Franz Brentano

Austrian Logical Realism? Brentano on States of Affairs

by Guillaume Fréchette

DRAFT ONLY, Final version forthcoming in Bonino, Cumpa, Jesson (eds), Defending Realism, Frankfurt, 201*

In the following paper, I will discuss the motives behind Franz Brentano’s judgment contents and the strategies... more In the following paper, I will discuss the motives behind Franz Brentano’s judgment contents and the strategies offered by him to support them, suggesting that most of these strategies – based on his treatment of true negative existential judgments – are not akin to logical realism in spirit. More generally, I would like to suggest in this paper that although there definitely is a realist concern in Austrian philosophy regarding states of affairs, reducing their introduction to a realist concern is misguided. As shown by the case of Brentano, states of affairs were not always introduced in order to answer the question of what makes our assertions true, but rather to provide a psychological account of judgments that would help to distinguish between the two basic classes of acts: presentations and judgments. I will suggest that Brentano’s way of dealing with states of affairs actually shares some similarities with the way nominalists’ strategies concerning states of affairs are sometimes conducted.

A Psicologia como uma ciência empírica segundo Franz Brentano

by Evandro O. Brito

A Psicologia como uma ciência empírica segundo Franz Brentano. Revista Paradigmas (Centro de Estudos Filosóficos de Santos. , v.11, p.6 - 7, 2002.

A teoria da intencionalidade é formulada por Brentano na obra Psicologia do Ponto de Vista Empírico (1974). O... more A teoria da intencionalidade é formulada por Brentano na obra Psicologia do Ponto de Vista Empírico (1974). O propósito explícito desta obra é especificar o objeto da psicologia, bem como definir a sua natureza. No entanto, Brentano afirma (na introdução) que a psicologia, quando corretamente formulada, não consiste apenas em uma ciência entre outras. Uma correta formulação acerca da natureza do seu objeto seria o primeiro passo na construção de uma ciência primordial destituída de qualquer entrave metafísico. Embora Brentano afirme o propósito da formulação da psicologia como ciência, devemos reconhecer que seu objetivo é um pouco mais profundo. Ele pretende explicitar o status ontológico que a psicologia comporta como uma ciência empírica e, assim, colocá-la como condição de todas as outras ciências.  Em outras palavras, Brentano pretende explicitar o fundamento ontológico da psicologia de modo que ela possa ser compreendida como uma ciência não metafísica, mas que comporte um estatuto primordial sobre as demais ciências. Portanto, a teoria da intencionalidade é formulada para levar a cabo o propósito de explicitar o fundamento ontológico de uma psicologia empírica. Este artigo investiga algumas possíveis mudanças encontradas no projeto brentaniano da Psicologia Descritiva, desenvolvido no final de sua carreira acadêmica.

Aristóteles: vida e obra.

by Evandro O. Brito

BRENTANO, Franz. Aristóteles : vida e obra. Florianópolis:Bookess Editora, 2012. (Livro, Tradução e Apresentação Evandro O. Brito).

Essa edição intitulada Aristóteles - Vida e Obra, apresentada pela primeira vez em língua portuguesa, tem a finalidade... more Essa edição intitulada Aristóteles - Vida e Obra, apresentada pela primeira vez em língua portuguesa, tem a finalidade de divulgar a diversidade dos interesses intelectuais de Brentano e sua devoção para com a filosofia aristotélica. O texto que compõe a obra em língua portuguesa resultou da tradução dos dois primeiros capítulos da obra Aristoteles und seine Weltanschaung, 1911, p. 1 – 32, elaborada a partir da tradução espanhola (Aristóteles, trad. Moisés Sánchez Barrado, Barcelona: Labor, 2 ed, 1943) e cotejada com o texto original.

Reseña de "Las razones del desaliento en la filosofía", de Franz Brentano

by Juan Pablo Serra

Published in ENL@CE: REVISTA VENEZOLANA DE INFORMACIÓN, TECNOLOGÍA Y CONOCIMIENTO, 9/1 (enero-abril 2012), 109-112 [book review]

Sooner or later, everyone who wants to devote himself to philosophy must face the question concerning the material and... more Sooner or later, everyone who wants to devote himself to philosophy must face the question concerning the material and formal object of this discipline. What is philosophy and what is for? Who is a philosopher? How does the philosopher do whatever she does?

This is a short review essay intended to raise some of this questions. To do so, I unravel the form and content of two conferences by Franz Brentano reflecting on the meaning, relevance and importance of philosophy and its relationship to the natural sciences.

AS IMPLICAÇÕES ÉTICAS NA RECEPÇÃO DA NOÇÃO ARISTOTÉLICA DE IN-EXISTÊNCIA INTENCIONAL DO OBJETO NA OBRA PSICOLOGIA DO PONTO DE VISTA EMPÍRICO DE FRANZ BRENTANO.

by Evandro O. Brito

In: Anais do VII Colóquio Habermas : Habermas e Interlocuções e II Simpósio Nacional de Filosofia : Ética, Filosofia Política e Linguagem / Charles Feldhaus, Eder Soares Santos e José Fernandes Weber (organizadores). – Londrina : UEL, 2011. p. 272 - 284.

O propósito deste artigo consiste em apresentar o modo como a interpretação brentaniana da teoria aristotélica do... more O propósito deste artigo consiste em apresentar o modo como a interpretação brentaniana da teoria aristotélica do desejo, orientada pela noção de objeto intencional in-existente, foi tomada como fundamento da sua teoria moral esboçada na obra Psicologia do ponto de vista empírico de 1874. Esta análise pressupõe as afirmações textuais de Brentano em 1889, onde Brentano reconheceu que sua proposta de elaboração da ética seguiu o caminho errôneo do mestre de Estagira. Ao apontarmos os critérios brentanianos estabelecidos na recepção da noção aristotélica de apetite, descreveremos indiretamente o modo como o aristotelismo da própria teoria brentaniana estabeleceu os limites para a formulação de uma ética concebida como uma teoria do conhecimento moral.

From Marxian Objectivism toward Austrian Subjectivism: A Phenomenological Approach

by Xavier Meulders

Unabridged version of a paper to be delivered for the joint K.U.Leuven/UCLouvain seminar 'Ethics and Public Policy' (March 2012). Please do not quote.

Contenu et objet du jugement chez Brentano

by Guillaume Fréchette

Published in Philosophiques, 38/1 (2011), pp. 241-261.

Logical realism is undoubtedly one of the central features which characterize many of the major works in Austrian... more Logical realism is undoubtedly one of the central features which characterize many of the major works in Austrian philosophy from Bolzano to Husserl. Although this remark is true, as we believe, one must not forget the fact that some of the key concepts of Austrian philosophy are rooted in theories that reject realist principles. As an example, take the concept of state of affairs in Austrian philosophy, and more specifically, Franz Brentano’s conception of judgement contents. By showing the motives which led Brentano to introduce these judgement contents and by analyzing the arguments given to support his thesis, the present article aims to contrast the initial remark by illustrating, by means of the case of state of affairs, how the interrelations between realist and nominalist positions have shaped the development of Austrian philosophy.

Cohering The Parts: the search for a teleological direction in the coherence theory of truth

by Xavier Meulders

draft only

Science is often considered as a set of propositions referring to an objective world existing independently of the... more Science is often considered as a set of propositions referring to an objective world existing independently of the human mind. Due to their very being, propositions are either true or false. This ultimately means that theories in which science is equated with a certain whole of propositions, must rely on a correspondence theory of truth. But when we try to incorporate the role of human knowledge into the scientific process, we discover that the correspondence theory simply breaks down. This leaves us with a coherence theory of truth, in which it are not propositions but judgements that form the most fundamental elements of a scientific theory. When examining the nature of judgement, we come to the conclusion that the notion of truth used in a coherence theory is fundamentally different from the one used in a correspondence theory. It is a primitive notion that cannot be defined or analysed, since the coherence theory has ‘bracketed’ the validity of the world of objective axioms and propositions. But examples of it can be given, such as the law of non-contradiction which brings our whole edifice of judgements into a coherent, non-contradictory whole. Nevertheless, the truth-standards of a coherence theory are not merely formal. They are in fact driven by a certain ‘telos’ toward an ever clearer disclosure of the world as it is in itself. But then it might be interesting to examine the very origin of this ‘telos’ or ‘drive’. Husserlian phenomenology, for instance, has searched for this drive in the notions of ‘transcendental subjectivity’ and ‘the lifeworld’. But even these notions are not self-sufficient in the sense that they can provide an adequate explanation of the directedness of our intentional life. And this ultimately leads us to the inevitable realm of the philosophy of God.

Kant, Brentano and Stumpf on Psychology and Anti-Psychologism

by Guillaume Fréchette

Draft only,  to appear as « Kant, Brentano and Stumpf on Psychology and Anti-Psychologism », in Kant and Philosophy in a Cosmopolitical Sense, S. Bacin, A. Ferrarin, C. La Rocca and M. Ruffing (eds.), Berlin-New York, De Gruyter, 2012.

Actualité de Carl Stumpf

by Guillaume Fréchette

Two psychologies of perception and the prospect of their synthesis

by Sergei Gepshtein

Sergei Gepshtein, Philosophical Psychology, 2010

Two traditions have had a great impact on the theoretical and experimental research of perception. One tradition is... more Two traditions have had a great impact on the theoretical and experimental research of perception. One tradition is statistical, stretching from Fechner's enunciation of psychophysics in 1860 to the modern view of perception as statistical decision making. The other tradition is phenomenological, from Brentano's “empirical standpoint” of 1874 to the Gestalt movement and the modern work on perceptual organization. Each tradition has at its core a distinctive assumption about the indivisible constituents of perception: the just-noticeable differences of sensation in the tradition of Fechner vs. the phenomenological Gestalts in the tradition of Brentano. But some key results from the two traditions can be explained and connected using an approach that is neither statistical nor phenomenological. This approach rests on a basic property of any information exchange: a principle of measurement formulated in 1946 by Gabor as a part of his quantal theory of information. Here the indivisible components are units (quanta) of information that remain invariant under changes of precision of measurement. This approach helped to understand how sensory measurements are implemented by single neural cells. But recent analyses suggest that this approach has the power to explain larger-scale characteristics of sensory systems.

Leibniz and Brentano on Apperception

by Guillaume Fréchette

published in 'Natur und Subjekt', 2011 (full reference in the paper)

In this paper, I address some of the difficulties of both Brentano's and Leibniz's accounts of apperception. The view... more In this paper, I address some of the difficulties of both Brentano's and Leibniz's accounts of apperception. The view adopted here is quite wide. In my view, both Leibniz’s and Brentano’s accounts of apperception are, as they stand, unsatisfactory regarding their contribution to a HOT-theory. In order to show this in more details, I first start by contrasting their views of the nature of perception and apperception, showing that their respective views lead to distinct HOT-theories. In the conclusion, I propose an interpretation of their theories in which they would both be able to contribute to one model of HOT-theories.

Ist das Erleben Teil des Erlebten?

by Andrea Borsato

published in 'Phänomenologische Forschungen', 2009, Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg, pp. 37-59.

If the inner consciousness of a mental state is a part of the mental state itself, then one is forced to admit an... more If the inner consciousness of a mental state is a part of the mental state itself, then one is forced to admit an ‚inner consciousness of the inner consciousness‘. This counterintuitive consequence can however be avoided, if we conceive of the inner consciousness of the mental state as a ‚mode of giveness‘ of the state itself. This paper discusses Brentano‘ s theory of inner consciousness from the point of view of Husserl’s philosophy.

Brentano and Mathematics

by Carlo Ierna

in Revue Roumaine de Philosophie 55/1 (2011), pp. 149-167.

Franz Brentano is not usually associated with mathematics. Generally, only Brentano’s discussion of the continuum and... more Franz Brentano is not usually associated with mathematics. Generally, only Brentano’s discussion of the continuum and his critique of the mathematical accounts of it is treated in the literature. It is this detailed critique which suggests that Brentano had more than a superficial familiarity with mathematics. Indeed, considering the authors and works quoted in his lectures, Brentano appears well-informed and quite interested in the mathematical research of his time. I specifically address his lectures here as there is much less to be found about mathematics in his published works. Besides Brentano’s own work, it is quite remarkable to see that practically all of his better-known students sooner or later produced a work on the philosophy of mathematics. This also encourages the supposition not just of a common interest in the matter, but of a common theoretical core. All this prompts the question: Can we speak of a Brentanist philosophy of mathematics?