Franz Brentano’s Influence on Ukrainian Philosophy: A Methodological Introduction to Research

Abstract

This article ponders, for the first time, the question of whether Austrian philosopher Franz Brentano (1838-1917) influenced the development of the school of Ukrainian philosophy. It employs Anna Brożek’s methodology to identify philosophers’ influence on one another (distinctions between direct and indirect influence, active and passive contact, etc.); concepts of institutional and ideological conditions of this influence are also considered. The article establishes, first, that many Ukrainian academics had institutional bonds with Brentano’s students, especially Kazimierz Twardowski at the University of Lviv. Second, it identifies an ideological bond between Brentano and his hypothetical Ukrainian “academic grandsons.” Particularly, a comparative analysis of works on the history of philosophy of Brentano and the Ukrainian Ilarion Svientsits'kyi (1876-1956) reveals that the latter took over Brentano’sa posteriori constructive method. These results allow to draw a conclusion about the existence of Ukrainian Brentanism, that not only brings new arguments into the discussion about the tradition of and prospects for the development of analytic (scientific) philosophy on Ukrainian ground, but also opens new aspects of the modernization of Ukrainian society in general (from the end of the nineteenth century to the present day).