everywhere necessary for scientific progress, but in contrast to them empty and void upon leaving the phenomenal sphere, it is clear that only psychological investigation can decide this matter. This question, however, is one whose corresponding answer is a prerequisite for every ontological and cosmological

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investigation. 10 Psychological experience and analysis is accordingly also that which leads to the source and the true sense of the most important metaphysical concepts such as those of causality and of substance. And as regards the problem that occupied Aristotle, Descartes, and Leibniz so intensely, the question whether an analogue of the understanding and the tactical will forms the last hidden cause of all being and occurrence, this problem obviously could not arise on any other basis but a psychological one. The concepts of the understanding and the will are themselves taken from the psychical area. What Aristotle says here is confirmed, that what is first and earliest by nature is for our knowledge the last, 11 because psychology’s domain, which consists of 10. The indispensability of psychological investigations for the question about the sources and limits of our knowledge has also been emphasized with regard to the socalled Neo-Kantian school, which here denies the true relationship, in Stumpf (1892). The acceptance of the correct states of affairs is also, at least implicitly, already conveyed by what J. Locke and D. Hume have stressed, namely that one the most important circumstances by which the peculiar significance and limitation of our cognitive faculty is conditioned lies in the type of ultimate elements of our intuitions and their number, as this is given once and for all. For they were completely clear about the fact that the microscopic analysis and description of these belong to the tasks of the psychologist. This manner of investigation concerning the conditions and limits of knowledge, as we encounter it among the predecessors of Kant’s critical undertaking, is the one to which we definitely return whenever his attempt to build science upon synthetic judgments a priori and innate “forms” proves to be illusory. D. Hume’s thesis then becomes effective, that wherever someone purports to operate with concepts whose features cannot document their origin in any experience we may be certain of having before ourselves an unwelcome intruder in the domain of thoughts. What we have in such a case is a meaningless word. It is, to be sure, true that we are not shackled to what is offered in experience by an inability to combine its elements anew in various ways, and such presentations which are obtained through synthesis can be valuable, indeed indispensable, for the legitimate grasp of reality. Even the most original and seemingly free formations of those presentations, however, ultimately contain only constituent parts which – as remarked – are abstracted from outer or inner experience, and in this sense all our presenting and therewith all our cognition (for a judgment about that of which we have no presentation or concept at all is not possible) are tied to intuitions and restricted by them. Psychological analysis of the contents of inner and outer experience is therefore the obvious foundation of this – I believe – supportable procedure of assessing the true limits of our knowledge. 11. Analytica posteriora I, 2 (71b33): “Things are prior and familiar in two ways; for it is not the same to be prior by nature and prior in relation to us, nor to be more familiar [by nature] and more familiar to us.” Cf. also Topica VI, 4 (141 b 5) and Metaphysica VII (Z), 4 (1029 b 3): “For learning proceeds”, as is said in the latter passage, “for all in

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the most complex and dependent processes, is for us the starting point for the investigation of what is most simple and independent. 12 We consequently find in truth that the methodical-practical viewpoint of the division of labor is what justifies the unification of all philosophical disciplines and allows them to be comprehended as a naturally unitary group, albeit a wide-ranging one. 13 And thus we can this way – through that which is less intelligible by nature [i.e. that which is in the natural order of truths conditioned and derived] to that which is more intelligible [i.e. that which is in fact the ground of the other]”. There are telling proofs for this truth not only in metaphysics, but rather in every science built upon observation and induction, including physics and astronomy. If Kepler’s laws, which are consequences of the general law of gravity, were known earlier than this law itself, this is something that also repeats itself elsewhere on a daily basis. Of this often prevailing contrast between the order of truths with regard to their inner dependence on the one hand and actual course of our discovery of them on the other hand Galileo’s statement is also no doubt true, that the paths along which nature brings about events are other than the roundabout paths we must take in order to make their coming-about understandable. 12. Translator’s note: Here we find a passing reference to the project of proving the existence of God (the absolutely simple and independent entity) as the ultimate of metaphysics, as this is in step with the Brentanian philosophical program. 13. The importance of cultivating all metaphysical investigations together with psychological ones, as considered from a heuristic standpoint, has recently been stressed by Franz Brentano (already in the lectures held in Würzburg). He has also emphasized (in Brentano, [trans.] Rancurello et al. [1995], pp. 21 ff. and 261) the practical significance of psychology as the foundation for the orderly pursuit of the ideal formation of mental life and the cure of its afflictions. This latter, the connection of the theoretical science of mind with the practical disciplines of ethics, logic, and aesthetics (Theodor Lipps wants to see these called “psychological disciplines” as well) has also often been affirmed by others. Hereby the notion is given that the practical consideration, if no other, of the correct organization of labor gives a more than accidental unity to all disciplines called “philosophical” at present and this unites them into a natural class. It has often been noticed in recent times that the truths of psychology and metaphysics are from a purely theoretical and systematic standpoint not naturally related. However, insofar as many have in this way overlooked the other possibility of a practical unification of them, they came to the conclusion that the question whether “philosophical discipline” is the name of a true class is to be answered altogether negatively. Hence, voices have become loud, for instance, which want to vindicate the term only for metaphysics (including epistemology) and to exclude psychology from it in order to secure it a unitary meaning. In this case, however, we would as a matter of consistency have to stop speaking of moral philosophy as well as philosophy of law and no longer subsume logic (in the sense of instruction for the sake of correct judgment, of the art de

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penser, as conceived of not only by the Cartesian school, but also by Aristotle and recent logicians of importance) under the name, unless someone believed it is possible to build these practical disciplines on metaphysics, which hardly anyone today will any longer attempt with respect to logic and is no more feasible with respect to ethics. For the sake of the correctness of what we believe to have shown analytically by means of the above elaborations we also appealed briefly to the testimony of history. In opposition to this appeal the objection might be raised that Aristotle, for instance, and likewise the great schools of the stoics and epicureans included in philosophy not only the subjects today called “philosophical”, but also all of natural science. It might furthermore be said that not only Anaxagoras and Democritus, Pythagoras and Empedocles were partly physicians, partly astronomers and mathematicians, but also the Stagirite was in fact engaged in natural scientific, especially biological investigations with no less diligence than psychological and ontological ones, and that Descartes, Hobbes, Leibniz, Schelling, Hegel, and others also would by no means have restricted the boundaries of the domain of work as we have limited them for philosophy. In this remark, however, I cannot see any decisive counter-example of our formulation. It is above all to be remembered that what we lay weight on as verification of our considerations is not the result of the reflection of this or that philosopher regarding the unification of certain truths in one group or their separation into several. For it was and indeed is possible for such a theory and classification to start from other viewpoints than that of methodical division of labor, and it must therefore necessarily lead to very different results. This was in fact so, for instance, in the case of the stoics and the epicureans and Aristotle. The latter, for instance, distinguished with regard to the natural affinity of truths, corresponding to the threefold degrees of abstraction from matter, three theoretical sciences (epistémai), namely physics, mathematics, and proté philosophia (called “metaphysics” by successors), and it is not improbable that he thought of mathematics and physics as united under the name deutera philosophia. (Psychology for him fell into a physical and metaphysical part, corresponding to the immaterial, noetic and the sensitive part of the soul – the latter part as immanent as “form” to the organic body.) Certainly he uses the terms “first” and “second” as class names in the division of items of knowledge from a theoretical viewpoint, and his classification and definition, due to being dominated by a completely different consideration, do not speak against what is asserted by us. Even if some philosophers, reflecting precisely on the practical viewpoint of organization of labor, would have given a division that diverges from ours, however, we should not regard this as what is decisive. The most expedient separation and unification of scientific labor is a matter of methodology and logic applied to the entire course of research. On both the micro and macro levels, however, logical praxis is as a rule prior to logical theory. The methods of testing and discovery truths are spontaneously practiced before reflection gives an account of them in abstracto. And thus also regarding the heuristically fruitful division of the branches of knowledge, the actual praxis of researchers, as it has gradually developed in history, seems to us a more decisive testimony of what is correct than the attempts at reflection and orientation with respect to this. However, as far as the objection is concerned that also the course of things themselves does not fully correspond to the schema required by us since a whole lot of

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philosophers could be cited who have more or less reached beyond the framework of what is today encompassed by the name “philosophy”, it is to be said that it cannot be a matter as to whether this or that researcher – namely when there were special reasons for this – has cultivated along with the domains included today within philosophy other additional ones, but rather what the rule was in this respect and has in approximation generally been in effect. Above all, men do not come into consideration for whom a concentration and division of labor was unnecessary due to their extraordinarily manysided talents. We may consequently disregard polymaths such as Aristotle and Leibniz, who, according to a statement made by Frederick the Great, represented by himself a whole academy of the sciences. On the other hand, the indication of the situation that prevailed at the time of the Ionians, Eleatics, and Pythagoreans also is inapplicable, for due to the small extent of scientific labor at that time a division thereof had not at all come about. Yet we encounter an analogue to those beginnings of research also in the beginning of the modern era, as a turn was taken once more immediately and exclusively to nature, breaking with tradition. Of course men, who connected with this manysidedness at the same time a fortunate gaze in the heterogeneous domains and at the same time added to mathematics, physics, and philosophy (in the narrower sense) with enduring discoveries and gave to medicine more valuable impulses, were rare in this second youth of science. It can finally not be used as a plea against us if in certain times of decline of philosophy the field circumscribed by us was transgressed by its practitioners, even if the majority of them did so. By proceeding according to an unnatural-arbitrary method (cf. Brentano, [trans.] Mezei and Smith [1998]), they were missing every intrinsic standard and reason for staying within the boundaries of the natural division of labor. Only accidental external circumstances therein could have been determining factors. In the same airy and sophistical or fantastical world with which they agreed about psychological and metaphysical questions, they thought of themselves as capable of treating also the questions of natural science and history and solving problems without painstaking preparations and aids. And thus we no doubt see men such as Schelling and Hegel and their students confidently doing “natural philosophy”, publishing a Zeitschrift für speculative Physik (1890-1801) and Jahrbücher der Medizin als Wissenschaft (18061808) and boldly getting involved in astronomy and chemistry, in biology and world history. It may in addition be remarked that from the one-sided focus on these phenomena in the history of philosophy one of the earlier mentioned definitions of the subject, indeed one that we could least of all accept, can be explained. For in this regard one thought that it is essential to philosophy to treat all possible questions in a bold flight according to a speculative or a priori method, whereas “specialized research”, which one opposed to it, seeks to hold them upon a tedious, empirical path. In that case one went ahead and made “philosophy” a name of a wrong research method. This was consistent, insofar as a priori speculation can only be erroneous if empirical research as such is the only fruitful source for the solution of certain problems. However, it was unjustified to form a judgment concerning all the endeavors of philosophy from the one-sided consideration of certain phases in its history. As a bad physician is, properly speaking, no physician, according to a statement of Plato, and one has no right to ascribe the premature and fantastical theories which have sometimes prevailed in medicine, for instance, to the essence of this

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subject, the analogue must also be true with respect to philosophy. Incidentally, those unfortunate excursions of certain philosophers into the domain of natural science, history, etc. also had fortunate consequences for philosophy. For the inevitable and obvious failures of their endeavors in these domains, where a secure standard for actual accomplishments soon delivered the judgment remorselessly against what had no grounds, also had to prepare for their overthrow in the field of psychology, ethics, etc. and for the insight that in both cases the highly prized “intellectual intuition” and the wizardry of “dialectical method” can lead only to pseudo-results and that only a step-by-step deliberate procedure by means of observation and experiment, induction and solid demonstrations, can bear healthy fruit. If, however, in such times of decline the actual expansion of so-called philosophical endeavors cannot be regarded as a testimony to the natural limits of the domain, it suffices, insofar as the reasons of the natural division of labor have not vanished for the researchers in other subjects, to look at the praxis of the latter in order to allow those boundaries, at least externally, to be prominent also there, indeed all the more sharply delineated, the more the contrast in the way of treating problems in the two cases becomes clear under such circumstances. We have conceded that also philosophical researchers who should be taken very seriously have encroached upon the field of natural science, mathematics, etc. and made significant contributions to them. Also it has happened the other way around, and especially prominent natural scientists, more or less aware that they were philosophizing, have successfully made psychological and cosmological questions, even logical and aesthetic ones, the subject matter of their thought. We owe to a Newton remarkable reflections on logic, as is well known; we owe to a Johannes Müller, Fechner, Helmholtz, Hering, Mach, Fick, and others contributions to experimental psychology which are worthy of our gratitude, as we do to others other things which are no doubt philosophical accomplishments. It will be conceded here, however, that here too such encroachment is the exception rather than the rule, and so it suffices also from this side what we find historically given as a very good verification of the results of our consideration taken from the nature of the matter at hand. We would finally like briefly to confront a possible misunderstanding. By asserting in the foregoing a logico-practical unity for all groups of truths and disciplines called philosophical today as regards their research and theory, we by no means rule out a further division of labor in any sense and for all times. If we survey the entire domain, it proves itself to be hardly less extensive than that of natural science. And as the moderate number of questions tackled and the small extent of what was investigated in natural science once allowed a set of theoretical and practical subjects in the strict sense to be assigned to the same researcher and teacher whereas we find them today divided up among a whole number of different scientific institutes and professorial chairs, an analogous change can be gradually made also in philosophy. We still have in the meantime with regard to it – or at least we did have until recently – situations similar to those which prevailed for centuries in biology and medicine, when the clinician also had to do and teach botany and chemistry, as Boerhave perhaps once did. This relation here gradually gives way to another one, which is even lamented as fragmentation. Yet, the only thing to be lamented would be an improper detachment from of the different branches from the center, from anatomy and physiology. Among the philosophical

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define philosophy as that area of knowledge which encompasses psychology and all disciplines connected most intimately with psychical investigation in accordance with the principle of the division of labor: of theoretical sciences metaphysics (and epistemology), of practical ones ethics, philosophy of law, and politics (including sociology and philosophy of history), further logic and aesthetics, and finally 14 – as we disciplines, psychology (as we have seen) occupies an analogous central position. Hence, an ethicist or aesthetician without proficient knowledge of psychology should be regarded as a charlatan no less than a physician who would be a stranger in anatomy and physiology. If, however, contact is preserved with that heart of philosophy, the different organs may for the rest lead a relatively independent life. In short, the division of labor, which contrasts philosophy and natural sciences as broad groups, need not simply stop after this first step, and it is no contradiction if it divides what it unifies in main classes into sub-classes as progressive research expands and deepens, as long as this division does not lose the character of co-operation. Certain praxis will show, however, that the specialist in natural science must rally with the specialist of other disciplines in natural science as with the philosophical one and vice-versa. 14. Perhaps the reader is missing pedagogy. Yet, insofar as this in the full and proper sense belongs to philosophy, it seems to be already present in the enumerated disciplines. For it is, within such restrictions, a cross-section of the three practical disciplines of the mental, a piece of communicative logic, ethics, and aesthetics, with a special application to an immature age. I said “insofar as this in the full and proper sense belongs to philosophy”. For it is so only to the extent that it has the education of the soul as its subject matter and consequently draws primarily upon psychology. As a doctrine of hygiene and education of the body, it is identical with a special part of medicine and is supported, as medicine is, on biological research. However, by considering physical excellence as a prerequisite for psychical excellence (mens sano in copore sano) rather than an end in itself, the physiologico-medical part of pedagogy is usually subsumed under the psychological one and tacitly included in it. It is also a known fact that national economy was regarded by its founders as a philosophical discipline. Adam Smith treats it explicitly as a part of his system of moral philosophy, and in recent times its connection with psychology has been stressed as a matter of special importance by the so-called Austrian school. Though we shall not decide the question here to what extent a more extensive inclusion of psychology in the studies of national economists is nowadays something useful, we must nonetheless also ascribe this area to the group of philosophical ones and have not explicitly enumerated it only because it seems to be a special part of politics (in the old Aristotelian sense of the word). It has, however, been acknowledged unanimously by the most important promoters of the discipline of politics, from Aristotle to Bentham, that this is most intimately connected with ethics and was lacking in guidance without tracing its steps back to what is ultimately a matter of principle in the question concerning values and human tasks. Bentham thinks that governmental legislation and morals aim at the same goal, but in different degrees. And in the case of Aristotle, politics and ethics seem so intimately

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must still add, in order to ward off the delusion that a history of psychology could be successfully written by anyone but a psychologist, a history of aesthetics by anyone but a competent aesthetician – of concrete-historical disciplines history of philosophy and all the different branches belonging to it. If we survey this vast field, no less extensive than that of natural science which stands next to philosophy as a sister, a number of distinguishing features that have been discerned in the discipline are grasped. First and foremost, we grasp the fact that it is difficult. Advancing from the simplest to the most complex in nature, we ultimately arrive at psychology, in whose subject matter physical processes intertwine and form extremely diverse complexities with chemical ones, physiological unconscious processes with conscious ones. Although the philosopher is concerned with the most complex occurrences in psychology, he is concerned in metaphysics with that which is, to be sure, the first and the simplest by nature, but for our restricted cognitive faculties the last. Connected with the difficult character and dependence, however, is the backward state . 15 No exact knowledge of laws of connected that the latter is presented only as first and ground-laying part of the latter. It can be no surprise that the relative independence and narrower division of labor, which we have stated as presumably consistent with the unity of philosophy as a wider heuristic-practical group, has already occurred with regard to political economy, and the same goes also for a part of pedagogy. Both of them, especially national economy – in order to arrive at fruitful and reliable generalization – require extensive empirical material, concerned with the history of the state. The assemblage and inspection of such material likewise needs a special ability, an eye for the concrete and practical, and methodical training in the arrangement and utilization of historical facts. These are qualities that the psychologist, merely as such, may not possess. It can indeed occur that someone sets out at a certain time in such a branch of research primarily to secure abundant factual material, though the work does not lose its scientific character. It is in such cases everywhere guided by the intention of paving the way and preparing the attainment of general laws by means of induction. In a certain sense it can be said of someone who procures the premises that he already begins the inference. 15. This includes also the erroneous views concerning what is as such here obtainable in research and the temporary total failure in method. Though we have convinced ourselves that the discrepancy between the definitions which have been formulated by philosophers are partly due to the fact that in different parts philosophy treats different subject matters, other discrepancies are attributable to the fact that the definition of the discipline is naturally tied to the fundamental views concerning the scope of our powers of understanding and the correct procedure in research. Only by

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psychical occurrence without physiology. If, however, this is the youngest among the natural sciences, this is especially true regarding the physiology of the brain. Its more significant advances belong only to the last few decades, and in spite of these we are still standing on very shifting soil here. The law of the apparently so intricate courses of the planets we discovered a long time ago; the unraveling of the courses of brain molecules, to which the changing play of our thoughts and our heart’s desires and hopes, longing and anxiety are connected, still require the efforts of later generations. However difficult philosophical questions may be and however incomplete their solutions, they have nonetheless always excited the general interest to a special degree, something which indeed reveals itself – as we have seen – already in that excessively bold input on the part of those who have little preparation. And also this peculiarity, the powerful interest which successfully competes with that of natural science, is indeed understandable. If natural science teaches us to know heaven and earth, philosophy teaches us to know what is within us; and the conscience within us, as Kant already thought, is no less suitable than the starry heaven above us to fill our heart with ever renewed admiration and awe. Natural science makes us familiar with all kinds of instruments for spreading culture upon the earth. Philosophy tells us wherein the proper and essential goods of culture lie. Only it speaks of joy and suffering of the human soul, of knowledge in opposition to error, of virtue in opposition to vice, shortly of that which alone gives value to life. The discoveries of the natural scientist have enhanced our physical power and technical ability almost beyond all limits. Also with regard to the acquaintance with the laws of the psychical, however, is Bacon’s saying “knowledge is power” true, and only this knowledge, on which culture of the soul is contingent, is able to be on guard against increased material power, like the knife in the hand of a child, being used for the sake of ruin, rather than for useful and curative purposes. Sociologists with deeper insight, such as J. S. Mill, have pointed out – and the social question clearly shows it to anyone who thinks – the danger there is for trusting in his alleged absolute method could Hegel define philosophy as the science of absolute truth. But also the definition that was common in the Kantian school (that philosophy is the system of items of knowledge from mere concepts) is attributable to the theory prevailing in that school concerning the nature and conditions of our knowledge.

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mankind when a one-sided progress of natural science enhances the technical instruments of power without corresponding philosophical progress and an enhancement of moral education and discipline based on this, teaching us to use such instruments for the sake of goodness. This inwardness and this seriousness of philosophical questions, their immediate connection with the highest and most precious interests of man, also had, practically speaking, the peculiar consequence that the occupation with them proves itself to be especially suited for having ennobling effects upon the mind and the heart, even if the attempt at their scientific solution was at first unsuccessful. So many thinkers, of whose lives and reflections the history of philosophy reports – Socrates, Plato, Spinoza, and others – will continue to shine their light through the millennia with regard to their ethical conduct as ideal figures, even though Spinoza’s system suffers from diverse defects, and though the ethical reflection of Socrates remained in negligible beginnings and Plato’s theory of Ideas and numbers proves to be one enormous error in view of sober criticism. Striving alone, single-mindedly devoted to the most sublime, elevates and ennobles the striving individual. Man grows with his higher purposes. To speak with one man who, apparently after a youth moved by turbulent sensuality, was uplifted by the devotion to the highest problems and was indeed elevated to the heroic resignation of a martyr for his conviction – I mean Giordano Bruno’s verse: And though the end desired be not attained, And though my soul in many thoughts is spent, Enough that she enkindle noble fire, Enough that she has lifted me on high. 16 Eh bench’il fin bramato non consegua, E’n tanto studio l’alma si dilegua, Basta che sia si nobilment’ accesa. Regarding the external fate of philosophy it is of course remarked by an old saying, which compares the various subjects included in the universitas litterarum:

16. Translator’s note: This translation is taken from “The Heroic Enthusiasts”, (trans.) L. Williams, available at www.forgottenbooks.org.

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Nonetheless, an external happiness is also often joined to the inner value of philosophy, goods which indeed may be called blessings in comparison to others. Hardly anyone will disagree when Aristotle reckons friendship among the highest goods, when he thinks that no one would wish to live without friends, even if he were over-abundantly blessed with all other endowments of fortune. 18 The common occupation with the profoundly serious questions of philosophy, however, seems to be an especially fertile ground for this exquisite fruit. According to the testimony of history, the noble good of friendship has amply become the lot of philosophical thinkers. It was with such love that the Eleatic Zeno became attached to his teacher Parmenides, a Plato to Socrates, a Theophrastus to Aristotle. Though I skip over many others, allow me to mention just one example from modern times since it is as close to home as can be. To the noble Bernard Bolzano 19 his numerous pupils were attached with such cordial adoration. This attachment outlasted the short life of the much ignored man and has still led more than forty years after 17. Translator’s note: This translation is taken from Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy. 18. Nicomachean Ethics VIII, 1, 1155a5. 19. B. Bolzano, born in Prague in 1781, equally talented in mathematics and philosophy and endowed with first-rate didactic ability, was, as is well known, professor of philosophical science of religion at the University of Prague for a number of years, where he exerted upon the students an influence that was beneficial and directed at the internalization and ethical deepening of religious consciousness. The edifying addresses to the academic youth, published in 1831, and all kinds of rumors that his talks contained deleterious innovations for state and church aroused the suspicion of his superiors, and since he refused to retract his teachings he was removed from his position after fifteen years of devoted teaching activity. He withdrew to the country and worked there as a fruitful author until 1848. Of his philosophical and theological writings the most important ones have been edited by his pupils, e.g. Bolzano (1837), Bolzano (1851), and the Bolzano (1834). Also the founders of the foundation mentioned in the text primarily intended to use the relevant financial means for a new edition of the works of their teacher.

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his death to the joining together of a group of men, both religious and secular, in faithful memory of the unforgotten teacher, in founding a Bolzano Foundation at our university and at the Czech one as well. 20 However, after this statement about the practical peculiarities of philosophy, let me return for yet another moment to the theoretical ones. We have seen that philosophy is in a certain sense dependent on all other sciences. “After we have speculated about the moon”, a brilliant researcher has said, “we can proceed to psychology”. 21 If, however, psychology learns from almost all others, it also pays many of them back. If it receives from history, philology, linguistics, and jurisprudence the material for its far-reaching inductions in the human sciences, the results of these generalizations also stand in relation to those concrete historical disciplines as reward and fulfillment. For in order to know the universal laws holding sway in the motley manifold of historical events, we subjugate ourselves to the pains of learning and securing their details. And if from the other side physiology and, directly or indirectly with it, all other natural sciences are the indispensable substructure for the investigations of the psychologist and metaphysician, his research into the laws of psychical phenomena, as the most complex ones, and into the ultimate grounds of the real appears as the crowning conclusion for that theory of the simpler natural processes and of the more special causes of being and of occurrence. Indeed, the epistemological endeavors of the philosopher have as their goal a testing and justification of all scientific effort, the securing of the sources and boundaries of all true knowing. Philosophical reflection is thus bound by thousands of threads with almost all other disciplines; the solution of its problems appears as the most important task of reason and as the interest of all scientific research. And also for the sake of this relationship, talking not merely pro domo, it may well be my endeavor, at this solemn moment and from this place, from which the different faculties of our alma mater alternately speak to you, to clarify the concept of philosophy and to make a warmer statement concerning its significance. It has always been one of the most beautiful peculiarlarities of 20. Translator’s note: By “our university” Marty means the German University of Prague. Though there had previously been only one University of Prague, it was divided into a German and a Czech one in the late nineteenth century. 21. Mach (1896), p. 101.

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German universities to remind us of the internal connection of all knowledge and to keep the eyes of their affiliates open to this, and in the thought of this connection our present consideration may also ring out. In its light indeed every petty vanity and ambition disappears; there is by contrast an igniting of the noble rivalry in striving for the common goal that gives to every one of our efforts, whether it is higher or lower in the step ladder of the disciplines of knowledge, its true benediction and dignity. The term of life is narrow – the plentitude of that which is to be investigated, however, is immeasurable. It is good if what is at stake is not primarily the quality and quantity of what is obtained in service of this great goal, but rather the noble willing and doing itself at that very point at which special inclination and talent calls upon each one of us. This disinterested striving is in itself of indestructible value as soon as it – though at first be concerned with the small and the particular – is nonetheless aimed at the great and the whole. For the words of John Locke stand firm: “… to love truth for truths sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed plot of all other virtues.” 22

22. Translator’s note: Marty does not give the source of this quotation, which can be traced to a letter from Locke (29 October 1603) to Anthony Collins. Here it is given in its original form, as found in de Beer (ed.) (1989), p. 97.

WILLIAM JAMES, THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. [TWO VOLUMES. NEW YORK: HENRY HOLT, 1890. VII + 689 + 688 PP.] 1 Anton Marty Translated by Robin D. Rollinger

The present work contains twenty-eight chapters, some larger, some smaller. Some of them are printed in more or less revised versions of articles that had previously appeared in journals. The author explains that the book, whose extraordinary length he himself regrets, has come about in connection with his university lectures. The successive publication of single items, however, he claims to be the result of its slow birth. Without this remark in the preface, the reader would have easily come to suspect that a treatment of psychology in its entirety was not what the author initially planned and that he rather subsequently collected together and supplemented a series of more or less mutually independent essays and revised them into a whole that embraces all questions of this domain. In many respects, that is to say, James’ work makes the impression of not coming out of a single mold. Above all, no fully systematic structure according to more didactic or a strictly scientific plan is recognizable. The sequence of topics in the chapters (and the chapter division is the only one that externally comes to light) appears to be a rather loose one. Indeed, it not only baffles the reader, but it also sometimes embarrasses the author himself. Furthermore, the work lacks unity in that the different questions of psychology are not given throughout an equally detailed treatment corresponding to their importance and to the contemporary state of research. (And by this I do not only mean what the author himself concedes in the preface, that the domain of feelings [pleasure and pain] is not given a more thorough-going treatment.) Finally, the work lacks a unitary character insofar as the level of its scientific attitude is not the same in every respect and in all parts. In this sense it does not all seem suitable for one and the same readership. The author’s thoroughgoing erudition and penetrating acuteness on the one hand and his definite talent for illustrative popular exposition on the other have not 1. Translator’s note: This is a translation of Marty (1892a), which was also published in Marty, (eds.) Eisenmeier et al. (1916b), pp. 105-156.

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found themselves in a harmonious marriage. They often live separately in the same home, and thus many questions are subject to a treatment that is to my mind too popular and verges on newspaper-writing. Portions which excellently sum up what has thus far been achieved regarding a problem and offer a noteworthy independent discussion are mixed with others which, to be sure, show the imaginative and eloquent essayist, but less of James the researcher. But enough concerning these defects! They do not prevent the book from containing good things, sometimes outstanding things, and what the author could see is confirmed: Whoever brings much brings something to many – this he may justifiably expect from it. It does not seem to me fitting for the beginner or as an introduction to the scientific study of psychology. This is so partly due to reasons that lie in what has already been said and also partly due to ones that will come to light from later discussions. However, some of the book’s elaborations must interest the specialist. Other ones will be a stimulating and enjoyable read for the person who desires a more popular treatment of psychological questions. I would like to draw the attention of such a person especially to those portions which exposit scientific doctrines in application to ethics and pedagogy with noble warmth and with an illustrative force of expression not unworthy of a poet. In the following we shall first give a survey of the content of the chapters, where we of course permit ourselves to dwell somewhat more on some matters than on others; after that, there will be a critical discussion of certain basic methodical views of the book which, farreaching in their consequences, are more decisive than others for its manner of posing and solving the problems. I. The first, very short chapter is concerned with the tasks of psychology, a point to which we shall return. The second and third ones give a good overview of the current status of brain physiology, though perhaps too detailed for the purposes of the book. The fourth chapter, on habit, contains in addition to nice indications for ethics and pedagogy primarily a physiological theory of the topic. The fifth (Automaton Theory) is aimed at that view according to which all forces and all causal occurrence in us would be purely mechanical, leaving for the psychical

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only the role of an epiphenomenon (a shadow 2 or inert spectator 3 ) that lacks every capacity of having an effect. The author decides against this view after he presents the pros and cons (though the latter perhaps not exhaustively). The sixth chapter (The Mind Stuff Theory) incidentally mentions everything put forward in favor of the assumption of unconscious psychical states and rejects this assumption decisively. The main focus, however, is directed against the attempt to conceive our unitary consciousness as a collective made up of “smaller units” and to construct it from a real plurality of particles of mental dust (whether these be conscious or unconscious). The false analogies that are popular here (such as that of the parallelogram of forces) and other unclear ideas – as when one conceives of the brain as the need arises now as a plurality of realities, now as a unity (in order then to be able to speak of its activity as that of one thing) – receive a sharp and illuminating treatment. The relevant aspects of Spencer’s theory of evolution, the loose and vague character of which not even the most objective critic can deny, are given a rather rough treatment. As regards James’ own positive view concerning the bearer of consciousness, a part of the tenth chapter is also to be compared with the elaborations of the sixth. After having rejecting both the assumption that the brain, considered as a whole, can be the unitary “thinker”, and the assumption that this function belongs to a single cell or an atom thereof (the latter seems to him unacceptable with regard to anatomic and pathological experiences), the sixth chapter refers to the theory of an immaterial soul as a hypothesis to which a respectable logical position is assigned from this perspective. The tenth chapter, however, finds that the assumption of a spiritual soul-substance explains nothing (i.e. presumably – if contradiction is to be avoided – nothing further). It is moreover said to be a metaphysical issue which does not concern the psychologist as such. The latter, according to James, must maintain his empirical-phenomenal standpoint, and here only the present state of consciousness itself can in each case be regarded as the bearer of consciousness. “The passing Thought itself is the only verifiable Thinker”. 4 Below we shall partly discuss the content of the brief seventh 2. Translator’s note: James (1890) I, p. 133. 3. Translator’s note: Ibid., p. 129. 4. Ibid., p. 346.

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chapter (“The Methods and Snares of Psychology”), which by no means exhausts its subject matter; here it may only be mentioned that James denies the possibility of making a present psychical phenomenon the object of observation. Every observation for him takes place afterwards and in memory. Indeed, the author goes so far as to declare, “No subjective state, whilst present, is its own object; its object is always something else”. 5 Yet, we presumably have to regard this as an imprecise expression that has arisen from the zeal of combat. For shortly prior to that James – if I do not misunderstand everything – had accepted Brentano’s important distinction between inner observation and simple perception. Also the statement just cited, taken literally, would stand in direct contradiction with his fight against the assumption of unconscious psychical states (or does this not mean precisely states which would be only a consciousness of something else and not at the same time a selfconsciousness?). However, James has not even proved the assertion that we could never turn to a present psychical phenomenon in observation, and it might agree with the facts better if one does not deny the possibility of an observation of present psychical states so unconditionally and without any qualification. The eighth chapter is entitled: “The Relations of Minds to Other Things”. Yet, instead of this it is at once also said: “to other objects”. And the equivocation which lies in this wording, by designating now a reality independent from consciousness, now a correlate of consciousness (the content thereof), allows the author to treat under the above title a set of problems that one would not otherwise look for together: namely alongside the question concerning the number of fundamentally different modes of our conscious relation to objects, also the very different one (which, however, is not clearly differentiated from the previous one – cf. also the tenth chapter, pp. 271 ff.) whether our consciousness is an effect and sign of so-called external realities (other minds and material things), and further the question concerning the relation in which our mental states stand to space (seat of the soul) and to time (in other words, whether consciousness ever undergoes a total interruption). The ninth chapter (“The Stream of Thought”) is meant to begin the study of the mind “from within”, more particularly to offer something like a charcoal sketch of inner life, which is to emphasize only those traits which are characteristic of the stream of consciousness as a 5. Translator’s note: Ibid., p. 190.

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whole. Among these distinguishing features James stresses in particular the constant change in consciousness and its continuity because they are often overlooked, and in connection with the theory of continuity he formulates a totally new division of psychical states into substantive and transitive states. Both points must later occupy us more in greater detail. The tenth chapter (“The Consciousness of Self “) contains, in addition to a more rigorous investigation concerning “the pure self or principle of personal unity” (where both D. Hume’s “associationist theory” and Kant’s “transcendentalist” theory of an immaterial soul are again discussed – cf. the fifth chapter), a whole set of more popular elaborations concerning the so-called material, social, and spiritual self, concerning self-feelings (complacency and dissatisfaction), self-love and self-preservation, etc. Here the question is also raised as to what “the self of all the other selves” is, and it is decided that this is “the central active self”, where activity or spontaneity means the consenting and negating conduct of the mind towards presented objects – but in a twofold sense, namely in that of judging consent and denial and in that of preference and rejection by emotion and will. This whole distinction between a central and less central self is, on my view, of little scientific value. And if James is inclined to answer the question as to how “the central part of the self” is perceived by saying, in a manner similar to Wundt’s view, that the feeling of his innermost self “when carefully examined, is found to consist mainly of the collection of these peculiar motions in the head or between the head and throat”, 6 we see him obviously at best ignoring the fact that there are other views of physical 7 phenomena than this one: an oversight which however also arises in his case quite noticeably. 8 However, like Wundt, he does not draw the full consequence of this. It would be no less than honestly and definitively abandoning all talk of consenting and abnegating, welcoming and rejecting, wish, desire, interest, etc. as senseless. We have certainly not obtained these concepts from intuitions of physical phenomena (sensations of motion and the like). And if there are no other intuitions, where should we get them, and along with them the concept of the more active self, as it was initially 6. Translator’s note: Ibid., p. 301. 7. Translator’s note: Here Marty apparently means to say “psychical”. 8. Cf., for instance, James (1890) II, pp. 7 f., 455.

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presented to us by James. – Finally, the extensive chapter (over 100 pages) discusses also in detail the various “alterations of the ego” and the facts adduced most recently by the French and American researchers concerning so-called double and multiple consciousness. The eleventh chapter treats the nature and the laws of attention (cf. also parts of the thirteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-sixth chapters). The author sees the essence of this process in the adaptation of the sensory organs for an impression and in a certain preparation of the relevant “ideational centers”, i.e. in an anticipatory activity of the imagination (“inward reproduction”, 9 “formation of a separate image”, 10 “the image of the Mind is the attention” 11 ) which “accommodates” the impression and “heightens” it. This description seems one-sided to me; it obviously has exclusively so-called sensory attention in mind. The “feelings of relation” and concepts, however, which James (as we shall hear again) puts in contrast with all sensory images as something essentially different from them, cannot be accompanied by attention! And what about his later identification of the will, even belief or judgment, with attention? Is every willing and every “believing” to lie in a pre-perception, in the formation of a separate sensory image of the object? The twelfth chapter (“Conception”) opposes the nominalism of Berkeley, of the two Mills, and others, without replacing it with anything satisfactory, as will be seen. Also, the depictions which the author himself gives of the thought processes here and elsewhere 12 often sound nominalistic enough. The thirteenth chapter, a discussion of the nature and laws of discrimination and comparison, could be opposed in many respects. Here it may be mentioned only that Weber’s Law (for which James sees a purely physiological interpretation as the most probable), among other things, and the formulations which Fechner based on it are discussed. Here we are astonished by the fact that the author, who would like to make psychological research today already thoroughly psychophysical (presumably more extensively than the status quo permits), finds the very literature in the wake of the dispute concerning Fechner’s 9. James (1890) I, p. 504. 10. Ibid., p. 503. 11. Ibid., p. 442. 12. Cf., for instance, Ibid., pp. 265 ff.

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“psychophysical laws” to be “dreadful” and wants to include the formula of Fechner itself, which may be regarded as a permitted attempt to find a hypothesis that satisfies the facts, among the idola specus if ever there was one. The fourteenth chapter (“Association”) contains items of historical and substantive excellence. Yet, nothing prevents the historical exposition from containing unjustified objections against so-called associationist psychology (cf. also Chapter X, XII, and XIII). We shall come back to this. In terms of substance it is noteworthy that James wants to get rid of the so-called law of similarity as a special law and seeks the proper reason of all association in the law of habit. In the main we agree with this notion, which was already indicated by Aristotle and has in modern times been clearly expressed by Franz Brentano, 13 although the manner in which James wants to reduce the cases of “association by similarity” to his general principle does not fully satisfy us. When he further stresses that the basic laws of association of ideas are psychophysical ones, we are in agreement with him on this point as well. What he himself offers along these lines, however, seems to be little else to me than a translation of the empirical generalizations found on the path of psychological consideration into the language of a brain physiology that is still quite vague. The fifteenth chapter (“The Perception of Time”) takes pains to impress upon the reader the distinction between proper (no doubt very narrow) time-intuition (“duration intuitively felt”, “specious present”) and improper presentations that we form for ourselves of larger stretches of time. Yet, the author seems to me neither to grasp the true nature of the former in a fully correct way nor to delineate its boundary in sufficient narrowness. He fails to do the latter not only because he seems to include a part of the future therein 14 (of which we certainly have no intuition), but rather because he considerably overestimates the size of “immediately perceived” duration, namely up to approximately twelve seconds. This conclusion is prematurely drawn from experiments made by Wundt and others concerning the breadth of our consciousness with regard to successive impressions. The sixteenth chapter is concerned with memory. In the seventeenth chapter (“Sensation”) the sensations of color are given the most detailed discussion, especially the controversy 13. Cf. his lecture, held in 1880, in Brentano (1892). 14. Cf. James (1890) I, p. 606.

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concerning the nature of simultaneous contrast, which is decided on the basis of Hering’s thorough-going investigations and in agreement with him. An attempt at an exact classification of sensations from a descriptive viewpoint is not made and is in fact seen to be impossible. There is, according to James’ principles, no introspective analysis of sensations. Phenomenally they are all equally simple. Complexity has meaning only genetically. We must come back to this. – The eighteenth chapter (“Imagination”) attaches the greatest weight to the demonstration that imagination is by no means the same for different individuals, but rather the contents of their images and intuitions are different in character as regards both degree and quality (prevalence of the visual, audible type, etc.). Hallucinations are strangely treated in the following (nineteenth) chapter (“The Perception of ‘Things’“). By “perception” the author means the same thing that German psychologists mean by (outer) Wahrnehmung in contrast with sensation, namely a complex product of experiences. 15 He rightly rejects the thesis that this is a matter of unconscious inferences. He stresses rather the power of association. Yet, he does not sufficiently distinguish between that which, in the case of the influence of earlier experiences upon the “perception” (“Perzeption”) of present impressions, is to be grasped as rearrangement of the intuitive presentation and that which is to be grasped merely as a matter of altered judgment. (This is also particularly true of related elaboration of the next chapter.) It seems to me that James does not do justice to the true nature and significance of processes of judging. Of sensory illusions, which are also discussed in this chapter, several types are distinguished. The twentieth chapter, which is very elaborate 16 and exhibits great literary and substantial knowledge of details, concerning the perception of space gives at the end a good overview of the dispute regarding the psychological nature and the origin of space presentation since Berkeley, especially regarding the camps of the so-called nativists and empiricists. In this connection James makes the correct observation that presumably for many who stand at a greater distance from the core of this discussion and lack independent judgment these two names, of which one sounds progressive, the other one somewhat regressive, have a biasing effect. In 15. Yet, the “complexity” is to be understood only in an improper sense according to him, as we are yet to hear. 16. James (1890) II, pp. 134-282.

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addition, one easily confuses nativism with apriorism and especially with Kant’s view, whereas Kant in fact, with his distinction between space and quality, is quite far removed from nativism as advocated, for instance, by Hering and Stumpf. James himself is a nativist and claims to have benefited particularly from the researchers just mentioned in the formation of his relevant views. Like them, he claims space and quality to be equally original and inseparable contents of sensation, but this is not meant as a denial that experience nonetheless plays a great role in our conception of spatial relations. Here one can of course, even if one is in principle in agreement with the author, think differently about how much of what we popularly call our “space intuitions” is in fact a matter of intuitive presentation – either original (“sensation”) or a result of real rearrangement of sensation through “imagination” – and how much is merely a matter of improper presentation and shifting judgment. James might have in fact estimated the first two moments (sensations and imagination) too highly. Many will also perhaps stumble over ambiguous and less felicitous manners of expression, such as when space without order is spoken of 17 and it is said more often 18 that a spatial point in and of itself has no position, that its position is created through the existence of other points to which it stands in relation! Does this mean that places are nothing but relations (hence relations without the foundation of absolute determinations!)? Or is it only to be said that a point can be and be presented only in relation with countless others (with a continuum), and that there are thus given, with one absolute local determination, a plurality of such determinations and consequently also local relations? In Vol. II 19 intuited motion is explained to be an elementary and specific sensory quality (“a primitive form of sensibility”) that is not derivable from the “sense of position” and the sense of succession in time (which are both much less delicate than the “sense of movement”). However, the arguments that are adduced are by no means proofs. The delusion under which the author is laboring, it seems to us, is in large measure connected with the lack of clarity about the true nature of the “sense of time”. Yet, we must leave this matter. 17. James (1890) I, pp. 145 ff. 18. Ibid., pp. 154, 158, 164. 19. James (1890) II, pp. 171 f.

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The twenty-first chapter (“The Perception of Reality”), which I regard as one of the weakest of the book, aims at investigating the nature of judgment and belief and the laws of its origin. Yet, in neither one of these respects is anything satisfactory achieved. In advance, the description and characterization of the phenomenon must be called almost chaotic. In Vol. II James designates this – with an approving reference to Brentano’s opposition to the theory of judgment thus far – as a state of consciousness sui generis. 20 However, this sui generis character seems to be meant only in contrast with conception (Vorstellen). For elsewhere the author minces no words in now declaring belief to be an emotion, now identifying it with the will. 21 Indeed, the above expression does not keep him from thinking that Hume essentially hit upon the correct view by saying that “belief in anything was simply the having the idea of it in a lively and active manner”. 22 And again both Hume and Brentano are abandoned when the old dogma that to every judgment or belief there essentially belongs a combination of presentations (subject and predicate) is revived as something obvious and never contested. 23 Accordingly we will not be amazed when James without any misgivings again follows the tradition in that he – in spite of Brentano’s convincing demonstration of how the concept of existence, like that of truth, arises through reflection on (correct and affirmative) judgment – uses it conversely (by virtue of an obvious hysteron-proteron) for a definition of that phenomenon . If we look at what, according to the author, the content of the much abused concept is to be, we notice at once that he confuses it with the completely different concept of the real. 24 “Reality” and “existence” mean to him, completely permiscue, now that which exists (i.e. correctly understood: everything that is correctly accepted in contrast with the false), now the real (i.e. the substantial in contrast to something that is a mere lack, a mere possibility, a merely presented object, etc.). The 20. Ibid., p. 286 f. 21. Ibid., p. 320 ff. 22. Ibid., p. 295 23. Ibid., p. 287. 24. Cf. Brentano, (trans.) Hague (1902), pp. 58 f., and Marty (1884a), p. 169 ff.

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consequence thereof is at once that he conceives of the circumstance whether something correctly acceptable is real or non-real (e.g. a horse or a merely presented horse) and the differences of the real among each other as differences in the style of existence. To be sure, he has this in common with many. However, something is peculiar to him: he mixes up the concepts of “real” and “existent” not only with each other, but also with a third and a fourth item. He calls everything that is in fact accepted by someone, even if it be done completely without justification, “real” and “existent”, as long as it is an object of regarding-as-true or attention (which is to be the same thing), and indeed everything – for this again is to be identical according to James – which in fact arouses someone’s interest for as long as the object does so. In this way he obtains new and ultimately countless “styles of existence”. For there are, as it turns out, according to him above all as many worlds, “each with its own special and separate style of existence”, 25 as we can distinguish from the descriptive and genetic viewpoints more general and more special, indeed most special classes of belief and delusion – realized only in one single individual – and of that which is believed and feigned, ranging from the “worlds” of the idola tribus and those of whole ages and peoples of common religious belief to the countless worlds of individual opinions and insanity. Everything is “real”, only each one “after its own fashion”. 26 The interest which James identifies with belief thus, in addition, contributes with all its differentia (aesthetic, practical, etc.) to an increase of the “styles of existence”. And when the author distinguishes degrees of intensity, rightly in the case of interest and with less justification in the case of conviction, he also comes to speak in all seriousness of a difference between more and less “real” or existent. Completely at his wit’s end must a beginner face this bundle of equivocations and the subjectivism that is tied up with it and confuses all concepts. Obviously, on the basis of such an inexact description of judgment, the investigation of genetic laws cannot turn out to be satisfactory. It would be bad for the final victory of truth for which we all hope, if everything James teaches about our convictions were correct. Fortunately, however, belief and interest and disregard and disbelief are in fact not, as he thinks, one and the same. The twenty-second chapter is concerned with reasoning (Schließen) 25. James (1890) II, p. 291. 26. Translator’s note: Ibid., p. 293.

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and the difference between human and animal understanding. When James seeks the root of this difference in the imperfection with which animals associate by similarity, the question arises whether this fact is not in need of and capable of a further analysis. 27 The brief twenty-third chapter on the production of movement is almost completely physiological. The twenty-fourth chapter, on instincts, is full of observations, both from the author himself and from others. The same goes for the twenty-fifth chapter, on emotions, which is primarily concerned with bodily changes and expressive movements that accompany emotions. According to James, what we usually think of as emotion is in most cases a fiction. Straining correct observations to the point of being far-fetched, he teaches, that what is left over of anger, of fear, of astonishment, and generally of most emotions, after removing sensations and feelings of pleasure and displeasure which accompany the relevant bodily alteration, is nothing but a cold, colorless, and neutral intellectual state. “My theory ... is that the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS the emotion”. 28 The author treats the origin of expressive movements by attempting to supplement Darwin. This attempt is made by means of a principle that James would like to call that of “reacting similarly to analogous-feeling stimuli” 29 and has not sufficiently been noted. The examples thereof which the author cites, however, are only cases of the Darwinian “principle of serviceable associated habits”, 30 and it is a general trait of a habit that is actualized not only under equal circumstances, but also under merely similar and analogous ones. 31 Darwin, however, overlooked the fact that some of our expressive movements are based on an analogy of the gesture to that which is expressed by them, as nodding the head, for instance, is based on an analogy between bodily turning towards something and the mental attitude of someone in agreement, who (as language also metaphorically 27. Cf. Marty (1890), pp. 74 ff. 28. James (1890) II, p. 449. 29. Ibid., p. 481. 30. Translator’s note: See Darwin (1872), pp. 28 ff. 31. Cf. Marty (1890), pp. 456 ff.

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says) is “inclined” towards the view. While this peculiar source of expressive movements is overlooked by James as well, it would be more correct to add it as a new principle of “analogy” or “symbolic” expression to Darwin’s principles. 32 The twenty-sixth chapter, on the will, contains among other items a thorough-going discussion of the dispute concerning the existence of socalled feelings of innervation and decides against it. As far as the discussion of the nature and essential moments of the volitional phenomenon is concerned, I cannot conceal the fact that it seems to suffer from analogous defects, such as the characterization of belief and judgment. It confuses the phenomenon in question with other things, connected with it as conditions or consequences, and contains, in addition to equivocations, statements that are hard or impossible to reconcile with each other. Above all, James continually mixes up volition and volitional action (as does Wundt 33 ), both of which he calls “will” and “volition”, and wherever he speaks of the relation of will to thought (or ideas) he apprehends the latter expression in a confused way, now in the sense of that which is thought, now in the sense of thinking. Only in this way can I to some extent understand it when he most explicitly identifies will or volition with attention 34 (“volition is nothing but attention” 35 ), and when he declares that that to which the will is turned is always an idea and the essence of willing as well as attention lies in the fact that the mind retains an idea and fills itself with it, which would otherwise fade away. 36 Reasonably speaking, this can only mean – we said something similar already with regard to Wundt – that also voluntary action must always be preceded by an inner one, directed towards a presenting. And when James himself remarks elsewhere “that although attention is the first and fundamental thing in volition, express consent to the reality of what is attended to is often an additional and 32. Cf. Marty (1875), pp. 93 ff. . 33. Cf. Marty (1886), pp. 357-364, and Marty (1889), pp. 195-220. 34. James (1890) II, pp. 561, 562, 564, 571 and elsewhere. 35. James (1890) I, p. 447. 36. James (1890) II, pp. 559 ff., 564, 567: “… the point, to which the will is directly applied is always an idea”.

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quite distinct phenomenon involved”, 37 it seems to me rather that, wherever what to be realized is something other than a mere presenting, e.g. an external movement, that “consent” which differs from “attention” (i.e. according to James: clinging to the presentation) must in fact be there at all times in order to able to speak in truth of not merely an inner voluntary act, but rather of an outer one and of a willing that is directed towards something external. 38 No one but Schopenhauer will deny that the will or that consent is in this case as well directed towards something presented and in this sense willing is always a relation between the mind and its ideas. – According to what has been said, there will be no surprise that I also do not agree when James distinguishes two cases with regard to our (external) actions, namely the case where a movement is preceded only by the presentation of the consequences which it will have for our sensation and those other cases where yet another psychical antecedent is added to this in the form of a fiat, a command, a decision, consent, and when he nonetheless designates both types of occurrence as voluntary actions, indeed the first, the ideo-motor action, as the proper type of “volitional process”. 39 On my view, these actions, where the presentation of the movement is its only psychical antecedent, are not voluntary actions. Essential for voluntary action in all cases is that fiat, the “element of consent”; 40 it only need not be preceded by deliberation and shilly-shally wavering, as some passages in James seem to say. 41 This would amount to confusing willing with deliberate choice. – The chapter closes with sections on freedom and education. As regards the former, James confesses to be an adherent of indeterminism, but he does so for ethical reasons, which the psychologist has a right to disregard and to postulate determinism for his scientific purposes. (James’ ethical 37. Ibid., p. 568. 38. However, I do not understand how from James’ own standpoint it is to be made compatible with his above concession when he elsewhere (ibid., p. 571) identifies attention and consent. 39. James (1890) II, p. 522. 40. Thus the author himself says quite correctly (ibid., p. 501): “The fiat, the element of consent … constitutes the essence of the voluntariness of the act”. I simply do not grasp how he can assert a few lines later that this fiat must precede our voluntary acts only in a few cases. 41. See e.g. ibid., pp. 522, 528 ff.

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convictions are therefore presumably not based on insight. Or can insight be in conflict with insight?) The twenty-seventh chapter gives an excellent and critically reflective overview of the phenomena and theories of hypnotism. The twenty-eighth chapter (“Necessary Truths and the Effects of Experience”) involves the discussion of more than what may be surmised from the title. Aside from what we would expect, there is also a discussion of the entire area of so-called psychogenesis, concerning which James, however, rightly acknowledges more darkness than light. II. This overview of James’ work has already made it clear to the reader that almost all questions which receive attention today from the psychologist are, to be sure, somehow treated therein, but not all of them with the same carefulness and with the same degree of success. And insofar as this circumstance, which is of course a contributing factor to the peculiar character and value of the book, results from certain basic views of the author concerning the tasks and methods of psychology and especially concerning the possibility and limits of psychological analysis, we cannot avoid looking at these specifically. 1. As far as the task of psychological research is concerned, it is, according to the opinion of James, the focus of the investigation of genetic laws. 42 Description and classification are a lower stage of inquiry and must withdraw as soon as genetic questions are formulated. For a long time descriptive work has been the main concern of psychologists, but it is now allegedly high time to ascend to a higher level, and James approves of the fact that also in the method of research there has occurred a corresponding shift over to the experimental and physiological side. As can be seen at present, especially in Germany, a group of workers with chronograph and pendulum takes the place of earlier ones who wanted to negotiate with the difficult subject matter strictly by means of the dull weapon of inner observation, and that psychology to which the future belongs allegedly also advances in all 42. By this brief expression I always mean in the following the laws of succession and the causation of our states of consciousness, and not, for example, what has been called “psychogenesis” in connection with the philosophy of evolution.

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seriousness towards the study of brain physiology. We wish to dispute neither that the research into genetic laws is the higher level and the awareness of them the most desirable goal of psychology, nor that these laws must ultimately be psychophysical ones. Yet, it is our view that it would still be too early at present to strive continuously for this highest goal. Before the psychologist can, without reservation, make headway in the investigation of causal connections and especially of exact fundamental laws of psychical occurrence, there are yet some important preliminary jobs to be accomplished. Above all, the state of brain physiology is by no means mature yet for the goal of arriving at the level of strictly scientific psychological insight. Hence, however inexact and provisional those empirical laws of the course of our processes of consciousness which are found through mere psychological observation may be, the rules of healthy method could still not justify giving up what we have of such empirical generalizations, and what we can hope to obtain yet further by analogical means, in exchange for those rarefied hypotheses, as they are still often offered nowadays, due to a lack of secure items of knowledge: for a theory of specific (and most specific) connections between the psychical and the physiological. However, the exact establishment of genetic psychical laws is prevented not only by the fact that our actual insight in the highest branches of physiology is still quite deficient. There is an additional need for another preparation, namely an exact descriptive analysis of the facts of consciousness. James sometimes speaks of a microscopic psychology which is at present under development. I adopt this expression, although I interpret it somewhat differently. We do in fact need microscopic work in the area of psychology, but especially still in the descriptive respect. There is need for a microscopic analysis of consciousness, a complete statement of its simplest elements and of their elementary modes of combination. Wherever the limits of such exact description lie, this is also where the limits of rigorous psychological research as such lie for us. Accordingly I cannot at all approve of it when James sometimes speaks of classificatory and descriptive investigations as ones of superficial level of research. 43 Only exact and in this sense profound analysis and characterization of phenomena can become the foundation of an exact and fruitful formulation of genetic questions. And it would be very wrong to believe that such descriptive work has already been 43. James (1890) II, p. 454.

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satisfactorily done. Much that is clarifying in this regard from individuals has not been sufficiently appreciated and universally acknowledged; much else, however, also still awaits illumination and exact finalization. And even experiment and measurement, on my view, must at present be made predominately to serve this microscopic work, wherever such a thing is possible. By no means is this to say that we deny the advancement that the task of description can for its part gain from genetic psychological knowledge (which alone in fact makes an experimental management of phenomena possible). In large part, however, description must take the lead; genetic investigation cannot be methodical and exact before we are descriptively clear about what we have before us, and whether it – as it appears and is experienced – is simple or complex and of the same kind or not as other things already familiar. The theoretical error of the author regarding what is needed at present for psychological research has of course also manifested practical consequences for his work. Again and again we encounter a certain neglect of the descriptive element and of the results of inner observation as opposed to genetic and especially physiological discussions. This already comes to light in the consideration and evaluation of the literature. Few items of actual or presumptive contributions to so-called physiological psychology are left unconsidered by James, and also some hasty and unmethodical products of this genre meet with serious discussion and a respect that they do not deserve. Research results from older and more recent times, however, that make no impression by handsome number-series or by “nice wood cuttings” (simply because they are not concerned with questions that allow for experimental treatment or with ones the state of things still forbids striving for a physiological investigation of the facts) have likewise not been appreciated and utilized by the author with equal thoroughness. I do not at all find Aristotle to be heeded, while Locke, D. Hume, the two Mills, and others are subject to a critique that is at times arguably sharper in expression than is justified in terms of substance. James’ own contributions to research, however, are also analogous to the consideration of results of the work of others. More than once he seems to me to be prematurely concerned with the question concerning the physiological substrates of certain psychical processes, particularly in connection with the “sense of time”, in connection with general concepts and notions of relations, in connection with the so-called phantasy

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presentations in relation to sensations and again “perceptions” in relation to both. (Cf. Chapters IX, XII, XV, XVIII, XIX.) Even if there were from the physiological side no obstacle to a thorough treatment of these problems, there would still be one – in the case of James at least – from the psychological side. For his descriptive statements concerning the nature and the mutual relationship of those psychical phenomena can by no means withstand criticism. (We will come back to this point.) Corresponding to the solution of this problem in each case, however, the question in the genetic part of the inquiry will be posed differently. And thus the effort would presumably for the time being have been better spent on an exact accomplishment of that descriptive work. Not only here, however, but also often in other cases the author seems to me to treat description too much as a secondary matter and not thoroughly enough. More often, and even on the most important points, his descriptive statements are not in harmony with each other or at least unclear and hazy due to unusual carelessness with respect to terminology and all too great a preference for metaphors and analogies. In addition to this, genetic viewpoints are not infrequently disturbingly mixed up with descriptive ones and relations of states of consciousness to their causes and effects (whether these be psychological or physiological) are confused with inner features thereof. Sometimes we see actual or hypothetical peculiarities of the physiological substrate of psychical processes unjustifiably transferred to these processes, or at least the statement of such peculiarities is offered as a surrogate for an exact psychological analysis and characterization, while the latter is neglected or prematurely omitted. In other cases the author is inclined to overlook important differences which inner experience shows in states of consciousness because our deficient knowledge of brain processes at present does not even hypothetically allow for a corresponding difference in the physiological to be contrasted with each one in the psychical. In both cases the results of inner observation are obscured by a missing application of genetic knowledge or (what is more often the case) hypotheses for the answer of descriptive questions. And this is the oldest service that one can perform for a “physiological psychology” that was at one time exact and thorough-going in all ways. Examples for this deficiency of description in James’ case have already yielded themselves in part in the exposition. Only a few traits which illustrate his carelessness in this regard may still be indicated. a) For anyone who is concerned with obtaining fixed lines for the

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orientation in the colorful network of our psychical life, it seems to me indispensable that he should undertake a clear division of the basic classes of psychical activity, i.e. that he should get clear about how inner experience shows many fundamentally different modes of mental conduct towards the immanent object. In James’ case I find this question neither clearly formulated (it is, as we have already indicated in the exposition, mixed up with completely different ones) nor satisfactorily settled. The answer remains obscure and ensnared in statements that are hardly or not at all compatible. Of special states we encounter above all the following class names: sensations, images, thoughts, knowledge, cognizance, accepting, denying, interest, desire, wish, will, pleasure and pain, emotions of fear, fright, anger, etc. If, however, we may trust an utterance in Vol. I, James would see in all these phenomena only two fundamentally different modes of intentional reference. 44 For they would be partly cognitive, partly emotional relations or – as is also said immediately thereafter – partly a knowing, partly a welcoming and rejecting. However, we miss a more thorough-going justification of this assertion and never do get clear about how the more special phenomena are ordered to these two basic classes. Above all the question arises what we are to take “emotional” to mean. In the twenty-fifth chapter, which explicitly deals with “emotions”, James teaches that in most of these processes no other element of consciousness can be discerned aside from the perception of the arousing situation – but which is, considered in and of itself, a cold “cognitive state” without any emotional warmth – and the feeling of the bodily resonance accompanied by pleasure or pain, i.e. the myriad physical alterations which are evoked in us by that perception (immediately, according to the author’s view). This is supposedly how it is in the case of all so-called cruder emotions, such as fear, fright, anger, etc. But also, to be precise, in the case of most of the more refined ones. Among these James includes the aesthetic, moral, and intellectual joys and sufferings, and only in the case of aesthetic emotions is he willing to concede primary feelings of pleasure and pain to be a constituent part of the psychical state. With respect to ethical and logical ones, on his view, those reflex feelings again play the greatest role, and thus when they are gone only a neutral intellectual state remains left over which would not truly deserve the name of an emotion. Also regarding those aesthetic feelings, however, it is explicitly stressed that enjoyment is attached to 44. James (1890) I, p. 216.

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sensory qualities (colors, tones, etc.). And thus it is decided that for James the specifically emotional element of a psychical state, that by means of which it is distinguished from a merely “knowing” one, always and in all cases lies in a sensory feeling of pleasure or displeasure. But how can this be if he also declares judging or believing to be an emotion? It cannot be put on a par with pleasure or displeasure in sensory qualities, whether this pleasure or displeasure has arisen primarily or secondarily. And the same difficulty arises regarding the will, which according to James likewise belongs to the emotional states, as this already follows from the fact that he identifies it most explicitly with belief. 45 In view of this, I know of no other means of escape but the assumption that James uses the term “emotion” or “emotional” in a narrower and in a broader sense without being clear about it, certainly without plainly saying so. In the narrower sense the term would include only the sensory feelings of pleasure and displeasure; in the broader sense, however, it would be a more general designation for a basic class of psychical conduct (welcoming and rejecting), which would include in addition to those feelings also the phenomenon of consent. This phenomenon is one that James wants to discern in belief and willing and is indeed by no means a pleasure (or displeasure) in sensory qualities. Pleasure in sensory qualities and the will, including belief, would both, to be sure, be a welcoming; but with a different object and a tone of a different kind. Only this distinction makes it understandable, it seems to me, how James includes believing and willing among the emotions and can speak of the latter as he does in the twenty-fifth chapter. But in this conjecture do I get his thoughts right? For if that distinction is his own, it is hard to understand how he can assert with such confidence that in the affects of fear, hope, etc. there is simply no element in consciousness besides the cold and neutral perception of the arousing situation and the sensations and feelings that accompany the bodily resonance. One wonders: if in willing and believing we are to have before us a welcoming which is presumably distinct from all pleasure and displeasure in object and tone and is related to them only generally in the mode of reference to the object, is it then so outrageous and contrary to experience to assume that also in the case of fear, hope, and other “emotions” there are special forms of that welcoming and rejecting, which are not identical with the reflex feelings characteristic of those 45. James (1890) II, p. 321.

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states, but rather only fundamentally related to them and for the rest diverge from them, from each other, and from the will by special features? And thus there remains here obscurity and astonishment in James’ statements. But there is more. Yet another point is certainly unclear, indeed contradictory. In Vol. II what is left over in most emotions when we subtract the consequences of the bodily arousal for the sensory feeling is called a “judicial state”, which is lacking truly emotional character. 46 It is to be included among the awarenesses of truth and is consequently a cognitive act. How are we to make this consistent with the fact that judgment or belief was said by James to be an instance of emotional conduct? Are the judicial states not moral judgments although they are awarenesses of truth? Further: also instances of cognizance to whose character being true or false belongs are included by James among the cognitive states which he contrasts with emotions. Are there thus to be psychical states for which it is characteristic to be true or false, but which are not judgments? 47 And is that which James calls “belief” and includes among the emotions, on the other side, to be an awareness of truth? And how can the author amid all this speak as if he were completely in agreement with Brentano by opposing the doctrine of judgment that has thus far been advocated (though differing in terminology, insofar as what Brentano calls “judgment” he would rather call “belief”). 48 Brentano himself has left no room for the slightest doubt that by “judgment” he means those psychical states to which being true or false uniquely belongs and which can be awarenesses of truth. It is his view, and a subject matter of detailed justification, that these phenomena are fundamentally different from mere presenting. James, by contrast, wants in fact, so it seems, to join these processes called “judgment” by Brentano together with presenting into one class (cognitive states or knowing), and what he calls “belief” is not what Brentano and apparently the whole world calls “judgment”, but rather consists of certain 46. Ibid., p. 471. 47. In James (1890) I, p. 217 knowing is especially distinguished from mere thinking, and the distinction simply cannot have any other meaning, it seems, aside from this: that “thinking” indicates mere presenting (conception) and “knowing”, by contrast, indicates judging (especially a grasping). However, knowing is still (ibid., p. 216) opposed to emotional conduct as a fundamental contrast. 48. James (1890) II, pp. 286 ff.

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emotional effects of judgment. However, it is useless to puzzle and ponder further about the actual view of the author, where everything is left in such a lack of clarity. 49 In point of fact, this can certainly be said. If James considers belief to be an emotional phenomenon (in the broadest sense) and indeed identical with the will, he takes a mere analogy as identity insofar as confidence in the sense of affirmative judgment and in the sense of inclination of interest and will towards something, as this is under discussion, appear to him as the same mode of consciousness. The usual equivocation of language that obtains not only in the case of the words mentioned, but also in that of the terms “affirm”, “welcome”, “reject”, and others, has 49. Previously we have heard utterances of James from which it would have to be concluded that he regards the state of cognizance as a belief. However, in ibid., p. 293 it is nonetheless said: “Belief is … the mental state or function of cognizing reality”. Furthermore, in James (1890) I, p. 300 assenting and negating are explicitly attributed to the “active self” (as was said shortly before that in ibid., p. 297), to that domain of psychical conduct which is a welcoming and rejecting, and consequently (according to ibid., p. 216) to emotional conduct. However, in James (1890) II, p. 629 the author lists among the elementary psychical categories as a special category, distinct from the emotions, judgments: affirming and denying. Are assenting and affirming, negating and denying therefore, according to James, essentially and indeed fundamentally different? Are they in one case emotion, in the other one not so? – Similarly we encounter conflicting statements regarding the relation between belief and will. In ibid., p. 320 they are both most explicitly said to be identical, the same mode of consciousness. There we read, for instance, that the difference between the objects of the will and those of belief is totally irrelevant, as far as the conduct of consciousness towards them is concerned. “All that the mind does is in both cases the same; it looks at the object and consents to its existence, espouses it, says ‘it shall be my reality’. It turns to it, in short, in the interested active emotional way. … Will and Belief, in short, meaning a certain relation between objects and the Self, are two names for one and the same PSYCHOLOGICAL phenomenon. … The causes and conditions of the peculiar relation must be the same in both. The free-will question arises as regards belief. If our wills are indeterminate, so must our beliefs be, etc. The first act of free-will, in short, would naturally be to believe in free-will, etc.” . Yet, in ibid., p. 568 we again hear something quite different: “When an idea stings us in a certain way, makes as it were a certain electric connection with out self, we believe that it is a reality. When it stings us in another way, makes another connection with our Self, we say, let it be a reality. To the word ‘is’ and to the words ‘let it be’ there correspond peculiar attitudes of consciousness, the explanation of which is sought in vain. The indicative and the imperative moods are as much ultimate categories of thinking [translator’s note: Marty’s emphasis in the last phrase] as they are of grammar” . Who would therefore not conclude with full confidence that James regards belief and will as fundamentally different and ultimate categories of consciousness – hence the strict contrary of what we heard earlier?

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also contributed to the confusion. An additional factor that leads to this delusion is that belief and will are causally connected (together with the remaining forms of interest as such) and James allows descriptive and genetic viewpoints to intermingle here as he does elsewhere. Emotions and will often motivate belief; by converse, many forms of interest are based on judgments, especially the will (which is indeed directed at the realization of something) on the conviction that its object will come about as a result of willing and can thus be realized at our pleasure. And I cannot exonerate James from having confused this direction of the will towards the realization of something with the totally different relation of believing to the existence of something, insofar as he calls this second terminus “reality” and regards both as essentially the same conduct towards it. 50 This will suffice for the discussion of the fundamental division of states of consciousness according to James. b) Nor does a more special classification, which is completely unique to him, and by means of which he wants to solve many a problem, elicit a more favorable judgment concerning his manner of description. We mean his division of mental phenomena into substantive and transitive states, which he formulates in the ninth chapter in connection with the continuity of consciousness. The stream of our psychical life – therewith James introduces this distinction 51 – unmistakably shows, he maintains, a changing of states of different kinds, similar to a bird’s life which consists of places of flight and perchings or resting places. The resting places in our conscious life (he calls them also “lingering consciousnesses”, “substantive states”, or “parts of consciousness”) are on his view usually filled with sensorial images of certain kinds, whose peculiarity lies in the ability to be retained and considered as present to consciousness for some chosen time, and the attainment of such states – which manifest themselves in the division of speech by the conclusion of a sentence or a period – is a provisional or definitive end of thinking, the finalization of a theoretical or practical course of thought. The stretches of flight (swift and internodal consciousness, transitive parts or states of consciousness, evanescent facts of mind), however, come into consideration as ends in themselves than as a means to taking us from one resting place to another and filling the gap. Therein lies their 50. Cf. James (1890) II, p. 320. 51. James (1890) I, p. 243.

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essential task. In themselves they are difficult, if not impossible, to make into an object of inner observation and to be discerned as what they are. Concerning the reason for this impossibility James does not express himself consistently. According to some of his statements, 52 it lies in the rapid course of these states 53 or in their lack of independence or both. According to other passages, we would have to seek it in an indistinctness that otherwise lies in the nature of these phenomena, in an “inarticulate” character, indeed in an indeterminacy of them. 54 This much is certain, that they have been overlooked by psychologists, according to James, and especially by the sensationalists who wanted to dissolve all thinking into a number of “definite ideas” and to leave no room in psychical life for whatever is vague. This, however, was done, he thinks, at the high cost of ripping to shreds the continuity of consciousness, which is allegedly produced by those very transitive states. It is already clear from earlier statements that James regards these peculiar phenomena of consciousness as something relatively dependent. He stresses this even more by means of further metaphorical designations which he prefers to apply to them: they are for him psychical “fringes”, psychical overtones, “suffusions”, seams or “halos”. The substantive parts, however, are something like a nucleus or basic tone. Last but not least, he hopes to make clear to the reader the peculiarity of those two constituent parts of psychical life by referring to the physiological substrates. For there are supposedly, in correspondence to substantive states, brain processes which occur in the culmination point of their 52. Cf. ibid., pp. 643, 644, 648! 53. In the course of its brief duration, he thinks, it happens that “Our consciousness of these transitive states is shut up to their own moment” . That is to say, they could never become an object of succeeding or subsequent consciousness. All states, however, of which this is true, withdraw, on his view, not only completely from inner observation, but rather it is, intellectually speaking, as if they belonged to a completely different stream of consciousness. All intellectual value of states of consciousness, all of their possibilities of joining together with others into a unitary system of thought, is for James based on their after-duration in memory, and this is completely missing from transitive states. – One must accordingly be astounded how James can say anything at all and indeed so much about them and can ascribe to them – as we are yet to see – such an important role in our unitary consciousness! This simply seems to be impossible without contradicting his own theory. 54. Ibid., pp. 478 f. n.

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strength, whereas the “fringes” are the result of nothing more than rising or extinguishing, dawning or vanishing intensities, which influence our consciousness. As for examples, James gives a vast and only too colorful array of these in part explicitly and in part incidentally. Above all, he includes among them every thinking or grasping (“feelings of relation”) and all conceptions. The “feeling” of similarity and difference is a seam, but so is the general concept “man”. And James regards the latter decision as the redemptive and final word in the long standing dispute between conceptualism and nominalism. Nominalism was unable to answer the question about the meaning of general names because it overlooked the fringes above the concrete and intuitive images or “substantive” parts of consciousness. What corresponds to the general name is not a plurality of individual presentations, as Berkeley, Hume, and Mill believed. Yet, their doctrine of the swarm of “ideas”, which are to make up the general concept, allegedly has its truth when it is translated into the language of brain physiology – more precisely, when one puts in the place of every “idea” a special faint neural process. In this case the aggregate of these faint neural processes may have a psychical fringe as its conscious correlate. This fringe would thus be: the general relation of one image to a mass of other images which need not exist yet, a “feeling” or an “intention” that one stands for all. 55 Every further question about the “how” of this process James obviously regards as unreasonable. We stand before something unanalyzable or even “vague”, and “reinstatement of the vague” is necessary in psychology. 56 Besides the items just mentioned, yet a whole lot of other states that are difficult to describe he assigns to the “fringes”: particularly so-called feelings of tendency, e.g. the intention to say something (while the content of speech is not yet distinctly in consciousness), the prescience of someone else’s 55. Ibid., pp. 477 f. 56. This has been overlooked, according to his view, also by the conceptualists, and he points out the following to both of the disputing parties: “Once admit that the passing and evanescent are as real parts of the stream as the distinct and comparatively abiding; once allow that fringes and halos, inarticulate perceptions, … mere nascencies of cognition, premonitions, awarenesses of direction, are thoughts sui generis, as much as articulate imaginings and propositions are; once restore, I say, the vague to its psychological rights, and the matter presents no further difficulty” (ibid., pp. 478 f. n.).

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opinion which lights up within us, the shadowy having-in-mind of the entire content of a phrase, but also of a play, of a philosophical system, the “feeling” of what will transpire for thought (whereby – particularly where the mental faculties are lively – our consciousness spans an immense horizon) and similar things. In short, without ceremony James sometimes comprehends the various states which are to belong to his peculiar class of “fringes”: “feelings of relations” and “objects but dimly perceived”. Is it, however, thus still necessary to notice that this division of psychical states into substantive and transitive states does not meet the requirements which one must make regarding scientific classification? Wherein is the intrinsic affinity of what is comprehended together under the latter term of classification? In the indistinctness of the phenomena and the difficulty which they pose for observation? It will not do to make the deficiencies in the result of our observation without further ado the viewpoint for a classification of what is observed – a classification which is to constitute the final word of clarification in difficult matters of dispute and would, as an exception, have to be based on a unitary, essential, and unanalyzable feature. Even if such deficiencies are somehow grounded in the nature of that which is observed, there can be the extremely diverse reasons for this. Or is the affinity to lie in not being independent? Yet, consider a notion of a relation, which is possible only on the basis of the presentation of the terms, or also a general concept, which is possible only when built upon a corresponding intuition, as an instance of not being independent – for which the metaphor of “overtone” and the name “fringes” is somewhat justified. Is such a case of not being independent of the same kind as the one in which a course of thought that is of interest only insofar as it leads to a certain theoretical conclusion or a practical decision and to which the completely different metaphor of periods of flight and the name “transitive state” are to some extent suited? 57 It is obvious that James has here put together 57. This at least insofar as the premises of the conclusion and the practical considerations precede the decision, and conclusion and decision can also still be in consciousness when the premises have vanished. Yet, it must not be forgotten that, as long as the conclusion as such and the decision as motivated is to be in consciousness, it does not suffice that the motivating phenomena of consciousness have somehow preceded them, but rather they must also be present along with them. Yet, it almost seems as if James regarded the thoughts of relations truly to be “transitive” states in the sense that they occur temporally, on his view, between the substantive ones (cf. ibid., pp. 243 ff. and pp. 495-498), and as if an analogy taken from

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things which are completely diverse, and that something can very well be a substantive or transitive state in one sense without being so in another sense. c) Like the conflict among his descriptive statements, the excessively metaphorical character of his manner of describing has presumably been noticed by the reader in this example. It recurs elsewhere and, by replacing dry technical terms, gives the exposition, to be sure, a certain liveliness and colorfulness; it is, however, a feature of artistic beauty that is purchased at the cost of exactness and clarity and therefore too expensive in the case of a scientific work. – And also where the metaphorical aspect is not excessive, the terminology is often lamentably too equivocal and vague in character. There will be few psychologists today who will not regret that their science has not yet emancipated itself from the ambiguity and inexactness of popular vocabulary, as other disciplines have, and managed to secure the possession and consistent application of a satisfactory number of univocal and sharp technical terms. James, however, apparently does not share these feelings and desires. Not only does he adopt without any resistance a lot of terms in language contributed to this lack of clarity in his regarding the true place of those thoughts. For he calls them (ibid., p. 643) also “propositional” and “conjunctive” states and notes that to the particles of our speech the relations of things correspond objectively, but those transitive states and feelings of relations do so subjectively. Likewise, one allegedly must speak of a feeling of “if”, “but”, etc. no less than a feeling of red, blue, etc. Aside from this, however, even if it were true that the particles designated relations, it would of course not follow that the thoughts of relations would have to or could occur, like particles, temporally between those thoughts corresponding to the other parts of speech. For this reason, everything that belongs to the sense of a unitary sentence must be simultaneous in consciousness of the person who understands it, and a relation without its terms is especially not presentable. Even that presupposition , however, is not correct, and James is generally very wrong about the true function of particles. If there were a feeling of “if”, “but”, etc., then “if” or “but” would be a name, a statement, or an expression of an emotion, of a wish or volition. None of all this is the case. Particles have no independent meaning. They are merely cosignificant or syncategorematic, and in this regard their function is moreover highly varied. Not all of them are partial expressions of a presentation (which would come closest to the view of James); others are partial expressions for judgments and for even more complex psychical states, where it cannot even be said that they would be especially connected co-significantly with a relation. And as this cannot always be said, it cannot be said either by converse that the “substantives” never signify a relation. Or can I not name a relation? And is it not in this case designated by a “substantive” and, if the analogy holds, is it not consequently a “substantive state” in James’ sense?

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all the haziness and ambiguity of popular usage; it is not unusual for him to show in certain cases also pleasure in tearing down the boundaries which commonly provide protection against rampant ambiguity of certain designations, as when he declares that he will use thought and feeling interchangeably for all states of consciousness. In passing – we already mentioned this – he seems to want to distinguish between “thinking” and “knowing” in their usage, such that the former would mean a mere presenting and the latter a cognizing, therefore a special form of judgment. However, with a turn of the hand this is again given up. “Knowing” is again used where obviously a mere presenting (conception) is meant, indeed also where it can mean only consciousness as such. It is therefore no longer astonishing that when it means judgment it can mean not only an insightful judgment, but rather again any blind judgment at all. And more often – with full attention to context – we are clueless which one of all these meanings the author has in mind. The same goes for a whole lot of other terms. They are almost omnivalently used to mean the entire psychical domain in spite of occasional half-baked attempts at a narrower definition and a usage corresponding to it. On the basis of all this, it can arguably be said that James deals with the business of description and whatever is connected with it unjustifiably as something subordinate and preliminary, as if it were something to be shrugged off as lightly and without great apprehensiveness even for the scientific researcher, indeed presumably for him all the more. And this is a mistake which significantly diminishes the value of his book. 2. Yet, we have to bear in mind yet another peculiarity of the work: its views concerning psychological analysis. James considers this to be altogether impossible in the manner in which it has been done thus far in almost all cases. In this regard he often criticizes his predecessors with great confidence. His opposition in this matter emerges especially in connection with the peculiar doctrine of transitive states or psychical fringes already stated. Here above all, he thinks, introspective psychology must throw in the towel and forgo wanting to secure with its clumsy means the fine currents of consciousness, to dismember the unitary thought into parts, and to assign to each part its object. Yet, the principal statements which James opposes to the view held thus far regarding the possibility of an analysis of consciousness go beyond that domain ; indeed, they are so far-reaching and – let

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us say at once – so objectionable that the author is not able to maintain them consistently. 58 Nonetheless, we see it as advisable to discuss them to some extent because there is something correct – which we are happy to accept – intermingled with what is false. This is what gives it a semblance of justification, which we would like to dispel as far as a brief treatment allows it. Clear perspectives concerning this point and following them through with methodical consistency are indeed a matter of life and death for psychology. The usual doctrine of psychologists is that, however much our psychical life as a whole is subject to an incessant flux, the elements occurring at later points of time are the same as those which existed earlier, and that such a case is found, for instance, when we have at two different times the presentation of color or tone. In this connection they have considered it to be one of their most fundamental tasks exhaustively to enumerate these parts, aspects, or moments, into which the entire psychical state in question is analyzed from the perspective of comparative observation, together with their elementary modes of connection, and to characterize them with microscopic precision in order to avoid relating them to new waves of the stream as something that is again and again absolutely new – which would in fact amount to forgoing a scientific grasp of the subject matter – but rather to learn as far as we can to understand each phase, in spite of its concrete particularity, as a construct made up out of already familiar elements. Against this type of psychology James declares a bitter war. It is for him a “huge error” to believe that the present state of consciousness is a complex of a plurality of parts, e.g. sensations, ideas, thoughts, etc., which have already existed at an earlier time and could later return. Our consciousness is on his view something absolutely simple at every moment, “an absolutely unique pulse of thought”. 59 We can distinguish 58. This may be noted once and for all, since space will not allow for a discussion of relevant details. In James (1890) II, p. 45, he obviously wants to avoid such a reproach, when he remarks that he himself will occasionally use the common manner of speaking and speak of a complexity or combination of ideas; yet, this is done merely for the sake of popularity and convenience. In truth, however, there are real inconsistencies in many places and often where James least believes them to be. It is simply impossible – as we shall see – to transfer all complexity into the external objects or stimuli and to exclude them completely from the psychical and its contents. The one is in conflict with the other. 59. Translator’s note: James (1890) I, p. 500.

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neither several simultaneous sensations nor higher states in it alongside the sensations. In perception , for instance, sensations are not contained, nor is it the case that in the act of distinguishing the presentations of the distinguished terms are contained. 60 Quite generally, what the usual psychology allows of socalled simpler states of consciousness to be “contained” in a so-called complex one is not properly given therein, but rather only in a modified sense. It is an equivalent of this as the curve is an equivalent of countless small straight lines; however, it is not composed of these and cannot be constructed from them. Two successive ideas which “present the same object” are not the same state of consciousness. Hence, the usual psychology is completely wrong whenever it speaks in this manner: “as if the vehicle of the same thing-known must be the same recurrent state of mind”. 61 It is not the same presentation or idea that occurs twice, but rather only the same “object”, and only objects are complex, not ideas and states of consciousness. 62 We ask: How is this statement which James quite well makes into his motto to be understood? What is meant by “object”: the intentional one or the external 63 one? The distinction – this must here be noted at once – is by no means clear to James; 64 however, it is beyond doubt that it must 60. The grasping of a difference, e.g. between m and n, comes about, according to James, insofar as the thought of the one follows upon that of the other as immediately as possible. Under these circumstances, by virtue of a specific effect of the vanishing term, the subsequent thought retains that characteristic peculiarity of grasping, in addition to n, the difference between n and m. However, it allegedly does not do so by retaining the idea of m and n: “… the pure idea of ‘n’ is never in the mind at all, when ‘m’ has once gone before” ( ibid.). 61. Translator’s note: Ibid., pp. 480 f. 62. Cf. ibid., pp. 230-237, 276-282, 495-501, and the entire twelfth chapter. 63. Translator’s note: The term wirklich, as it is used here in contrast with intentional, is translated here as “external” rather than “real”. The English term “real” is rather reserved for the German real or wirklich in contrast with existierend. The contrast between the intentional object and the external one, after all, is different from the contrast between that which exists and that which is real. 64. In many cases he certainly means by “object” the external one, “the reality outside”. In others the intentional one is apparently meant; however, the author unfortunately neglects making the equivocations innocuous wherever this would be necessary, and with full attention to the context it is more often than not impossible to

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be made. An intentional object is given in every psychical act. It is the inseparable correlate of consciousness, one side thereof without which consciousness itself would not be. No presenting without something presented, and this is in a certain sense immanent to that which presents, and likewise no loving without something loved. An external object, however, i.e. something that corresponds in reality to the intentional object and is independent of it, is not always given. In the presentation of blue or red, for instance, it is not. (It would be misuse to call the undulations of ether or any so-called stimulus the external object of the color-presentation.) There are only presented (sensed 65 ) and no external colors. What is now meant in our case? If it is the intentional object, as it is in the presenting mind, James concedes this much: that it is partly a mere verbal dispute, partly an obvious inconsistency, to deny that our ideas or thoughts have a plurality of parts which can sooner or later recur. For by asserting that they have such parts either what is meant by “idea” or “thought” is the presented as such (the presentation) – and as regards this side of the matter, James is completely in agreement with the doctrine, except that he is not pleased with its expression – or what is meant by this is presenting, i.e. the peculiar relation of the presenting ego to the presented as such. In this case it is for someone who has conceded that the intentional object can be complex only a matter of consistency to acknowledge likewise that a plurality of simultaneous relations of the ego to the object can also correspondingly be distinguished. This consequence lies unavoidably in the correlation of the intentional object and the relation of consciousness to it. There are as many modes of immanence to be distinguished, i.e. as many partial references in the subject’s reference as a whole to its content, as there are parts in the whole of the immanent object that can be sorted out. Some of these partial references are separable from each other, such as a simultaneous seeing and hearing or the presentation of sweet and white. Others, however, are distinguishable only in thought, but are really and truly distinct (cum fundamento in re), such as the simultaneous presenting of white and of the place belonging to this quality. And in the decide which meaning the author has in mind. 65. I also call sensation “presentation”, as long as all judging connected therewith and all feeling of pleasure and pain are excluded. Cf. Brentano, (trans.) Rancurello et al. (1995), pp. 126 ff., pp. 182 ff.

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first case one certainly speaks with total justification of a recurrence of relatively simple states in our entire state of consciousness. Hence, any person who concedes that there are simultaneously tones, colors, odors, etc. intentionally immanent to us cannot deny without contradiction that also our activity of consciousness exhibits a plurality of simultaneous partial references and that in this sense there is in us a plurality of partial activities, sensations, and thoughts; a “manifold of coexisting ideas” 66 cannot be a mere “chimera” to such a person. And inner observation pushes yet further along related paths. It shows that our total consciousness given at every moment does not only allow different aspects or parts to be distinguished with respect to the plurality and difference of its contents, but rather also with regard to the fact that the ego enters into relation to the same content simultaneously in many different ways. That which is presented is perhaps something loved, whereas what is accepted is something taken to be true with evidence. If, however, experience (partly fundamentally, partly less fundamentally) shows different modes of reference of the subject to its intentional content, it would be a mere verbal dispute to set one’s face against the fact that someone also designates these manifold aspects and moments of conscious conduct as parts of the entire psychical state and thus calls the act of taking pleasure in a tone, for instance, “composed” from the presentational reference to the tone and the feeling of pleasure in the tone-presentation. It would only be wrong, however, to regard these or the earlier mentioned parts or aspects of our simultaneous psychical state as a collective, similar to a group of atoms, or as resulting states of such a group. And in this sense there can also of course be no earlier or later recurrence of the same idea, as if this would be one individual that vanished from consciousness and later again treaded across its threshold. It is fully justified of James to state his opposition to such “mind stuff” or “mind dust” theories. All references of consciousness which simultaneously fall in our inner experience, however diverse they may be in their content or in their mode of immanence, are parts of one reality, of a concretum. And thus their relationship has no similarity at all with a group of atoms, which is a plurality of realities or individuals. It is undeniable that when Hume called the ego a bundle of ideas and when others spoke much of series and masses of presentations this suggests that they thought of the manifold simultaneous parts of 66. Translator’s note: James (1890) I, p. 278.

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consciousness to be connected only in the loose and external manner of a collective. It is not right of James, however, to think of such a wrong view as being the basis of all associationist psychology, and he is quite definitely mistaken when he identifies the doctrine of the composition of consciousness out of a plurality of changing and recurring ideas with breaking it up into a sum of things. The zeal of our author against associationist psychology can only be explained by the fact that he himself is inflicted with an equally objectionable oversight in that he confuses real unity with simplicity and thinks that this unity is being denied wherever it is in fact only simplicity that is being rejected, and rejected with total justification. Our consciousness is at any moment an absolutely unique pulse of thought only in the sense that, whatever kinds of parts and moments it may contain, they are parts of one thing. Within this real and individual unity, however, an abundance of diverse relationships among parts, some of them looser and some of them more intimate, is conceivable. And James has already taken the first step towards accepting this when he concedes a complexity of the intentional object of our consciousness. But do we have a right to presuppose this concession on his part? Or does he rather mean the external object (or even the so-called stimulus) and not in fact the intentional one when he concedes a recurrence of the same object and a complexity of the objects while denying both of the ideas? As a matter of fact, the concession of the author seems to be concerned with only the external rather than the intentional object. Stumpf had stressed in the first volume of his Tone Psychology: When we walk into a room and simultaneously receive sensations of warmth and odor (i.e. presumably: without explicitly distinguishing them), the two sensory qualities are certainly not in us as a totally new simple quality which would change into odor and warmth whenever we turned our attention analytically towards it, but rather they are actually contained as elements in the unanalyzed whole and reveal themselves upon successful analysis as parts that exist therein. 67 Concerning this view, James comments: I should prefer to say that we perceive that objective fact, known to us as the peppermint taste, to contain those other objective facts known as 67. Stumpf (1883), p. 107.

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aromatic or sapid quality, and coldness, respectively. No ground to suppose that the vehicle of this last very complex perception has any identity with the earlier psychosis – least of all is contained in it. 68

Since Stumpf’s view is in effect that the intentional object of the sensation that is aroused by peppermint oil is complex, James’ opposition can only be conceived as advocating the view that he denies this and wants to accept a complexity only in the external object (i.e. here in the stimulus). This is obviously also the meaning of the elaborations which conclude with the sentence: “You cannot build up ... one sensation out of many; and only direct experiment can inform us of what we shall perceive when we get many stimuli at once”. 69 All sensations are equally simple; this seems to be James’ view. And when he nonetheless speaks, as we just heard, of “complex” perceptions and calls perceptions “complex” in contrast with sensations, this seems to be meant only genetically or causally and not at all descriptively or phenomenally. The stimuli are complex, not the contents of sensation. 70 Just as decisively James denies of thoughts that they intentionally contain those parts which compose their external “object”. Hence, he says that it is a fundamental error to believe, for instance, that the thought “the pack of cards is on the table” contains a thought of the pack of cards and of the cards as on the table and of the table and of the legs of the table, etc. 71 Indeed! Here, where sensations are not being considered, he raises resolute protest against the usual doctrine of “psychologists of all schools” that there must be some sort of similarity between thoughts and that which is presented (“thingsknown”), that the former must somehow “contain” or “be” that which is presented: “that a thought must be what it means or mean what it is”. 72 68. James (1890) I, p. 523 n., cf. ibid., p. 158 n. 69. James (1890) II, pp. 30 f. 70. Cf. ibid., p. 30. 71. James (1890) II, p. 278. 72. James (1890) I, p. 471.

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Of sensations at best it can said that they are similar to their objects, by no means, however, of “thoughts and ideas” in the narrower sense. These, according to James, are merely signs or symbols of what is presented; they only signify or mean it. And for this reason among others, 73 he cannot do enough to condemn the attempt of ordinary psychology to reduce the fact of consciousness [Tatsache des Bewusstseins] to a “being of ideas” instead of postulating it simply as an ultimate, irreducible fact [Faktum]. “Of course this is nonsense”, he thinks. “An idea neither is what it knows, nor knows what it is”, 74 and the unfortunately adopted view that the ideas must somehow be a “duplicate edition” of what they are a consciousness of or must have a resemblance with it 75 has been on his view the obstacle to the definitive solution of the most important problems, e.g. to ending the dispute concerning the nature of concepts. It is clear that the author’s opposition to psychology thus far is a wide-ranging and radical one. Nonetheless, what has been said here is based on correct notions, but mixed with errors and confusions which of course lead the author astray from the goal. Above all, he apparently does not clearly grasp the difference between external and intentional being and consequently imposes on his opponents doctrines which would amount to a lapse into the most childish views of the pre-Socratic age. Ionians and Eleatics did of course think that for sake of explaining knowledge and consciousness as such they had to accept a real entry of the known into the mind of the knower and a real assimilation of both . However, already the Stagirite overcame this primitive view by distinguishing between external being and mental immanence. Certainly, the mind can present all kinds of things without their being bodily in it. It does not bodily carry its past around with itself whenever it attends to its earlier experiences, and “little rounded and finished off duplicates” of m and n need not really be in us whenever we distinguish m and n. 76 Only a mental immanence, an intentional “containment” is at 73. Cf. ibid., p. 501: “A man’s thought can know and mean all sorts of things without those things getting bodily into it – the distant, for example, the future, and the past.” Cf. also the footnote to this passage! 74. Ibid., p. 477. 75. Ibid., p. 471. 76. Cf. ibid., pp. 501, 499.

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stake here, and only in this way can it be understood when it has been said since Aristotle that the thought in a certain sense is the object or is similar to it. Intentional being of that which is presented is simply its being-presented, and this is the correlate of presenting. It is therefore in this sense that knowing is identical with the being of ideas, and the latter doctrine is not at all afflicted with anything pitiful. 77 Nor is it to be an explanation of the mystery of consciousness. It is rather a simple description of the fact of the matter as inner experience shows it. While what we have said about this mistake is enough, a second motive that seems to have led James to the paradoxical theses above requires more thorough-going consideration. When he tirelessly stresses that the “thought” need not be similar to the object (whereas he wants to allow for this to be so in the case of sensation!), that the “idea” is merely a sign of the object and does not contain it, he seems to have in mind the fact that there are improper presentations. In their case it is indeed true that they do not have as content what they are said to be the presentation of, and need not in any way be similar to it, that they rather only designate or signify it. Here we have a presenting that replaces, i.e. a surrogate, and it can here really be said with James that what the thought is and what it as an equivalent represents are two different things, and it is true in a very special sense that “the vehicle of the same thing-known” is not “the same state of mind”. 78 For the same object can be thought by means of (intrinsically) very diverse improper presentations, as the same presentation can in this manner also, by converse, serve as a surrogate for thinking of very different objects. However, it seems to me that James has very wrong views concerning the extent of this improper presenting, and the mistakes alone which he makes in this regard show that he is not at all clear about the true nature of the phenomenon. As an instance of improper presenting – insofar as this concept is distinct for him in the first place – he regards everything that he calls a psychical fringe; at least the statements that he makes

77. The view that it entails that our consciousness can only have itself as an object, “that an idea … can only know itself” (ibid., p. 471), belongs only to the beliefs of someone who is unable to distinguish between the intentional and the external object and again between the intentional object and intentional relation. 78. Ibid., p. 481.

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concerning this peculiar class best fit improper presenting, if any actual psychical process at all. To be included among the proper ones, by contrast, are images, which he contrasts with the “fringes”. The extension of “proper presenting”, however, is thereby in part too broadly, in part too narrowly conceived. Too broadly, for if James means by “images” the so-called phantasy images rather than sensations, 79 he considers a presenting to be proper which has this character only partially, since most of the so-called phantasy presentations are not truly similar to what they are called presentations of, but only merely signify it. 80 But also too narrowly, for James seems to have in mind only the presentations of physical phenomena on the one hand (the intuitions of our own states of consciousness, from which we abstract the concepts “presenting”, “accepting”, “rejecting”, “interest”, “wish”, “will”, etc., are forgotten here as they are almost everywhere), while on the other hand he also commits the error of regarding only the intuitions as proper presentations and assigning the entire domain of conceptual and relational thoughts to the improper presentations. And by doing this he most clearly betrays the fact that he is in the dark about the true nature of improper presenting. We called it a surrogate presentation. This is what it is in the sense that it has in fact a completely different content than the name of its so-called object means, a content which only stands in some relation to that which is designated by the name. This other content, however, will be presented fully and properly. A presentation cannot be represented by a sign again and again into infinity. Rather, the means to presenting an X improperly is, considered in itself, a proper presentation. That is to say, it properly presents something that stands in relation to X, but not X itself, and without any doubt at all it is true of it in this respect “that it must be what means”. In what has been said it is already entailed that it will not at all 79. Where he speaks of a “sensation of difference”, sensation is arguably to indicate improperly since the process is quite explicitly designated as a fringe. The truly named sensations (this intuitive blue, that red), however, James no doubt regards as proper presentations, and only in this sense can I approve of him saying of them – in contrast to thoughts or ideas – that they could be similar to the objects. It would obviously be incorrect to say that there corresponds an adequate reality to their content, and in this sense it is not true of them, and less so than of concepts, that they are similar to the object. Precisely these are merely signs of the “stimulus”, which James often also inexactly calls “object”. They are, however, not merely symbolic presentations insofar as they truly have as their content that which their name means (e.g. red or blue). 80. Cf. Marty (1890), pp. 74 ff.

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do to regard all notions of relations and general concepts as improper, for proper notions of relations and proper concepts belong to the explanation of the whole process of improper presentations, and to try to grasp these from the former is the most obvious hysteron-proteron. In the content of our proper thoughts of universals and relations lie the building blocks also for all our improper presenting, and (since the presentations are the foundation for all judging and knowing) thus already Locke was right when he saw in the “analysis of ideas” one of the foundations for every investigation concerning the scope of our cognitive faculty. I say: “in the analysis of ideas”, for the contents of those proper presentations contain parts, and I do not see how this is avoidable by someone who, like James, concedes that the external objects contain parts and that their “similarity” with each other is not in every respect unanalyzable and rather signifies in certain cases partial identity. Insofar as there are in correspondence with these external things proper presentations, such presentations are indeed intentionally what the external things are really. And it is only via an analysis of these intentional contents that we arrive at an analysis of what is external. The analysis of the contents of proper presentations, however, is again the foundation for all improper presenting and for any knowledge and analysis of external objects that is based on such improper presenting. If there were no “analysis of ideas”, this would mean not only the death of psychology, but the death of all science as such. As it will not do to assume in the case of external objects everywhere and per se only an unanalyzable similarity, this will not do in the realm of intentional contents. Such an assumption in either one of these cases eliminates every possibility of fixed concepts, and it is therefore not merely an illusion of language that “transfers the name of the objects to the presentations” when we regard the “ideas” as complex and amenable to analysis. In some cases that sharing of the name is improper, but not in the case of all thoughts, as James thinks, is this so, and where the content of a thought is proper the complexity of an external object is also that of the intentional one (“of the ideas”). It is this proper sharing of the name which then first makes the improper one in other cases possible. Thus, as regards essentials and what is most important, we cannot find any justification for James’ opposition against that view of the analysis of ideas which has been accepted thus far. We do not wish to deny that errors have grown out of the doctrine, but amid all this there remains a correct and meaningful core which is not touched by any of

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James’ objections. And we can indeed say that if the “Lockean school” went wrong in one direction, its latest critic in his opposition to it has gone astray just as much, if not more, in the opposite direction. a) What is justified is his fight against every attempt to conceive of consciousness as a collective of realities. Yet, real unity is not simplicity: it does not rule out a diversity of distinguishable, indeed also separable parts, and in this sense a plurality of distinctive states. Only this assumption, however, is the core of the doctrine of the analysis of ideas and of associationist psychology, and James is wrong in identifying that false “atomism” with it. b) It is further correct that our presenting and consciousness as such does not really contain its object. This, however, has never been the view of any serious researcher since the infancy of science. It is also to be conceded that the psychical state that is called the presentation of an object does not always intentionally contain that which the name means. In other words, there are improper presentations. It would, however, be wrong to believe that such presentations have no assignable content or would be something vague in and of itself. They may often be difficult to describe in terms of their proper nature, simply because their content, over and above their function as surrogate and sign for something else, is neglected by our attention as a matter of habit. To conclude from this, however, that the processes are from the outset indescribable and unanalyzable would obviously be a special case of that error that James calls “the psychologists fallacy” 81 and would in this case be transferred to the observed object. This is only to be put down to incomplete observation. 82 Never is the content of a presentation or of a consciousness as such intrinsically vague or indeterminable; in this sense too psychology thus far is altogether correct when it sees everywhere distinct psychical states and definite ideas. And anyone who in this sense, or in the sense stated under a), sets out to analyze all psychical life into distinct psychical states does not thereby compromise the continuity 81. James (1890), p. 196. 82. Nor is it correct to say that the “fringes” – if this means the improper presentations – cannot at all be an object of observation, not even in memory, that they cannot even be taken up into a subsequent consciousness and belong physically, not intellectually, to the remaining stream of consciousness (ibid., p 644). All these assertions are so far off the mark and exaggerated that James himself was unable to get serious about their consequences.

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of consciousness, as James believes such a person does. This continuity is explained in a completely different way and thus what he calls substantive states and what he calls transitive ones contribute in the way to this. However, space does not allow us here to dwell on this point. c) A thesis in the author’s discussions is furthermore correct: that not all our presentations are intuitions, still less are all of them intuitions of physical phenomena (and this is not clearly and satisfactorily emphasized by him). Alongside “substantive states” (if one want to call the intuitive presentations of absolute contents this – something that I, however, would not recommend) we have presentations of relations and conceptual thoughts. And not only are the “sensationalists” wrong, who do not accept them as ultimate constituent parts of consciousness and rather want to reduce them to a combination of intuitions, but so are the “spiritualists”, as James calls those who explain relations as something a priori added to our intuitions and a matter of the pure understanding. This is wrong. Relations no less than absolute contents lie in intuitions (but not all of them in the intuitions of physical phenomena, as James also forgets!). However, it does not follow from the rejection of either of these views that the presentations in question are all improper and in this sense “fringes”. Thoughts of relations and conceptual presentations are, to be sure, not intuitions, and since they are in fact possible only in the most intimate contact with intuitions, they are relatively dependent parts of consciousness; 83 however, the elementary ones do in fact contain as an intentional content that which their name means. That is to say, they are altogether proper presentations, and only on the basis of such proper concepts are the various products of improper presentations then also possible. d) It was a mistake of certain “associationist psychologists” when they thought they discerned in the sensation of white the sensations of different spectral colors “fused”. They regarded something as phenomenally complex where it was in fact only a complex in the causes familiar to them. However, James goes astray to the utmost extreme when he does not want to accept a multiplicity of elements in the 83. For the sake of this dependence one may compare them with fringes or seams with the halo of the moon. Yet, there are arguably more significant metaphors for their relationship to intuition. – It has already indicated earlier that James erroneously confuses this character of independence with a completely different one and thus makes the class “transitive states” or “fringes” into a refuge for entities of a completely different type and origin.

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phenomenon in the case of a sensory or “perceptual” content, but rather to seek all complexity only in the stimuli. With regard to feelings of pleasure and displeasure it may be correct to say that we are not at all able to derive from those linked to simpler impressions the other ones which accompany the impression composed of those elements, but rather it is the specific experience that can decide in each case concerning this matter. Pleasure and displeasure, however, are something different from the presentations on which they are based, e.g. sensations of qualities, and James does not satisfactorily keep these separate. In the case of sensory contents there is no doubt something like a mechanical complexity, i.e. composites which descriptively exhibit elements and are truly constructed from them. While it is the case – corresponding to a general law of noticing – that in order to analyze such a composite, i.e. to be attentive to its elements in particular, we must experience these elements separately or as parts of other combinations, this only proves that a causal distinction or an analysis of stimuli is a condition for the psychological analysis of phenomenal sensory contents. James, however, should not wish to deny the latter completely and accept only the former. e) Of course, we do not approve of it either when so-called sensationalists and associationist psychologists wanted to derive even psychical activities, which are toto genere different from mere presenting, from a combination of presentations. We therefore completely agree with James in saying, for example, that having two ideas (m and n) does not at all mean comparing them or distinguishing them. The comparison is a new process of a completely different kind. However, the entire state of consciousness which the comparison and distinction between m and n is executed does in fact involve the presentation of m and n and indeed the “pure” presentation of both, at least in the sense that m and n must truly be the content of our presenting. Without this, a comparison of both would not in fact be possible. If someone designates with James 84 the being-compared of m and n as a something not consisting “purely” in consciousness, it is obvious that the person making the comparing does not purely present m and n. However, that manner of speaking seems to me hardly felicitous, indeed quite misleading. It is, however, positively incorrect when the author says in the same passage that the general law, according to which 84. Cf. James (1890) I, p. 498.

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every impression that the brain undergoes leaves behind a modification in it which is a co-determining factor for all later experiences, entails that we could not possibly present m and n immediately after each other and have them “purely”, i.e. (as is said at once) uncompared, in consciousness. In fact, both can follow each other immediately without there being an act of discrimination. In this sense it must be stressed in opposition to James that having two ideas is not yet distinguishing them. This is not all. Insofar as the author infers in the manner just heard the presumptive impossibility of experiencing the “pure” idea of m or n twice from the enduring modification that the brain undergoes via every impression and every change in balance, he refers also to other discussions. 85 However, here I find among similar sounding expressions quite different consequences drawn from the continuous modification of the brain, which make me amazed that names identify them with the ones previously mentioned. For the view is simply presented: because our sensations and thoughts do not occur twice in a fully unmodified brain and rather all earlier ones have after-effects in every later brain state, it follows, according to James, that in fact neither two equal sensations nor two equal thoughts could ever, earlier or later, arise in us. If this only means that our psychical state as a whole is in continual flux, we need not reply in opposition to this claim. 86 James, however, believes that he has thereby dealt the death blow to so-called atomistic psychology, and this is what he calls every attempt to discover in the relentlessly changing concrete network of our psychical life certain elements that recur in like manner. This very attempt, on his view, is to be dismissed by virtue of the basic facts of brain physiology alone, and in this sense the thesis is supposedly true that there is never something like “two successive copies of the same thought” in us and everything earlier that one might regard as equal to something later is rather in fact unequal to it and somehow altered. As far as this thesis is concerned, it must be conceded as a fact that the same yellow or red do not arise in our sensation twice, nor does a tone of absolutely the same pitch, and the same goes for the remaining cases, because this is a realm where the species vary infinitesimally. (It is left aside that, even if the totally same 85. Ibid., pp. 232-236. 86. Translator’s note: The term erinnern in the original text is here taken as erwidern.

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thing were here twice, we would of course be unable to discern it.) However, if the non-recurrence of completely equal contents of sensation would be the necessary consequence of the influence of earlier states of consciousness and of the change of the brain, and if for the same reasons also the recurrence of a thought with the same content would be an impossibility, this would indeed have consequences of the most objectionable nature, not only for psychology, but rather for science as such. James himself finds, where he treats of concepts, “the law of constancy in our meanings ... as the most important of all the features of our mental structure”. 87 Well then! After it has been shown to us above that it is a fiction when he believes that all our conceptual thoughts could “mean” or “indicate” something without containing it intentionally, it follows that that “most important of all the features of our mental structure” lies in the fact that thoughts with the same content can recur and that we could think the same thing truly and properly several times. And this inference might in fact prompt him to make a revision of his much too confident conclusions from the change of the brain to a change simpliciter in consciousness, as he inferred 88 and turned it against psychology thus far. f) Another and final concession, however, we may not allow to be silenced. So-called associationist psychology has wrongly considered many a connection of contents of presentation to be of such a nature as one obtaining between associated ideas. One has overlooked the great diversity and varied peculiarity of part-relations which obtain among the elements of our simultaneous and changing presentational whole. It was thus an error when Locke thought that space and color (indeed, even extension and shape) are connected in the same manner in which (for instance, in the presentation of sugar) color and taste are. The latter make up a merely external collective of contents, and between them association, i.e. habitual connection, can develop. Whoever would speak of association between the former, however, could do so only due to a total oversight of the true state of affairs or because he deliberately created a powerful equivocation. This should most decisively be met with disapproval. Later thinkers have even more extensively overlooked this diversity of the modes of connection in our presentational contents and 87. Translator’s note: Ibid., 460. 88. Ibid., pp. 230-237.

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even called genus and species, e.g. color and redness, “associated”, whereas the latter presentation in fact contains the former one. In short: The doctrine of the analysis of ideas does not coincide with that of the association thereof. The former still remains one of the most fundamental tasks of the descriptive part of psychology and the latter one of the most valuable achievements that the genetic part has to exhibit thus far. – Nor can I declare myself to be in agreement with James concerning the latter when he wants to speak in the future of the association of objects (“things thought of”) instead of the association of ideas. 89 The opposition of the author is connected with already familiar errors that he himself commits and with others that he wrongly attributes in general to “associationist psychology”. If we eliminate them, there is no longer any rational reason to object to the terminology used thus far and to accept the innovative one. It would obviously be incorrect to say that the laws of the association of ideas were laws of the connection of the external objects. Laws of the connection between such objects are, for instance, those of natural science. By “things thought of” it could therefore be only the intentional objects which are meant; and since one of the usual meanings of the word “idea” does refer to the intentional objects of our presentational activity, it would be quibbling over words, indeed needlessly abandoning a completely useful and thus far universally understood mode of expression, and exchanging it for a misleading one, if we wanted to follow the suggestion of James. We have been more elaborate than is probably customary for reviews. Yet, we could not do justice on the one hand to the great erudition and the actual value of the work reviewed and on the other hand to the truth of the matter unless we more thoroughly substantiated disapproval wherever it had to be expressed. With the most honorable intention to free psychology from errors and to strive hand in hand with elaborations towards thoroughness and exactness, the author formulates principles which would consign this science to shallowness in another direction and thereby indirectly endanger that exactness for which he himself strives – indeed principles, which would, if consistently followed, call into

89. Cf. ibid., pp. 554 ff.

Review: James, Principles of Psychology question all psychological research. This demanded coming to terms, and these lines were meant to serve this purpose and not to denigrate the work of a vigorous and intelligent researcher.

ON ASSUMPTIONS: A CRITICAL CONTRIBUTION TO DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY 1 Anton Marty Translated by Robin D. Rollinger Introduction: Intention and Outline of the Following Investigation In making it my task in my forthcoming Contributions to Universal Grammar and the Philosophy of Language 2 to treat the fundamental problems of the descriptive theory of meaning, I was naturally led to pose the question how many and which fundamental classes of psychical activities there are, which our tools of language are meant to express and to awaken in the hearer. There I advocate the view that there are three such classes: 1) those of presentations, 2) judgments (of “accepting” and “rejecting”), and 3) taking an interest (“loving” and “hating” – Brentano). These come to expression in three fundamentally different, independently signifcative linguistic forms: 1*) presentational suggestives, especially names, 2*) statements, and 3*) interest-demanding expressions or emotives. Here I therefore find myself opposed not only to the view, which we frequently hear, that the essential accomplishment of all words and statements lies in expressing presentations and “groups of presentations”. 3 I am also opposed to the theories which are, to be sure, not meant to dissolve all 1. Translator’s note: This is a translation of Marty (1906), which was published as a reprint in Marty, (eds.) Eisenmeier et al. (1920), pp. 1-56. 2. Translator’s note: The first volume of this work (Marty 1908) was published under the changed title Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie. While this publication was designated as the first volume, Marty did not live to complete the second volume of this work. 3. Translator’s note: Here the term “idea” instead of “presentation” could be used as a translation of Vorstellung, calling to mind that the function of words as signs for ideas was characterized by Locke as their most essential feature in Book III of his Essay concerning Human Understanding. In Locke, (trans.) Tennemann (1795) Vorstellung is used consistently as the translation of “idea”. Other proponents who hold the view that linguistic expressions essentially express presentations are presumably also Berkeley and Hume, but also Herbart and his followers.

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mental activities manifested in language into presentations, but which nonetheless take another division of the basic classes than the one we mentioned above to be correct. Among these latter attempts at classification we also come across one from Alexius Meinong, who regards presenting and judging as essentially different, just as Brentano and I do, but who believes it necessary to add that not only is judgment far from being presentation, but it “does not even border on the realm of presentation”, 4 but rather is separated from this realm by a group of phenomena (Tatsachen) “in-between”, as it were, namely by the class of Annahmen or “assumptions”. 5 In my above-mentioned work there was no room thoroughly to examine this class that Meinong situates “in-between”, and thus I decided to devote a special essay to this matter to which I only refer in my book. The following arguments are to be devoted to this task. § 1. Ambiguity of the Term “Assumption” The name “assumption”, as is well known and as Meinong also points out, is used in many different ways, and not everything that is given this name, but only a part thereof is, according to him, characterized in such a way that it is to be designated neither as a mere presenting nor as a judgment, but rather as something intermediate, which has allegedly thus far been overlooked by psychologists in its peculiar nature. 1. One uses “assume” in the sense of “assent to or agreement with the view of someone else, approving this view”, even though this is done for sufficient reasons. 6 This is of course not that to which Meinong would like to assign a middle position between presenting and judging. It is indeed also obviously nothing but a kind of judging. 2. The same is true, however, whenever one says that someone 4. Of course, Brentano did not teach this. Things that belong to different genera cannot border on each other. Nor can something, properly speaking, lie in-between, whereby the distance would become even greater. 5. Meinong (1902). . 6. Translator’s note: In English the term that would normally be used in this sense is “accept” and not “assume”.

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“assumes” something if he has faith in it more or less blindly, without sufficient reasons, especially if he allows himself to be determined by the will to believe because he prefers to view the matter in such and such a way rather than some other way or he believes that there is a command to have faith in this. Neither is this that for which Meinong thinks it necessary to establish his new class. 3. Finally, one speaks of “assumptions” in cases where no faith or conviction is meant by this, neither a justified nor a blind one, as when I say, “Assuming, but not conceding, that time has a certain degree of curvature”, etc. Or: “If we assume that Napoleon the Great were still living”, where we imagine something, perhaps in order to draw consequences from it. Here Meinong believes that he has before him a class of mental activities whose characteristic peculiarity has thus far been overlooked. § 2. The Principle of Classification of Psychical Phenomena for Meinong the Same as the One for Brentano, Aristotle, and Others As regards the viewpoint from which he starts in his formation of classes, it is for the rest the one that Brentano first asserted in its full sharpness. Aristotle already had this in mind in his twofold division of all psychical attitudes into nous and orexis, though he did not express it clearly. Others again also had it in mind in their threefold division: thinking, feeling, and willing. It is the viewpoint of profound agreement and difference of the mode of intentional relation to an object, as this relation is given in the different psychical activities. On the basis of this principle of classification, Meinong thinks, our psychical conduct whenever we make an “assumption” in the sense mentioned last, i.e. whenever we treat something as if we believed it in order to draw consequences from it, turns out to be neither an instance of mere presenting nor one of judging, but rather it allegedly can, as already said, only be placed between these two as something intermediate.

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§ 3. Indication of the Extension of the Class of “Assumptions” Newly Established by Him Furthermore, he finds in this case that besides the processes just mentioned a whole number of other ones which are usually taken to be presentations and which no one calls “assumptions” in truth belong to this new class laid down by him. Thus, for example, if someone thinks of what I believe and does not believe it himself, his thought is to be an assumption. The same goes for the thought of a person asking a question, to the extent that thinking of what this person wants to know is under consideration. Further, also the thoughts of someone who is listening to and understands a fairytale or story without believing in the content, etc. . Against the obvious objection that it goes against all linguistic usage to call these intellectual states “assumptions”, Meinong will no doubt reply that this is a case where the meaning of a usual name may presumably be changed, that this change is indeed scientifically required since it is in the interest of a correct classification and expedient nomenclature for the phenomena. All the thoughts he designates as “assumptions” would make up a natural class and would thus also reasonably be labeled with the same name. The name “assumptions”, which is usually already applied to a part of the extension of the new class, would most suitably offer itself for this purpose. It is only appropriate to extend it to the entire realm of those intrinsically related phenomena. Obviously the whole issue here is whether this class that Meinong proposes really does exist. § 4. Their Character as between Presenting and Judging. The Way of Testing this Novelty As already indicated, “assumptions” are supposedly something intermediate between presenting and judging. According to Meinong, judging essentially entails that the psychical conduct in question has not only the character of acceptance or rejection, but also that of conviction. It is his view that there are cases where we accept or reject something without being convinced of it, as we imagine, for instance, that the Boers had won, and so forth. Consequently it cannot supposedly be an instance

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of judging under consideration, but it is not an instance of mere presenting either. For in the case of presenting there is not given any acceptance or rejection. What we allegedly have is rather simply something that occupies an intermediate position between presenting and judging. The attempts to regard these “judgments without conviction” 7 or “pseudo-judgments” 8 as real judgments on this view are not serious, for we can in this manner obviously assume something, the contrary of which we believe or know, and this would thus in fact involve judging opposites at the same time. We are rather tempted to take the process to be an instance of mere presenting, as Meinong himself had done earlier. Yet there are on his view urgent proofs for the impossibility of this solution, namely in the indication of negative assuming. Negation, according to him, is never the business of presenting. Wherever a negation is therefore encountered, the sphere of presenting is said to be quite certainly transcended. Not merely the character of conviction, but also the contrast between affirmation and negation “makes up a phenomenon that is essentially alien to presentations”. 9 And besides the phenomena in our psychical life just mentioned, which cannot be explained, as the author thinks, without accepting an intermediate realm between presenting and judging, such as his “judgments without conviction”, there is, as already indicated, to be yet a whole series of others which would at least most naturally be comprehended as phenomena of this type. Here it is to be investigated whether this is really the case, and I believe that we will be convinced that none of the phenomena, even those which perhaps at first glance seem to speak most favorably for the indispensability of the new theory, is really of this type, but rather that they can be interpreted just as well, if not better, without it. Not only is the explanatory value of the theory in question not one that could weigh down the scales in its favor, but it also suffers in advance from extreme improbability, indeed impossibility. Naturally, we 7. Translator’s note: Meinong (1902), p. 277. 8. Translator’s note: Meinong (1902), pp. 257, 282. 9. Translator’s note: Meinong (1902), p. 3.

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focus at first on this side of the question and initially bring to mind some of the difficulties which, on my view, compel us from the outset to look for another explanation for the facts under discussion than that of Meinongian “assumptions”, because this one suffers from intrinsic improbability.

Part I: Test of the Initial Improbability of the Theory of “Assumptions” § 1. Unacceptability of the Thesis that “Assumptions” and Judgments Constitute Different Genera of Psychical Conduct Above all, I have serious misgivings about the place of “assumptions” in relation to presenting on the one hand and to judging on the other, and Meinong himself exhibits a certain wavering in his relevant depictions. Sometimes we are indeed told that between “assumptions” and judgments there is a closer relationship than between the former and presentations and that the assumptions are “similar enough” to items of knowledge and judgments to represent them. 10 Elsewhere, however, Meinong calls them also, once again, merely “pseudo-judgments” since the essential feature of judgment (the character of “conviction”) is lacking, and we have already heard that the temptation to regard them as real judgments is not great; it is more tempting to regard “assuming” as mere presenting. Yet, in view of these statements, we must insist upon more exact and penetrating elucidations and not merely fully harmonious ones. The cardinal question, it seems to me, is this: Are we concerned in the case of assumptions and judgments with two different genera of psychical reference or not? Let us assume that they are different genera. How then would it be conceivable that they exhibit the same species: accepting and rejecting? 10. Translator’s note: Here Marty puts the phrase “ähnlich genug, um sie vertreten zu können” in quotation marks, as if he were quoting Meinong, whereas the passage in question is actually “ähnlich genug um unter Umständen eine Verwechslung nicht geradezu unverständlich erscheinen zu lassen”, which may be translated as “similar enough to make a confusion sometimes seem not downright unintelligible” (Meinong [1902], p. 50 f.).

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That would be just like someone wanting to find red and blue also outside of the genus “color”. Adhering to the fundamental and generic difference between assuming and judging, one would in fact have to teach that assumptive acceptance and rejection is merely an analogue of judging acceptance and rejection, as one might also designate loving as an analogue of acceptance and hate as an analogue of rejection (i.e. of denial). In this case, however, assuming could also not be true and false in the proper sense. Also such predicates could apply to it only in a sense that is somehow analogous to the way in which they apply to judgment. What, however, does experience know of analogies such as peculiar concepts reflectively based only upon “assuming”, which would merely be an analogue to those concepts reflectively based upon judgment and its different modes: true and false, being and not-being, being-necessary and being-impossible? When one speaks of true and false “assumptions”, this is either in truth not meant in totally the same sense as in the case of judgment (i.e. in the case when we have judgments which are – as we already said – sometimes also called assumptions, e.g. a “blind assumption”) or, if “assuming” means an imagining, i.e. a mere presenting according to the old view, then such a psychical attitude is true and false only in a relative sense, namely with regard to whether a person who would believe what is “assumed” were judging truly or falsely. However, no experience shows anything of a true and false, being and not-being, etc. that would be meant only in a sense analogous to that of predicates bearing the same names and abstracted from judging (as we can designate good, for example, as an analogue of truth). And if there is, as Meinong thinks, an “assuming” that is to be an accepting and rejecting rather than mere presenting, but not judging, the mentioned concepts must be related to this “assumptive” accepting and rejecting in the same way and in the same sense as they are to the judicative accepting and rejecting. In other words, “assumptive” and judicative accepting and rejecting must be an accepting and denying in the very same sense, and we have in both cases only one genus of psychical conduct before us. Meinong will presumably also call this his actual view. Though it is objectionable that he puts assuming between presenting and judging as something intermediate, it is impossible, strictly speaking, for there to be something between things that differ in genus. Yet this is probably meant in an improper sense, and Meinong apparently wants to contrast assuming and judging, under the name “thinking” as one basic

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class and genus, alongside feeling and desiring on the one hand and presenting on the other. 11 § 2. Unacceptability of the Thesis that they are Species of One Genus, for they Lack a Difference (which cannot be Conviction and the Lack Thereof) Let us turn to this alternative. A genus of psychical relations can be differentiated in different respects and under different aspects. This is the case also with the genus that we only temporarily want to characterize by the fact that it exhibits, in addition to differences of the object or the matter, a qualitative moment and under this aspect the species of accepting and rejecting. This conduct, which we incidentally want to temporarily call only the general conduct x, can, as experience shows, in addition be differentiated further by being either evident or blind, either apodictic or assertoric, etc. Yet, when someone calls the evident conduct, e.g. the evident acceptance of A, a judging, it does not occur to him to withhold this name from the blind one, and by “judging” he thus means the common general trait x which underlies these differentiations. The analogue could now also be expected if one distinguishes further between a convinced and an unconvinced conduct and calls the first one a “judging”, namely that we thus designate the second one also as “judging”. Here, however, Meinong tells us suddenly to stop. If conviction is lacking, it is no longer permissible to proceed, as when evidence is lacking, to speak of “judging”. The judgment without conviction is, according to Meinong, only a “pseudo-judgment”, hence in truth no judgment at all. 12 11. It requires no comment that in this terminology, which does not allow any presenting to be designated as “thinking” (Meinong [1902], p. 278), he stands quite alone. However, we do not want to engage in a verbal dispute here, but rather only a dispute concerning the natural classification of psychical occurrences. Such classification, just like scientific zoology or botany, must not go astray due to considerations of popular terminology (which is, after all, not formed for theoretical purposes or on the basis of scientific observation). For this very reason, I was unable to condone the fact that Meinong, as others before him, seemed inclined to put together presenting and judging more closely because ordinary language calls both “thinking”. 12. When he elsewhere often calls “assumptions” also “judgments without conviction”, the term is often being used here in a modified sense, such as “horse” in the addition “painted horse” and “castle” in the combination “castle in the air”. Hence, I do

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What is thereby being taught, obviously, is that conviction or its lack is not a differentia of such a kind as evidence and blindness or as apodicticity and the lack of this character, which internally differentiate that general conduct, which we called x, as species, otherwise whenever we call it x in the one case it must be called this in the other one as well. However, if it is no differentia of this sort, there remain only two options, as far as I can see. Either what we have before us in conviction, as we have said above, is not merely a specific differentia, but rather the general one of the conduct x and thus conviction (judgment for Meinong) and unconvinced accepting and rejection (“assuming” for Meinong) are generically two different modes of mental conduct, or it cannot at all be an internal differentia of mental relating (such as evidence, etc.), but rather must be something extraneous. I am unable here to discern a third possibility. The first of these alternatives, however, we had to reject as unacceptable. Thus there remains only the other one. And this also seals the case of Meinong’s theory, for conviction, according to him, is to be something that internally differentiates that conduct x, which he calls “thinking”.

§ 3. Closer Discussion of the Meanings of the Terms “Conviction” and “Degrees of Conviction” Yet we must still bring this moment of conviction somewhat more into focus. Earlier Meinong regarded this as the intensity peculiar to judging. Now he seems to have abandoned this view. 13 Otherwise he would from not quite comprehend how he can call it “almost definitional” to say that assumptions are “judgments without conviction” (ibid., p. 257). This seems to indicate that it is almost something like a definition per genus proximum and differentia specifica, and in truth it is neither halfway nor completely such a thing, but rather altogether not so. If it were, the “judgments without conviction” would genuinely have to be judgments, as blind ones, for instance, are so no less than insightful ones. If so, how could he also call them “pseudo-judgments” and specify them as a special class alongside real judgments? 13. He now identifies the intensity of a judgment with “certainty” (in which he includes the measure of probability) and ascribes it also to assumptions and thus there are

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now on have to teach that assumption (i.e. “judgment without conviction”) is an “act of judgment” with the intensity of zero, hence not at all something positive for someone who believes in the existence of intensity in this domain. In the recognition that degrees of conviction cannot be intensities of judgment, Meinong has only followed the example of respected psychologists, as Sigwart, for instance, had already been stressing for a long time. By conceiving of conviction as a special and irreducible moment in judgment, he now wants to conceive of degrees of conviction not as differences in the strength of the act of judgment itself, but rather only of this moment in the act of judgment. However, degrees of strength, which especially and exclusively belong to such a moment in judgment, are to me a completely impossible assumption. The character of conviction would thereby cease to be a mere moment in the act and would have to be an act itself, a real accident of the mind or rather an act adhering to the act, all of which is completely unacceptable. If it is not so, but rather only a special aspect in the act of judgment, like evidence or the apodictic character, it seems to me absurd to ascribe to it a special intensity which would not be intensity of this act itself. In truth either so-called degrees of conviction are differences 14 in the matter of what is taken as true, for if I judge at one time that something is, another time, that it is more or less probable, these are nothing but differences of what is judged; 15 or, insofar as this is not the case, we are not concerned with an internal differentia of judgment, and the “degrees” of conviction are not to be understood differently from when we speak also of degrees of strength in the case of habit and of degrees in the firmness of an intention. 16 for him acceptances and denials in which the highest “certainty” is inherent, though without any degree of conviction. 14. This is already argued by Brentano in his later Vienna lectures on logic. 15. If we want to call the degrees of conviction in this sense (as distinct from whatever else can be called this) special degrees of certainty, this is a matter of convention. However, they cannot in this case be a matter of “assuming”, simply because they can also be merely distinctions of contents of presentation. It is for the rest left open whether this terminology is felicitous. 16. For this reason intensity in the case of conviction is in truth not to be spoken of. Due to a great inexactness of linguistic usage it of course often occurs that we do speak

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I say degrees of conviction, for we could use the term “conviction” also in a broader sense that admits of no degrees. By “conviction” or “belief” in this broader sense we could thus mean only the basic generic trait common to all accepting and rejecting and to the blind and evident, assertoric and apodictic regarding-as-true. This is the very trait which, in contrast to mere presenting, constitutes a new mode of the mental conduct towards an object. I can merely present to myself that something is or is not. 17 But something quite new arises in serious acceptance and rejection, in regarding-as-true and regarding-as-false, in believing and denying. Yet I would not recommend calling this trait, common to acceptance and rejection, “believing”, for this name is readily used strictly for affirmative conduct. 18 Nor would I recommend calling it “conviction”, since – as already indicated – this term is better used for something that allows for degrees and is not an internal moment of the psychical state in question. Most suitably we call that conviction which allows for no degrees and, as distinct from all mere “presenting”, makes up the peculiar common character trait of accepting and rejecting “judging”. This is a concept for which no one even thinks of degrees. 19 By contrast, we want to use the term “conviction” exclusively in the narrower sense for that something which allows for degrees, 20 whereby two things can be meant, as already indicated, namely an objective circumstance and certain subjective ones in judging: on the one hand, the differences of assurance, as when I say at one time, of an “intensity” wherever degrees are allowed for and thus in the above mentioned cases and furthermore in connection with the degrees of velocity of a motion, etc. In the interest of clarity of concepts, however, it would be better to avoid this. 17. Of course I can do so only when I have obtained the concepts of being and nonbeing, of what-is and of what-is-not, from reflection upon judgments. This, however, does not keep these concepts from being presentations and nothing else. 18. I have done so as well. 19. Meinong must also accept this inconvenience, since he identifies the judgmentcharacter with conviction in the sense in which it allows for degrees. According to him, one state would have to be more or less a judgment than another would. 20. If we were to use “conviction” in this narrower sense and at the same time in the sense of judgment as such, we would not only bring about an equivocation, but also – as already indicated – come into an unnecessary conflict with ordinary linguistic usage.

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“It is sure”, at another time, “It is unsure or more or less probable that A is” – hence, as we already said, differences of the matter of judgment; on the other hand, the subjective situation of persisting or wavering and its influence on the rest of psychical life are also designated as degrees of conviction of a judgment. A judgment which is critically challenged and subject to doubt and as such suppressed by other conflicting ones is not called a conviction in the full sense of the word. In the case of conviction we think of the power to resist, not of weakness, and the name is preferably given to a firm, unshakable judging to which we adhere without disquietude. 21 This firmness can be the result of evidence. However, it can also merely arise from our regarding what is believed as evident 22 or from no opposing doubt coming into play, for whatever reason and even if it be due to the restriction of the set of ideas. Also in a logically ungrounded manner, judgments can become unshakably firm for us, e.g. via instinct and habit, and the latter can have effect in various ways, both immediately (animal expectatio casuum similium) and by mediation (erroneous inferences of different kinds). Also, as Descartes especially had in mind, the will can decide the outcome of ascent and solidify it by favoring an exclusive occupation with the judgment in question and everything that is suited for supporting it and thus not allowing an opposing critical thought to arise, and also presumably by dominating the emotional life and the practical side of our conduct in a sense which would be in accordance with the conviction in question. By the laws of habit, this contributes to enhancing that conviction itself. It can thus occur in various ways, illogical and logical, that a judgment is thrust upon us or we are captivated by it and thus there is no resistance against it, and every such judgment is called a full and firm 21. Firmiter (sine formidine, alterius) adhaerare, aquiescere. 22. By this regarding-as-evident I of course mean a serious judging. A mere “assuming” that a certain judgment is evident would declare nothing, and thus it is also clear that that moment which we designated as a general trait in all judging and as one that allows for no degrees is unavoidable. It must be accepted as an ultimate moment of psychical life; otherwise it is also impossible to account for that which we call degrees of conviction. Also everything that can be called critique or critical relating towards a given judgment, and whereby it is stripped of the character of conviction temporarily or permanently, is reducible somehow to real or presumptive evidence.

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conviction. What else is peculiar to conviction in this sense, capable of increase, or to fuller conviction, is its consequences for the activities of emotion and volition. 23 They partly depend on those distinctions of matter, such as whether I judge something as assured or merely probable, partly by the persistence or wavering of the judgment, but also partly by certain dispositions of character, such as levity, courage, reflectiveness, fearfulness, melancholy, etc. A judgment, to which no critical considerations are incidentally opposed, however amenable it might be to these in and of itself, will become decisive and uninhibited in all respects, hence behaving as a full-blown conviction. In other cases, special dispositions of the emotions and the will may have such an effect that emerging doubts and challenges are immediately suppressed again and the thought agreeable to the direction of mood can prove to be irresistible and gain unbridled power. 24 23. As is well known, Bain wanted to dissolve the entire distinguishing characteristic of belief (judging), as opposed to presenting, into such influence upon our emotional life. One has rightly replied to him that the existence and disappearance of this influence in the case of certain intellectual states, however, itself demands an explanation, and this explanation cannot do without the assumption of an internal distinction between those different classes of psychical conduct. We, who have for a long time not gone as far as Bain, are of course not touched by the objection. 24. If we take David Hume’s “belief” to mean this becoming aware of the emotional and volitional side of mental life through judgment, the assertion that Edmund Husserl has recently expressed, that belief has no positive opposite, would be understandable. The matter is different when Hume designates belief as a feeling, meaning not the conduct of the rest of the psyche towards judgment, but rather the judging conduct itself. Since feeling exhibits positively opposite states (love – hate, enjoyment – suffering), this would have to be so also in the case of belief if it is a feeling. The relevant utterances of the famous psychologist, however, are wavering and unclear, and without a doubt it seems to me only that the real facts that he had in mind here, where he declares belief to be a feeling (elsewhere he designates it also once again, as is well known, as a special intensity and constancy of an idea), partly lie in the circumstance that judgments which are actually not opposed by critical considerations dominate our emotional life, and also partly in the fact that – as we have likewise indicated – feeling and volition can make their own contributions to making a judgment into one that is not plagued by doubt and is unimpaired by criticism in its firmness and effectiveness. I leave the question open whether Hume also is misled by the analogy between “approving” in the sense of regarding-as-true on the one hand and “approving” in the sense of regarding-as-agreeable (in feeling), as this is true of Windelband and other modern thinkers. If this were the case, then it would only be consistent – as we already said – to contrast with belief also disbelief as a perfectly coordinate member, as we

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§ 4. Meinong’s Awkwardness in Stating a Positive Character Trait which Distinguishes his Entire Class of “Thinking” (i.e. the Group of “Asssumptions” and Judgments) from Presenting Furthermore, in denying that something like conviction, also not in that broader sense which allows for no degrees, is the common basic trait of all accepting and rejecting, Meinong is under the obligation to state something else that makes up this general character of his class “thinking” as opposed to mere presenting. It certainly does not suffice that the concept of thinking does not mean something that does not occur in the so-called assuming or judging acceptance or rejection, but it must also contain a positive trait which actually exhibits itself in every one of its subclasses. Perhaps Meinong replies that he does state such a positive character, namely that both assuming and judging are an active relating, whereas presenting is a purely passive one. However, I do not at all find this to be satisfactory. What does it mean to say that assuming and judging are active and presenting is not so? Is activity meant in the sense that it is peculiar to willing, which is directed, as a psychical relation, towards a doing? This is impossible. For neither does this peculiarity belong to accepting and rejecting, nor could it be their distinguishing generic character even if it did belong to them. It does not and could not simply because it is, after all, above all peculiar to willing. What is therefore meant by “activity”? Perhaps it means that every act of affirming and denying is brought about and is in this sense a product of activity? However, this is also true of every presenting, which certainly does not come into being without any cause. Or is it meant that every instance of acceptance and rejection is summoned forth by a volitional activity and presenting is never so. This would also be altogether wrong. Neither are all acts of accepting and rejecting products of a volitional activity (evident judgments certainly not, except perhaps quite indirectly), nor is this lacking in presentations which are summoned by the will; indeed, the flow of our presentations (more than that of judgments 25 ) is amenable to the rule of will, as the contrast hate with love. 25. And also of Meinong’s “assumptions”. For it cannot be true of all of them that they are “under the command of the will”, surely not of the conclusion of the so-called assumptive inferences, which must be apodictic and is to be “relatively evident”

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work of the thinker, poet, and artist, who is engaged in combining, shows in thousands of cases. Or, finally, is it being said that the acts of accepting and rejecting are not merely brought about or effected, but also efficacious, whereas presentations are not so? It hardly needs to be remarked that this opinion also should be called untenable. Everything real can be efficacious, the act of presenting as well as every other psychical activity, and the ability to be efficacious cannot possibly be regarded as a distinguishing feature of affirming and denying in contrast with that other class of mental attitudes. With what has been said, however, we have exhausted all possible interpretations which might be given here to the term “activity”, and any other concept of “activity” that would vindicate accepting and rejecting in contrast with presenting would have to be dismissed as a mythical one. Perhaps one objects that it is not a matter of stating a trait common to all accepting and rejecting, but rather a trait peculiar to all “assuming” and judging, and this allegedly lies in each instance always being either an acceptance or rejection. However, that is not a common generic character of both, but rather simply the special differentiae which are, according to Meinong, to occur in both. A higher concept for assuming and judging must be stated, not one that is subsumed under the classes or intersects with them. The reply is just as unsatisfactory as saying that the positive generic character of colors is that they are red or yellow or blue, etc. These species are examples in which the common element, the general concept of what is colored, is grasped. While it is easy for everyone to take this further step and to discern the overreaching general character in those lower concepts, I am unable to discover a common generic character in what Meinong calls assuming and judging acceptance and rejection. I understand only what is to distinguish assumptions from judgments, not what is to be common to both as a generic character.

according to Meinong’s explanation.

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§ 5. Difficulty in Saying How “Assumptions” are Related to Evidence and Blindness We are not yet done. We have heard that the moment of conviction is to mark off judgments and be lacking in assumptions, while both classes vary in quality (accepting and rejecting) and in differences of intensity (i.e. “certainty” for Meinong). The further question arises how assumptions conduct themselves with regard to the difference between evidence and blindness. Meinong at first explicitly denies that evidence in the proper sense can belong to assumptions. Proper evidence, according to him, inheres only in judgment. Yet he later ascribes at least “relative evidence” 26 to the conclusion in so-called assumptive inferences, as analogous to the conclusion in a correctly made inference from non-evident premises. But this relative evidence, which is, however, supposedly an “evidence-like phenomenon” that “more or less feels like evidence to us” rather than “evidence in the proper sense”, seems to me – I cannot hide it – a novelty whose actuality and possibility I strongly doubt. What seems to me to be given in a correctly made inference from non-evident premises is nothing but a case of the conclusion being motivated (which is something different from evidence) on the one hand and evidence of the form of inference (which is always an instance of true evidence, namely of the judgment about the derivation) on the other hand. 27 We shall later explicitly discuss so-called assumptive inferences and the “relative” evidence that is supposedly given in them. Here it is only noted that if there were something evidence-like in their case there would also have to be something like conviction, at least “relative conviction”, belonging to that which is “relatively evident”. In this case can it be assumptions under consideration since these in essence allegedly lack all conviction? 26. Translator’s note: Meinong (1902), pp. 67 ff. 27. In Meinong (1882) it is taught that an inference is nothing but a hypothetical judgment in which the dependence of the motivated on the motive comes to expression. He completely overlooked the evidence of the conclusion in a correct inference from evident premises. Now he seems to me to be going too far in the opposite direction by wanting to assume something like evidence also in inferences that are merely motivated and not evident, whereas only an evident judgment about the connection of certain contents of judgment is given here.

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I am quite unable to reconcile Meinong’s statements with each other here and altogether miss clear determinations about how the moments of evidence and blindness on the one hand and that of conviction and its lack on the other hand are related. One thing, however, seems certain to me: if he teaches that evidence and conviction belong to the same mode with regard to the act of judging, i.e. if they lie in the same categorial line (or line of differentiation), this gets him involved in contradictions. For if evidence and blindness are thus species of the moment of conviction, evidence would also have to exhibit degrees of strength (since the moment of conviction has a special strength on Meinong’s view), something that the author otherwise correctly dismisses altogether – in this regard following Brentano, who long ago demonstrated that some are deceived to the contrary. If, however, conviction and evidence are different modes, why can there not be “true and proper” evidence without conviction (and it seems to be Meinong’s view that this is not the case)? 28 Be this as it may, evidence as a consequence seems in truth to me to go together inwardly with another peculiarity of a judgment more than it does with conviction, namely with the fact that an opposite conduct towards every object is possible, and if one of these, e.g. accepting, is correct, denying is false and vice-versa. If this correctness is manifested, we have evidence here. Since “assuming” too is now an instance of acceptance, now one of rejection, and since here too one of the attitudes opposed to each other is correct, 29 why is it to be essential to assumptions that their correctness can never be known? If they could, however, we would here have evidence without any real conviction. If not, we have a new and by no means obvious peculiar aspect of the whole doctrine of assumptions in the thesis: that an assumption is capable of the character of blindness, but not capable of evidence, though 28. Just as he will concede, by contrast, that there can be rock-solid convictions which are nonetheless completely devoid of evidence. 29. This is no doubt true, and thus I am very puzzled by the fact that Meinong wants to ascribe to his assumptions in toto only an “immanent objective”. By “objective” he means what is usually called the content in the case of our judgments (and “assumptions”), e.g. for “A is” the being of A, for “A is not” the non-being of A, as distinct from the object or the matter, which is in both cases A. Since “assumptions” no less than blind judgments can also (accidentally) be correct, their content – I think – is nonetheless sometimes just as external and not merely immanent as that of an immanent judgment.

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each assumption is either correct or incorrect. This is of course rooted in the fact that Meinong – as already noted – fails to distinguish two senses of “conviction”. These are: 1) the sense in which it does not allow for degrees and is the common character of all accepting and rejecting, entailing that every instance of evident acceptance or rejection is a conviction, and 2) the sense in which it has degrees. In the second sense not every judgment, not even every evident judgment, is a conviction in the full sense of the word. Even evident judgments can temporarily be suppressed by opposing ones, which are borne and supported by powerful instincts, habits, and conviction, and can lose their dominant influence over the rest of judging life and emotional life as well as volitional activity.

§ 6. Difficulty in Saying How “Assumptions” are Related to the Apodictic and Assertoric Character However, the question still arises how assumptions stand with respect to the difference of the apodictic and assertoric character. It seems unavoidable that Meinong even sometimes ascribes the former to them. His “assumptions” in an area such as that of mathematics must have apodictic character no less than the corresponding judgments. Also in the case of a conclusion in the assumptive inferences, made in accordance with the law of non-contradiction, the apodictic character cannot be lacking, and thus there are on Meinong’s view assumptions that presumably betray apodictic character, but – in accordance with their concept – not a trace of conviction. 30 30. Also when E. Husserl, as we have heard, wants to distinguish between judgments, i.e. for him “predicating”, and belief and sees in this latter character a special “quality” of the act in addition to the former property, I must ask which one of the two modes of conduct has the character of evidence and apodicticity. Let us assume that evidence is peculiar to belief, for instance – not in the sense that every belief would be evident, for experience shows too indubitably that also blind convictions can be unshakeable, but rather in the sense that whatever does not fall in the realm of belief cannot be evident. In this case Husserl, who thinks that there is to be no disbelief as a co-ordinant member with equal status opposed to belief, has the problem of doing justice to the fact that experience shows us quite distinctly the evidence-character connected with an opposite conduct towards the object, in other words that we have negative insights as well as positive ones. If, however, evidence belongs to the character of predicating, Husserl must teach that

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§ 7. Can Strictly Opposed Affirmations and Negations be in us Simultaneously? A further question that arises concerning Meinongian “assumptions” is this: Can opposite states of this kind and can judgments and assumptions with opposite content be given in us at the same time or not? Meinong must answer affirmatively if his “assumptions” are to make their appearance as an explanation for that which is usually so designated, and this is also what he does. For I can assume something, although I judge the strict opposite and indeed do so with evidence, as when I say, for example, “Let us assume that two times two is five”. However, he also seems to teach that if I judge, for instance, “It is false that A is and that it at the same time is not”, and the like, such “that” clauses contain assumptions and we therefore “assume” the very same matter both positively and negatively, and the same goes for such cases as “Either A is or is not” and “If A would be and if it would not be at the same time …”, where the single constituent statements are equally supposed to be assumptions on Meinong’s view. 31 On our view, according to which the “that” clauses in the above examples and likewise the statements of assumptions, as they are commonly called, express presentations of certain contents of judgment, an act can be evident without being belief, and this is doubtful if the latter is to be an irreducible trait of our psychical conduct. 31. A simultaneously opposed conduct would, according to the “theory of assumptions”, be made the same matter if – where Meinong teaches (as we shall still hear) that a negative judgment can “not enter ad libitum”, but rather needs an affirmative assumption as its background or preparation – it would be his view that in the judgment “A is not” the affirmation that A is involved as nothing less than an element. In this case too we would simultaneously have to accept and reject. Yet, his doctrine, which we must still discuss, that every negation requires an affirmation is perhaps to be understood differently. Thus I here attach no weight to this case. However, his conception of negative concepts and conceptual syntheses with contradictory and contrary members seems to compel him to make an opposed and contradictory conduct the same matter at times. We shall also have to discuss this. What we usually call assumptions do of course express more. They are requests for presenting certain contents of judgment (e.g. that time is curved and the like). This emotive element in the meaning of assumptive sentences, however, is not at issue here.

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there is of course nothing astounding and doubtful in the fact that contradictory things and in other cases things opposed as contraries are assumed or present to us at all, and that one also judges the strict opposite of what one thus assumes. For none of this entails that an opposite conduct towards the very same object would be simultaneously ascribed to the soul. The situation is different, however, if assumptions and “that” clauses express an acceptance and rejection rather than a mere presenting, as Meinong will have it. In this case we would really have in the above cases an opposed conduct of the soul towards the same object. The question is whether the assumption that such conduct is compatible at the same time in the same subject is allowed. Meinong, it seems to me, has skipped over it with too little hesitation. His “assuming” affirmation would have to be a positing and a grasping-as-being no less than the judging affirmation is. How is it to be compatible with a simultaneous rejection, i.e. taking-as-not-being of the same object? Do not laws of compatibility obtain here? Is everything compatible with everything? Granted that it is possible simultaneously to relate to an object in opposed ways as long as this term is understood in a broader sense, as I can hate an object (e.g. the pain of an operation) insofar as it is intrinsically an evil and I can also perhaps love it insofar as it has a good (e.g. health) as a consequence. But the question is whether I can relate to the same object in the same respect and at the same time in opposite ways, in other words whether psychical states with opposite qualities, but with fully identical matter, 32 can be given in us at the same time. The doctrine of assumptions must answer this question unconditionally in the affirmative and thus absorb a questionable element. Perhaps Meinong objects that such conflicted conduct towards the same object is not compatible as judicative because convictions are at stake in this case. It is admitted by everyone that opposite convictions are simultaneously mutually exclusive and someone who claimed to have them would be declared to be either a very bad observer or a liar. But this 32. Even if it turned out to be the case that the scientific conviction that colors, tones, etc. do not exist in reality is actually (and not merely habitually) in us at the very same time with the instinctive belief in the contents of sensations, we would not have an accepting and rejecting with strictly the same matter. For the basis of the corresponding judgments is in one case a concrete intuition, in the other an abstract concept.

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is allegedly not at stake here. For assumptions are allegedly “judgments without conviction”. Yet, why should it be evident without further ado that opposite convictions are mutually exclusive and an instance of acceptance and rejection which is not a conviction is not at all so under any circumstances? Perhaps one says that the convictions would have a conflicting influence on the remainder of psychical life and that such influence does not belong to assumptions. Since these opposite effects would exclude each other, the same would go for their causes. But what are these opposite effects? As long as they remain in the realm of mind, they cannot be anything but opposite ways of relating to the object, e.g. acceptance and rejection of the same matter, love and hate towards the same thing and in the same respect. We just did hear, however, that simultaneous acceptance and rejection of the same matter are presumably sometimes compatible with each other. If so, why not also a simultaneous love and hate in conflict in an equally strict sense? And if so, where – at least in the domain of mind – are the consequences of opposite convictions, which, by means of their incompatibility, supposedly make the former incompatible? Perhaps only the conflicting effects on the body would remain as the basis for this, as when one conviction would have a movement in one direction and the opposite conviction would have a movement in the opposite direction as a consequence, or one of them would have standing, the other one sitting, etc. – things that are physiologically impossible at the same time. However, by no means do all convictions have such effects as consequences. And as far as mind is concerned, it is true, as already indicated, that if simultaneous opposing conduct towards the same object is not excluded, there is no reason why conflicting convictions should be incompatible due to their effects. If, however, that is so, these are mutually exclusive in and of themselves regardless of their effects. Along with them, every opposing conduct towards the same material, whether one calls it an instance of judging or assuming, is presumably excluded. In addition, assumptions can have opposite effects in the soul, e.g. when one hypothetically draws other consequences from “A is” than from “A is not”. (Cf. Meinong’s assumptive inferences.) Thus, in no respect can it be seen why only opposite judgments should not be compatible and assumptions should.

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§ 8. Misgivings about the Place that “Assumptions” in Contrast with Judgments are to Have in Relation to Presentations We have thereby come to a point that must as such strengthen the misgivings against Meinong’s theory of assumptions, namely the question about the place they are to have, as opposed to judgments, in relation to presentations. They are supposedly a hitherto overlooked intermediate item between the two. Upon closer inspection, however, it is clear that in the configuration of this newly found or newly created item Meinong adopts pretty well all genetic laws and peculiar features of presentations, but descriptively gives it those traits of judgment which are to us the most important ones. Assumptions, according to him, are indeed affirmations and rejections. Something at least similar to evidence is to belong to them and it is unavoidable – as we have seen – that also something like apodictic character should be ascribed to them. All of these are altogether excluded in the case of presenting. As far as the laws of their genesis are concerned, however, they are supposedly essentially in agreement with presentation in this respect. They are supposed to be just as subject to volition as presentations are and quite like them, even when contradictorily or contrarily opposed, still compatible among each other and with simultaneous opposing judgments. However, due to the fact that Meinong speaks of “assumptive inferences”, he must teach that the conclusion, though an assumption, arises as motivated by the premises, 33 and he ascribes to it, as we know, an evidence-like character and will thus presumably allow it to be exempt from direct governance by the will. This concession, however, threatens only to bring it into conflict with his other doctrine that an especially far-reaching hegemony of the will is peculiar to assumptions in contrast with judgments and in agreement with presentations. And as far as the compatibility of opposites is concerned, which is likewise to be characteristic of assumptions in contrast with judgments, he is altogether unable – as we have already seen – to explain this. He must postulate such compatibility, which is supposedly lacking in judgments and yet 33. Brentano uses this name in the case of real inferences for the circumstance that the conclusion is held to be true because of the premises and we are aware of this beingbrought-about of one judgment by means of another one (or other ones).

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belonging to assumptions, though it is impossible to see why, in short as an ultimate fact and thereby complicating the whole hypothesis with a new moment that endangers its probability. If he should finally object that he ascribes activity to assumptions, and this is a peculiarity with regard to the laws of genesis, and one that it has in common with judgments, not with presentations (these having an inherent passivity instead), I shall be glad to admit that assuredly no descriptive distinction can be meant by “activity” and “passivity”. If it existed, it would certainly be a genetic one. However, we have already seen that the assumption of such a distinction is fictional, and thus the fact remains that for Meinong assumptions would in essence be related to presentations as regards their genetic aspect, but much more to judgments as regards their descriptive aspect. And this way of creating an intermediate item between the classes “presentation” and “judgment” seems to me infelicitous, since we find elsewhere in nature that the descriptive distinctions are the more fundamental ones, to which the peculiarities of genesis attach themselves as consequences. To descriptively homogeneous things belong also homogeneous genetic laws, to descriptively heterogeneous things also heterogeneous laws of comingabout and passing-away. § 9. Misgivings about “Pseudo-Feelings” and “Phantasy-Feelings” and about “Pseudo-Desires” and “Phantasy-Desires”, etc., which Meinong Lays Down as Analogous to Assumptions (as “Pseudo-Judgments”) Let it still be only briefly mentioned that Meinong feels forced to oppose to feelings and desires pseudo-feelings (or phantasy-feelings) and pseudo-desires (or phantasy-feelings) as he opposes to judgments “assumptions”, i.e. pseudo-judgments or phantasy-judgments – as he also expresses himself. Like assumptions, these pseudo-interests also supposedly lack seriousness. He cannot, however, fully maintain the analogy from the outset. For while he designates assumptions as an intermediate realm between presenting and judging, I do not find that he would situate pseudo-feelings as something between, say, intellectual states and those of real feeling. Here he speaks of a lower level and an upper level. Pseudo-feelings or phantasy-feelings are supposedly the former, real feelings the latter. And pseudo-desires and real desires, also pseudo-judgments and real judgments, are to be related by analogy as

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lower and upper levels. However, I do not wish to enter into the precarious nature of these details. I only want to stress that the whole doctrine of the existence of these alleged analogues of “assumptions”, of the so-called phantasy-feelings and phantasy-desires, cause me to have misgivings no less than that of the phantasy-judgments or assumptions themselves. I do realize that instead of feeling and desiring it is possible also merely to present such states. However, a merely presented feeling is of course not a feeling, just as a presented horse is not a horse. Let it also be admitted that we can have feelings and desires which do not fully become effective, but are suppressed by others and paralyzed in their consequences. Yet, both the subordinate and the dominant feelings are in fact real feelings. A feeling in which no interest at all would be given, a pseudo-feeling, nonetheless strikes me as something like an instance of red that would not be a color. This is not all. Meinong sees a further analogue of assumptions and pseudo-feelings and phantasy-desires again in the so-called phantasypresentations in contrast with perceptual presentations. Although he (understandably!) does not wish to call the former the lower level for the latter and it is even less his view that the phantasy-presentations might be seen as intermediate between other classes of psychical relations (as the assumptions are supposedly intermediate between presentations and judgments) or that the phantasy-presentations are pseudo-presentations, i.e. not presentations at all, as assumptions are not judgments. Nevertheless, for Meinong there is to be a parallel between phantasypresentations, phantasy-judgments, etc. on the one hand and perceptual presentations, judgments, etc. on the other hand, although it is to begin with no longer quite clear wherein this parallel is to lie. However this may be, I would like to ask what is meant here by phantasy-presentations in contrast with perceptual presentations. For only that will put us in a position to decide by means of experience whether there is anything of a factual nature in phantasy-presentations that somehow exhibits an analogy to the alleged phantasy-judgments and phantasy-feelings. I assume that Meinong does not merely mean genetic differentiae by speaking of the distinction between phantasy presentations and perceptual ones. For there would otherwise be a lack of the desired analogy between this contrast and that of assumptions and judgments as well as the one of pseudo-feelings and real feelings, which – utterly and from the outset – are to be descriptive differences.

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Does “perceptual presentation” therefore mean a presentation (i.e. an intuitive one) together with the evident or instinctive affirmative judgment connected therewith, which takes the presented object as existing now? (For this is what one normally calls “perception”.) If it means this, its opposite – thus the phantasy presentation – would on the one hand have to be sought in an instance presenting accompanied by a judgment to which the presented object would appear as past rather than present, on the other hand in an instance of presenting that is not at all accompanied by such an (evident or instinctive) affirmation of the presented object. However, does this contrast have any similarity at all with the alleged contrast between pseudo-judgments and real judgments? I am unable to discover one. Does Meinong therefore perhaps want to forego drawing upon the distinction between presentations accompanied by an affirmative judgment and ones unaccompanied by this or the appearance of the presented object in the former case as present or past? This certainly seems to be his view. If so, and if we thus remain in the area of mere presenting, I would simply not know of any descriptive difference other than that between intuitions of varying intensity and that between intuition and concept. However, I am also unable to discover any kind of analogy between these and that of judgment and pseudo-judgment. Or finally is the kinship of phantasy-presentation, phantasy-judgment, phantasy-feeling, etc. to lie in the former being directed as a rule at the latter, i.e. at something merely imagined? This seems to be what Meinong is in fact saying. But whether phantasy presentations are in this case taken to be weak sensations, as Aristotle takes them, or to be concepts, as Johannes von Müller takes them, or to be presentations of something absent, as Lotze takes them, 34 I not could concede that the acceptance and rejection which is directed at them is as a rule mere pseudo-judgment and that the feelings and desires directed at them are as a rule mere pseudo-feelings and pseudo-desires. In short, the analogies 34. The conduct that accepts or rejects something past or future would in that case usually be an assuming. Indeed, even the phenomena of immediate memory, to which Meinong in fact ascribes evidence (for he regards them, in a manner that is, to be sure, not worthy of approval, as “evident surmises”) would in this case often be assumptions, hence devoid of all conviction on his view. He will certainly reject this as standing in conflict with his view. Yet, what is meant in this case by “phantasy presentations” which are to be the basis of the “pseudo-judgment” and to make up a contrast with perceptual presentations as these are by analogy related to the real judgment?

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that Meinong seeks for his “assumptions” are not suited for supporting his original discovery. To someone who was not taken in by it in the first place, they rather make it dubious once again all the more rapidly. Part II: Demonstration that the Hypothesis is Unnecessary It has presumably already been made sufficiently clear from the foregoing discussion that Meinong’s “assumptions” are not credible. Upon a preliminary examination they are rather a very improbable assumption. Thus, if the facts of our psychical life can be explained without them, no one – I think – will be in doubt about where the scales of logic tilt. Let us take a look at the most important things Meinong believes himself able to understand only by granting that hypothesis or at least more easily by ganting it rather than any other. § 10. No Need for Negative Concepts to be Grasped as “Assumptions”, as Meinong Believes. Intrinsic Misigivings about this Conception We begin with the already mentioned reference to the so-called negative concepts, upon which Meinong puts the greatest weight and which, on his view, could only be regarded as negative assumptions. “Wherever there is negation,” we are told, “the realm of mere presenting has been transcended”. 35 We must, however, ask what is meant here by “negation”. The distinguishing relation of consciousness of negating, denying, or rejecting and that which is denied as such are of course something that never lies in the domain of presenting as such. But in this region presumably presenting of denying and of the denied as such and likewise the presentation of what is to be denied, i.e. of the non-existent, do belong. Also in the case of the latter concepts (since they are relative ones) the presentation of denying must also be given. Such presentation, like every other, requires experiences, especially the experience of denying and of something denied as such and the reflection thereupon, 35. Translator’s note: Meinong (1902), p. 6.

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for there are no innate presentations. It is, however, not itself a denying, and the same goes for the presentation or the concept of what is to be denied, i.e. the non-existent. Nor is it any different with those negative concepts to which Meinong appeals, such as not-red, not-round, not-man, etc. “Not-red”, as I see it, means the same as “something of which it is false to say that it is red”, 36 and this is a relative determination which does not involve a rejecting judgment, but rather the presentation of a rejecting judgment. Meinong himself remarks: that M is not A is a kind of relation between M and A which of course allows itself to be presented, and thereby a path is also found through abstraction to arrive at a presentable non-A and thus to the presentation of a so-called negative object. Yet, at once he objects: Just consider, however, what kind of device, if one may so speak, is required by a presentation of this kind. In order to think of “something not-round”, I would have to conceive of “something of which the judgment is true that it is not round”. While every unbiased person here will think that with his presenting he is moving in the domain of figures, one would in truth have to think not only of round, but also of something completely different from figures, namely of the negative judgment and its relation to that of which it is true. This is of course possible; but the inclusion of psychological and epistemological matters in a type of thinking that has as a rule other interests is so conspicuous that wherever this occurs it can presumably not even escape a fleeting observation. However, in the case of so-called negative presentations, perhaps excluding very infrequent exceptions, even attention to the highest degree is unable to discover anything of the described detour. Practically speaking, the possibility of this detour therefore is fully left out of consideration and is also in the following to remain out of consideration. 37

It is therefore not an impossibility, but at least a great improbability for Meinong that we would think in the case of not-red, for instance: something of which it is false to say that it is not red. For this reason, he 36. Translator’s note: Marty (1908), pp. 481 ff. Since this work was not yet published when Marty wrote the present text, he does not specify the pagination in his reference to the forthcoming volume. 37. Meinong (1902), p. 13.

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thinks, it is permissible to leave this and every similar possibility out of consideration and to assume that a simpler thought, namely an “assumption”, makes up the actual psychical reality. In support of the improbability of the former hypothesis, however, he brings to bear many things that we shall sort out and look at one by one. First of all, he sees in this hypothesis an inclusion of epistemological and psychological matters in a type of thinking that has (as a rule) completely different interests. Does this mean that whoever thinks in the case of “not-red” the thought advocated by us (namely: something of which it is false to say that it is not red) is thereby interested in epistemological and psychological matters? That would obviously be saying too much. I assert only that he has certain presentations and concepts in his consciousness which are or can be an object of interest for the epistemologist and psychologist, not that he himself confronts them with such a theoretical interest. Not all of the presentations that we have at the same time, after all, need to be and can be a matter of our special concern, even less a matter of interest in all respects, and while we turn our attention, for instance, only to physical or geological issues, or to technical or other practical ones, there are often concepts in our consciousness which are of importance to the psychologist, epistemologist, and the ethicist, but ones to which we do not at the moment direct such an interest. Moreover, is it not also already amazing that those concepts should be within us while the “unbiased” knows nothing of them, how such a person could not on Meinong’s view say, for instance, that he thinks of a judgment in the case of “not-red”? In face of this, I must remark that if the “unbiased” person is also someone uninitiated in psychological observation, this should not in the least be a cause for astonishment. For experiencing a psychical state in oneself is something completely different from clearly giving an account of it. The latter is an affair of special talent and particularly also of special training. Assuming, however, that also talented and trained psychological observers who – guided by theoretical interest – turn their attention to negative concepts do not discover that we think as a rule in such cases of judgments, what decisive conclusion follows from this? In spite of this attention, no one prior to Meinong, after all, has noticed that another class of psychical relations, the “assumptions”, is supposedly at work here. This investigator himself concedes that psychological “theory” (i.e. the psychologists in general) has neglected

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the “assumptions” in roughly the same degree in which they are common to the praxis of daily life. If this does not from the outset speak against the existence of that new class of psychical relations established by Meinong, it does not speak against the correctness of our doctrine either if individual psychologists think themselves unable to find the reality asserted by us. It is possible, as Meinong thinks, that due to bias or for other causes something can be overlooked which is in fact there, and thus it is not advisable at once to leave something – which one’s own experience seems not to show – out of consideration. Rather, it seems more judicious to examine the matter more carefully, as I do not dismiss the hypothesis of Meinongian “assumptions” out of hand, although I am indeed unable to discover them in myself. Be that as it may, is not the greater simplicity of the thought that Meinong wants to find uttered in negative terms, in comparison to the one that is to be their meaning according to me, by itself something that recommends his hypothesis over the traditional doctrine? This is also a point I cannot readily concede. Above all, if the thought that is the meaning of negative terms, according to this view, is more complicated, this does not also make the hypothesis itself more complicated. For it is possible to speak of the latter, after all, only where a multiplicity of independent elements are under consideration, which are connected in order to make the assumption under consideration fit for the explanation of a phenomenon that is in question. In our case, however, the parts of the thought whereby I interpret “not-red” and the like are necessarily given together, and it is an assumption neither amazing nor novel that there are such negative presentations. Meinong himself must concede that their formation is to be expected, since we are in possession of negative judgments and form by reflection on our judging and its contents as such various concepts. In this case obviously the more complicated and in advance the less probable hypothesis is his: that these negative presentions in particular, the conceivability of which he cannot deny, do not suffice for the explanation of the facts, but that in addition the doubtlessly new assumption of “pseudo-judgments”, which is – as we have seen – burdened with quite a few outlandishly improbable features (to say no the least), must be made. Yet, perhaps it is said, if this assumption is more complicated, it nonetheless has the advantage that the thought it supposes is a simpler one than negative presentation.

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But why this should actually be a moment that would readily recommend the hypothesis and make the other one suspect is not understandable to me, and I wonder in vain about compelling reasons for such an assertion. For it seems to me beyond doubt, and I believe that I can convincingly argue for it elsewhere, 38 that certainly the brevity of linguistic expression can be regarded as an unmistakable testimony to the simplicity and against the complexity of what is expressed. But how complicated are thoughts such as “friendship”, “state”, “church”, etc. in spite of the brevity of the names! But what else should stir the prejudice that there is in “not-red” a simple rather than a complex thought? I believe that whoever seeks to penetrate more deeply into psychology will be convinced on the contrary, that often, where the non-psychologist believes to be concerned with a very simple phenomenon, very complicated ones are in fact there. Indeed, regarding the Meinongian conception of negative concepts as “assumptions” something even more objectionable can be asserted than the reproach that the supposed thought is complicated. If not-A is a predicative assumption (= something is not A), the subject therein is accepted. It is, after all, impossible to predicate something of a subject or to deny something of it without accepting it. 39 If, however, such an assumption is involved as an element in every judgment which concerns a so-called negative concept, this is also the case in the judgment “There is not a not-A”. And this means that in psychical conduct, which rejects that there is something that is not A, the acceptance that something is and is not A is contained as a constitutive element and its elements therefore stand in contradiction to each other. We have already evaluated the excuse that the negative conduct is a judging one and that the (allegedly) implied affirmative one is an assuming one. Since it is an accepting and rejecting in the same sense in both cases, we do in fact have before us in an instance of positing and the opposed negation a contradictory conduct, whether both elements are called a judging or one 38. Translator’s note: Marty (1908), pp. 227 f. Since this work was not yet published when Marty wrote the present text, he does not specify the pagination in his reference to the forthcoming volume. 39. Meinong of course does not concede this point. According to him, it is possible in a (truly) categorical sentence to identify something with something else or declare it as not identical with the other thing without regarding it as existing. But Aristotle already saw the impossibility of this. On this point, cf. Marty (1908).

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of them an “assuming” and only the other a judging. I see only one escape from the embarrassment: that is to say, if Meinong gives a completely different meaning to the assertion that in “There is not a not-A” the assumption that something is not A makes up the matter of the rejecting judgment. But only one interpretation besides the one which demands that contradictory conduct from us is still possible. By “assumption” in this case only the content of the assumption “Not-A” (i.e. according to Meinong “something is not A”) can be meant. 40 And this is nothing but a particular class of objects whose presentation is formed by reflection upon negative predication. This content is presented and in this way made into the object of judgment. In short, what we essentially have before us here is that conception which we take to be the correct one and whereby the entire Meinongian doctrine of assumptions collapses. Thus I insist that in the case of concepts such as “not-red” it is not negation that is given, but rather the presentation of one and of something that is thereby relatively determined. It is quite analogous to the concept of “better”. Here too someone might assert with the same right that whoever says that A is better than B must prefer A over B. The truth of the matter, however, is that the concept of something better, i.e. of the preferable, presupposes the presentation of preferring and this can be gained only from the experience of some actual instance of preferring. § 11. No Need of “Assumptions” for What Meinong Calls the “Objectuality of Negative Judgments” Another point which can, according to Meinong, plainly find its clarification and solution only on the basis of the doctrine of “assumptions” is what is called the “object in the case of negative judgment”. He argues: 40. For to say that by “assumption” the act or the predicative relation of predicative assuming “Something is not A” is meant here is in fact altogether impossible. The meaning of what I want to communicate when I say, “A not-A is” is by no means that the subjective fact of this assuming taking place in me is to be accepted, and even less do I want to communicate that it is to be denied, when I say, “A not-A is not”. What I want to communicate to the listener is rather something objective.

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It is well known that the distinguishing place of negation in relation to affirmation has already long ago forced itself on the attention of more than one observer. 41 It has been noticed that it lies in the nature of a negative judgment not to “enter ad libitum”, as musicologists say, but rather it needs some sort of affirmative preparation. If A is B, this is sufficient as a cause for the possibility of ascribing B to A in an affirmative judgment. However, as for negating of A that it is, for instance, C, the cause and opportunity for this seem to be at hand only if the thought of affirming C of A is sufficiently within the scope of the judging subject. The fact that every negation refers back to an equiobjectual affirmation also comes into play in the peculiar manner in which the linguistic expression of negation is differentiated from that of affirmation. If both stood side-by-side on a totally equal footing, a linguistic tool could be counted on for a judgment simpliciter and then for the ingredients that would characterize it as affirmative or negative, as the case might be. Yet, language at first offers a definite expression for the affirmation, which is then altered into the expression of negation only by means of a special addition. The “not” appended to an affirmative statement helps to form a negative statement and thus offers a kind of external proof for the supervenience of negation upon a pre-given affirmation. It is, however, seen at once that anyone who here goes so far as to take an affirmative judgment as a prerequisite for a negative one quite clearly does violence to the facts. If I negate the existence of a round rectangle, I will have certainly had reason for this, but it would necessarily be something odd if I would have previously believed in the being-round of the rectangle. Also wherever a quaestio facti finds its answer in a negative judgment, an actual question may very well have given rise to this, but by no means an anticipation of the answer by means of an affirmative judgment. However, the reference to the possibility of a question in the present context suggests extraordinarily well the thought of stearing away from excessiveness by ascribing the role of a prerequisite for a negative judgment to an affirmative assumption rather than an affirmative judgment. 42

It is conceded, however, that our thinking begins with affirmation. 41. Translator’s note: Here Meinong refers to the discussion in Sigwart, (trans.) Dendy (1895) I, §20. 42. Meinong (1902), pp. 105 f. Also negative assumptions themselves, according to Meinong, should not “come in at will”, but rather require affirmative ones in preparation.

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What Meinong has not proved is that every single negation is prepared by an affirmation about the same object and this must be an “assumption”, whether this be understood in the sense that every negative judgment is indirect – as Sigwart wants to say – or even involves an actual affirmation, or in the sense that it must be prefaced by one as an inducement. As regards the doctrine that an affirmation is not only the inducement to negation, but is rather in a contradictory fashion a constitutive element thereof, in other words, that for every negating the positing of what is negated is intrinsically the foundation, few will presumably find this acceptable. Fewer still would agree in view of the fact that it is altogether unnecessary – even assuming the indirect character of every negation. It would, after all, be sufficient that every negation is based on the presentation of the content of an affirmation – something that is a doubtlessly possible fact and familiar for a long time. Indeed, this conception of the indirect character of negation, e.g. “A is not”, seems to me the only possible one, and to someone, who would think that in the negation “A is not” the affirmative “assumption” that A is is denied, I would put a question analogous to the one I ask someone who teaches that in “A not-A is not” the assumption that something not A is is rejected. I refer to what was argued above. The parallel is obvious. The more probable view is of course not this one, but rather only the second, the one that Meinong in fact holds, namely that negative judgments “supervene” upon a “pregiven affirmation” in the sense that an affirmation (if not a judging one, an “assuming” one) is an inducement to the formation of a negative judgment. However, I do not at all find this either – as already remarked – to be sufficiently justified. Above all, if a proof for his assertion seems to him to lie in the fact that language forms the sign of negation by means of composition of special particles with the form of the verbum finitum, I can by no means find this appeal to be compelling. First of all, this method of formation of the negative statement is not at all universal, for some languages have a special mode of the verb for negation. Furthermore, the expressions “yes” and “no” stand in opposition on a totally equal footing. Also, in the language of gestures the expression for negation (e.g. the shaking of the head) does not rely on the one for affirmation (e.g. nodding). If, however, we even assume that the expression for negation is formed in all cases in the manner indicated above by Meinong, this

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would be quite intelligible without the interpretation that he wants to give the matter under consideration. Other analogous formations are understood – as those of the expression of the future and past, for instance, by means of an addition to the one of the present, and that of possibility in reliance upon that for actuality – without the doctrine that the belief in the future always supervenes upon the “assumption” of the present and the believe in possibility upon the “assumption” of actuality. From the fact that expressions such as Unlust, “dislike”, dispiacere, etc. 43 are formed for pain, no psychologist to be taken seriously will conclude that pain cannot “enter ad libitum”, but rather has a pleasure or at least a “pseudo-pleasure” as a prerequisite. Language would not exhibit such syntactic formations – I mean signs obtained through composition, for which the expressed is lacking an analogous composition – if it were formed according to plans by accomplished psychological analysts and for the purpose of the most adequate representation of inner life possible. There was none of this, however, in the origination of our popular idioms. Only crudely, sometimes most crudely, did the syntax of the parts of speech, whereby they sought to obtain the expressions for our psychical states and their contents, correspond and still do correspond to the natural structure of what is to be expressed; and the motives of convenience and parsimony of signs, which acted upon the origination of the syntactical mode of speaking, often led to compositions and coincidences on the basis of a mere fictional and imaginary division within what is expressed. Such a division is the partition of the expression of negation into two signs, of which one in and of itself serves as a designative tool of affirmation, and 43. Cf. Brentano, (trans.) Hague (1902), p. 62. In support of his view that negative judgments are all indirect and not co-coordinated with affirmative ones as species on an equal footing, Sigwart has appealed inter alia also to the linguistic consideration, which Meinong now also asserts, that the sign of a negative judgment is formed in all cases by means of an addition of a word such as “not” and the like to the expression of an affirmation. In opposition to this view, Brentano (op. cit.) – it seems to me – replies with complete justification: “Sigwart agrees, I think, with me and everybody else that pleasing and displeasing, rejoicing and sorrowing, loving and hating, etc., are co-ordinate with each other. Yet a complete series of expressions denoting a disinclination of feeling are found in dependence upon the expression for the corresponding inclination. For example, inclination, disinclination; pleasure, displeasure; ease, disease; Wille, Widerwille; froh, unfroh; happy, unhappy; beautiful, unbeautiful ...”. All this also speaks against Meinong’s related appeal to the frequent method of expression in the case of negation.

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as an inducement to this manner of formation it sufficed that our first statements, like our first judgments, were of an affirmative nature. By the whole manner whereby language was formed, it sufficed for producing the procedure of obtaining the tool of expression for negation, in the interest of the economy of signs, to modify the affirmation by means of an added gesture or particle or something of this kind, and it is similar in the case of analogous formations of tools of expression for the past and the future and for possibility. The thought of the present and actuality were no doubt earlier, but it need not in every case precede that of other temporal determinations and that of possibility. This is enough concerning linguistic matters. Concerning Meinong’s view that at least a question must precede a negative judgment about a quaestio facti, what follows if it is true? Not that an affirmation (whether it be an affirmative judgment or an “assumption” of this kind) equiobjectual to that negative judgment, but rather only that the presentation of the relevant content of judgment must necessarily be at work here. For there need not be more in a question from this perspective, aside from the phenomena of interest and will which characterize the question, and aside from the judgments underlying them. 44 As regards the other point, how I come to the negation of something impossible, e.g. of a round rectangle, it can be said that this can be arrived at immediately and with evidence when I have this conflicting presentation and become attentive to it. The negative judgment is motivated here in the presentation. If, however, the question arises how I would be led to such a composition of presentations, the true reply to this is: at some time by conflicting judgments, but then also without this. I would be led by conflicting judgments, for the conflict of the perception of something present with something that was, on the basis of earlier experience, expected in the same place or as such in the same subject leads with evidence to the rejection of this contrarily opposed option. And on the basis of this apodictic incompatibility-judgment, what is habitually expected is also assertorically rejected. I can, however, also voluntarily proceed to form absurd connections of concepts after I know once and for all how it is done, and after the im44. I do not consider it to be necessary to discuss Meinong’s doctrine that the person who asks a question “assumes” and does not merely present what he wishes to know. What he brings to bear in support thereof is automatically put to rest as unacceptable by our other arguments.

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portant insights, both theoretical and practical ones tied to this procedure, have instilled in me an interest in such formations. And if the presentation of contraries is made the object of consideration, this can then always also lead to an apodictic and evident rejection of this combination, hence to negative cognitions. Hence, the assumption of a preparation of a negative judgment by means of an affirmation is superfluous. 45 § 12. No Need to Form Presentations of the Contradictory, of the Contrary, and of the Non-Intuitive as Such. Intrinsic Misgivings about the Meinongian Interpretation of these Processes Here, however, Meinong will object that the formation of presentations such as those of contraries and contradictories is also a case where it is impossible to do without assumptions. But what is true in his arguments on this point 46 is only that nonintuitive presentations, including of course also those of contradictories such as “A- non-A” and of contrarily determined objects such as “roundangular”, etc., belong to the ones based on mere predicative synthesis, which I have already treated in my articles on subjectless sentences 47 and to which I shall return in the Investigations. Someone who would have never executed a predication could not, on my view, also have such a predicatively combined presentation. The simple concepts under consideration could very well be associatively connected in his consciousness, but this would never amount to a synthesis such as the one in “red-round”, i.e. something red which is round. This, however, certainly does not mean that every predicative combination of presentations requires a corresponding predication. Rather, by analogy to a once formed synthesis such as “A which is B”, as many 45. Like the “objects of negative judgments”, the objects of presentation are to be understood, according to Meinong, only from “assumptions” and not from the reflection on presenting itself or on judgments. What he brings to bear in support of this view will automatically be put to rest on the basis of our arguments in Marty (1908) concerning the concept of an object of presentation. 46. Meinong (1902), pp. 109 ff. 47. Marty (1895), pp. 63 ff.

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others as we please can be formed, such as “A which is C”, “B which is D”, etc., without any need of there ever being given the corresponding predicative judgment “A is C”, “B is D”, etc. either previously or simultaneously. It is even less a consequence of the concession just made that in the non-intuitive presentation itself there is a predication (either a judging one or an assuming one). In some passages one might believe that Meinong wants to conceive of a non-intuitive presentation as if it were never mere presenting, but rather always predicating, only not having the character of a “judgment” (of “conviction”) and having instead one of “assumption”, and he apparently considers a mere synthesis of presentations, as we are assuming it, to be impossible. It is, however, wrong to believe that this is his view, when he himself declares elsewhere, as we have already heard: that M is not A, for instance, is not a relation between M and A, which of course must be something that can be presented, and by this means a path is also allegedly found to reach a presentable not-A through abstraction, and when he is subsequently able to assert only the improbability that in the case of notround, for instance, what we have in our mind is the (presumably complex) presentation of something of which the judgment that it is not round is true. Since the possibility as such is conceded here that this thought is given to us as a mere presentation, it is also conceded, I think, that the thought “something round which is angular” can be a mere synthesis of presentations. Also the assertion that such thoughts as “round-angular”, which we call a predicative synthesis, are in fact often or in most cases “assumptions” of a predicative nature, however, leads difficulties analogous to those to which the analogous assertion concerning negative concepts does. For also in this way one must sometimes ascribe to the one who judges a contradictory conduct, if, for instance, he says, “There is not something round-angular” and thus simultaneously accepts and denies something round-angular. For if someone attributes to that which is round that it is angular (and this “assuming” predication would indeed be the sense of the so-called concept “round-angular” according to Meinong) this person therein accepts something round. If therefore someone thinks round-angular, this person – if this is an actual predication (either assumptive or judicative) – thinks, “Something round is and it is angular”, and this acceptance and attribution would have to be involved in the strictly opposed conduct which rejects that there is

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something round-angular. Few will be inclined, I believe, in such manner to make contradiction an almost ubiquitous element of our psychical life. 48 The only possible interpretation that can be given to the doctrine that in a sentence such as “there is not something round-angular” the assumption that something round is angular is rejected is analogous to the one that we discussed earlier in the case of the corresponding doctrine of the sentence “there is not a not-A”. Since by means of the sentence “there is not something round-angular” we do not want to suggest to the listener something subjective, such as the fact of assuming itself, but rather something objective, the only thing that can be meant by the “assumption”, which is here designated as to-be-rejected, is the content of predication “something round is angular”. And this content is an object, the presentation of which is for the first time formed through reflection on a predication, but not itself a predication (either with or without conviction). It is the presented matter of my judgment “there is not something round-angular”, as in another case, where I say, “A is”, A is the presented matter. Where is there any remaining necessity or even just a possibility for affirmative assumptions which would underlie such judgments? § 13. No Need of Assumptions for the Representation or the so-called “Imitation” of Other People’s Judgments As a further class of facts, which is to make it at least very probable that we have “assumptions”, Meinong considers the “presenting” or “imitating” of judgments made by others. He does not want to deny that it is possible also to bring to mind through presentation that someone else judges this or that. But he thinks that, according to experience, this is not always done. Let us examine, for instance, how we conduct ourselves when attempting 48. I say “almost ubiquitous”. For how often are we concerned with rejecting judgments concerning negative concepts and concerning non-intuitive syntheses of presentations such as the ones mentioned above? How so only if it were Meinong’s view – which we, to be sure, leave aside as an open question – that every negative judgment would have to have an “affirmative background” in the sense that negating would also here be constituted by a positing contrary to it!

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to bring to mind Locke’s thoughts concerning primary and secondary qualities. The thought of “Locke’s judgment”, “Locke’s opinion”, etc. is not in the foreground of our attention. Nor is what Locke thought attached only as a kind of determination. It is rather primary and secondary qualities themselves that we stick to, and if perhaps Locke’s authorship at no time is completely lost from our view, this result is at best reached by an additional or accompanying thought quite externally connected to the main thoughts. And this will be the case all the more certainly, the more complex or more difficult the theorems are which are to be grasped, and the more it will be a matter of recognizing theorems which make up a whole not only factually due to the person of the author, but rather a matter of understanding also their context and their natural unity. … The procedure that is followed is thus more like copying than a passive spectating. How is it possible to “copy” a judgment without making this judgment for oneself? We have, after all, presupposed that someone grasping the judgment of someone else cannot also judge in accordance with the status of his conviction. Or should the copying lie in the fact that we just for a moment, so to speak, pass a judgment in conformity with the stated one and then retract it at once? Such a shift in conviction would go against all other experience, and thus we are really confronted here with one of the … cases where the heard or read sentence, although it expresses a judgment, does not evoke any judgment in the listener or the reader. The only psychical reality that is able to “copy” an affirmative or negative judgment, however, can in this case be an assumption, as far as we know. 49

If I understand correctly, this argument is primarily based on the assertion that, if bringing to mind Locke’s thoughts, for example, concerning primary and secondary qualities were only a presentation of what Locke judged about them, the thought that this was Locke’s opinion would have to be in the foreground of our thoughts, whereas it is at work only as an accompanying thought. In reply, I readily concede that the authorship of Locke in such a case is in fact usually present in the background of consciousness, as it were. Yet I simply do not see why this should not be compatible with saying that what remains here is only a presenting of the content of Locke’s views. As correlates are presented together, relative determinations are to be sure also necessarily presented with both terms at which the 49. Meinong (1902), pp. 48-49.

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determination aims. 50 One of the members, however, can in this case be the object of the mind’s concern in a manner not allotted to the other member. Why should it not be possible to give such concern in the above case now to one member, now to the other? And if we speak of “copying” someone else’s judgment and a fleeting analogous judging is not meant by this (and I do not at all want to assert that this is perhaps always given), could this not simply mean a special emphasis on the content of judgment? Such an emphasis very well deserves the name of copying someone’s “judgment”. For by “judgment” we in fact often mean simply the judged or the content of judgment. Alongside the presentation of this content of judgment it is, to be sure, impossible for the presentation of a judger (at least in general) to be completely absent, but it can – as already remarked – remain in the background, so to speak. By analogy we can also “copy” the “will” of someone else, i.e. the content of his peculiar phenomenon of interest. We do this when we understand what his command conveys and when we primarily attend to that content (which is, after all, also called “will”). If, however, the presentation of someone else’s willing were necessarily always an intuitive one, we would have to experience precisely this willing within ourselves. For an intuitive presentation of it would not be possible without this. Yet this is not at all necessary. A non-intuitive surrogate presentation, which does not presuppose that experience, suffices. What is true of willing and the phenomena of interest, however, is also true of judging. For the “copying” of someone else’s error and as such of someone else’s judgment a non-intuitive presentation of the content of judgment and that of a judger suffices while our attention may be directed primarily to the former. Thus I see in this case as well no need for “assumptions”, and everything said seems to me all the more compelling as Meinong must 50. It is necessary for me at least in general, whenever I think one member of a correlation, also to think the other. And by analogy it is so in the case of a relative determination and that at which it aims – and this is what is going on wherever we think a content of judgment. The presentation of a judger as such cannot be absent (this presentation is not only “an additional or accompanying thought that connects quite externally”), but I need not think of a determinate judger, and the judger, either presented only as co-determined or determined, need not be the object of the same special concern as the judged. As for the rest, compare Marty (1908) concerning the distinction between that which I call “correlate” and what I call “relative determination”.

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inevitably flee from his standpoint and take refuge in such improper presentations. He does, after all, teach that we do not always “copy” someone else’s “conviction”, even less the evident judging of someone else, 51 whereas the thought is nonetheless present to us that the other accepts or rejects something with conviction or with evidence. § 14. Meinong’s so-called Explicit “Assumptions” and “Assumptive Inferences”. True Nature of the Phenomena Let us, however, go further and discuss what Meinong calls “explicit assumptions” and the so-called “assumptive inferences”. By explicit or open assumptions the author means ones such as those uttered in the words “I assume” – or “let us assume” – “that there is given a right triangle, of which one leg is half the length of the other”, etc. Or: “Supposing that the Boers had been victorious”, etc. If he remarks concerning these assumptions that they are made in order to obtain judgments or cognitions, this is readily conceded. It can be in the interest of the progress of cognition to draw consequences from a certain content of judgment, even though we do not actually make the judgment in question. And the insight into what is contained as a consequence in a certain content of judgment is also not tied to the condition that we take it to be true. Yet Meinong has by no means proved that this bringing-to-mind, which is not a judgment but rather the bringing-to-mind of a content of judgment, is an “assumption” in his sense. For it is irrelevant – as we have already shown earlier – to appeal to the fact that this is also something negative. And for the rest he can only assert that, if I see the validity of modus Barbara, for instance, I think neither of myself nor of my judging, but rather of the subject and predicates under consideration and their relations. If, however, I do not think of myself and my judging, it does not follow that speaking of a presented judging here is completely unempirical. 52 In order to think of a content of judgment, I must of course have a presentation of a judger, but 51. If, according to Meinong, apodicticity does not belong to assumptions – something about which he has not expressed himself with full clarity – he can teach with regard to this moment of someone else’s judgment only an improper bringing-to-mind. 52 Translator’s note: Meinong (1902), p. 79.

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only in general, and this presentation may also not be the object of special concern. This presentation may predominantly be turned to the judged, and for this reason it can easily occur that the existence of that other presentation is overlooked by the observer. 53 Meinong sees in this hypothetical drawing of consequences “assumptive inferences” and thinks that such assumptive inferences are as a rule what is called hypothetical judgments. They are allegedly the natural and normal sense of “if, then”. This conception of hypothetical statements is obviously related to the Kantian doctrine, according to which also in the antecedent and consequent there is indeed supposedly a special mode of judging, problematic judging, where we “assume whatever we like”. Later we shall consider whether this hypothetical drawing of consequences is the natural and normal sense of “if, then”. But as far as the conception of the process as an “assumptive inference” is concerned, this novelty is superfluous. For it suffices, as already remarked, that we present the content of certain judgments in order to discern from the analysis of these presentations what is contained in them as a justified conclusion, i.e. to see that without which the truth of those contents of judgment could not obtain. The new conception, however, in addition runs into objections from the outset which cannot be contemptuously dismissed, as we have likewise already indicated earlier. According to Meinong, the conclusion in such an inference is indeed also an “assumption”, and nonetheless an “evidence-like feature”, “relative evidence”, supposedly adheres to it. If so, there is presumably also something like conviction, and yet an “assumption” is elsewhere essentially defined as a “judgment without conviction”. Such “assumption” is also assumed in connection with the consciousness on behalf of the premises, if the relevant acceptance or denial is to deserve the name of an inference. But how is this compatible with its assumptive character, which also supposedly has the distinctive feature of being accessible to every stirring of the will? Further, assumptions can by their nature be suggested by words. Inferences as such cannot. This too shows the doubtful nature of a state which is to be an assumption and at the same time an inference. 53. I remind you that it is necessary to draw the attention of many and even of many psychologists that a correlate cannot be thought without the other correlate. They overlook it. And this is done more easily in the case of the term at which a relative determination aims. And this is what is going on in the case content of judgment and the judger. Cf. Marty (1908) on this point.

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Our conception of sentences such as “If we assume that A is B, it follows that A is” etc. escapes these difficulties, indeed impossibilities. They are, we think, in truth summonings of the will to an inner voluntary action or peculiar psychical endeavor. Yet what is primarily to be and is in fact brought about is as a rule a presenting of certain contents of judgment to which an actual judging of course is attached, namely the discernment of consequences which lie in their contents. To be more exact, it is the discernment of that without whose truth their truth is inconceivable. 54 I say: as a rule the hypothetical drawing of conclusions is only a presenting of the so-called premises and of the conclusion, and the judgment would be made only concerning the entailment. Yet in passing the so-called assumptions also may become judgments, when the awareness that the presented content of judgment is not true or secured vanishes from consciousness. And when Meinong objects that such a “rapid change of conviction” is contrary to experience, it seems to me that he has not sufficiently surveyed or examined the full extent of what empirical observation shows us regarding the struggle between conflicting judgments. I remind you of the struggle between our scientific views concerning the external world on the one hand and those of instinctive faith in sensory appearances on the other. We fall prey, once again, to the latter, as soon as those critical considerations and judgments become silent and go into retreat. However, whether or not what is “assumed” be merely presented or in passing also believed, we certainly have in the “relative evidence” of the conclusion no evidence at all of this “assumed sentence”, but rather the judgment is evident that the falsehood of the conclusion and the truth of the premises are incompatible, that the one cannot obtain without the other. As regards the linguistic expression for the thought whose nature concerns us here, it is well known that the last mentioned judgment about entailment is readily dressed up in the so-called hypothetical form, and thus it does not infrequently occur that the whole summoning “Assuming that A is B, it follows that A is” etc. is replaced with a hypothetical 54. I call this “to be more precise”, for we cannot here speak properly of the being given of the truth of the conclusion with that of the premises, for none of these is a fact, but rather only a hypothetical fiction. The insight given here is a negative, not a positive sentence.

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formulation. But in such a case we have a shift in function of the “if, then” formula and not its proper and normal sense. Nor can it be said that the sense of the formula is unnatural where a so-called “assumptive inference” is not expressed. If I say, “If it rains tomorrow, X will visit me”, this is, I think, an example of a natural and normal hypothetical sentence. But is anything inferred here from an assumption? This is certainly not the case. Nor is a consequent attached as a result or conclusion to the antecedent when the so-called law of identity is put in the form: If A is, it is. Like the “that” formula and similar syntactical constructions, the “if” forumula also has various meanings. Sometimes it is merely a statement (either a simple one – though presumably less often – or a complex one), and this seems to me its natural sense. It is said that something is not or could not be without something else. Another formula, which is derived, is that of a wish: “If I could just die!”, etc. And likewise that of a summoning to infer from certain assumptions, instead of: “Assuming”, etc. 55 § 15. “Assumptions” in Art and Play. The Correct Interpretation of these Facts But what is finally to be made of assumptions in play and art? Meinong emphasizes that the greatest actors have, upon being asked, testified that for the genuine art of acting it is above all required that the impersonator “puts himself in the place of the one to be impersonated”, 56 and thus the natural instincts of expression replace premeditated intention in the usage of mimic tools. Yet he does not want to deny that even the latter also in all cases plays a certain role, and there is indeed no acting accomplishment in which much detail had been acquired through intentional learning. Here again, according to Meinong, if I understand him correctly, the mere presentation of the character to be impersonated and of the representative situation would have their right. But wherever in the 55. And as the hypothetical sentence can take on this meaning through a shift in function, the formula “assume that” can be only a rhetorical replacement for the simple expression of the primary sense of the hypothetical formula. 56. Meinong (1902), p. 44.

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afore-mentioned manner the genuine art of acting replaces routine, we are, according to the author, dealing with the prevalence of “assumptions” in the artist. I reply: And why not with the prevalence of judgments which are only not given fully free reign, but rather again and again curbed by understanding and experience and whose full impact on feeling and will is opposed by the influence of conflicting judgments? The instinctive movements of expression are tied to states of interest, and putting oneself in another’s place must therefore be an intellectual state of the kind which influences feeling and desire in a particular manner. If, in accordance with Meinong’s theory, “assumptions” influence phenomena of interest and movements of expressions just as judgments do, how are we to believe that the moment of conviction is not at all attached to them? There are no doubt gradual differences in conviction, and attached to these are also differences in influence of the relevant thoughts upon our feelings and actions, and in part – as we already have seen – such differences are included in what we call degrees of conviction. The more strongly dominant judgment has, as it were, a greater court of other judgments and of feelings and desires surrounding it, which are produced or dominated by it or – for it is not just a matter of the quantity, but rather also the quality of the thus influenced psychical states – it particularly dominates the practical and consequential interests and decisions. Often the wavering between conflicting judgments also will not allow one of them to prevail properly and tosses a person restlessly about also with regard to feelings and desires. The consequences of one of these judgments for feeling and willing inhibit and continually paralyze those of the other one. If, however, in the case of an artist as well as the auditor and spectator putting themselves into another’s place, there would be no judgment at all, not even the smallest degree of conviction even for the shortest time, how could their “assumptions” have stirring effects, evoke tears and jubilation? How could they be called “illusions”? Tolstoy finds that the talent of the true poet simply lies in evoking his feelings in others with particular strength. The liveliness and intuitivity of images which the artist evokes, as well as the enjoyment which they evoke, have the effect of regarding the depicted situation as real within certain boundaries. We let ourselves be enthralled by the beautiful impression, albeit only for a particular period of time and “pending

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dismissal”, so to speak. The awareness that the depicted is not real abandons temporarily us in aesthetic enjoyment. But of course only temporarily. The suppressed judgment to the contrary, at times the awareness that it is us who bring about the illusion or, if not this, that we have put aside the reasons against its reality and allowed our understanding to be enthralled, keeps the illusion within certain boundaries and destroys it once again. Yet, Meinong teaches that “assumptions” also, to be sure, evoke feelings and desires, but only pseudo-feelings and desires. While these have a certain affinity with real feelings, they do not properly deserve the name. As “assumptions” are an acceptance or rejection without conviction, these pseudo-feelings and pseudo-desires are for him phenomena in which we are to no degree and in no manner serious. Such pseudointerests are to be evoked by “assumptions” and to make up the distinctive character of emotional stirrings connected with the “fictions” in play and in art. Due to this novelty in the domain of emotional and volitional activity, however, the entire doctrine seems to me, as I said already earlier, more improbable, not more probable. Feelings in which we are not at all – not even for a single moment – serious are something my experience simply does not show me. I am quite familiar with a conflict and struggle, a prevailing and succumbing that alternates among opposed moods and velleities, and also a very rapid change in kind, which allows none of the conflicting interests to reach the point of unfolding and having full effect. This, however, means that neither of them is fully taken seriously, or if one of them does finally carry the day, the other one was not completely serious. Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor. 57 The precise analogue of this, it seems to me, occurs in the domain of judgment. This is generally so, and in a particularly noteworthy way, in the case of fictions and illusions of the artist and of the spectator and auditor who is receptive to the aesthetic. The beautiful appearance enthralls our judgment, unless the understanding and the opposing experience continually raise an objection. We are even inclined by nature to regard everything that appears intuitively to us as true: colors, tones, apparent magnitudes and motions, etc. We are first made skeptics by the awakening understanding that rejects 57. Translator’s note: “I see the right way, approve of it, and do the opposite” (Ovid).

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contradictions and conflicts to which these blind assumptions and expectations lead and by progressive experience. Yet insofar as this critique does not continually raise objections, even the scientifically educated person catches himself now and again being a naïve realist regarding sensory qualities and spatial presentations and being a Ptolemaic regarding the motions of stars. If this instinct, which continually tries to seduce us into naïve realism with regard to sensory appearance, is joined by enjoyment of the beauty of appearance, both of these in unison are more easily successful in suppressing the objections of the critical understanding, and thus I am not at a loss to say that in the case of genuine artistic practice and the full enjoyment of art (and the former is not possible without the latter and the most lively feeling for this) there occurs a belief in what is depicted. 58 It is, however, not so autocratic that it achieves total and lasting invalidation of the opposing critical judgments, and it does not reach the point of asserting itself fully in every respect, particularly in the practical one. However, it seems to me that all facts contradict the statement that Meinong makes, that in the fear at the theater we “do not at all fear”. 59 For our conception of “assumptions” in art and of the emotions tied to them there seems to be support also, inter alia, in the fact that the conduct of so-called naïve people towards the representations of art, especially that of acting, is different from that of educated and critical people. It is generally known that so-called illusion has a much stronger effect on the former than on the latter. This is obviously because the critical understanding of the naïve is less disturbed and is paralyzed by the the belief in the depicted, as this belief is conveyed by the liveliness of the image and the enjoyment thereof. Such perceptions are often amusement for the sophisticated. Just recently I read about a popular performance of William Tell in Zürich on the 17th of March, 1904: The theater had a strange appearance; where elegant ladies and gentlemen in tails move about in a genteel and measured manner, there were seen weather-beaten faces or ones expressionlessly rigid from hard labor 58. This is in agreement with what outstanding actors say of themselves, that they execute their role on stage in a kind of hypnotic state. When they go backstage, this state and the judgments peculiar to it cease, and the ones corresponding to reality, which have always endured habitually, are again fully in charge. 59. Translator’s note: Meinong (1902), p. 234.

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– awkward figures which shyly took their seats on the ground level and in the balconies. Yet a more grateful audience for the monumental poetry of Schiller could not be imagined. With what enthusiasm did they follow the events on the stage! How their eyes lit up when a powerful word rang out above! It could be seen that the people felt apprehensive in the unaccustomed hall of splendor, but they gave expression to their approval through loud cries, cheering Tell and his associates on, but booing Geßler. It was so nice to observe the naïve enjoyment with which the people, not biased by any artistic considerations, took in the events occurring before them – with what jubilation the actor of Tell, for instance, was greeted when he stepped up on the platform after the curtain above the dead Geßler had fallen. Geßler, however, did well when he did not let himself be enticed by the clapping of the audience into showing himself to them; he would not have been well received. – This naïveté was delightful and it signifies the greatest triumph for the festive presentation of the most popular of all of Schiller’s poems.

More than pseudo-judgments or judgments without conviction seem to have been at work here. 60 Nevertheless, Meinong might here make the concession that his “assumptions” do at times pass over into judgments and append them, and this would be more easily conceivable than a mere presentation passing over into a judgment since there is allegedly a greater affinity between his “assumptions” and judgments. Even this latter argument, however, which the author really does occasionally assert in his favor, is not one that I find convincing. Since “assumptions” are to have nothing at all of conviction, since they are to be only “pseudo-judgments”, what comes about through a real judgment is something just as essentially new as when a real judgment replaces the presentation of a content of judgment. And there is not a total lack of affinity between these. Meinong, in comparison with us, only needs a special assumptive impulse in order to explain how assumptions arise in the domain of art. If, however, this impulse is to be the enjoyment of the beautiful in the broadest sense, this motive cannot only explain how we 60. The lack of this element of naïve joy is compensated in the case of the educated by the joy in imitation as such (concerning the importance of this moment in aesthetic enjoyment, compare the relevant remarks of Plato and Aristotle), like the joy in the technical aspect of the work of art and other things. Certainly aesthetic enjoyment is something rather complicated and its explanation not as simple as Meinong seems to believe here.

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nurture and evoke presentations thereof in ourselves, but also – as we have earlier already remarked – that we give ourselves over creduously in judgment to the enjoyable appearance. What is true of the art of the narrator, the dramatist, and the lyricist and of his receptive listener is also true already of the child at play – of the girl who conceives of herself as nurse or housewife and of the doll as child and as visitor, of boys playing robbers or war and the like. 61 Meinong thinks in this case too that it cannot be assumed that the child who acts as if she were the wardress of the doll really does judge (i.e. believe) this. Yet it seems to him too little to think that this is merely a matter of presenting those contents of judgment. The correct middle course is allegedly the doctrine that here too pseudo-judgments, “assumptions”, are given. The only thing he is actually able to cite, as if it were a fully decisive proof, is already quite familiar, namely that there is also something negative in these fictions of children, as when a boy assumes that he as Siegfried is invulnerable. Yet we have already convinced ourselves in what sense such negatives take us beyond the domain of presentation and in what sense they do not, and accordingly this suggestion is not compelling. Nowhere do I ever find in child’s play anything that could not be explained by presentations (including of course also presentations of contents of judgment) and by real judgments. The latter are – as they are in the case of the artist and the one who enjoys art – judgments “pending dismissal”, so to speak, and without full reign over the mind. And here too our view is supported by the fact that for the impresssionable minds of children this belief is a livelier and a more serious one than it is for others. While in some cases a person’s critical understanding again and again easily makes the necessary corrections, commanding cessation whenever the illusion theatens to go too far, other individuals must be jolted by external help from the immersion in the illusion in order to avoid a fateful confusion between appearance and reality. Everyone who makes observations here will be convinced with what ease some children, who develop particular enjoyment in playing, live in the belief in the relevant illusions. A child may believe, for instance, that her doll is actually suffering and acting while she feels herself to be its care-giver or teacher. We also see how the illusion is 61. The enjoyment of playing is also related to aesthetic enjoyment in that it is also partly an enjoyment of imitation.

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capable of gaining power over the psychical life of little ones to the point of producing compulsive ideas, and they can be quite sad and angry if we express doubt in the reality of their play fantasies and do not want to engage in conduct and action corresponding to them. 62 Thus, all essential facts which Meinong cites in favor of his theory of a new class of psychical relations, “assumptions”, seem to me understandable without this class, indeed even better so, and for this reason I have made no use of it in my draft of the principles of the descriptive theory of meaning which my forthcoming contributions to universal grammar and the philosophy of language will offer.

62. Cf. instructive experiences of this kind, collected in Sully (1896).

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Wundt, Wilehlm (1901): Sprachgeschichte und Sprachpsychologie mit Rücksicht auf B. Delbrücks ‘Grundfragen der Sprachforschung’. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann. Wundt, Wilhelm (1904): Völkerpsychologie: ein Untersuchung der Entwicklungsgesetze von Sprache, Mythus und Sitte. Erster Band: Die Sprache. Vol. II/1-2. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann. 2nd edition. Wundt, Wilhelm (1911): Kleine Schriften. Vol. I. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann. Zimmermann, Robert (1853): Philosophische Propädeutik. Vienna: Braumüller. 1st edition. Zimmermann, Robert (1860): Philosophische Propädeutik. Vienna: Braumüller. 2n edition. Zimmermann, Robert (1867): Philosophische Propädeutik. Vienna: Braumüller. 3rd edition.

INDEX OF NAMES Adickes, Erich 53 n. Anaxagoras 245 n. Aristotle 6, 10, 11, 20 n., 24, 68 n., 85, 98, 102, 115, 137, 181, 185 n., 236, 238 n., 243, 245 ff. n., 252, 261, 271, 290, 303, 325, 330 n., 348 n. Augustine 135 n. Ayer, A. J. 106 n. Bain, Alexander 28 n., 35, 177 n., 192 n., 313 n. Bechtel, William 46 n. Benfey, Theodor 137 n., 229 n. Bentham, Jeremy 248 n. Bergmann, Hugo 9, 25 Berkeley, George 92, 260, 262, 279, 301 n. Bleek, W. H. I. 44, 163-167, 232 n. Bokhove, Niels W. 24 n. Bolzano, Bernard 30, 59 f., 93, 99 n., 112 f., 117, 252 f. Bonald, M. De 138 n. Bopp, Franz 41 n. Bréal, Michel 41 f. Brentano, Franz 3-7, 9, 10, 11-30, 32-37, 41, 42-45, 50, 52, 54, 56 ff., 59 n., 60-64, 68 f., 8388, 90 f., 93, 94 n., 98 n., 100, 100-105, 107 ff., 110 n., 111 ff., 117-120, 123, 128, 129, 244 ff. n., 258, 261, 264, 275, 285 n., 301 f., 303, 310 n., 317, 322 n., 334 n. Brosses, Charles de 139, 140 Bruno, Giordano 251 Bühler, Karl 45 Burton, Robert 252 n. Brugmann, Karl 39 n. Burdach, Karl Friedrich 194 n., 198 Campos, Eliam 12 n.

Carnap, Rudolf 80 n. Cesalli, Laurent 25 n., 66 n., 104 n., 125 n. Chomsky, Noam 45 Christy, T. Craig 72 n. Chrudzimski, Arkaduisz 28 n., 91 n. Coffa, J. Alberto 59 n., 113 n. Cohn, Jonas 59 n. Comte, Auguste 20, 28 f. Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de 138 Cornelius, Hans 109 Coseriu, Eugenio 3 Crane, Tim 46 n. Darwin, Charles 43 f., 163, 177 n., 196 f., 198 n., 266 f. Delbrück, B. 39 n. Descartes, René 10, 12, 29, 68, 243, 245 n., 312 Democritus 245 n. Dennett, Daniel 46 n. Drobisch, Moritz 30 n. Dummett, Michael 46 n. Eaton, Howard O. 105 n. Egidi, Rosaria 92 n. Ehrenfels, Christian von 3, 104 n. Eisenmeier, Josef 4 n. Elfers-van Ketel, Els 5 n. Endlicher, Stephan 201 n., 202 n., 209 n. Enoch, Wilhelm 84 n. Epicurus 137, 239 Erdmann, Benno 84 n. Erdmann, Eduard 231 Fabian, Reinhard 105 n. Fechner, Gustav 36, 247 n., 260 f. Fick, August 228 f., 247 n. Frederick the Great 246 n. Frege, Gottlob 52, 69, 87, 94, 99 n., 117 Frischeisen-Köhler, Max 39 n. Freud, Sigmund 3, 35, 45

372

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Funke, Otto 22, 49 n., 77 Gabriel, Gottfried 124 n., 125 n. Galileo 244 n. Gardt, Andreas 62 n. Geiger, Lazarus 145, 163, 168173, 195 n., 214 n., 228 n., 232 n. Graffi, Giorgio 5 n., 38 n., 40 n. Grimm, Jakob 163 Guastella, Cosmo 21 n. Hanna, Robert 58 n. Hartmann, Eduard von 110 n., 232 Haeckel, Ernst 44 Hegel, G. W. F. 21 n., 28 n., 29, 237, 245 f. n., 250 Heidegger, Martin 80 Helmholtz, Hermann 67 n., 241, 247 n. Herbart, Johann Friedich 30, 33, 35, 40, 57 n., 163 n., 184, 237, 202 n. Herder, Johann G. 139 f. Hering, Ewald 67, 247 n., 262 f. Heyse, K. W. L. 141 n., 142, 144, 231 Hildebrandt, Rudolf 38 n. Hillebrand, Franz 28 n. Hobbes, Thomas 245 n. Höfler, Alois 60 n., 112 n. Homer 4 n. Humboldt, Wilhelm von 4 n., 38, 77, 134, 140-144, 146, 231 Hume, David 10, 12, 23 n., 35, 40, 87, 243 n., 259, 264, 271, 279, 286, 301 n., 313 n. Husserl, Edmund 3, 5, 14 n., 18, 24, 26, 30 n., 32 f., 37, 43, 49, 51 n., 53 n., 54, 57 n., 59, 63, 72 f., 89, 93, 96-100, 105 f., 107 n., 109, 113, 116 f., 120, 122 n., 124, 129, 313, 318 n. Ierna, Carlo 3 n., 104 n. Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich 133

James, William 18 n., 26, 27 n., 36 f., 49 n., 68 n., 255-299 Jerusalem, Wilhelm 49 n., 84 n., 94 n. Jespersen, Otto 21 n. Jodl, Friedich 4 Kafka, Franz 26 Kant, Immanuel 12, 28 n., 29, 34, 40, 44, 57-60, 93, 110, 242, 243 n., 250, 259, 263 Kastil, Alfred 19, 25, 58 n. Kepler, Johannes 244 n. Kerry, Benno 60, 93 Kraus, Oskar 9 n., 25, 67 n., 77 n., 105 n. Krause, K. C. F. 40 n. Kreibig, Josef 4 n. Kuroda, S.-Y. 45 n. Künne, Wolfgang 96 n. Kusch, Martin 22 n. Landgrebe, Ludwig 125 n. Lange, Friedrich Albert 37 Laplace, Pierre-Simon 31 Lazarus, Moritz 40, 146 n., 147151, 154, 156 n., 157 n., 159, 160 Leibniz, G. W. 10, 12, 68, 87, 115, 243, 245 f. n. Leška, Oldřich 5 n. Lewis, David 74 n. Liebmann, Otto 29 Linhares-Dias, Rui 5 n. Lipps, Theodor 59 n., 63 f., 244 n. Locke, John 10, 12, 23 n., 29, 238 n., 243 n., 254, 271, 292, 293, 297, 301 n., 339 Lotze, Rudolf Hermann 13 f., 33 f., 133, 157 n., 163, 192 n., 215 n., 325 Mach, Ernst 56 n., 61 f., 69 n., 247 n., 253 n. Madvig, J. Nikolai 133 f. Masaryk, Thomas 3

Index of Names Maupertuis, Pierre Louis 137 f., 146 Martinak, Eduard 43, 111 n. Mauther, Fritz 71 n. Mayer-Hillebrand, Franzsika 28 McCulloch, Gregory 46 n. Meinong, Alexius 3, 5, 9, 36, 43, 60 n., 73 n., 89, 93 n., 96, 99 f., 105, 106 n., 109, 113 f., 116 n., 119 f., 201-350 Menger, Carl 105 n. Meyer, Jürgen Bona 58 n. Miklosich, Franz 86 Mill, James 18 n., 35, 260 Mill, John Stuart 18 n., 23 n., 28 f., 30, 68 n., 109, 123 f., 250, 260, 279 Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron de 236 Müller, Johannes von 247 n., 325 Müller, Max 41 n., 44, 145, 146, 147 f., 229 Mulligan, Kevin 22 n., 84 n., 100 n. Natorp, Paul 59 n. Nelson, R. J. 46 n. Nerlich, Brigitte 5 n., 41 n. Parmenides 252 Paul, Hermman 39 n., 62, 121 n. Paulsen, Friedrich 27 Peschel, Oskar 223 n. Plato 115, 135 n., 136, 246 n., 251, 252, 348 n. Pott, August Friedrich 189, 191 n., 199 n. Pythagoras 245 n. Quine, Willard van Orman 22 n. Raynaud, Savina 24 n. Reicher, Maria Elisabeth 89 n. Reid, Thomas 28 n. Reinach, Adolf 94 n. Renan, Ernest 142 ff., 231 Rollinger, Robin D. 3 n., 11 n.,

373

25 n., 30 n., 32 n., 43 n., 51 n., 58 n., 60 n., 68 n., 73 n., 89 n., 98 n., 108 n., 109 n., 112 n., 113 n., 117 n., 120 n., 129 n. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 138 f., 185 Russell, Bertrand 69 n., 113 n., 120 Salice, Alessandro 94 n. Saussure, Ferdinand de 44 Scheler, Max 64 n., 106 n. Schelling, F. W. J. 133, 232, 237, 245 f. n. Schlegel 41 Schleicher, August 39 n., 41 n. Schmalz, Eduard 211 n. Schopenhauer, Arthur 237, 268 Scott, William 201 n. Sigwart, Christoph 26, 30 ff., 54 n., 84 n., 310, 332 n., 333, 334 n. Simons, Peter 19 n., 85 n., 92 n., 96 n., 105 n. Smith, Adam 248 n. Smith, Barry 3 n., 18 n., 26 n., 92 n. Speaks, Jeff 74 n. Spencer, Herbert 257 Spinicci, Paolo 4 n., 11 n., 126 n. Spinoza, Benedictus 236, 251 Socrates 251, 252 Steiner, Rudolf 3 Steinthal, H. 4 n., 38 n., 40, 41 n., 72, 73 n., 133, 137 n., 143 n., 145-160, 163, 185, 194 n., 202 n., 211 n., 212 n., 230 n., 232 n. Stevenson, Charles L. 106 n. Stingl, Michael 106 n. Strawson, P. F. 59 n.

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Stumpf, Carl 3, 11, 12, 13, 14 n., 22 f. n., 26, 27, 33 n., 36, 37, 43 n., 49 n., 57 n., 58 n., 89, 98, 99 n., 113 n., 243 n., 263, 287 f. Sully, James 350 n. Süssmilch, Johann Peter 138 f., 185 Theophratus 252 Thomas, E. E. 34 n. Tiedemann, D. 139, 140, 146, 185, 230 Tiefensee, Eberhard 9 n. Tolstoy, Leo 345 Twardowski, Kasimir 3, 5, 43 n., 60, 80, 93, 95 n., 112 f. Tylor, Edward B. 163, 167 f., 189, 191, 193 n., 193, 197 n., 199 n., 230 n.

Van der Heijden, A. H. C. 46 n. Wegener, Philipp 41 Wells, G. A. 169 Wenning, Wolfgang 67 n. Whitney, William Dwight 38 f., 41, 145, 163, 167, 229 n., 230 Wieser, Friedrich von 105 n. Wittgenstein, Ludwig 23, 45, 60, 61 n., 80, 88, 100 f. Wundt, Wilhelm 4 n., 36, 39 n., 42, 43 n., 49, 53 n., 62 n., 146, 148, 160 ff., 239 n., 259, 261, 267 Zeno 239 Zeno (the Eleatic) 252 Zimmermann, Robert 30, 67 n.