On Brentano
On Brentano
ON
BRENTANO
ON
BRENTANO
Victor Velarde-Mayol
University of South Florida
QWadsworth
~ Thomson Learning ..
ISBN: 0-534-576ll-7
Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Biography and Philosophical Project 2
1. Biography 2
2. Brentano's Notion of Philosophy
as a Scientific Discipline 8
3 The Four Phases of History of Philosophy
and the Place for a Scientific Philosophy 11
Endnotes 12
Chapter 2: Philosophical Psychology 13
1. Introduction 13
2. Psychology as an Empirical Science 14
2. 1. Two Definitions of Psychology 14
2.2. Physical and Psychical Phenomenon 16
2.3. Psychology as the Science
of Psychical Phenomena 19
3. Descriptive Psychology 21
3.1. The Notion of a Descriptive
Psychology 22
3.2. The Necessary and Universal Laws
in Descriptive Psychology 24
3. 3 Anti-Psychologism of Brentano' s
Philosophy 25
4. Nature of a Psychical Phenomenon and
its Difference from Physical Phenomenon 27
5. Presentation and Phenomenon 27
6. The Notion of Intentionality 29
7. The Conscious Character of AI Psychical
Phenomena, Inner Perception, or Inner
Inner Consciousness 33
7.1. Inner Perception 34
7.2. The Unity of Consciousness 37
8. Classification of Psychical Phenomena 41
Endones 42
Chapter 3: Theory of Knowledge 45
1. The Theory of Judgment 46
2. Theory of Terms 52
3. Truth and Evidence 53
4. Analytic and A Priori Judgments 58
Endnotes 59
Chapter 4: Metaphysics 60
I. The Fourfold Distinction of Being 60
2. Reism 63
3. The Notion of Being 66
4. Metaphysics of Accident 67
5. Metaphysics of Substance 71
6. Metaphysics ofRelation:
the Intentional Relation 74
7. Metaphysics ofGod 76
Endnotes 78
Chapter 5: Ethics 80
I. The Scope of Ethics 80
2. The Freedom of the Will 80
3 The Basic Ethical Principle 81
4. The Concept of Intrinsic Good 84
Endnotes 89
Bibliography 91
I. Selected Bibliography of Brentano' s
Published Writings 91
2. Selected Bibliography of Brentano's
Works 92
Preface
Spring 1999
Rutgers University
I
Biography and Philosophical
Project
1. Biography
Franz Brentano was born on January 16, 1838, in Marienberg
(Germany). The name of Brentano was well known among German
Catholic intellectual families: Franz was the son of Christian Bren-
tano, an important writer, the nephew of the romantic writers Clemens
Brentano and his sister Bettina von Armin. Franz's grandfather,
Maximilienne de Ia Roche, is believed to have literary connections
with Goethe.
Brentano attended the Royal Bavarian Gymnasium in
Ashaffenburg. At the age of seventeen, the last years of his time at the
Gymnasium (High School), Brentano remembered having had his first
religious doubts, which continued to increase during the rest of his life.
During 1855-6, he attended the Lyceum to take the required courses of
general education before entering the university, and by 1856 he was
already a student of the University of Munich.
During this first period of Brentano's life, he kept a close rela-
tionship with his mother, who was a person with deep religious faith
and great intellectual abilities; a combination that undoubtedly had a
strong impact on the young Brentano. Probably, under the influence of
his mother, Brentano became interested in theological issues, and spe-
cifically, Aquinas's theology. This interest would survive throughout
his life despite his future problems with the Catholic church.
While attending the University of Munich, Brentano went to
Berlin (1858-9) to work under the well-known Aristotelian philoso-
pher, Trendelenburg. During this time Brentano read and studied Aris-
totle in depth, later ( 1859-60) at the Academy in Munster, he enhanced
his knowledge of Aristotelism with the study of the medieval Aristote-
lians. Brentano demonstrated an interest in Aristotle that endured until
the last years of his life. At the age of twenty-four (1862) Brentano
published his first book "On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle,"
which is a brilliant interpretation of Aristotle's Metaphysics. The book
is dedicated to his master Trendelenburg, who considered it one of the
most important interpretations of Aristotle's philosophy. Later, in the
2
Biography and Philosophical Project
same year, Brentano received his doctorate from the University of
Tubingen.
He moved to Munich to study theology, but his mind was more
inclined for philosophy and natural science. Having finished his theo-
logical studies, Brentano was ordained as a priest in 1864. Two years
later he habilitated as a Privatdozen in philosophy at the University of
Wurzburg, where he presented a paper to the Faculty on the topic
"Exposition and Critique of Schelling's Teaching in his Three Phases,"
a subject very remote from Brentano's philosophical interests, which
makes one suspect that he did not choose it himself His habilitation
thesis was "The Psychology ~f Aristotle, in Particular his Doctrine ~f
Nous Poietikos" published in 1867. Here Brentano tried a different
way of interpreting Aristotle, he recommended that the reader become
completely immersed in both the spirit of the philosopher and the char-
acteristic thought-patterns of the philosopher being studied. Brentano
proposed that to experience the initial conditions of the philosopher
being studied it could be very illuminating to reconstruct his
philosophical system as if one were the philosopher under study.
Thus, Brentano became an authority in Aristotle's philosophy, some-
thing that caused very positive commentaries among his colleagues and
strong disputes with other interpreters of Aristotle The Dean, for ex-
ample, claimed that of all the works that had been submitted to the
Faculty of Arts and Sciences of the University of Wurzburg in the
course of a half century this was definitely the most outstanding one.
Brentano's work on Aristotle is not isolated from the rest of his
work. The influence of Aristotle in Brentano's philosophy was enor-
mous, although other philosophical traditions are the starting point of
many of his ideas (medieval philosophy, Descartes, Leibniz, British
empiricism, and to a lessen extent, Kant), but Aristotle has a privileged
place. This can be difficult to understand if we take into consideration
that authority is not a reason to follow a philosophical doctrine. Cer-
tainly, Brentano used to say that authority could not overcome reason
in philosophy, but authority could be a starting point that should be
analyzed before being accepted or rejected. This attitude, of course,
was valid for Aristotle's authority as well, even although Brentano
used to say that Aristotle's ideas were so well crafted and profound
that he granted them a certain prima facie probability, a certain right to
be heard, but at the same time they should be analyze to be accepted or
rejected. Brentano's interest and admiration for Aristotle was constant
during his life, but this did not mean that he agreed with Aristotle in
the same way all his life. His disagreement was increasing to the de-
gree that somebody could think that there is little of Aristotle's phi-
losophy in Brentano's last production. In some way, one would say
3
Biography and Philosophical Project
that Brentano started as an Aristotelian, and ended up being just an
outstanding commentator of Aristotle.
Starting in 1866, Brentano lectured metaphysics, logic, psychol-
ogy, and history of philosophy. He had a strong influence on his stu-
dents as is attested by the words and facts of disciples such as Carl
Stumpf, Anton Marty, among others. Stumpf, for example, abandoned
his studies of law to devote himself completely to philosophy just
because of the overwhelming influence of the professor Brentano.
Stumpf himself recognized the power that Brentano exercised over sus-
ceptible students like himself A very long list of other disciples un-
derwent a radical metamorphosis of ideas by Brentano.
As a professor, Brentano dedicated much time to preparing his
lectures, which were very well structured with strong logical support
He was willing to interrupt long discourses in his lectures just to make
concise syllogistic summaries of complicated ideas. Stumpf remem-
bered that during his student years with Brentano, when some students
disagreed with Brentano based on vague feelings, simple dislike, or
some unhappiness with a certain thesis, Brentano's reply was that it
really did not matter whether one was happy or not 1.
Brentano began to teach the history of philosophy in a new way
based on his theory of the four stages of philosophy, in which the his-
tory of philosophy and the philosophy of history of philosophy became
melded in an ingenious hermeneutic principle. He matured his theory
of the four phases of philosophy about 1867-9, but its origins can be
traced to 1860. Brentano at that time was meditating on how the birth
and sudden death of great philosophical systems was possible, specifi-
cally the significance of the systems of speculative philosophy in the
19th Century, which was so widely admired for a time and later wholly
rejected. Brentano thought that there might be some reason for this
based on the intrinsic structure of the history of philosophy regardless
of the truth of these philosophical systems. This reason in question
may be explained with his theory of the four main periods or phases of
the history of philosophy. It is obvious, for any philosopher with
some knowledge of 19th Century philosophy, that Brentano's theory of
four phases of philosophy is based on and resembles the theory of the
three phases of human development exposed by the brilliant and con-
troversial French philosopher, Auguste Comte, founder of modern so-
ciology. Brentano recognized this influence in his published treatise
"Auguste Comte and the Positive Philosophy," a paper criticized and
rejected by the mainstream German philosophy of that time. Brentano
believed that Comte was a realist, but a critical one, in opposing the
dominant philosophy in Germany, represented by what Brentano
qualifies as the decadent speculative mysticism of the philosophy of
4
Biography and Philosophical Project
Schelling and Hegel, which overshadowed Comte's ideas. Brentano
saw in Comte an idea constantly present in Brentanian philosophy, that
is, the idea of a scientific philosophy based on experience, which
explains Brentano's dislike for thinkers such as Kant and the post-
Kantian German Idealists, whom he considered unscientific. From
here, Brentano tried to spread the idea of a positive treatment of
philosophy, where the term "positive" is not what the Circle of Vienna
later would call "positivism," but rather what Comte meant by
"positive," and what Brentano liked to call scientific philosophy.
Brentano's inner break with the Catholic Church came in 1870
after having written a paper against the dogma of papal infallibility. In
this paper, Brentano argued that the infallibility doctrine contradicts
three major sources -the Gospels, the teaching of the Church fathers,
and the complete history of the Church. But it was almost three years
before Brentano broke completely with the Church publicly. Defi-
nitely, in the same year 1873, Brentano left the priesthood, resigned
from his professorship, and abandoned all ties with the Church and
Christianity in generaL The reader might suspect that Brentano's inner
break with the Church was followed by an approach to Protestant faith,
but according to Brentano's influential disciple, Husser!, Protestant
ideas played no role in Brentano's abandonment of the Catholic faith.
His disciple, Stumpf, recalled that Brentano's motives were more of a
theoretical nature than of an emotional nature, because he found increas-
ing logical and metaphysical difficulties posed by the mysteries of the
Catholic faith 2 Nevertheless, it is very unlikely that only theoretical
motives were at play, and it is more reasonable to think that personal
and moral motives were involved at the same time It is difficult to
know what really happened, but the fact that all his life Brentano con-
tinued to both preserve a high esteem for the Church and a dislike for
any institutional religion indicates an internal conflict and a painful
experience which started in his earlier years.
In the meantime, Brentano was studying English, and harboring
the idea of going to England to meet the most influential persons and
thinkers in the English speaking world. He traveled to England pri-
marily to meet the British philosopher John Stuart Mill - a visit that
would not be realized due to the fact that Mill was on a trip abroad.
He also planned to visit John Newman, the spirited leader of the Eng-
lish Catholics, but there are no records that a meeting ever took place.
Apparently, Brentano first met Spencer in England (1872) and later
maintained a correspondence with him. Meanwhile, during his absence
from Germany, Brentano was made extraordinarius professor of phi-
losophy at the University ofWurzburg. Unfortunately, Brentano never
met MilL After writing a long letter to Mill discussing the theory of
5
Biography and Philosophical Project
knowledge, Mill invited Brentano to meet visit him in Avignon,
France, but, Mill died before the two philosophers could meet.
The year following his tumultuous rupture with the Church was
one of the most important periods of Brentano' s career, he finally was
appointed to the University of Vienna as professor ordinarius (1874)
by the Austrian Minister and, in the same year, published his most
famous and important work, Psychology From an Empirical Starting
Point." This work created the reputation Brentano enjoys until now,
and made him the influential philosopher who is responsible for several
philosophical movements in 20th Century Philosophy.
Brentano enjoyed many influential disciples throughout his
philosophical career. Some of them were both disciples and friends
such as Carl Stumpf and Anton Marty, who followed Brentano even in
his tumultuous and tortuous life and religious positions. Other disci-
ples became founders of philosophical schools, such as Edmund
Husser! (founder of phenomenology), Alexius Meinong (School of
Graz). Others became influential professors in their field, such as Alois
Hofler, Kasimir Twardowski, Franz Hillebrand, Christian von
Ehrenfelds, among many others. Some disciples were influential poli-
ticians such as T.G. Masaryk and von Hertling, who later became op-
ponents during the First World War- von Hertling became the chan-
cellor of Germany, and Masaryk became the first postwar president of
Czechoslovakia. Many others were second generation disciples, like
Martin Heidegger, whose reading of Brentano's On the Several Senses
of Being in Aristotle deeply changed his philosophical life, and was the
seed for his most important philosophical work, Being and Time. Ber-
trand Russell considered Brentano to be the most interesting philoso-
pher in the European Continent. In addition, Brentano maintained
personal exchange of ideas with Ernst Mach, W. Dilthey, and
Boltzmann, among others.
A few words about the founder of Phenomenology can be illumi-
nating about Brentano's influence. Husser! attended Brentano's lectures
for a short time -only two years only (1884-1885). Husser! held a
PhD in mathematics with a minor in philosophy, although things
would change after the encounter with Brentano. Husser! recalled that
he went to Brentano's lectures at first merely out of curiosity, to hear
the man who was the subject of so much talk in Vienna at that time 3 ,
but later he was captivated by the way Brentano treated philosophical
problems and decided to become a full-time philosopher.
Brentano's personality at this time appeared very glamorous to
everybody. He had a peculiar appearance, attractive philosophical per-
sonality, solemnity in his speech, and at the same time, he managed to
keep a special glitter and charm 4 He practiced many extraphilosophi-
6
Biography and Philosophical Project
cal activities, he was an excellent chess player (he invented a new chess
defense still in use today), he had artistic inclinations such as poetry
(there is an unpublished volume ofBrentano's poetry) and music.
Brentano married Ida Lieben in 1880, but the Austrian Supreme
Court did not recognize the marriage of former priests. So, to avoid
this problem, Brentano decided to take Saxon citizenship, and married
Lieben in a civil court, in order to avoid tensions with the Austrian
government. But the problems for Brentano were just beginning. Be-
cause of the close ties between the University of Vienna and the Aus-
trian government, which was very concerned with the influence of the
Church, Brentano was persuaded to resigned his professorship, which
he did under the firm promise by the Austrian government that he
would be reappointed as soon as possible. This reappointment never
came though.
In 1881, Brentano obtained only a Privatdozent at the University
of Vienna with the hope that this would be a step toward recovering his
professorship, but the Austrian government rejected all recommenda-
tions of the faculty of the University and ignored his unprecedented
success both among students as a teacher and among his colleagues as a
researcher. Tired and feeling defeated, Brentano began harboring the
idea of abandoning Austria, a decision that would be materialized some
years later.
About 1893, his wife Ida died leaving behind a five year old
child. And to add insult to injury, the faculty of the University of
Vienna again recommended Brentano very strongly to the Austrian
Minister of Education, but this, for political reasons and unfairly, con-
sidered that Brentano's case had expired after more than ten years.
Later, probably based on the same grounds as other governmental de-
nials was the rejection ofBrentano's proposal to create a laboratory for
experimental psychology. Nevertheless, Brentano's philosophical
activity did not fade but rather became even more intense, and his gen-
ius was even better known among the philosophical community.
After too much unfair treatment during more than twenty years of
academic service, in 1895, Brentano decided to abandon Austria for
Italy. After 1895, he no longer held an academic position; neverthe-
less, by correspondence, conversation and publications he continued to
work at the development of a truly scientific philosophy and its defense
against dogmatic speculative constructions that were in fashion in his
time. The next year he presented a brilliant paper, "On the Individua-
tion, Quality and Intensity of Sense Phenomena," to the Third Interna-
tional Congress of Psychology held in Munich, 1896. One year later,
Brentano married Emile Rueprecht in 1897.
During the following years, Brentano's creativity was very rich.
7
Biography and Philosophical Project
Among his many works, it is worthy to mention the presentation of an
important paper, "On the Psychological Analysis of Sound Quality and
its Elements," to the Psychology Congress in Rome, 1905. He also
wrote another treatise on Aristotle, Aristotle and his World Conception
( 1911 ). In the same year, he wrote the book "On the Classification of
the Psychic Phenomena," which is an essential expansion of his major
work in Psychology.
Brentano's last years were not peaceful either. He was left almost
blind after several unsuccessful eye operations, and he had to move
again and to abandon Florence and established residence in Zurich due
to the political situation of Italy, which declared war entering into the
World War I. In 1916 he had a severe attack of appendicitis, from
which he never recovered Brentano died on March 17, 1917.
9
Biography and Philosophical Project
__..,..____
Aristotelian period
Endnotes
1. Introduction
Most of the material of Brentano's philosophical psychology is
found in his main published work P!>ychology from an Empirical
Standpoint (1874) 1, composed of two books. Brentano originally
planned six books, but the other four were never written. Book one
deals with psychology as a science, and book two is dedicated to men-
tal phenomena and their classification. According to Brentano's plan,
the third book would have investigated the characteristics of, and the
laws of presentations; the fourth book would have dealt with the char-
acteristics and laws of judgments; the fifth book was supposed to con-
cern itself with emotions and the acts of will; finally, the sixth book
was planned to cover the relationship between mind and body. Bren-
tano's psychological investigation is concerned with both genetic and
descriptive psychology (genetic psychology has to do with the causal
laws of mental activity, and descriptive psychology is just a descrip-
tion of mental phenomena), only later will Brentano distinguished both
methods. His general goal was to find the unity of both object and
method of psychology as a science.
It is important to take into account that the starting point of Bren-
tano's philosophical psychology is Aristotle, with a strong influence
from Cartesian philosophy. This is in sharp confrontation with the
psychology of his time, especially against Wundt's psychology. The
project of Brentano's psychology is framed in what I will call
"philosophical psychology from an empirical point of view" versus
Wundt's empirico-deductive psychology. In the lectures on Metaphys-
ics, Brentano uses the term "philosophical psychology" as a part of
theoretical philosophy or metaphysics, whose object is the being as
such and the human spirit 2 Therefore, Brentano's psychology is in
many ways closely related to metaphysics, and this is especially true in
relation to subjects in which the soul is involved, which is latent in
Brentano's conception of psychology regardless of his methodological
attempts to separate metaphysics from psychology, as we will see be--
low.
13
Philosophical Psychology
2. Psychology as an Empirical Science
2.1. Two Definitions ofPsychology
The first objective ofBrentano's psychology is to define psychol-
ogy and its method, which is no different from the method of the natu-
ral sciences, viz. to start from experience. Looking back on the history
of psychology, one discovers a lack of success of psychology as a sci-
ence. Brentano believed that this problematic lack of success was due
-among other things- to the fact that psychology did not take the
successful path ofthe empirical sciences. And the reason that psychol-
ogy did not become an empirical science was due to the lack of matur-
ity of more basic sciences that are fundamental for psychology.
Brentano conceives of science as a hierarchical body of particular
sciences in which each higher step is erected on the foundation of the
one below it. A higher science investigates more complex phenomena,
a lower one investigates phenomena that are simpler, but which con-
tribute to the complexity of the higher science. The progress of a sci-
ence that stands higher in the hierarchy presupposes both the develop-
ment of the lower sciences, and enough empirical evidence. Psychol-
ogy is a discipline of higher order that needs other sciences of lower
order (especially physiology) as its foundation, that is, psychology will
flourishes when the whole body of natural sciences is mature enough.
In this sense psychology is a science that is the "crowning pinnacle" of
the whole body of sciences. Therefore, psychology's failure to achieve
the status of science was due to both the fact that the other lower sci-
ences (here, natural sciences) were not well developed and to weak em-
pirical evidence. In the history of science we observe that only when
mathematics was developed enough, could physics shine as a science,
and this was the foundation for chemistry, and this, in turn, is the ba-
sis for physiology, which attained the status of science in the 19th
Century. Since mental acts are the most complex phenomena that an
empirical science can study, 3 it seems obvious that only when the basic
sciences arrive to a sufficient degree of development that psychology
can flourish by becoming an empirical science.
Brentano proposes two possible valid definitions of psychology.
One is classic in the Aristotelian tradition, and the other has its influ-
ence in John Stuart Mill, but it is developed in a different way from
Mill's.
14
Philosophical Psychology
perceiving, understanding, and so on; or more technically, the soul is
the substantial form of an organized body. We know that something is
living if it self-moves in the sense that it nourishes itself, perceives by
itself, and so on, but not only local movement. Aristotle considered
vegetative activities as part of psychology as well, but later on, the
subject-matter of psychology was narrowed down to conscious living
beings. Parallel to this reduction of the scope of psychology, the term
"soul" was narrowed just to the bearer of mental activity. Brentano
appropriates the Aristotelian notion of psychology with slight modifi-
cations: psychology is "the science which studies the properties and
laws of the soul, which we discover within ourselves directly by means
of inner perception, and which we infer, by analogy, to exist in oth-
ers."4 Thus, psychology is an empirical science because is based on
experience -inner perception.
It seems that psychology and natural sciences exhaust all possi-
bilities of the area of empirical science (physics, chemistry, biology,
etc.). Brentano considers the possibility of a discipline that is be-
tween both -the case of psychophysics. Fechner called psychophysics
a branch of science in which physical and mental properties form a
functional unity. He observed that the facts which the physiologist
investigates and those which the psychologist considers are very often
intimately correlated. From the fact that physical states are aroused by
mental states, and mental states, in turn, are aroused by physical states,
Fechner tried to find regularities and laws that connect physiology with
psychology. Fechner formulated the laws of these connections, which
he called psychophysical laws. Thus, he proposed a new science be-
tween physiology and psychology that seems to dilute the great divide
between natural science and psychology.
Brentano recognizes the value of psychophysical laws, but be-
lieves that they are not capable of justifying a third empirical science in
addition to the natural sciences and psychology. A psychophysical law
implies two parts, one belongs to physiology and the other to psychol-
ogy, there is no medium. Brentano's argument is very insightful, and
it runs as follows: (a) Physiologists determine the differences in the
intensity of physical stimuli which correspond to the smallest notice-
able differences in intensity of mental phenomena. (b) Psychologists
will register the relations which these smallest noticeable differences
bear to one another. (c) Now, it is evident a priori that all noticeable
differences are equally noticeable (to notice does not admit degrees,
either one notices having an experience or one doesn't as we will see
later in this chapter). (d) But this does not mean that they have to be
really equal as Fechner's psychophysical law assumes 5 . So, Fechner's
psychophysical law is not sufficiently established to justify the birth of
15
Philosophical Psychology
a third science between psychology and physiology.
20
Philosophical Psychology
is free and, as a consequence, simplifies the research. To be fair with
this methodology, psychology as the science of psychical phenomena
should make abstraction not only of the bearer of mental phenomena,
but also of other metaphysical assumptions, for example, evolution of
mental life from other forms (Brentano agrees with the theory of evolu-
tion, but rejects it in the way Darwin proposes it.)
This means that Brentano accepts a definition of psychology as
the science of mental phenomena with the possibility of a psychology
without a soul, despite his own philosophical certainty of the existence
of a spiritual substance that is immortal and the bearer of mental phe-
nomena. This is consistent with Brentano's notion of phenomenon as
a sign of what appears, for we can abstract what appears and study only
the appearance, but from here one cannot draw the conclusion that there
is not some extramental thing that appears.
3. Descriptive Psychology
3.1. The Notion ofa Descriptive Psychology
Brentano gave a series of lectures during I 888- I 889 at the Uni-
versity of Vienna titled "Descriptive Psychology or Descriptive Phe-
nomenology." Later (I 890- I 89 I) he revised his lectures under the title
"Psychognosis". 12 Husser! attended the I888-1889lectures at the Uni-
versity of Vienna and recognized that without these lectures Phenome-
nology would not have been possible 13 And although there are im-
portant differences between Brentano's descriptive psychology and
Hussserl's phenomenology, Husser! had all the elements to develop his
own phenomenology from Brentano's ideas. It is very tempting to go
further by saying that phenomenology had its first days in Brentano's
21
Philosophical Psychology
1888-1889 lectures.
As the expression means, descriptive psychology describes the
psychical phenomena of human consciousness. Descriptive psychology
is in contrast to genetic psychology, which is concerned with explana-
tions, causal connections of psychical phenomena. Descriptive psy-
chology does not explain any phenomena, it is just an analysis of
what is presented to perception, a descriptive analysis of psychical phe-
nomena. Descriptive psychology is related to genetic psychology as
anatomy is related to physiology. And because psychical phenomena
are present to us directly, without mediation, the truth of our inner
perception is without error (psychical phenomena are incorrigibilia),
but Brentano goes further by claiming that descriptive psychology is an
exact science. This means that a description of a psychical phenome-
non by inner perception is fully present to us from all sides. On the
contrary, because genetic or explanatory psychology is based on induc-
tion from our external perception, it cannot be an exact science. (a)
First, because genetic psychology is under the fluctuation and unstable
veracity of our senses (we sometimes experience that our senses deceive
us even in the more familiar things about the world); and (b) secondly,
because induction is only a statistical generalization from instances,
which cannot guarantee the necessity and universality of an exact sci-
ence.
Nevertheless, descriptive psychology is not a substitute for but a
preliminary step towards genetic psychology, which shares the method
of natural sciences, that is to say, genetic psychology is not only em-
pirical but explanatory like natural sciences. In contrast, descriptive
psychology is empirical but not explanatory. Brentano's goal is to
bring the method of natural sciences into philosophy, but we need an
intermediary step to obtain the concepts involved and to establish a
solid starting point based on direct evidence; this intermediary step is
descriptive psychology.
The main goal of descriptive psychology is to describe the nature
of basic psychical phenomenon from which all other psychical phe-
nomena are derived. From the combination of elemental or atomic
psychical phenomena it is possible to arrive to complex psychical phe-
nomena, just as the totality of words can be derived from the combina-
tion of the totality of letters. This procedure is almost identical to
what Leibniz had in mind -and Descartes before Leibniz- about the
characteristica universalis. Brentano is looking for the characteristica
universa/is of all psychical phenomena as the basic elements to recon-
struct complex mental phenomena.
Given this account of descriptive psychology, it is easy to under-
stand why Brentano thinks that this new discipline is the basis of all
22
Philosophical Psychology
philosophy; without it logic, metaphysics, ethics, and so on, would
loose their justification. Brentano puts it in a vivid analogy, without
descriptive psychology all other sciences would dry up in a similar way
as branches cut off from a tree. 14
Brentano suggested some rules on how to proceed in descriptive
psychology, here I mention some of them: (a) To experience the phe-
nomenon, (b) to learn how to notice that phenomenon, (c) to fix what
was noticed in order to collect it or retain it in the set of data, (d) from
here, to make inductive generalizations and intuitively to apprehend
general laws of these psychical phenomena. 15 All these rules imply an
accurate description of the noticed psychical phenomenon.
According to these rules, first of all, one must have the experience
that has to be analyzed because a psychical phenomenon can only be
properly described within our own subjectivity field. Then one has to
learn how to pay attention to the inner perception that all experience
enjoys, that is to say, one has to notice that an experience or psychical
phenomenon is occurring within one's own subjectivity field. Then,
one has to describe what is given by inner perception, and this descrip-
tion will be the basis for making inductive generalization in order to
apprehend the general laws that connect one psychical phenomenon
with another.
These general laws are, according to Brentano, apodictic and uni-
versal, that is, necessary and valid for all cases, and at the same time
these laws are scientifically stated, that is to say, empirically grounded.
These statements break with almost four centuries of Western philoso-
phy, in which apodictic and universal laws cannot be derived from ex-
perience (a posteriori) but they have to be a priori. Obviously, Bren-
tano 's theory raises several questions. How can a pure and simple de-
scription of our own particular psychical phenomena yield apodictic
and universal laws? And how can these laws be verified by others if
the source is inner perception, of which only we have privileged ac-
cess? Verification is an essential element of science: If a result cannot
be verified by others, then it will not enter into the body of scientific
knowledge; it will be put aside as an unverified case. We will start
with the second question, while the first question will be left for the
next section.
Brentano considers the objection posed by the second question
inaccurate. We cannot have a direct verification, but it is possible to
have an indirect one. (a) We can verify (or reproduce) in ourselves what
others report to have perceived internally, in other words, we can repeat
in ourselves the type of psychical phenomena that others report. (b)
We can have an indirect and only probable knowledge of the psychical
phenomena of others when they are expressed mainly by language.
23
Philosophical Psychology
Proofthat this is possible is the fact that an educated person is not at
loss to find the necessary words with which to express his mental
states and at the same time to be understood_I6
26
Philosophical Psychology
descriptive psychology is a radical differentiation between the psy-
chologist conception of psychology and the psychologism-free psy-
chology respectively.
27
Philosophical Psychology
phenomenon. So, before describing what is a presentation, let us im-
prove the description of a phenomenon.
As it was stated above, the subject-matter of descriptive psychol-
ogy is psychical phenomena; and a phenomenon is an appearance, but
an appearance of some thing to some one, there are no appearances of
some thing without a subject who receives the appearance. Phenomena
are not restricted to sense-impressions. Phenomena encompass physi-
cal phenomena, which are sense-impressions for Brentano, and psychi-
cal phenomena, which are not sense-impressions. In Brentano's notion
of phenomenon, there is an imbalance in the way a physical and a psy-
chical phenomenon are characterized. Physical phenomena are sense-
impressions, such as a color, a sound, etc., and these are not real. The
color red of an apple is simply an affection of our optical receptors. On
the contrary, a psychical phenomenon is the mental act itself, the real
thinking, the real judging, etc Here, the phenomenon is a reality pres-
ent to me in inner perception. Brentano goes further when he states
that we can derive the idea of self from the inner perception of a psy-
chical phenomenon, and we can derive the idea of substance from any
impression or perception whatever. This is due to the nature of the
phenomenon as such which is a sign of something.
Now we may introduce the notion of presentation, which will be
the first important thesis ofBrentano's psychology:
__i.
Philosophical Psychology
among any physical phenomenon. In addition, without this thesis the
rest ofBrentano's psychology would not work.
The notion of presentation leads us to the second thesis of
Brentano's psychology:
30
Philosophical Psychology
3I
Philosophical Psychology
erty of every psychical phenomenon such as feelings, imagining, sense
experience, and not only propositional attitudes.
32
Philosophical Psychology
does not mean non-existence but existence-in-the-intention. In other
words, "inexistence" means that the object is placed in (exists in) the
intentional direction of a psychical phenomenon. Now, existence in
this sense is not effective existence but existence in a very loose sense,
as when a mathematician says that there are imaginary numbers, al-
though in reality there are no such imaginary numbers.
Brentano tries to resolve the problem of these two very different
senses of existence in a very brilliant way. He distinguishes between
the modlficative and determinative use of a word. For example, in the
expression "a wise man," the word "wise" determines the meaning of
the word "man" to the class of men who are wise; so, "wise" is here
used in a determinative manner. But in the expression "a dead man,"
the word "dead" modtfies the meaning of the word "man" to the extent
that the word "man" does not mean a real man any more. "Man"
means a living human being, while "dead" means something (a corpse)
without life, and both words together would be a contradiction in terms
(a non-living living being). So, Brentano thinks, "dead" is used here
to modify the meaning of the word "man" to indicate a human corpse,
which is no longer a man. If we apply this procedure to the word
"existence," we will have similar results. In the expression "an existent
horse," the word "existent" determines the meaning of the word
"horse," but in the expression "the existence in the intention of the
object Pegasus" the use of the word existence is modificative. So,
"intentional inexistence" does not mean the effective existence-in my
mind, but that an object (like Pegasus) is intentionally possessed in the
psychical phenomenon. In a more technical parlance, intentional inex-
istence of an object is the existence intentionally referred to the object.
This thesis is not only against the idea that there are unconscious
mental acts, but this thesis also is the foundation of Brentano's psy-
chology. To understand what Brentano meant with this important the-
sis, we have to analyze it with the ideas of inner perception and psychi-
33
I~
Philosophical Psychology
cal phenomenon, and then to analyze it with his thesis of the unity of
consciousness.
Inner perception does not mean that (a) one can perceive our psy-
chical phenomena as the first thing known, and (b) that inner
perception can become self-observation. First, Brentano repeatedly
says that it is only while our attention is turned toward an object other
than the psychical act that we are able to perceive the psychical act or
experience which is directed toward the object of attention. That is to
say, the first thing known is an external object, and incidentally our
own psychical phenomenon. From here we have another variant of
Brentano's fourth thesis:
36
Philosophical Psychology
ner perception is the source of immediate evidence, and evidence has no
degrees -something is evident or it is not (as Descartes and most of
the medieval philosophers would agree). Brentano distinguishes be-
tween noticing or inner perception and attention. If we are paying at-
tention to the reading of a book, the inner perception or noticing of the
experience of reading is explicit, while the inner perception of the
sound of the door bell is implicit because our attention is not directed
to it. It frequently happens that, while absorbed in some thought, we
pay no attention to other experiences we are having, giving the false
impression that we are not conscious of those experiences. In other
words, one may speak of "attending well," but it is misleading to
speak of"noticing well." Inner perception is always present when one
has an experience, it is our attention that makes noticing explicit 3 ~
So far, Brentano has made important distinctions related to inner
consciOusness:
(a) Inner perception is (i) noticing our own mental acts; (ii) it is
the inner self-consciousness of any psychical phenomenon, and (iii) it
is always present with the occurrence of an experience.
(b) Inner perception is not inner observation because the latter re-
quires two psychical experiences while the former demands only one.
(c) The psychical phenomenon is only perceived concomitantly
with the perception of an external object. In other words, inner percep-
tion occurs when one is having an observation of an external object.
(c) Inner perception can never become direct inner observation be-
cause we need to redirect our attention from the experience one is hav-
ing, with the undesirable result that one is missing the experience that
one wants to observe directly.
(d) Inner perception is not attention; inner perception always has
the same degree of consciousness, while attention admits various de-
grees.
(e) The distinction between implicit and explicit inner perception
is an effect of our attention because inner perception as such is always
present, whether one attends to it or not.
38
Philosophical Psychology
them together?
(4) But anyone can see that this, too, would be a ridiculous hy-
pothesis. In fact, it would be like saying that neither a blind man nor a
deaf man could compare colors with sounds, but if one sees and the
other hears, the two together can recognize the relationship.
(5) And why does this seem so absurd? Because the cognition
which compares them is a real objective unity, but when we combine
the acts of the blind man and the deaf man, we always get a mere col-
lective and never a united real thing.
(6) Conclusion. Only if sound and color are presented jointly, in
one and the same reality, it is conceivable that they can be compared
with one another35
Suppose you are playing piano from a score. In order to know
that what you are reading in the score is really what you are playing,
and what you are playing is what the score sounds like, you must be
able to compare what you are reading with what you are performing and
hearing. Can you imagine if the subject who reads the score is differ-
ent from the subject who plays the piano, and both are different from
the subject who hears the result of the performance?
Brentano refers to inner perception as the primary source of know-
ing that there is a subject of all our mental acts, a subject that is the
cause of the unity of consciousness. In inner perception I know -
Brentano claims- directly and immediately that the subject that sees
is the same as the one that hears, and the same as the one that desires,
judges, infers, or doubts, etc. There is one individual thing which is
the subject of all our experience, and we know this by inner perception,
which is a direct presentation of the psychical phenomenon, which is,
in turn, a sign of the subject that bears it. On the contrary, natural
science does not have this direct knowledge or presentation, because
external perception or observation always implies at least two phenom-
ena -psychical and physical- while in inner perception the same psy-
chical act presents itself without mediation.
Some commentators 36 make the observation that Brentano is in-
fluenced by Kant on the issue of the unity of consciousness. Although
there is some truth in this, the fact is that Brentano always manifested
antipathy to Kant and his philosophical deviations -German idealism.
Going beyond the project of a descriptive psychology (in which
metaphysical questions are not explicitly considered) to a metaphysical
psychology, Brentano is interested in the argument of the existence of
the spiritual soul. From the unity of consciousness, Brentano argues
for the existence of the spiritual soul. The argument proceeds from the
subject of mental phenomena, which is the bearer and the cause of the
unity of consciousness, to a required characteristic of this subject: the
39
Philosophical Psychology
subject of mental phenomena is nul/dimensional This property is in
opposition to the three dimensional character of physical entities. This
implies that a subject with the property of nulldmensionality cannot be
physical, that is to say, the soul is essentially different from physical
bodies. It is important to stress that the property of nulldimensional-
ity, and not intentionality, is the distinguishing feature of the soul.
Brentano very probably arrived at this idea through his study of the
11ous poietikos (agent intellect) in Aristotle. 37
Tempora succesion of
Back il the
liilll (@ !Kt3>(
experience of
co nscv us ness
liiD] (!@
Endnotes
2
Brentano, Lectures on Metaphysics, manuscript B 16497 of
Brentano Archiv, in Forsschungste/le fiir Osterreiche philosophie
Dokumentationszentrum, Graz.
3 Brentano, Psychology, p. 23.
4 Brentano, Psychology, p. 5.
5 Brentano, Psychology, p.8.
6 Brentano, P!iychology, p. 19.
7
Brentano, Psychology, p. 9
8 Brentano, Psychology, p. 20.
9 Brentano, P!iychology, p. 10.
°
1
Franz Brentano, Aristotle and His World View, edited and
translated by Rolf George and Roderick M. Chisholm, University of
California Press, Berkeley, 1978, p.25.
II Brentano, Psychology, p. 12.
12
Cf Franz Brentano, Descriptive Psychology, translated and edited
by Benito Muller, New York, Routledge, 1995.
13
Roderick M. Chisholm, "Brentano's Descriptive Psychology," in
L.L. McAlister, p. 91.
14
Franz Brentano, Meine letzten W"nsche .fiir Osterreich (Stuttgart,
1895), p. 39.
15 Cf Brentano, Descriptive Psychology, p. 31-32.
6
1 Cf Brentano, Psychology, p. 37-38.
17
Cf Franz Brentano, Origin of our Knowledge l?[ Right and
Wrong, p. 24.
18 Cf. Brentano, Descriptive Psychology, pp. 73-75
19
Cf Franz Brentano, Versuch iiher die Arke1111tnis, ed. Alfred Kastil
(Leibniz, 1925), p. 79.
2
° Cf. Franz Brentano, Sensory and Noetic Consciousness, translated
by Linda Lopez McAlister, New York, Routledge, 1981, pp. 65-77.
21
Cf. Franz Brentano, Aristotle and His World View, trans. by Rolf
George and Roderick Chisholm, University of California Press,
Berkeley, 1978, "The Origin of Ideas", p. 36-42. Brentano,
Descriptive Psychology, p. 173.
22
Cf. Theodorus de Boer, "Descriptive Method of Franz Brentano:
Its Two Functions and Their Significance for Phenomenology," in
McAlister, p. I 02.
23 Cf. Brentano, Psychology, p. 85-88.
24 Cf. Brentano, Psychology, p. 79.
5
2 Here, the German word "Vorstellung" is translated into English as
"presentation" and not "representation" following the practice of the
43
Philosophical Psychology
44
3
Theory ofKnowledge
L
Theory of Knowledge
cept A, and this is identical to saying that A is true. For exam-
ple, the judgment "some man is sick" is a linguistic abbrevia-
tion of "a sick man exists," which is equivalent to "there is a
sick man," or "the fact that there is a sick man," or "it is true
that there is a sick man," all these forms are interchangeable.
So, for Brentano, existence is another way of expressing the
truth of a judgment. We will say more about this when wear-
rive to Brentano's metaphysics.
(4) Proof that judgments are not predicamental by the fact
that it is possible to reduce all predication to existential propo-
sitions.5 We saw that all existential propositions are not genu-
ine propositions but existential judgments in which we accept
the content of something presented previously. Now,
Brentano's strategy is to reduce all kinds of predication to exis-
tential predication, and thus, to reduce every judgment to its
essence -acceptance- which is non-predicative. If Brentano is
successful in doing this, then all judgments have a non-predica-
tive structure.
Brentano will show that all categorical propositions are
existential propositions by reducing each one of the four classic
judgments to existential judgments. The following figure is the
traditional square of propositions from which Brentano will
start the transformation of all propositions to non-proposi-
tional existential judgments:
A-Universal E-Universal
affinnative '\... /negative
c~
dictories
1-Particular / '\...o-Particular
affinnative negative
2. Theory ofTerms
In designing his theory of judgment, Brentano took care to
avoid any kind of irrealia, that is to say, any kind of unreal
objects. This was the main motive for not accepting the
predicational theory of judgment in which the subject of a true
predication could be entities which are unreal objects, and the
predication as an object of judgmentis another unreal object. For
example, the proposition "five is a prime number'' is true.
What this implies is that the subject "five" is an unreal object;
it is an object that does not exist. But Brentano thinks that it is
very problematic to believe in a Platonic cosmosin which these
52
Theory of Knowledge
unreal and ideal objects are placed. Thus, he prefers to
transform the predicational theory of judgment into one which
is not predicational but thetic. So, Brentano transforms the
above example into "there is not a no-prime number five," in
which one rejects that object without being committed to the
being of unreal objects such as numbers. The same thing occurs in
relation to the proposition as an object of judgment. For
example, the proposition "a horse is running" taken as an object
of judgment is an unreal object, an object that does not exist;
what exists is the running horse butthe whole object a-horse-is-
running neither runs nor is alive but is an irreale. If we
transform these propositions into non-propositional content a l a
Brentano, we seem to get rid of any unreal object.
The theory of judgment implies, in turn, a theory about the
terms which are involved in the judgment. Brentano
distinguishes between genuine terms and non-genuine terms.
Genuine terms are those which refers to real entities. (Let me
reiterate again that, for Brentano, what is real is only that
which is individual and concrete versus what is unreal such as
universals and abstracts.) All genuine terms refer to
individuals. What happens then with fictional terms like
"Pegasus," "Hamlet," etc.? Brentano does not hesitate to
indicate that they refer to real individuals as well. And here
is where the genius of our philosopher is manifested. These
terms are genuine terms if there is a person who accepts or
rejects them. An acceptor is a person who makes a positive
judgment about the object of a term, and a rejector is a person
who makes a negative judgmentabout the object of a term. Now
we have all the elements to explain why fictional terms refer
to real things:
(a) A person who thinks that there are horses is a "horse-
acceptor" and a person who thinks that Pegasus does not exist is
a "Pegasus-rejector."
(b) In cases of fictional terms such as "Pegasus" what the
term refers to is not a inexistent object called "Pegasus" but to
the person who rejects the object Pegasus, the Pegasus-rejector,
which is always real, a concrete and individual thing.
Endnotes
59
4
Metaphysics
It is a common idea about Brentano's philosophy that psychology
was the starting point of his systematic philosophizing. Although
psychology effectively played a very important role in his philosophy,
metaphysics was the beginning and the end of his thought. The deep-
est and innermost driver of Brentano's philosophy was essentially
metaphysics; even his descriptive psychology, which methodologically
removes metaphysical elements, is only a necessary step oriented to a
metaphysical goal. Brentano declared to one of his students that "I am
at the moment wholly a metaphysician . . . I must confess that, after
having been exclusively a psychologist for a few years, the change
makes me happy." I
The starting point of Brentano' s metaphysics is Aristotle, but in-
cludes important elements from medieval metaphysics and Leibniz's
metaphysics as well. Brentano deviated from his Aristotelian roots
gradually over his lifetime, but only if he saw compelling reasons for
doing so. As in his psychology, the method of metaphysics is the
same as that ofthe natural sciences, viz. the empirical method 2
All of Brentano's metaphysical work starts from his dissertation
On the Several Senses qf Being in Aristotle (1862), and even, I would
say, his whole philosophy barrows many insights from this work. In
discussing Brentano's metaphysics, it seems logical to start from his
interpretation of Aristotle's notion of being, then we will jump to his
last conception of metaphysics, which is found in lhe Doctrine qf
Categories. We will finish his metaphysics with some remarks about
the existence of God.
2. Reism
The term "reism" was coined by Tadeusz Kotarbinski and it was
applied to Brentano's metaphysics. Reism is the doctrine by which
there are no objects other than things. Brentano, in this sense, is a
reist. He does not admit universals, abstracts as objects, and every-
thing that is an object of thought is always a thing. As we saw earlier,
a thing for Brentano is every individual object, and this is the realm of
reality. No things are unreal; they not only do not have being, but
they are not objects of thought either.
What is the difference between reism and materialism? For a ma-
terialist only material objects are things, and they exhaust the realm of
reality. On the contrary, for a reist, material objects are not the only
objects that exhaust the concept of reality. Reality embraces both ma-
terial things and immaterial things. The examples of immaterial things
are mental acts, the human soul and God. So, although Brentano only
admits things as reality, things are not only material.
A better term for Brentano's position would have been the term
"concretism" because only concrete objects are things, and abstract and
universal objects are purely and simply linguistic fictions. Concretism
has the advantage over reism that objects of imagination fall under a
concrete object, so they are things for Brentano. But the term "reism"
is awkward to apply to objects of imagination. For example, the Cen-
taur is an object that does not exist, but as far as it is an object of
imagination it is a concrete object 8 Nevertheless, I will use both
terms "reism" and "concretism" interchangeably.
The reason Brentano admits imaginary objects as real objects is
that it is not impossible that they exist. For example, the Unicorn is a
fictional object, but it is a concrete object too. it could exist. It is a
fact that the Centaur does not exist, but the existence of such a creature
is not absolutely impossible, and if it could exist, it is because it is a
concrete individual from the beginning. The same thing happens with
all objects of imagination. On the contrary, universals and abstracts
cannot exist at all. Whiteness is not only inexistent, it cannot exist.
The universal man is by definition non-concrete and non-individual,
and as a consequence, it is impossible that a universal man can exist.
63
Metaphysics
What exists is this man called Peter, or that man called John, but not
man as such. All existent objects are always concrete objects, individ-
ual objects. Thus, the concept of real becomes the fundamental concept
of metaphysics and the only true object of thought.
Specifically, Brentano's reism is a doctrine and a program. The
doctrine says that only individual things exist and only things can be
objects of thought; the program is ruled by a critique of language
(Sprachkritik) or analysis of language, in which Brentano proposes to
transform all propositions containing abstract names (i.e. names which
are not referring to things) into propositions containing only real names
(i.e. names which refer to things or individual and concrete objects). It
is a fact that ordinary language appears to contain names that designate
all sorts of unreal objects. The program of a linguistic analysis is to
show that our thought can afford to do without these unreal objects,
that all such references can be eliminated by a transformation into a
language containing only the names of real things, essentially persons
and physical things. Brentano's critique of language (in a way that an-
ticipates Russell's analysis) has the role of an Ockham's razor.
Brentano, influenced by his disciple Anton Marty's analysis of
language, maintained that language works according to fictions and
treats pseudo-objects (i.e. universals, abstracts, etc.) as if they were
things. This is due to the nature of a term, which is endowed with a
content, which moves the mind to assume that there is always a thing
as referent. Based on linguistic analysis of philosophy, Brentano
thinks that abstract names have no autonomous meaning, but are con-
nected with other names that have an autonomous meaning. Brentano
called these names that do not have an autonomous meaning
"synsemantics".
What is the meaning of "synsemantic"? In some way, what
Brentano has in mind reminds us of what Wittgenstein says years later,
Brentano's analysis of language tries to unveil the true meaning of
words and to show the thought that words covert and hide. In the lan-
guage we use, each word is worlds away from having a meaning by
itself, an autonomous meaning. What defines an object signified by a
word is the network formed by several words bound to each other.
Brentano mentions the example of prepositions and conjunctions in
propositional language. Here, prepositions and conjunctions do not
have any meaning in isolation, by themselves, autonomously. Prepo-
sitions and corljunctions are synsemantic (meaning-with), that is to
say, their meaning depends of the meaning of other words. 9
In addition to this, language very often uses fictions to abbreviate
a complicated thought. For example, mathematics talks of negative
numbers, imaginary numbers, etc., which are only linguistic uses,
64
Metaphysics
which, in the strict sense of the words, are improper. When we use
abstract words, we are inclined to use them autosemantically (with
meaning of their own), that is to say, as if these words express abstract
objects, but in reality these words have to be taken as linguistic fic-
tions, with the role of simplifying our complex thoughts. In them-
selves, abstract words do not have any autonomous meaning, they are
synsemantic. Brentano mentions a long list of words that are synse-
mantic. I will mention some of them that fit our purpose: the past and
the future, non existence, possibility, qualities, etc.
In these cases, what exists is only the subject that thinks of them
Brentano claims that in all cases in which I believe that I am thinking
of an unreal object I cannot think about it without reference to a subject
-myself- that is the thinker.
We can summarize Brentano's reism in two statements: (a) there
are only concrete individual things, and (b) every judgment is either the
acceptance or the rejection of a concrete individual thing. Here, the
term "concrete" has to be taken as the opposite of abstract; therefore,
concrete includes not only physical, but also immaterial objects such as
mental acts.
Brentano has several arguments to support his reism. Probably
the most interesting argument is based on the univocal significance of
the term "thinking." Brentano here is using the term ''thinking" in a
very broad sense (a Ia Cartesian) meaning any act of presentation. The
argument runs as follows: IO
(I) There is an axiom essential in Brentano' s psychology that
says "to think is always to think of something." It is not possible to
think and to not think of something, just like it is not possible to see
without seeing something, or to imagine without imagining some-
thing.
(2) Now, the term "to think" is univocal, that is, the use of "to
think" is equal to any object. To think (or more technically, to pres-
ent) of this or that object does not change the nature of thinking. For
example, to think of a tree is the same kind of act of thinking as to
think of a planet or to think of the color red.
(3) Because to think is always to think of something, if "to
think" is univocal, the term "something" has to be univocal as well.
Here, Brentano is assuming that there is a 1-1 relation between think-
ing and the something that is thought.
(4) But there is no generic concept that can be common both to
things and to non-things.
(5) Therefore, if "something" denotes a thing at one time, it can-
not denote a non-thing at another time, it would be an impossibility if
"something" has to remain univocal Hence, Brentano says that only
65
Metaphysics
concrete and individual things are objects of our thoughts, and unreal
objects are merely fictions of language, although, sometimes, they are
very convenient, as seen in mathematics.
To illustrate this argument, we will pretend that Brentano is in-
correct in this analysis by showing that there is a more comprehensive
class than the class of real things, in such a way that it embraces real
things and unreal objects. One logical possibility can be that the term
"something" ranges univocally over the class of what is thinkable.
Certainly, universals, abstract objects, ideal objects, etc. are as think-
able as real objects. It seems that everything falls under the univocal
concept of thinkable. Obviously, Brentano disagrees with this. The
reason is as follows:
(I) If being thinkable is acceptable as a characteristic at all, it
must indeed be a characteristic that applies generally to everything of
which one can be said to be thinking.
(2) Now, thinkable is not a characteristic of anything, thinkable
is just what medieval philosophers called "denominatio extrinseca"
(external denomination), which can be discovered by linguistic analysis
and shown to be just another linguistic fiction.
What is a "denominatio extrimeca" (external denomination)? It
means that when we are thinking of, for example, a tree, to be thought
of is nothing for the tree, it does not add any weight, any height, and
so on. To be thought of is just an external denomination of something
that adds nothing to it That a thing is thinkable means only that
somebody has the capacity to think of it, but that capacity is in the
person who is thinking and not in the thing that is thought of. There-
fore, if thinkable is an external denomination, that is to say, it is not a
characteristic of things, then it will not be able to be the univocal con-
cept of object that we were looking for.
This conclusion can be illustrated by two observations. (a) As-
sume that there is no mind in the universe. So, there will be no think-
able thing either because there is no one with the capacity to think of
it. But things would be the same whether there are minds or not.
Therefore, thinkable is not a characteristic of things, it cannot be the
universal something we were looking for. (b) In addition to this,
Brentano observes that when we are thinking of a horse we are not
thinking of the thinkability of a horse. If you desire to have a horse,
you do not desire the thinkability of the horse, otherwise, you would
be satisfied with the possession of the thinkability of the horse, and
there would be no necessity to possess the real horse.
4. Metaphysics of Accident
One of the senses of being is being as substance and accidents,
that is to say, being as the categories, which are modes of being real.
Brentano claims that the notion of substance can be better understood
only as correlative to that of accidents. If a substance is that which can
gain or lose accidents (for example, an animal can gain or lose weight),
67
Metaphysics
then we are defining what is a substance in relation to its accidents.
Therefore, Brentano believes that it is natural to start studying the no-
tion of accident before studying that of a substance.
Among beings in the strict sense of the term, there are to be in-
cluded substances, aggregates of substances, parts of substances, and
accidents (real properties and qualities ofthings). 12 What kind of thing
is an accident? Assume a thing that thinks; the result would be a
thinker or a thinking thing. In Brentano's conception of accident, the
whole called "thinker" would be an accident of that thing. This acci-
dent is something that comes into existence when the thing begins to
think, and the accident passes away when the thing ceases to think. If
we assume a thing that sees and hears, the result would be two more
accidents of this thing, namely, a seeing thing and a hearing thing.
Brentano draws interesting conclusions from here:
(1) Both accidents the seeing thing and the hearing thing are in-
dependent of each other in that either can exist without the other. It is
possible to conceive without contradiction that a seeing thing is not a
hearing thing and vice versa.
(2) Nevertheless, the seeing thing and the hearing thing cannot be
independent of the first thing. There are no seeing things without be-
ing in a thing and there are no hearing things without being in a thing.
(3) The seeing thing and the hearing thing are accidents of a
thing, which is the substance of these accidents. Accidents exist in
things, which are called substances or subjects of these accidents.
In the case of a human person, we have that when a person sees,
or hears, then the self (the ego, or the "I"), has as accidents a hearer (a
seeing thing) and the see-er (a seeing thing), and these accidents can
exist independently of each other, but they cannot exist independently
of the self, (the ego, or "1"). From here we have that there is a person-
who-sees and there is a person-who-hears, and it is possible for each
one to fall away and for the other to remain (sometimes we are seeing
but not hearing, and vice versa). These two accidents (the seeing thing
and the hearing thing) are, as a consequence, not identical.
In addition to this, we know, by inner perception, what Brentano
calls the unity of consciousness (see Chapter 2, section 8
"Classification ofPsychical Phenomena"). It is directly evident for us
that there is a seeing thing when we are seeing, and it is directly evi-
dent for us that there is a hearing thing when we are hearing, and it is
directly evident for us that there is someone who is a seeing thing and
someone who is a hearing thing. Why is this someone not one of
these accidents (the seeing thing or the hearing thing or a bundle of
both)? Brentano argues that this someone is not one of these two acci-
dents because either of these two accidents can fall away -as Brentano
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Metaphysics
puts it- while the someone continues to exist. Here, we have a clear
case showing the relation between accidents and substance. These two
accidents are not identical with this someone, but this someone is the
substance of these two accidents.
One of the most interesting points in Brentano's theory of acci-
dents is that the relation between a substance and an accident is the
relation of"being part of' or "being a constituent of' and not the rela-
tion of inherence of the accident in the substance as has been a tradition
since Aristotle introduced the concept of accident. Brentano claims
that the subject of an accident is a part or constituent of the accident.
For example, the hearing thing is an accident, the substance is part of
this accident:
Accident = The whole hearing thing
Substance= The mere thing
In other words, the substance is part of the accident; so an acci-
dent cannot inhere in a substance. This is an important departure from
the Aristotelian tradition and an interesting originality of Brentano. In
this way, Brentano thinks he can avoid talking about abstract entities
such as red, hearing, etc , instead he talks about red things, hearing
things, etc. An accident without a subject is both metaphysically an
impossible and an abstract term with no real meaning.
Let us see this from the point of view of linguistic analysis.
Brentano says that the accident is a thing other than the substance, but
paradoxically each is predicated of the other. This means that a sub-
stance is not defined by being the subject of a predication. 13
• First case, if the substance is predicated of an accident, then the
predication asserts, not that the substance and accident are identical, but
that the accident contains the substance. For example, "wise is Socra-
tes" is like saying "the thing that is wise is the thing that is Socrates,"
where the accident wise contains the substance.
• Second case, if the accident is predicated of the substance, then
the predication asserts that the substance is contained in the accident.
For example, "Socrates is wise" is like saying "the thing that is Socra-
tes is the thing that is wise," where the substance Socrates is contained
in the accident wise (the thing that is wise).
From here we can see that the accident is a whole which has the
subject as one of its proper parts. Nevertheless, although the subject is
a proper part of an accident, the opposite is not correct because the ac-
cident does not contain any other proper part in addition to the subject.
If the subject has proper parts; hence, then every proper part of the sub-
ject is a proper part of the accident as well. In conclusion, the proper
part of the accident is the subject or a proper part of the subject. Let us
see an example The accident hearer has as its proper part the person,
69
Metaphysics
who is the subject of the accident hearer. This accident is detachable in
the sense that the person can survive if the hearer ceases to hear, but not
in the sense that the accident hearer can exist by itself without a sub-
ject. In summary, Brentano's reism in the doctrine of accidents states
that there are no judgments, runs, and whites, but only judgers, runners
and white things, that is to say, there are no abstract qualities or ab-
stract entities but subjects (things) which have these qualities.
Let me insist on the reason of this view of an accident:
Brentano's reism. Everything that exists is an individual concrete, a
real thing. Now, according to Aristotle, accidents are additions to
things, for example, the quality green to a plant. Now, what kind of
reality is a quality? A quality that is detached from its subject is a
purely and simply abstract (abstract means separated from) Brentano
does not accept abstracts and universals, he only accepts individual and
concrete things. Brentano solves this problem by modifying Aris-
totle's theory of substance and accident: it is not the accident that is
attached to a substance but the substance that is included within the
accident as a proper part. In other words, Brentano conceives of the
accident not as an extra entity existing alongside the substance, there
are no such qualities because abstracts are not individual things, instead
we have qualified things. Brentano conceives of an accident as the
substance itself augmented modally: the accident is a modal extension
of the substance. This conception of accident seems to be influenced
by Brentano' s readings of the Spanish philosopher Francisco Suarez
( 1548-1617), who developed a modal theory of being in his Metaphysi-
cal Disputations.
Brentano agrees with the Aristotelian conception of accident as a
being which requires another being as its subject, but with important
differences. For Aristotle, an accident exists in (inheres in) a subject,
and he does not mention that the subject is a part of the accident, but
that the accident and the subject are two beings that form the whole.
For Brentano, an accident is a whole which requires its subject as a
part, and a whole has its parts necessarily (otherwise, it would not be a
whole); from here, we have that the accident cannot exist unless its
subject is a being existing in the mode of present. But there is a sense
in which Brentano and Aristotle say the same thing. For both thinkers
the concept of accident contains the substance. The substance cannot
be omitted in the definition of the accident, at least in a vague and gen-
eral mode. 14 But this is different than to say that the accident is a
whole whose proper part is the substance.
As we know, the main source of empirical knowledge for
Brentano is inner perception, and by means of inner perception we
know that there are things that are accidents of other things (i.e., the
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Metaphysics
hearer is an accident of myself), and by means of inner perception we
also know that there are accidents of accidents. It is evident in inner
perception that it is not possible to judge something without previ-
ously presenting this something. From here, Brentano draws the con-
clusion that the judging thing is an accident of the presenting thing,
and this, in turn, is an accident of the substance which is the person or
self. 15 We can have the experience of presentation without having the
experience of judging, but we cannot have the experience of judging
without having the experience of presentation. We have here the acci-
dent judger of the accident presenter. (According to Brentano, Aristotle
missed this important fact about accidents, but many Aristotelians will
contest Brentano on this point. Aristotle seemed to maintain that
some sense qualities such as a color are accidents of the material sub-
stance through the accident extension.)
If we apply the metaphysics of accident to the mind, we have the
following picture A psychical act is an accident. When I have a psy-
chical act, the subject of this act is present as a part of the act. The act
is not some extra entity attached to the self just as an accident is not an
extra entity added to the substance. It is the self -as the substance of
my psychical acts- augmenting itself while I am having the mental
activity In this way, the self is playing the role of a part ofthat whole
which is its accident psychical act (in other words, a psychical act is
not something detached, but it is the subject performing that psychical
act). This application of the metaphysics of accidents explains how the
self is present to me when I am having an experience of any kind. For
example, the act of seeing is an accident which has the self as its proper
part (to avoid confusion, the use of the term "see-er" is clearer and suit-
able to Brentano' s ideas than the term "act of seeing," which suggests a
thing detachable from the subject; nevertheless, I will use both terms
interchangeably); so, having the psychical act of seeing is at the same
time having the presence of the self as its subject. In other words, be-
ing a see-er (the seeing thing) implies that the proper part is the self.
This account is another explanation for the unity of consciousness:
psychical experience is not resolved into a multiplicity of separate ex-
periences, but each psychical experience contains the self as its subject.
In other words, there is an element or nucleus that is constant and
common to all our psychical experience diachronically and synchronic-
ally.
5. Metaphysics of Substance
In Brentano's view, a substance is better understood in relation to
the accident; 16 therefore, what we gained from the study of an accident
has to be applied to the study of a substance. According to Aristotle a
71
r Metaphysics
substance is defined essentially as the bearer of accidents Brentano
contests this Aristotelian conception of substance, a conception that he
accepts but with important modifications:
( 1) Substances are not the only things that have accidents, as we
saw in the last section, there are accidents of accidents
(2) Brentano contemplates the possibility that there are substances
that do not have accidents at all, something that Aristotle did not men-
tion except in the case of God.
Based on these two observations, Brentano concludes that a better
definition of substance is not as the bearer of accidents but the follow-
ing: a substance is a being that cannot be an accident. However, this
is not exact either because boundaries are neither substance nor acci-
dents. For example, continuous extended things contain boundaries
(surfaces, lines, or points). But because boundaries cannot be the
bearer of accidents, we can modify Brentano's definition of substance
slightly in the following way: a substance is a being that cannot be
an accident hut is capable of having accidents 17
The relation between substance and accidents is that of one-sided
separability. Consider an aggregate of stones. Each stone can be sepa-
rated from the rest, and both will survive. Here the stones in the ag-
gregate of stones are mutually separable from each other. Each is inde-
pendent of the others because it does not need the others to exist.
Now, consider a red stone. If the stone is the substance and the quality
red the accident, then the quality red is inseparable from the surface of
the stone (there is no existing redness walking on the street), but the
substance stone can be separated from the color red to acquire another
color, or no color at all (black), and at the same time survive the sepa-
ration This shows that substance is separable from its accidents, but
accidents cannot be separated from their substance (they will vanish).
The idea of a subsisting accident would be absurd just as the idea of
"modally extended" (which is the description of accident given above)
without the substance that is modally extended. There is nothing left
over once the substance is destroyed.
How can we prove that there are substances? We know by inner
perception that accidents exist, but it seems dubious that we can per-
ceive the existence of substance after Hume' s criticism of the theory of
substance. As we know so far, an accident needs a bearer, but this
bearer does not have to be a substance, it can be another accident. So,
maybe there is an infinite series of accidents of accidents and no sub-
stance in the end.
In Brentano's metaphysics an infinite series of accidents of acci-
dents is not possible because the whole series would be like an acci-
dent, which by definition of the concept of accident, necessarily re-
72
Metaphysics
quires a substance as its proper part. So, if there is an accident, then
there is an ultimate subsisting part or substance. From here, Brentano
proposes another definition of substance that is complementary of the
above definition: substance is the ultimate subsisting part that .mb-
sists without containing any part that subsists. I R
We can better illustrate Brentano's idea of substance in its appli-
cation to God. Brentano says that in a sense, God cannot be a sub-
stance because God is not capable of having accidents: God's thinking
is not an accident in him, God's thinking and the being of God are
identical (God cannot cease thinking). But substance is not only the
ultimate bearer of accidents, it is the principle that individuates acci-
dents.19 An accident becomes individuated as being an accident of this
substance. So, a substance is something subsisting and individuating.
Given the last account, it is possible to say of God that he is a sub-
stance20 in the sense that God is subsisting and individual, or as
Brentano puts it, God is the primary individual or primary being.
A primary individual is the essence of being a substance. A pri-
mary individual is a being that subsists in itself An accident, on the
contrary, is something that has to exist in another thing, it is not sub-
sisting. Boundaries do not exist by themselves, they are part of a con-
tinuum, but they are not accidents. A point exists only as a part of a
line, and a line exists only as a part of a surface, and a surface exists
only as a part of a body: boundaries are things that need to he parts.
So, boundaries are not subsisting beings, they are parts of a whole
without being accidents. On the contrary, something exists in itself -
subsists- if it does not need to have parts and it does not need to be a
part. And this is the primary individual, a notion that can be attributed
to God, who does not have parts and is not a part of anything.
One can notice easily that the aforementioned examples of acci-
dents and substance given by Brentano are psychical phenomena and
persons respectively. A person is the substance and the mental acts are
the accidents of this substance. This is a consequence of the very
method that Brentano uses: empirical knowledge by inner perception.
Now, are there other substances and accidents in Brentano's metaphys-
ics? Can we talk about substances and accidents based in the external
perception? Brentano cannot say with evidence the final nature of our
physical world. Brentano suggests that physical bodies may be pri-
mary individuals without accidents, or may be a plurality of substances
with accidents. What seems to be clear for him is that bodies are not
accidents. It remains that bodies are subjects (substances) of accidents
or primary individuals (subsisting things without accidents). The latter
is a possibility as far as bodies do not have mental activity, which are
accidents of a person (again, Brentano has as the model of his meta-
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Metaphysics
physics what is perceived intemally) 21 In addition to this, bodies
have parts, which are separable reciprocally, and in this sense they be-
have as substances. Brentano suggests a third possibility, namely, the
possibility that the totality of what is corporeal may be a single bodily
substance, and that the physical bodies studied by natural sciences are
parts of the single substance with accidents that are the properties.
75
Metaphysics
to accept intentional objects as such. The singularity of the relation of
intentionality is that it only requires the existence of the foundation of
the relation, but the existence of the terminus is not necessary; so,
Brentano is not committed to the acceptance of the terminus as an in-
tentional object with intentional inexistence. This has as a result that
all psychical acts (all conscious act!.) are esselllially relative. The
nature of a psychical act is a special relation where only the foundation
is necessary. The terminus of a relation of intentionality is a neutral
object (existential neutrality), which can or can not exist.
If we take into consideration the accidental character of a relation,
we can understand Brentano's statement that thinking is an enrichment
of the subject, a modal extension of the subject This is just the appli-
cation of the general characteristics of an accident to the accident rela-
tion. All accidents are an enrichment of the subject, an extension of
the reality of the subject.
It is interesting to see, that the consequence of rejecting ideal ob-
jects as objects is that what is the first known is the very subject and
not the object. This is a sophistication of Descartes' foundationalism
in which we start our knowledge from the privileged access to our sub-
ject. The question is whether the first known is really the subject and
not the object in the world. When Brentano wrote his Psychologyfrom
an Empirical Point of View, he maintained that the physical object is
first known, and the psychical phenomenon is incidentally known
while we are knowing the physical object After 1911, in his reistic
period, Brentano's foundationalism inverts the terms, and the affirma-
tion of the existence of the subject plays the main role.
We can summarize in three axioms some ideas developed so far in
which Brentano's philosophy operates: (a) Inner perception is the be-
ginning of our knowledge and provides us with immediate evidence;
(b) There are only individual things, which are the only objects of
knowledge; and (c) existential judgments do not have a predicative
structure.
7. Metaphysics of God
The study of God is part of metaphysics, perhaps the last chapter
of an Aristotelian metaphysics, and Brentano conceives of the study of
God as the pinnacle of metaphysics. Brentano is well known for his
psychological investigations, but his study of God is almost unknown
among contemporary philosophers. Nevertheless, Brentano dedicated a
good number of lectures and correspondence with many original argu-
ments and insights to this topic. Brentano's disciple Alfred Kastil put
all this material together under the title "The Existence of God," a
posthumous work. 22 In this section I will focus only in a few topics
76
Metaphysics
of interest.
As in the rest ofBrentano's philosophy, the method of his meta-
physics of God is the same as the method of the natural sciences,
namely, it starts from experience. This is important to stress now be-
cause Brentano' s arguments are directed to those philosophers who
think that in a future day science will replace God. Brentano wants to
provide new grounds to show that the very method of natural science is
enough to prove the existence and nature of God. Brentano uses a tre-
mendous amount of scientific data, scientific experience, and scientific
theories of his time, and puts them together to forge arguments that
support the existence of God.
According to Brentano, the certainty of a possible proof of God's
existence is physical and not mathematical. There is no mathematical
certainty of God's existence, there is no a priori proof of God's exis-
tence, only a posteriori, which provides only a physical certainty.
Brentano knows Laplace's theory of probabilities very well, and uses it
to say that a physical certainty of God's existence means that the cer-
tainty is not absolute, but it has a probability of infinite value. 23 This
is the same case as the existence of the external world, and some data
from memory. We do not have an absolute certainty of them, but they
enjoy the maximal probability.
Brentano has an interesting critique of the ontological argument.
This argument says God is infinitely prefect, what is infinitely perfect
has all perfections; existence is a perfection; therefore, God has to exist.
One of Brentano's objections is that there is in the ontological argu-
ment a confusion of a negative judgment with an affirmative judgment.
For example, consider the principle of identity "A is A" which is evi-
dent a priori. An instantiation of this principle is, for instance, "a
man is a man". But "a man is a man" is equivalent to "there is a man
who is a man," and this is equivalent to "there is a man". Now, "a
man is a man" is indeed evident a priori, but "there is a man" is not
evident a priori at all. The problem, so Brentano claims, is that one is
taking the negative judgment as an affirmative one. The judgment "a
man is a man" is in reality a negative judgment (as we saw in Chapter
3: "Theory of Knowledge") of the type: "there is no man who is not a
man". And this is indeed evident a priori, otherwise, it will be a con-
tradiction. Mathematical judgments belong to this kind of judgments
which are affirmative in appearance but of negative meaning. The
judgment "a square has four sides" is a priori, but it does not affirm
that there are squares that have four sides, but that "there are no
squares, which do not have four sides." Thus, Brentano avoids any
commitment to existence. This has the interesting conclusion that
what belongs to a concept of something cannot be said positively of it
77
Metaphysics
a priori but only in a hypothetical way. It is not correct to affirm a
priori and positively that a property belongs to the subject but only
negatively. This is what happens with the ontological argument. That
God posses all perfections does not mean that God exists, but only that
"there is no God, who does not have that existence." There is no
commitment with God's existence, which still has to be proved. 24
Brentano dedicates to the teleological argument many more pages
than the combination of the other proofs taken together. It seems as if
Brentano would have written these lectures for the teleological argu-
ment. Brentano's arguments are a sophistication of the classical teleo-
logical argument (the order of the universe requires an ordering cause,
which is an ordering intellect). All Brentano's arguments start with the
same structure: analysis of a purpose in the physical data; things are so
ordered to each other that an intelligence is required as the cause of this
order or purpose. Perhaps, it is interesting to say that Brentano sup-
ports the theory of evolution as a scientific theory which implies tele-
ology, but he rejects Darwin's evolutionary explanation. Brentano is
an evolutionist but not a Darwinist. He considers Darwin's natural
selection not scientifically proven and very improbable, and he shows
this with enough scientific data from the science of his time. Brentano
sees in the evolution of biological species a teleological process that
can be used to prove God's existence. The order and sense of evolution
requires an ordering cause, an intelligence 25
Brentano conceives of God as a perfect being, creator, and infinite
intelligence, transcendent, necessary, etc., but surprisingly, Brentano
thinks that God is not immutable. The following is an outline of his
argument. To begin with, Brentano does not use the affirmative judg-
ment, he says that "There is no God, who is absolutely immutable."
God is mutable; he changes, in order to be faithful to himself Once
said, if God created this universe, and in general if there is an x that
did not always exist, then it is necessary that the cause of the universe,
or the cause of this x, really becomes a cause. But if God caused the
existence of the universe at a certain time, then God was not a cause
before that time. Therefore, God underwent a change to produce the
universe, and in general to produce any x that did not always exist 26
One could say, that in this Brentanian argument, God behaves as a
modem politician: he changes in order to be faithful to himself God
needs to change in order to create and intervene in any event of the
world because to become a cause is a type of change
Endnotes
Existence" nn.l7-19.
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Ethics
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Ethics
the correct end, it is not clear at all that we should pursue it. For ex-
ample, if the object, which is the correct end, is happiness, 1t IS not
always clear that we should pursue it, for, maybe, in pursuing it we are
acting wrongly against others. In other words, Brentano 's argument
states that the concept qf an end or goal does not at all involve the
concept of someone striving for it.
These arguments led Brentano to suggest that the correct striving
is the starting point for establishing the basic principle of ethics. What
kind of striving is correct? Brentano gives several criteria. Here are the
two most significant: First, this striving has to be a striving after an
end that is possible to attain, or at least that is thought to be possible
to attain. Second, the striving is correct if it is a striving for the best
among the ends that are possible or reasonable to attain. Having these
criteria in mind, Brentano formulates the basic moral principle:
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Ethics
incorrect. In other words, the love for something which is intrinsically
good is a correct emotion just as the affirmation of something which is
true is a correct judgment.
Based on these analogies, Brentano provides a definition of what
is "intrinsically good":
Ethics
How do we know that a love is correct? We know it based on the
analogy between emotions and judgments. We know (see Chapter 3
here, The Theory of Knowledge) that there are true judgments; we
know they are true because their truth or correctness manifests itself to
us. Other judgments are true but blind, because we do not have any
experience of their evidence (directly or indirectly). We can establish a
similar parallelism with emotions We can know that a love is correct
if its correctness is manifested to us. To know that a love is correct is
similar to how we know that a judgment is directly evident. And we
know a judgment is directly evident through inner perception. Here we
arrive to the most basic starting point of our knowledge of right and
wrong. There is no demonstration, otherwise, the starting point or
basic principle would not be the basic principle; so, it remains that
there is only a self-manifestation of this basic principle.
The only way of communicating to someone what a correct love
is, is by giving instantiations, examples, which can recreate the same
experience in other people. Examples of correct emotions given by
Brentano are pleasure in the clarity of insight, the feeling of displeasure
by error and ignorance, etc. Certainly, feelings about sense quality are
just a matter of taste, but this is not the case with emotions about in-
sight and error. It is not a question of taste to love error and hate the
truth, only the perversion of the feelings of a person can love error and
hate truth. This is a perversion in comparison with the rest of the
members of the species. The pleasure for truth is something that be-
longs to any rational being regardless its species. Why does this dif-
ference exist between feelings about sense quality, which are variable,
and feelings about error and truth, which are universal? In the first
case, feelings about sense quality depend on biological necessities, they
are instinctive, and as such, they are conditioned under biological fac-
tors. In the second case, the feeling is not subject to biological condi-
tions, it is not a feeling for biological necessities, etc., the love of truth
is a higher love that is experienced as being correct for any rational
being. Truth is an object capable of being loved, and error, the priva-
tion of truth, is experienced as capable of being hated. And with a
single stroke, without induction from particular cases, we see the
goodness or badness.l6
In summary, Brentano claims that the source of our concept of
right love or right hate comes directly from our internal experience.
And when a love is correct the object of that love is good, and vice
versa, when the hate is correct, the object of that hate is bad. How do
we know that a certain object is good? We know it by experiencing
that the object is worthy ofbeing loved, and we know that that object
is worthy of being loved if the love for this object is correct.
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Ethics
Is there a circularity in Brentano's theory of correct love? Bren-
tano does not think so. There are two important elements to consider:
(a) According to Brentano, what is intrinsically good and what is wor-
thy of love (the correct love) are logically equivalent (b) The concept
of better is an essential part of a correct love. We will dedicate the
remaining section to the discussion of Brentano' s notion of better.
As Chisholm points out, "a better good" in Brentano's ethics
does not mean worthy of more love than another because the expression
"correct love" is not a quantitative notion, that is to say, a love is not
more correct or right than another: if something is intrinsically good,
then it is worthy of being loved in the highest degree.1 7 This state-
ment is important because it establishes an essential difference between
utilitarians and Brentano's ethics.
Brentano understands "better" in terms of preferability. A good
is better than another means that a good is worthy of more love than
another, only if the term "more" here is not interpreted as quantity. To
love a good more than another, if this love is correct, it is tantamount
to saying that one good is preferable to the other. So, preferring is
what one has to understand any time one uses the expression "more
love."
Interestingly, Brentano was keeping, so far, a strong analogy be-
tween both psychical phenomena -judgments and emotions. With the
introduction of the concept of preference, this analogy is broken. There
is no such thing as "more true" or "less true". If something is true, it
seems that it is just plain true. For example, if Socrates is effectively
sitting, then the statement 'Socrates is sitting" is true, but not more
true when we say '"Socrates is thinking" if he is effectively thinking.
Everything is equally true, but not everything is equally good: we
know that one good is better than another because we prefer one to the
other. If we put together Brentano's theory of correct love and prefer-
ence, we will have the following axiom of preference:
Endnotes
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Ethics
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Bibliography
I SBN 0 - 534-57611- 7
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