Brentano School Research Articles

Qualitative psychology of the Brentano school and its inspirations (another look at empirical qualitative research)

This article explores a psychological tradition inspired by or originating from Franz Brentano and which played a vital role in the development of qualitative empirical psychology. This was the psychology of acts with a focus on the analysis of mental phenomena and a first-person perspective. Brentano’s psychology directly influenced the emergence of the main schools of European psychology in the first half of the 20th century: the Würzburg School, Gestalt psychology, phenomenological psychology, the Dorpat School, and the Lvov–Warsaw School. These schools cultivated a psychology of mind and consciousness par excellence, the theoretical and methodological assumptions of which effectively inhibited reductionist tendencies. The aim of this article, however, is not so much to reconstruct the historical achievements but rather to indicate their relevance for contemporary qualitative psychology, which can be seen in a broader perspective than simply as an alternative to quantitative research.

Das intentionale Objekt als Unding

Abstract The so-called “intentional object” occupies a central position in the debates about intentionality in Brentano and the Brentano School. How does it relate to the correlate, the content, or the intended, possibly external, transcendent object? Does it perhaps even coincide with one of these? There was no clear consensus on this neither in Brentano’s time nor today. In order to develop a new perspective on the problem of the intentional object, I would like to introduce a deliberately radical interpretation and related terminological change: what if we were to avoid any talk of “object” in this context altogether? Perhaps this could help avoid the ambiguities and misunderstandings associated with talk of “intentional objects.” In my contribution I would like to sketch such an interpretation and consider whether this attempt could be useful to reframe the debate.

Бернард Больцано и школа Брентано

The article defines the significance of Bolzano for the Brentano school and explores the sense in which Bolzano could have been an intermediary between late Scholasticism and the Brentano school. The first part of the article discusses the assessment of the Bolzano’s philosophical doctrine, which is offered by Brentano himself and his closest student Marty. Brentano found Bolzano’s pursuit of scientific philosophy commendable, but at the same time criticized him for platonism in the theory of meanings and for distin­guishing the ways of being. Marty, continuing partly to criticize Bolzano, rather posi­tively assessed his doctrine of propositions in themselves. Using the example of the doc­trine of modifying adjectives, it is shown what influence Bolzano had on Marty’s philoso­phy of language. In the second part of the article, the question of Bolzano’s influence on K. Twardowski, A. Meinong and E. Husserl is considered. It is shown that each of these thinkers interpreted Bolzano's doctrine of propositions in themselves in different ways and at the same time not quite correctly. Bolzano’s doctrine of proposition structure is discussed separately and the evaluation of this doctrine proposed by Husserl is analyzed. Bolzano’s insufficient attention to the syntactic complexity of sentences, according to Husserl, was the reason that the Bohemian thinker did not propose a full-fledged theory of meaning and did not investigate the relationship between semantics and ontology. For other students of Brentano, Husserl’s assessment only confirmed that Bolzano did not pay due attention to linguistic synsemantics. The third part answers the question of Bolzano’s mediation between late Scholasticism and the Brentano school: the desire to defend the objectivity of truth and refute subjectivism unites such thinkers as S. Izquierdo and B. Bolzano, and it is on this basis that the continuity between late Scholasticism and the Brentano school can be traced.

A. Dewalque, C. Gauvry, S. Richard, Philosophy of language in the Brentano school

A. Dewalque, C. Gauvry, S. Richard, Philosophy of language in the Brentano school

Позднесхоластические корни теории предметов Алексиуса Майнонга

The theory of objects is usually considered as a pioneering endeavor of Alexius Meinong. In this paper, we intend to show that it finds parallels in the late scholastic philosophy of the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. First, we argue for the assumption that Meinong may have been aware of scholastic ideas akin to his own. Second, our hypothesis is ex­amined in terms of the logic of the problem itself, that is, the logic of the objectivity of thought. To do so, we delineate the basic theses of Meinong’s theory as follows: 1) the thesis of the pure object and of givenness to cognition as a universal property of the ob­ject in general; 2) the thesis of the necessity of a discipline designed to investigate the ob­ject as such; 3) the being of the object. Ways of being. Independence of so-being from be­ing; 4) transition from “the third kind” of being conception to the idea of Aussersein; 5) the thesis about internal structure of so-being, nuclear and extranuclear properties of the object. Each of theses is compared with the corresponding elements of late scholastic discourse. As a result, we conclude that Meinong’s theory can be considered as a continu­ation and development of similar ideas in scholasticism, despite the difference in the orig­inal contexts and explicit tasks in the two traditions. This means that a study of late scholasticism can be very useful also for a better understanding of the intentional theories of the Brentano school and, in particular, Alexius Meinong’s theory of objects.

Семантика и метасемантика в школе Ф. Брентано

The article analyzes a semantic theory proposed by the main representatives of the Brentano School and clarifies the characteristic features of the Brentanist philosophy of language. The first section identifies the specificity of Brentano’s functional approach to language, and separately examines how Brentano de­fined the communicative meaning of expressions. The second section reproduces the scheme in accordance with which A. Marty studied language communica­tion, and also discusses in detail his method of descriptive analysis of meanings. On the example of the doctrine of the inner linguistic form, it is shown what in­fluence descriptive psychology had on semantic research. On the example of the doctrine of the judgmental content it is demonstrated how Marty explained the representative properties of expressions. In the third section, A. Meinong’s semantic theory is reconstructed. It is discussed how Meinong interpreted the se­miotics of E. Martinak and how he approached the issue of defining the concept of meaning. The problem of the unity of sentences is particularly analyzed and Meinong’s solution is reproduced. It is shown what changes Meinong made to the theory of meaning, and what influence the theory of incomplete objects had on his semantic doctrine. The interpretation and evaluation of Meinong’s late semantic theory is proposed. Finally, in the fourth section, E. Husserl’s the­ory of meaning is analyzed. It is shown that Husserl distinguished several senses of the concept of meaning and considered the main sense to be the one that al­lows identifying the concept of meaning with the concept of content. The clarifi­cations made by Husserl to the thesis of the ideality of meanings are discussed. It is demonstrated that the new concept of meaning analysis associated with the clarified thesis makes it possible to evaluate Husserl's semantic theory as more universal than Meinong’s theory.

Проблема интерпретации интенциональности школой Брентано

From the moment Franz Brentano formulated his definition of intentionality, it imme­diately began to undergo modifications in the works of his students. Brentano’s original definition included reference to the scholastic tradition, but it differs from the one that was formulated by the scholastics. In his work “Psychology from an Empirical Point of View”, Brentano defines intentionality both as an orientation towards an object and as a relation to some content, but at no later time, neither in this work, nor in other published works, does he clarify the meaning of the concept of «content». In this regard, the stu­dents and interpreters of Brentano’s works had a question: does the scheme of inten­tionality consist exclusively of an intentional act and an object, or does it also include the content of a representation? Brentano’s disciples did not view this definition as clear and unambiguous. In order to clarify this concept, they often studied other similar philo­sophical conceptions in search of a more precise definition. In particular, they looked for a similar concept in the theory of Bernard Bolzano. The first version of the schema of in­tentionality, including the content of representation, appeared in the works of Hoeffler and Twardowski. For this reason, for a long time they were considered by historians to be the discoverers of the distinction between object and content. However, after the notes of Brentano’s lectures, which he also read to his students, were recovered, it became clear that Brentano himself made this distinction. In this regard, it seems extremely important to interpret the history of the relationships in the Brentano school through the prism of the discussions devoted to the definition of intentionality and the structure of an inten­tional act, as well as to understand the origins of each individual interpretation of this concept proposed by Brentano’s students

Stumpf between criticism and psychologism: introducing “Psychologie und Erkenntnistheorie”

It is well known that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Brentano school interacted fruitfully with early analytic philosophy: the Russell-Meinong debate is a paradigm example...

Moving Words

Summary We move words and words move us. To describe and explain how and why this happens, the present article focuses on Prague traditions, both on the philosophical and linguistic elements. The semantic and syntactic approach is summarized, as developed by Anton Marty, belonging to the Brentano school, and by Vilém Mathesius, founder of the Prague Linguistic Circle, as well as by Jan Firbas, who developed the functional sentence perspective (FSP) into the theory of communicative dynamism (CD). The four Principles of FSP and the four factors of CD are highlighted, together with the related criticism that stems from a systematic work of corpus annotation, a true test procedure for any theory concerned with word order, the interplay between lexicon and morphology, rhythm, intonation and their effects on the addressee’s psychic and emotive processes and life.

Why we should be reading Vittorio Benussi.

Reviews the book, Vittorio Benussi in the History of Psychology by Mauro Antonelli (2018). Mauro Antonelli is Professor of the History of Science and Technology in the Department of Psychology at the University of Milano-Bicocca as well as lecturer in Philosophy at the Alexius Meinong Institute of the Karl-Franzens-University of Graz. His new book, Vittorio Benussi in the History of Psychology, treats of the life and work of the Austrian-Italian psychologist Vittorio Benussi. Benussi was a seminal figure in the early days of the Graz school and a founding father of the Italian Gestalt movement. According to Edwin Boring in A History of Experimental Psychology, Benussi was "the most productive and effective experimental psychologist that Austria had" (Boring, 1950, p. 446). Antonelli, in his study, sets out to expand and correct the extant historical record and portrait of Benussi by fleshing out details drawn from the whole of his career, including his ongoing contributions to experimental psychology in the years (after 1919) when Benussi left Graz and settled in Padua, Italy. Benussi begins his book by giving a brief account of how scientific psychology developed in the German speaking world. Presenting his thesis of "Austrian Psychology" (Antonelli, 2018, p. 17), the first chapter of Antonelli's book, "The Austrian Path toward Gestalt Psychology: From Brentano to Benussi, via Meinong," also gives a detailed but readable account of some of the important philosophical ideas that contributed to the birth of scientific psychology in Germany and Austria. After an outline of Benussi's life history, in Chapter 2, "Vittorio Benussi: A Difficult Life, a Tragic Fate," Chapter 3 of Antonelli's book, "The Graz Period," traces the engagement between Benussi and the Brentano School more sharply. Foremost, Benussi was an empiricist and, as such, was always aware of how theory and speculation could, at times, get in the way of correct observation and proper determination of the facts. In Chapter 3, Antonelli quotes Benussi's "Scientific Autobiography" of 1926, in which it is emphasized how a kind of methodological restraint connecting theorizing to experimentation is an essential characteristic of all experimental work. In Chapter 4, we are treated to an exploration of the far less documented Padua period of Benussi's research. The central developments during this period include Benussi's research on hypnotic states, the connections between emotions and kinaesthesia, and his continuation of work begun in Graz on the psychology of testimony, that is, the detection of lies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Is Brentano's Method a Unifying Element of the Brentano School?

Is Brentano's Method a Unifying Element of the Brentano School?

The Brentano School and the History of Analytic Philosophy: Reply to Röck

In ‘Brentano’s Methodology as a Path through the Divide’, Rock makes two related claims. (A) Rock argues that there exists a philosophical dilemma between description and logical analysis, and that the current divide between continental phenomenology and analytic philosophy may be seen as a consequence of the dilemma. (B) Rock further argues that Brentano’s work integrates description and logical analysis in a way which ‘can provide a suitable starting point for an equally successful integration of these methods in contemporary philosophy’ (Axiomathes 27:475–489, 2017). Without disputing Rock’s claim (B) about the suitability of Brentano’s work for such an integration, this paper questions (A) by examining the influence of Brentano and his school on early analytic philosophy. As recent scholarship in the history of analytic philosophy demonstrates, contrary to Rock’s contention, many prominent analytic philosophers conversed with Brentano and his school’s conceptions of phenomenological description.

Toward a Unified Theory of Value: From Austrian Economics to Austrian Philosophy

Under one understanding of marketing, this discipline focuses on the creation of customer value. Although nobody doubts today that value is subjective and it emerges from consumer judgment, the causality is less clear. Do producers bring about value, or do consumers receive ‘raw’ products that only attain value in their estimation? Or, do producers and consumers co-create value as much of contemporary marketing theory assumes? Recent works on value creation, the building of customer relationships, and the service-dominant logic are related to insights derived from both Austrian schools of value theory. The emphasis on value as a ratio between perceived benefits and perceived costs may be seen as a continuation of Menger’s and Wieser’s work. The focus on relations as a category distinct from goods goes back to Bohm-Bawerk. And the service-dominant logic reflects insights developed both by Menger and by philosophers of the Brentano School. The direct influence of Austrian economics on business studies is small and is restricted to very few scholars. But the potential is great for a fruitful development of current approaches in marketing by drawing on insights from Austrian economics and, perhaps even more so, from Austrian philosophy. This paper defines the relations between the thought from economists and philosophers and presents examples for how cutting-edge marketing thinking may profit from both Austrian schools of value.

The evolution of Frege’s critique of psychologism and the Brentano school

Frege’s criticism of psychologism evolved over time. The main point of this evolution is the passage from the criticism of psychologism in the “Foundations of arithmetic” to that of the “Basic laws of arithmetic”. The determining role in this passage is played by the criticism Frege received from Kerry. Keywords: Frege, Kerry, Brentano School, psychologism.

Moralphänomenologie und gegenwärtige Wertphilosophie

Abstract This paper discusses the question about the nature of values and how we experience them from the point of view of moral phenomenology. Two senses of this term are distinguished: a historical sense and a methodological one. The paper takes as point of departure the thesis that values are experienced by affective acts such as feelings, emotions, desires and volitions. Two different versions of the thesis, their arguments, and counter arguments are then examined: Dispositionalism and Realism. Both can be found in the tradition of the Brentano school including that taken up by his pupils from the Graz school, in phenomenology, and in current Metaethics: Finally I argue that value dispositionalism is a better option to understand the experience of value.

Two-Valued Logics of Intentionality: Temporality, Truth, Modality, and Identity

The essay introduces a non-Diodorean, non-Kantian temporal modal semantics based on part-whole, rather than class, theory. Formalizing Edmund Husserl’s theory of inner time consciousness, §3 uses his protention and retention concepts to define a relation of self-awareness on intentional events. §4 introduces a syntax and two-valued semantics for modal first-order predicate object-languages, defines semantic assignments for variables and predicates, and truth for formulae in terms of the axiomatic version of Edmund Husserl’s dependence ontology (viz. the Calculus [CU] of Urelements) introduced by The Ontology of Intentionality I & II. It then uses the §3 results to define the modalities of truth, and §5 extends the semantics to identity claims. §6 defines and contrasts synthetic a priori truths to analytic a priori truths, and §7 compares Brentano School noetic semantic and Leibnizian possible-world semantic perspectives on modality. The essay argues that the modal logics it defines semantically are two-valued, first-order versions of the type of language which Husserl viewed as the language of any ontology of experience (i.e. of any science), and conceived as the logic of intentionality.

Vasiľiev: what did he exactly do?

Some ninety years ago a young Russian physician travelled through the Western Europe. He was preparing himself for entrance upon a regular professor position at Kazan University. His main interest was psychology and most of his journey time he spent in Germany. This was the time of great changes both in psychology and in logic: at the beginning of the twentieth century Husserlian criticism on confusing their problems won, but not in Germany where Brentano school still treated logic as a part of psychology.

Austrian Philosophy: The Legacy of Brentano (review)

3~4 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 35:2 APRIL 199 7 Barry Smith. Austrian Philosophy: The Legacy of Brentano. Chicago: Open Court, 1994. Pp. xii + 381. Cloth, $36.95 . This book is a collection of essays which are for the most part revisions of previous publications. Together they are meant to constitute "a survey of the most important developments in Austrian philosophy in its classical period from the 187os to the Anschluss in 1938" (xi). As the subtitle indicates, a central thesis is that Franz Brentano was a decisive influence on Austrian philosophy in this period. If we have doubts about a peculiarly Austrian style of philosophy, this book can nonetheless be appreciated as an attempt to show that Brentano is by no means a minor figure. This becomes particularly clear in the essays on four outstanding pupils of Brentano: Anton Marty (83-1 ~4), Alexius Meinong (x~5-54), Kasimir Twardowski (155-92), and Christian von Ehrenfels (e8 a-98). The most prominent pupil of Brentano is of course Edmund Husserl. Though an essay on him would have been welcome in such a book, the author to some extent compensates by giving him attention in crucial places. The first essay concerns the link between Austrian philosophy and the Brentano School. An obvious way of beginning a discussion of Austrian philosophy is by considering the Vienna Circle. Smith takes this route and herein finds the connection with the Brentano School. While many of the outstanding German philosophers are known as great system-builders, without any concern for detailed analysis, the members of the Vienna Circle were for the most part engaged in such analysis. In this regard, according to Smith, the legacy of Franz Brentano, who had been lecturing in Vienna from 1874 to 1895, is to be seen. Brentano's pursuit of scientific philosophy, together with an unyielding contempt for German idealism, was transmitted to his pupils and thereby created the climate in which the Vienna Circle could thrive. The notion of Austrian philosophy put forward by Smith is accordingly to be understood by means of a contrast with German philosophy. We should take this contrast with a grain of salt, since there have been many German philosophers, most notably of course Frege, who have been engaged in the project of scientific philosophy. The author replies to such counterexamples that these philosophers "were, however, on the fringes of Germany philosophy," as opposed to "the mainstream German tradition--for example that of Natorp and the lesser Neo-Kantians" (9n.). But as far as the time period under consideration is concerned, it is rather dubious to speak of such a mainstream tradition in Germany. Even Brentano, after all, had lectured quite successfully in Wiirzburg (Germany), where both Anton Marty and Carl Stumpf came under his influence, before he was called to Vienna. He left Wiarzburg, not because he did not fit in with mainstream German philosophy, but because it was too difficult to keep his chair in view of his controversial decision to leave the priesthood and the Catholic church altogether. The opposition between Austrian and German philosophy therefore seems rather questionable, though it should be kept in mind that contrasts used by historians of philosophy are for the most part hardly more than heuristic devices. Under the heading "Austrian philosophy" we can bring into prominence a good deal of philosophy which would otherwise be overshadowed by the likes of Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche. BOOR REVIEWS 315 There are two essays on Brentano in this work; the first of them (35-6o) is far more important in connection with his legacy. This essay is an overview of the philosophical orientation that Brantano conveyed to his pupils. This orientation is of course psychological in character. The psychology in question is, moreover, one in which "intentionality" becomes the central theme. It is well known that, according to Brentano's early formulation of this notion, the object exists in the act, though there is some dispute about how this is meant. Smith insists that it is "to be taken literally" (42). While it is uncertain how a literal reading could here be contrasted with a metaphorical one, it should be kept in...

The Philosophy of Hugo Bergman and the Brentano School

The Philosophy of Hugo Bergman and the Brentano School

The Philosophy of Hugo Bergman and the Brentano School

The Philosophy of Hugo Bergman and the Brentano School