Taieb, Hamid. 2015. "Relations and Intentionality in Brentano’s Last Texts." Brentano Studien no. 13:183-209.

Abstract: "This paper will present an analysis of the relational aspect of Brentano’s last theory of intentionality. My main thesis is that Brentano, at the end of his life, considered relations (Relatives) without existent terms to be genuine relations (Relatives). Thus, intentionality is a non-reducible real relation (the thinking subject is a non-reducible real relative) regardless of whether or not the object exists. I will use unpublished texts from the Brentanian Nachlass to support my argument."
———. 2017. "Brentano on Properties and Relations." In The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School, edited by Kriegel, Uriah, 156-162. New York: Routledge.

"Brentano wrote his doctoral dissertation on Aristotle’s ontology (Brentano 1862/1975a).

However, the books and articles that Brentano published during his lifetime do not contain much information about his own theory of properties and relations. His main texts on this topic can be found in the posthumous volumes The True and the Evident (Brentano 1930/1966b), The Theory of Categories (1933/1981a), and The Renunciation of the Unreal (1966a), which mainly contain documents from after his reistic turn of 1904 (see Chapter 13). The manuscripts “About the Theory of Categories” (Brentano 1992–3), “On Substance” (1993), and “Abstraction and Relation” (2013a/c), all from approximately 1900, are Brentano’s most important published pre-reistic texts on properties and relations.

Some information is also present in Brentano’s logic lectures, given from 1869–1870 until 1877 in Würzburg and Vienna (Brentano, EL 80).(1)(1) Much information on the young Brentano’s theory of properties and relations can be found in the metaphysics lectures given in Würzburg from 1867 onward (ms. M 96), but these lectures are unpublished.

In this chapter, I will focus on Brentano’s theory of properties and relations as established during his mature period, from Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (Brentano 1874) until his death in 1917, and indicate the most important changes that his reistic turn entailed for his theory of properties and relations.(2) First, I discuss the ontological features common to properties and relations (§1); then I deal with relations in particular (§2)." (p. 156)

(1) For the dating of these lectures, see Rollinger 2011.

(2) I will briefly outline the young Brentano’s theory of properties and relations in the footnotes. For the recognition of three periods in Brentano’s ontology, namely “conceptualism” (1862–1874), “ontology of intentionality” (1874–1904), and “reism” (1904–1917), see Chrudzimski 2004, Chrudzimski and Smith 2004.

References

Brentano, Franz (1862). Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles. Freiburg: Herder.

Brentano, Franz (1975a). On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle. Trans. R. George. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Brentano, Franz (1930). Wahrheit und Evidenz. Leipzig: Felix Meiner.

Brentano, Franz (1966b). The True and the Evident. Trans. R. M. Chisholm, I. Politzer, and K. R. Fischer. London: Routledge.

Brentano, Franz (1933). Kategorienlehre. Leipzig: Felix Meiner.

Brentano, Franz (1981a). The Theory of Categories. Trans. R. M. Chisholm and N. Guterman. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

Brentano, Franz (1966a). Die Abkehr vom Nichtrealen. Bern: Francke.

Brentano, Franz (1993). “Von der Substanz.” Axiomathes 4: 2–40.

Brentano, Franz (2013a). “Abstraktion und Relation,” in Denis Fisette and Guillaume Fréchette (eds.), Themes from Brentano. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Chrudzimski, A. (2004). Die Ontologie Franz Brentanos. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Chrudzimski, A. and B. Smith (2004). “Brentano’s Ontology: From Conceptualism to Reism,” in D. Jacquette (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Franz Brentano. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2017. "Intentionality and Reference: A Brentanian Distinction." The Monist no. 100:120-132.

Abstract: "Brentano distinguishes between intentionality and reference. According to Brentano, all mental acts are intentionally directed toward something. Some mental acts also refer to something, which is the case when their object exists in reality. For Brentano, such acts, besides their intentionality, have a peculiar relation of similarity to their object. However, there is no mention of Brentano’s distinction between intentionality and reference in the literature. Drawing on some lesser known texts, this paper aims both at showing that Brentano makes such a distinction and at underscoring the philosophical signiﬁcance of his position."
———. 2018. Relational Intentionality: Brentano and the Aristotelian Tradition. Dordrecht: Springer.

"Indeed, though Brentano’s monograph on Aristotle may have helped to produce some confusions, especially as regards the assimilation of intentionality with causality, nevertheless, in his later works he draws a distinction between the intentional relation, the causal relation and the relation of reference. Moreover, he finds this tripartition already in Aristotle, specifically in Metaphysics Δ.15, which is about the different classes of relation. Similar distinctions were made by authors in antiquity and the Middle Ages, precisely in the context of the reception of Aristotle’s texts on relations. This might make it possible to clear up the confusions mentioned above, in Brentano and perhaps in Aristotle, but also in medieval thinkers and the Aristotelian tradition more generally. The present work is intended to meet these desiderata: from its

point of departure in Brentano, it goes back to Aristotle, then considers Alexander of Aphrodisias and the Neoplatonist commentators, before proceeding to the scholastic philosophers of the late Middle Ages and Suárez in the early modern period; it aims at analyzing these authors’ accounts of intentionality, and the way they distinguish it from the relations of causality or reference. This is, in broad strokes, the topic of this work. From the point of view of method, it will aim to harmonize scholarship over the longue durée with systematic analysis in the history of philosophy." (Preface, pp. VI-VII)
———. 2020. "A Paleo-Criticism of Modes of Being: Brentano and Marty against Bolzano, Husserl, and Meinong." Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy no. 7:849-876.

Abstact: "Brentanians defend the view that there are distinct types of object, but that this does not entail the admission of different modes of being. The most general distinction among objects is the one between realia, which are causally efficacious, and irrealia, which are causally inert. As for being, which is equated with existence, it is understood in terms of “correct acknowledgeability.” This view was defended for some time by Brentano himself and then by his student Anton Marty. Their position is opposed to Bolzanian, Husserlian, and Meinongian ontologies, in which a distinction in the (higher) types of object implies a distinction in their mode of being. These Austro-German discussions anticipate much of the contemporary debate between Quineans, who accept only differences in objects, and neo-Meinongians or other ontological pluralists, who accept different modes of being.

My paper first presents the Brentanian view in detail and then evaluates its philosophical significance."
———. 2020. "Brentanian Association of Ideas." Grazer Philosophische Studien no. 97:203-222.

Abstract: "This paper presents and evaluates the Brentanian theory of association of ideas. The topic of association usually brings to mind British Empiricism, which is often thought to have a monopoly on the matter. Brentano, however, adopts an original, alternative account of association.

He argues that all cases of association can be placed under a single general law, that of “habit”.

His explicit account of the topic is rather brief; how- ever, his most faithful pupil, Anton Marty, thoroughly developed his master’s views. Marty presents Brentano’s account of association in detail, and endeavours to defend it against rival theories, notably those which hold that the laws of “similarity”, or of what is called “redintegration”, are able to explain all cases of association. First, the pa- per presents the information found in Brentano himself on association of ideas. Then, it turns to Marty to analyze his developments of the Brentanian view. Finally, the paper evaluates Brentano and Marty’s account by tackling some objections that it may face."
———. 2020. "Husserl on Brentanian Psychology: A Correct Criticism?" In Franz Brentano's Philosophy after Hundred Years: From History of Philosophy to Reism, edited by Fisette, Denis, Fréchette, Guillaume and Janoušek, Hynek, 87-108. Cham (Switzerland): Springer.

Abstract: "Husserl often pays tribute to his teacher Brentano for having opened the path towards phenomenology. However, the praise is systematically followed by a criticism: Brentano failed to draw all the consequences from his ground-breaking rediscovery of intentionality, and remained stuck in inadequate psychological research.

For Husserl, there are three ways to study mental acts: empirical, eidetic, and transcendental.

What is objected to Brentano is his adherence to empirical psychology. Husserl himself focuses on the second and third levels. It is clear that Brentano never entered into transcendental considerations. However, it seems also clear that he was doing eidetic-like research in psychology in a way similar to Husserl. In the paper, I first present Husserl’s criticism of empirical and, thus, Brentanian psychology. I then turn to Brentano’s and the psychology of his heirs and try to show that Husserl’s criticism is unjustified. In the course of the discussion, I treat the crucial epistemological question of eidetic vs empirical knowledge, both in Husserl and in Brentano."
———. 2020. "Ordinary language semantics: the contribution of Brentano and Marty." British Journal for the History of Philosophy no. 28:777-796.

Abstract: "This paper examines the account of ordinary language semantics developed by Franz Brentano and his pupil Anton Marty. Long before the interest in ordinary language in the analytic tradition, Brentanian philosophers were exploring our everyday use of words, as opposed to the scientific use of language. Brentano and Marty were especially interested in the semantics of (common) names in ordinary language. They claimed that these names are vague, and that this is due to the structure of the concepts that constitute their meaning: concepts expressed by such names are themselves vague, based on typicality, and have more or less similar items within their extension. After presenting the views of Brentano and Marty, this paper compares them to later accounts of meaning and concepts, notably Wittgenstein’s theory of family resemblances and the prototype theory of concepts, and emphasizes the originality of the Brentanian position."
———. 2021. "Brentano and the Medieval Distinction Between First and Second Intentions." Topoi no. 41:143-158.

Abstract: "Brentano’s account of intentionality has often been traced back to its scholastic sources. This is justified by his claim that objects of thought have a specific mode of being—namely, “intentional inexistence” (intentionale Inexistenz)—and that mental acts have an “intentional relation” (intentionale Beziehung) to these objects. These technical terms in Brentano do indeed recall the medieval notions of esse intentionale, which is a mode of being, and of intentio, which is a “tending towards” (tendere in) of mental acts. However, within the lexical family of intentio there is another distinction that plays an important role in medieval philosophy—namely, the distinction between first and second intentions (intentio prima and intentio secunda), which are, roughly speaking, concepts of things and concepts of concepts respectively. What is less well-known is that Brentano explicitly borrowed this distinction as well, and used it in his account of intentionality. This paper explores this little-known chapter in the scholastic-Austrian history of intentionality by evaluating both the historical accuracy and the philosophical significance of Brentano’s borrowing of the scholastic distinction between first and second intentions."
———. 2021. "Brentano on the Characteristics of Sensation." In The Philosophy of Brentano: Contributions from the Second International Conference Graz 1977 & 2017, in Memory of Rudolf Haller, edited by Antonelli, Mauro and Binder, Thomas, 192-208. Leiden: Brill Rodopi.

"In this paper, I present Brentano’s account of sensation and the way he distinguishes this type of psychic phenomenon from other types. After introducing the three main classes of psychic phenomena in Brentano, I focus on his positive account of sensation. I then address in turn each of the other candidates with which sensation may be confused, and I explain how Brentano distinguishes sensation from them." (p. 193)
———. 2023. "Brentano on the individuation of mental acts." European Journal of Philosophy:431-444.

Abstract: "This paper aims to present and evaluate Brentano's account of the individuation of mental acts. In his early works, Brentano assimilated mental acts to tropes; however, he encountered difficulties in explaining their individuation, since the usual solutions for the individuation of tropes were not readily applicable to his theory of mental acts. In a later period, Brentano introduced into his psychology what he called the “soul,” and this allowed him to explain the individuation of mental acts. Finally, after his “reistic” turn, he excluded mental acts from his ontology, for he rejected abstracta of any kind, including abstract particulars, and admitted only things, or res (in Latin), that is, concrete particulars; in his late philosophy, there are no “thinkings,” but only “thinkers.” However, he still needed to explain what individuates different thinkers, and this was again the soul. In the conclusion, the paper critically compares the different theoretical options considered by Brentano."
Taieb, Hamid, and Cesalli, Laurent. 2018. "Brentano and Medieval Ontology." Brentano Studien no. 16:335-362.

Abstract: "Since the first discussion of Brentano’s relation to (and account of) medieval philosophy by Spiegelberg in 1936, a fair amount of studies have been dedicated to the topic. And if those studies focused on some systematic issue at all, the beloved topic of intentionality clearly occupied a hegemonic position in the scholarly landscape. This paper considers the question from the point of view of ontology, and in a twofold perspective: What did Brentano know about medieval ontology and what kind of access did he have to that material (section 1)? What kind of use did Brentano make of medieval material in his own philosophy, and with what kind of results (section 2)?"
Tănăsescu, Ion. 2012. "Franz Brentano's Dissertation and the Problem of Intentionality." In Franz Brentano's Metaphysics and Psychology, edited by Tănăsescu, Ion, 154-179. Bucharest: Zeta Books.

"It is well known that Franz Brentano’s dissertation On theSeveral Senses of Being in Aristotle (1862) played a decisive role in the genesis of the problem of being for the young Heidegger." (p. 154, a note omitted)

(...)

"Against this background, the thesis of this study is that in Brentano’s dissertation two phenomenological veins through which Aristotle infl uenced the phenomenology of the XXth century can be identifi ed: the polysemy of being expressly featured by Heidegger, and Brentano’s analysis of Aristotle’s being in the mind. Th ough this latter vein did not receive any attention from Heidegger, convincing arguments can be made in favour of the idea that the analysis of being in the dissertation leads to the problem of intentionality in Brentanian psychology and his School, including the Husserlian phenomenology. For that reason I consider the analysis of being in the mind from the dissertation as the Husserlian phenomenological vein, while the polysemy of being belongs to the Heideggerian phenomenological vein." (p. 155)
———, ed. 2012. Franz Brentano's Metaphysics and Psychology: Upon the Sesquicentennial of Franz Brentano's Dissertation Bucharest: Zeta Books.

Contents: Foreword 7; Edoardo Fugali: Trendelenburg, Brentano und die Aristoteles-Renaissance in der deutschen Philosophie des 19. Jahrhunderts: die Frage nach dem Ursprung der Kategorien 13; Dale Jacquette: Brentano on Aristotle’s Categories: First Philosophy and the Manifold Senses of Being 53; Klaus Hedwig: „...Eine gewisse Kongenialität“ Brentanos Rückgriff auf Thomas von Aquin in seiner Dissertation 95; Susan Krantz Gabriel: Heidegger’s Question and the Fundamental Sense of Being in Brentano 132; Ion Tanasescu: Franz Brentano’s Dissertation and the Problem of Intentionality 154; Josef Seifert: Über das notwendige Dasein Gottes Eine kritische Antwort auf Franz Brentanos Kritik des ontologischen Gottesbeweises 180; Paul Janssen: Die Gottesrede bei Brentano 225; Robin D. Rollinger: Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint: its Background and Conception 261; Guillaume Frféchette: Deux aspects de l’intentionnalité dans la Psychologie de Brentano 310; Denis Seron: The Fechner-Brentano Controversy on the Measurement of Sensation 344; Carlo Ierna: Brentano and Mathematics 368; Roberto Poli: Modes and Boundaries 397; Federico Baccaccini: La vérité efficace: l’origine du concept de vrai chez Brentano entre Evidenzphilosophie et pragmatisme 419; Thomas Binder: Franz Brentanos philosophischer Nachlass. Eine historische Annäherung an einen schwierigen Fall 452-514.
———. 2014. "Categorial relations as truth-makers in Franz Brentano’s dissertation." Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie no. 76:247-260.

"...I shall further understand by the term 'truth-maker' the categorial relations between substance and its accidents, considered as relations by virtue of which the judgments concerning them are true or false. This position allows me to specify the perspective from which the term 'truthmaker' is approached in this essay: this study is not in any way intended to provide a contribution to the contemporary research devoted to this problem. Instead, it will provide an interpretation of categorial relations as being what the term 'truth-makers' designates in the statement concerning the neglect of their role in Brentano's reading and aimsto provide arguments on behalf of the opposite thesis.(8) Therefore what follows is only an exegetical contribution, the goals of which are carefully limited to the way in which Brentano understood Aristotle's correspondence theory of truth in his first work. Also, I am specifying that in order to formulate the ideas that follow I accepted from the beginning the assumption on which the position I call into question relies, namely, that the Aristotelian correspondence theory of truth analysed by Brentano can be discussed in the specific terms of the truth-maker account.

In accord with this, I shall present further arguments in favour of the thesis that, in his dissertation, Brentano did not neglect but, on the contrary, placed a particular emphasis on the role of categorial relations as truth-makers in Aristotle." (pp. 249-250, a note omitted)

(8) See A. Chrudzimski, Die Ontologie Franz Brentanos, Dordrecht, Kluwer, 2004,, p. 60; p. 62.
———. 2015. "The two Theories of Intentionality in Brentano and the Program of Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint." Brentano Studien no. 13:211-231.

Abstract: "The paper defends the following thesis: the intentionality passage from Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874) can be interpreted from two perspectives: intentionality as the most salient distinguishing feature separating the mental from the physical, and intentionality as a theory of the way in which mental acts, with their contents, are related to extra-mental objects. Fundamentally, the theory of intentionality from 1874 is an example of the former. Its role is that of allowing the establishment of psychology as a science. However, it can also be understood as a theory of intentionality in the second sense through a clarification of the relations it entails between the content and the object of the act. For this reason, it could be said that the act–content–extra-mental object distinction was already achieved in the 1874 work, at least at the level of sensory acts. The distinction between the psychical act, the content, and the object presented through this content was already made in the EL 80 Logik manuscript from 1869/70 at the level of nominal presentation, which provides a further argument for the above thesis."
———. 2017. "The Intentionality of Sensation and the Problem of Classification of Philosophical Sciences in Brentano’s empirical Psychology." Axiomathes no. 27:243-263.

Abstract: "In the well-known intentionality quote of his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, Brentano characterises the mental phenomena through the following features: (1) the intentional inexistence of an object, (2) the relation to a content, and (3) the direction toward an object. The text argues that this characterisation is not general because the direction toward an object does not apply to the mental phenomena of sensation. The second part of the paper analyses the consequences that ensue from here for the Brentanian classification of mental phenomena: in Brentano’s psychology one can distinguish two concepts of mental phenomena—the mental phenomenon in a broad sense and the mental phenomenon in a narrow sense; the former concept allows the separation of the mental from the physical, while the narrow concept allows the distinguishing of the main classes of mental phenomena. The third part of the paper shows that, with respect to sensation, the absence of a direction toward an object is compatible with both Brentano’s early taxonomies of philosophical sciences, and his early program for the establishment of a new, empirical and non-speculative philosophy. For this reason, I hold that intentionality is important for the foundation of both psychology, and empirical philosophy."
———. 2019. "Monism and Particularism: Methodology in Brentano’s Psychology." Axiomathes no. 29:397-412.

Abstract: "The paper argues that Brentano was the exponent of a methodological monism, which is based on the requirement that science should be grounded on experience, and not on a speculative-idealistic principle, as in the case of German idealism. In Brentano’s psychological writings, this methodological requirement concretized in two different theses: (T1) The method of psychology is identical with the method of natural science; (T2). The method of psychology is inspired by the method of natural science. The thesis of this study is that an important part of Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint is elaborated in accordance with T1. By contrast, Brentano’s Descriptive Psychology illustrates the subsequent decision to give up this idea. In its place, the aforementioned requirement is elaborated in the spirit of a methodological particularism that recommends the scientist elaborate his methods according to the specificity of the phenomena under investigation and to the difficulties that need to be overcome when approaching them."
———. 2020. "The two Theories of Intentionality in Brentano and CHisholm's Ontological and Psychological Theses." Revue Roumaine de Philosophie no. 42:341-350.

Abstract: "R. M. Chisholm interprets Brentano’s theory of intentionality through the lens of two theses: the ontological thesis, according to which the intentionality of the mental designates the fact that there is an immanent object in the act; and the psychological thesis, according to which intentionality consists of the direction of the mental act toward the extra-mental object. In my paper I interpret Chisholm’s and Brentano’s theses on intentionality from two perspectives: intentionality as the most salient distinguishing feature separating the mental from the physical (Chisholm’s ontological thesis), and intentionality as a theory of the way in which mental acts with their content are related to extra-mental but theoretically-constructed objects of physics (Chisholm’s psychological thesis). Thus, an important issue of my paper is also to show that Chisholm’s well-known ontological and psychological theses on Brentanian intentionality rest on presuppositions that do not fit the program of Brentanian psychology."
———. 2021. "Franz Brentano and Anton Marty: Two Versions of Descriptive Psychology?" In The Philosophy of Brentano: Contributions from the Second International Conference Graz 1977 & 2017, in Memory of Rudolf Haller, edited by Antonelli, Mauro and Binder, Thomas, 179-191. Leiden: Brill Rodopi.

"In the following, I attempt to clarify the relation between Anton Marty’s descriptive psychology and Brentano’s empirical and descriptive psychology. In this respect, I shall start by describing the structure of PDP [see Note] and by distinguishing two concepts of descriptive psychology. I want to specify from the very beginning that what follows addresses only the relationship between the published versions of Brentano’s and Marty’s lectures on descriptive psychology. A full assessment of this issue will be possible only after the two manuscript versions of Brentano’s lectures on descriptive psychology become available, and after determining if and to what extent Anton Marty was familiar with them. Given that hitherto specialist literature has highlighted mostly the common features of Marty’s and Brentano’s psychologies (Antonelli, 2011, pp. xxixf.; Marek & Smith, 1987, pp. 38ff.), I shall focus mainly on their differences." (pp. 180-181, notes omitted)

Note: For the sake of brevity, I shall use the following abbreviations: PES for Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint (1874), DP for Franz Brentano’s Descriptive Psychology (1982) and PDP (Prague Descriptive Psychology) for Anton Marty’s Descriptive Psychology (2011).

References

Antonelli, M. (2011). Die deskriptive Psychologie von Anton Marty. Wege und Abwege eines Brentano-Schüler. In A. Marty, Descriptive Psychology, ed. by M. Antonelli & J. C. Marek (pp. xi–lxxviii). Würzburg: Könighausen & Neumann.

Marek, J.C., & Smith, B. 1987. Einleitung zu A. Martys “Elemente der deskriptiven Psychologie”. Conceptus, 53/54, 33–47.
Tănăsescu, Ion, Bejinariu, Alexandru, Krantz Gabriel, Susan, and Stoenescu, Costantin, eds. 2022. Brentano and the Positive Philosophy of Comte and Mill. Berlin: de Gruyter.

With Translations of Original Writings on Philosophy as Science by Franz Brentano.

Contents: List of Abbreviations IX; Ion Tănăsescu: Introduction 1; Nicholas Capaldi: Comte, Mill, and Brentano on the Intellectual Status of Philosophy and Its Relationship to History 9; Michel Bourdeau: Comte on Psychology: The Criticism of “Inner Observation” and the Constitution of the “Systematic View of the Soul” 31; Ion Tănăsescu: Franz Brentano and Auguste Comte: The Theory of Stages and the Psychology 45; Bianca Savu: Comte and Brentano: Elements for a Theory of Decline 139; Susan Krantz Gabriel: Can We Have Scientific Knowledge About God? Brentano on Comte’s Metaphysical Skepticism 165; Michel Bourdeau, Ion Tănăsescu: Intentionality and the Classification of Phenomena and Sciences in Comte’s Cours de Philosophie Positive and in Brentano’s Empirical Psychology 185; Constantin Stoenescu: Brentano’s View about Natural Science and Methodological Phenomenalism. A Comparison with John Stuart Mill’s Approach 223; Arnaud Dewalque: The Reception of Positivism in Whewell, Mill and Brentano 245; Andreea Eșanu: Franz Bentano’s Multifaceted View of Induction in Empirical and Genetic Psychology 265; Cyril McDonnell: Hume’s “Bundle of Perceptions” and the “Problem of the I” in Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint 279; Carlo Ierna: Brentano’s Mathematical Foundation of Science 309; Robin D. Rollinger: Franz Brentano on the Errors of Mach’s Positivism: Psychology, Metaphysics, Logic 331; Witold Płotka: On the Brentanian Legacy in Twardowski’s Views on Psychology 351; Alexandru Bejinariu: Descriptive and Intentional Contents. Considerations on Husserl’s Logical Investigations from Brentano’s Empirical Point of View 371; Wolfgang Huemer: Brentano’s Four Phases and the Rise of Scientific Philosophy in the Light of His Relation to His Students 401; Thomas Binder: Brentano in Exile: The Brentano Institute at Oxford 415; Appendix: The Idea of Philosophy as Science in Brentano Habilitation Theses 1866 433; Auguste Comte and Positive Philosophy 1869 437; Introduction to the Concept of the History of Philosophy 457; On the Law of Historical Development 475; Philosophy of the History of Philosophy 485; On the Reasons for a Loss of Confidence in the Area of Philosophy 489; On Schelling’s Philosophy 501; On the Future of Philosophy 523; My Parting Wishes for Austria 1894 571-590.

Index 591; Authors 591; Subject 598-616.
Tassone, Biagio G. 2011. "Franz Brentano's Phenomenological Transformation of Aristotle's Theory of Judgment." Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology no. 42:305-328.

"In what follows Brentano’s early reading, adoption and reformulation of selected, central Aristotelian doctrines pertaining to philosophy of mind and ontology will be examined. Here it will be shown how the epistemological and ontological grounds for the theory of intellectual judgment found in Aristotle’s writings strongly influenced the early Brentano. Nonetheless, for various reasons, Brentano critically rejected certain aspects of the Aristotelian theory of judgment and developed what can be called his phenomenological theory of judgment as an alternative. To better understand Brentano’s phenomenological theory of judgment and its significance, special emphasis will be placed on two related areas: philosophy of mind and the theory of truth. Focusing on selected passages in Brentano’s and Aristotle’s writings that discuss mental reference, representation, semantic content and the nature of truth claims, the implications and consequences of Brentano’s phenomenological transformation of Aristotelianism will be spelled out. The most important consequence of Brentano’s transformation of Aristotle’s theory of judgment will be seen to be the articulation of a new and different understanding of the nature of truth." (p. 305)
———. 2012. From Psychology to Phenomenology: Franz Brentano's 'Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint' and Contemporary Philosophy of Mind. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

"The following book presents an outline and critical reading of Franz Brentano’s philosophy of mind focusing closely on the system outlined in his magnum opus Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint.(1) In this 1874 text Brentano articulates a teleological and neo-Aristotelian framework for understanding the mental as representational. Brentano’s earlier development of Aristotelian metaphysics and ontology in an empirical direction set the stage for the articulation of his philosophical psychology and new theory of the mental. Nonetheless Brentano’s philosophical psychology still forms one of the overlooked alternatives in contemporary philosophy of mind. This is not to deny that the philosophical system of the PES has not had a strong, albeit indirect, influence on subsequent philosophy of mind. Many isolated aspects of Brentano’s thought have been critically examined and commented on in the existing literature, yet the actual position put forth in the PES is almost never examined in itself as a whole and within its historical context.(2)" (p. 1)

(1) Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte, originally published in 1874 by Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig. The Second expanded edition Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt appeared in 1924 and was published by Felix Meiner, Leipzig. The standard and only widely available English translation is by A. C. Rancurello, D. B. Terrell, & L. McAlister, first published in 1973; the latest edition, edited with an introduction by Peter Simons, is published as Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, London: Routledge Press, 1995.

Henceforth the English edition will be referred to simply as Psychology or PES, the German text will be cited as PES-G. Where the available English translation has been changed or altered in any way, this will be noted, following, the quoted text.

(2) Although there are always exceptions, in the case of Brentano’s PES they do seem to prove the rule. That is, while there have been many full length studies of Brentano’s descriptive psychology and analyses of its philosophical import, such as those by Antos Rancurello (1968), Liliana Albertazzi (2001 & 2006), Robin Rollinger (1999), Arkadiusz Chrudzimski (2001), etc., many of these studies either view the PES as merely a stepping stone in Brentano’s development or read contemporary or non-Brentanian interests into the system he introduces there. Thus, while valuable, they do not make any sustained effort to evaluate the importance of Brentano’s 1874 work as asystematic framework for understanding philosophy of mind.

References

Albertazzi, Liliana, Introduzione a Brentano, Rome-Bari: Editori Laterza, 1999.

——, Immanent Realism: An Introduction to Brentano, Synthese Library, studies in Epistemology, Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science Vol. 333, Springer: Dordrecht, 2006.

Chrudzimski, Arkadiusz, Intentionalitätstheorie beim frühen Brentano, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001.

Rancurello, Antos, A Study of Franz Brentano: His Psychological Standpoint and His Significance in the History of Psychology, New York: Academic Press, 1968.

Rollinger, Robin, Husserl’s Position in the School of Brentano. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1999.
Tegtmeier, Erwin. 1989. "Individuation, identity and sameness. A comparison of Aristotle and Brentano." Topoi Supplement no. 4:117-126.
———. 2018. "Epistemological realism and correspondence in Brentano." Paradigmi no. 1:21-30.

Abstract: "Brentano is to be credited with overcoming representationalism originating mainly from Descartes. He arrived at direct realism while giving up the correspondence theory of truth which is wrongly equated with epistemological realism. Crucial is Brentano's intentional relation specific to mental acts and relating directly to objects. Moreover, his view that mental acts have objects but no content is also relevant because it excludes that the content can play the role of representative of the object. Brentano not only dropped the correspondence theory of truth, he throws out truth altogether and substitutes it with evidence. This is in line with direct realism which focusses on the object."
Terrell, Dailey Burnham. 1966. "Brentano's Argument for Reismus." Revue Internationale de Philosophie no. 20:446-459.

Reprinted with revisions in: Linda McAlister, The Philosophy of Brentano, pp. 204-212.

"Various sorts of considerations can be advanced in support of such a doctrine as reism. Since it is intended to exclude from the world and from our thought certain alleged entities,(3) Ockham's razor (or the principle of Denkökonomie, as German idiom puts it) can be called upon directly. But the razor is never by itself sufficient. It can cut only what has been shown to be unnecessary. This is the typical role of Sprachkritik in Brentano’s later philosophy. Even though language appears to contain names that designate all sorts of irreal objects, we can show by linguistic analysis that our thought can afford to do without them. All such references can be eliminated by translation into a language containing only the names of realia, i.e. persons and physical things.

Brentano also attempts to support reism by arguments independent of either Ockham’s razor or linguistic analysis. Most of them are indirect arguments in which an absurdity or an infinite regress is shown to be implied by the assertion of an irreal entity of some sort. There is only one general and direct argument for reism, as Reinhard Kamitz acknowledges in his painstaking study of Brentano’s attempts to establish his position.(4)

Professor Mayer-Hillebrand also gives priority to the same argument on which Dr Kamitz places such emphasis, the proof from the univocal significance of vorstellen.(5) Both Professor Mayer-Hillebrand and Dr Kamitz attribute to me certain objections to this argument.(6) In the remainder of this article I shall expand upon these objections and explore some of the features of Brentano’s theory which are brought to our attention by them." (p. 205 of the reprint)

(3) Brentano, unlike Kotarbinski, who coined the expression Reismus, was never a physicalist Both persons and physical things are realia. Excluded are objects of thought as such (e.g. Lockean ideas), abstractions formed by hypostasising adjectives, the existence or the possibility of anything, and so on. For brief accounts of the distinction between realia and irrealia, see Professor Mayer-Hillebrand’s Introduction to Die Abkehr vom Nichtrealen (pp. 92ff) and Professor Chisholm’s Introduction to The True and the Evident (pp. vii-viii).

(4) Part II of Franz Brentano’s Lehre vom Wahren Urteil. Dissertation (Innsbruck, 1961).

(5) Abkehr, p. 37: Unter den Argumenten gegen die Vorstellbarkeit nichtrealer Gegenstände überhaupt nimmt die erste Stelle das aus der Einheit des Begriffs des Bewusstseins geschöopfte ein.

6. Abkehr, pp. 399-400, note 69, and Franz Brentano’s Lehre vom Wahren Urteil, pp. 188-97.
———. 1976. "Franz Brentano's Logical Innovations." Midwest Studies in Philosophy no. 1:81-91.

"A comparison with the approach that was taken by Frege provides the spark.

Brentano’s devoted follower, Anton Marty of the German University in Prague, briefly commented on the relationship between the two in one of a series of articles published five years after the Begriffschrift had appeared.(10)" (p. 82)

(...)

"In Marty’s comparision between Brentano’s and Frege’s account of the nature of judgment, we come closer to the nerve of Brentano’s theory than Flint or Land did. Their attention was still fixed on the comparison with the traditional logic, i.e. the categorical forms and the rules of the syllogism. And is curiosity not somewhat enlivened by Marty’s claim that Brentano’s scheme represents a more thoroughgoing and fundamental innovation than Frege’s?

These are the points that emerge from Marty’s comments:

1. A sharp distinction must be drawn between the content or material of judgment, which is by itself neutral, and the judgmental function itself. This is the point of agreement between Brentano and Frege.

2. The content of a judgment may be simple, i.e. it need not be either a) a propositional content, as in Frege, nor b) a combination of ideas, as in the categorical forms and their existential equivalents. Furthermore even when the content is compound, the distinction between subject and predicate is of no logical significance.

3. The judgmental function may be either affirmative or negative, according to Brentano, whereas for Frege the assertion sign is sufficient and negation is assigned to the propositional content.

In sum. the basic description of a judgment within Brentano’s scheme is that it is an affirmation or denial of something; the something, what is affirmed or denied, may be but need not be a “combination of ideas.” (p. 83)

(10) Marty, Anton, Gesammelte Schriften, II, ed. Alfred Kastil (Halle, 1918), 56 ff. The article in which these comments occur originally appeared as the second of a series of articles under the general title “Uber subjektlose Sätze and das Verhältnis der Grammatik zu Logik and Philosophie;” published in Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie. The second article appeared in Volume 8 (1884).
———. 1978. "Quantification and Brentano's Logic." Grazer Philosophische Studien no. 5:45-66.

"Brentano's innovations in logical theory are considered in the context of his descriptive psychology, with its distinction between differences in quality and in object of mental phenomena. Objections are raised to interpretations that depend on a parallel between Urteil and assertion of a proposition. A more appropriate parallel is drawn between the assertion as subject to description in a metalanguage and the Urteil as secondary object in inner perception. This parallel is then applied so as to suggest a reinterpretation of substitutional quantification, rendering the substitutional interpretation immune to problems that often arise as to the relation between substitutional range and referential range."
———. 1983. "Brentano's philosophy of mind." In Contemporary Philosophy: A New survey - Vol. 4: Philosophy of Mind, edited by Fløistad, Guttorm, 223-247. The Hague: Nijhoff.

"Despite fluctuations of doctrine and style and the apparent fragmentation of the philosophical enterprise into discrete fields of specialization, topical or temporal boundaries within philosophy continue to be arbitrary. The purpose to be served by this volume establishes at least a rough definition of the period to be covered.

My report on Brentano's philosophy of mind will consider books and articles that have appeared in print during the years 1966 through 1978." (p. 223)

(...)

"So far as the philosophy of mind is concerned, Vol. III of the Psychology, titled Vom sinnlichen und noetischen Bewusstsein [5], is especially important. Its principal subject is the distinction between sensory and noetic consciousness. Most of the themes of Brentano's philosophy of mental phenomena are represented: inner and outer perception, perception and apperception, modes of presentation and perception, the theory of abstraction and the thesis that the intentional reference characteristic of all mental phenomena is always a general reference, varying in degree of generality, never reference to a specific individual." (p. 224)

Brentano, F. [5] Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt, Vol. III: Vom sinnlichen und noetischen Bewusstsein. Hamburg 1974. Revised edition with introduction by F. Mayer-Hillebrand.
Textor, Mark. 2006. "Brentano (and some neo-Brentanians) on inner consciousness." Dialectica no. 60:411-432.

Abstract: "Brentano's theory of inner consciousness has recently had a surprising comeback. However, it is still an open question how it is best understood. It is widely held that according to Brentano a mental act is conscious iff it is self-presenting. In contrast, I will argue that Brentano holds that a mental act x is conscious iff it is unified with an immediately evident cognition ('Erkenntnis') of x. If one understands Brentano's theory in this way, it promises to shed light on standard problems for theories of inner consciousness."
———. 2007. "Brentano on the Doxastic Nature of Perceptual Experience." History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis no. 10:137-156.

Abstract: "Brentano, the founder of phenomenology, argues in his manuscript “Von der Natur der Vorstellungen” [1903] that perception involves the belief in the object presented. The argument from revealed perceptual illusions argues that a perceptual experience can rationally persist even if one knows that it represents the world incorrectly, while the corresponding belief cannot rationally persist in this situation. For this reason, perceptual experiences cannot be beliefs or intrinsically connected to them. Brentano and Marty have responded to this argument by arguing that a revealed perceptual illusion involves manifestly contradictory beliefs. In this paper I will discuss whether Brentano’s controversial response can be defended and supported by independent reasons.."
———. 2013. "Brentano on the dual relation of the mental." Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences no. 12:465-483.

Abstract: "Brentano held that every mental phenomenon has an object and is conscious (the dual relation thesis). The dual relation thesis faces a number of wellknown problems. The paper explores how Brentano tried to overcome these problems.

In considering Brentano's responses, the paper sheds light on Brentano's theory of judgement that underpins his philosophy of mind."
———. 2013. "Unity Without Self: Brentano on the Unity of Consciousness." In Themes from Brentano, edited by Fisette, Denis and Fréchette, Guillaume, 67-86. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

"Brentano’s marks of the mental have been received differently. The thesis that intentionality is the mark of the mental was and still is central to discussions in the philosophy of mind. By contrast, the view that only mental phenomena are real and that we are infallible about them has not had many supporters. Finally, Brentano’s thesis that a particular kind of unity is a mark of the mental has been neglected in discussions. In this paper I will expound and assess Brentano’s view that mental phenomena exhibit a distinctive kind of unity. Brentano attempts to explain the unity of consciousness without assuming the existence of an owner of mental phenomena, that is a soul, self or mental substance.(4) What does the unity of consciousness consist in if it does consist in the fact that one and the same self has the mental phenomena? After outlining the Humean background of this question I will develop and assess Brentano’s answer." (p. 69)

(4) Brentano will later change his view and acknowledge the existence of a mental substance. See his manuscript ‘Von der Seele’. In this paper I am only concerned with the position articulated in his Psychologie.
———. 2017. Brentano's Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.

"0.3 Aim of the Book

The primary aim of this book is not historical. I will engage with two philosophical questions-'What is the nature of mind?' and 'What is the structure of consciousness'-through Brentano's work. My interest is not so much to find a plausible reading of Brentano's often dense and difficult texts, but to evaluate the arguments and views that can be distilled from them for truth. I will argue that Brentano gave a defensible and illuminating answer to the second question, while his answer to the first question is in interesting ways wrong. Intentionality is not the mark of the mental. I will argue that Brentano's student Husserl succeeded where Brentano failed: he developed a mark of the mental.

My overall goal is to bring out something true and philosophically illuminating in Brentano's thinking about the mind, in a historically informed way. I don't aim to capture and defend every detail of his philosophy of mind or reconstruct the historical development of his views. I will set aside those aspects of Brentano's thought that don't contribute to a viable philosophical view. The philosophical view that will emerge in this book will, I hope, preserve the spirit and often enough the letter of Brentano's work." (pp. 6-7)
———. 2017. "Towards a Neo-Brentanian Theory of Existence." Philosophers' Imprint no. 17:1-20.

"In analytic philosophy the concept of existence has been approached by investigating the logical grammar of ‘exists’ and its synonyms.

Grammatically, ‘exists’ seems to be a first-order predicate that is true of objects. It occurs in predicate position in subject-predicate sentences such as ‘Pluto (the planet) exists’ and in quantified sentences such as ‘No tame tigers exist.’" (p. 1, a note omitted)

(...)

"Only if we illegitimately assume that the sense of ‘self-identical’ has been independently fixed can we hold on to the view that the sense of ‘self-identical’ and ‘exists’ are different. According to the satisfaction clause, ‘exists’ and ‘is self-identical’ have the same sense.(...).

This is a serious drawback. For intuitively the senses are different. I can have reason to think that A might not have existed. I can have no reason to think that A might not have been identical with itself.

This leaves the proponent of the first-order view with the task of removing “philosophical perplexity” about the concept expressed by ‘exists’. Its sense cannot be articulated in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. Yet it is desirable to articulate it in some way in order distinguish the sense of ‘exists’ from the sense of other universal first-order predicates. I will tackle this task in this paper by drawing on Franz Brentano’s work.(16) Brentano aims to shed light on the concept of existence by appealing to a non-propositional attitude and when it is right to have it. In this paper I will defend the core of Brentano’s approach to existence, but criticise his implementation of it. The proposed Neo-Brentanian view agrees with Brentano that the attitude of acknowledgement grounds our mastery of the sense expressed by ‘exists’.

It disagrees with Brentano in that it does not give an analytic definition of existence in terms of correct acknowledgement."

(16) Schlick 1925, 39–41, and Stumpf 1939, 81–2, are early critical discussions of Brentano’s theory of existential judgement. However, Schlick seems to throw out the baby with the bathwater: while Brentano’s theory may not be a general theory of judgement, it may nonetheless be a promising theory of a particular kind of judgement. Schlick’s criticism, it seems to me, has informed the reception and rejection of Brentano’s ideas in analytic philosophy. The analytic literature on Brentano on existence is therefore sparse. An exception is Prior 1976, 111ff. Vallicella 2001 focuses on Brentano’s treatment of existence, and Kriegel 2015 on the attitude of acknowledgement. Brandl 2002, section 5, gives a helpful overview of Brentano’s view of judgement and its connection with existence. I will discuss Vallicella and Kriegel’s contributions briefly in section 4.

References

Brandl, J. 2002. Brentano’s Theory of Judgement. Online: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Kriegel, U. 2015. How to Speak of Existence: A Brentanian Approach to (Linguistic and Mental) Ontological Commitment. Grazer Philosophische Studien 91, 81–106.

Prior, A.N. 1976. The Doctrine of Propositions and Terms. London: Duckworth.

Schlick, M. 1925. Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre. Second edition. Berlin: Julius Springer.

Stumpf, C. 1939. Erkenntnislehre. Reprint Lengerich: Pabst Science Publishers 2011.

Vallicella, W.F. 2001. Brentano on Existence. History of Philosophy Quarterly 18, 311–27.
———. 2017. "From Mental Holism to the Soul and Back." The Monist no. 100:133-154.

Abstract: "In his Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt Brentano proposed a view of consciousness that neither has room nor need for a subject of mental acts, a soul. Later he changed his mind: there is a soul that appears in consciousness. In this paper I will argue that Brentano’s change of view is not justiﬁed. The subjectless view of consciousness can be defended against Brentano’s argument and it is superior to its predecessor."
———. 2017. "Brentano on Consciousness." In The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School, edited by Kriegel, Uriah, 49-60. New York: Routledge.

"Consider a perceptual activity such as seeing a colour, hearing a tone, tasting a flavour.

How are these activities related to one’s awareness of them? I will use Brentano’s struggle with this question to guide the reader through the development of his view on consciousness.

My starting point will be Brentano’s book Die Psychologie des Aristoteles (Brentano 1867), in which he developed an inner sense view of consciousness (§§1–2). Brentano’s early view is underexplored in the literature but is crucial for understanding the development of his thought on the matter. In his major work Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkt (1874), he rejected the existence of an inner sense: the exercises of our five senses yield awareness of the world (or at least of intentional objects) as well as awareness of these perceptions. This same-level view of consciousness has been explored and developed by contemporary philosophers of mind. I will discuss the arguments that moved Brentano to change his mind, outline the view, and, finally, respond to Husserl’s influential criticism of Brentano’s view (§§3–5)."
———. 2018. "Newton’s Intellectual Joy. Or A New Look at Brentano on Intellectual and Sensory Pleasure." Brentano Studien no. 16:277-304.

Abstract: "The paper gives a reconstruction of Brentano‘s distinction between intellectual and sensory pleasures. I will argue that for Brentano a sensory pleasure is a non-propositional liking of a sensory and an intellectual pleasure a non-propositional liking of an intellectual actitvity. In addition, these likings are only conceptual distinct from the activity liked. Sensory pleasures are supposed to be fundamentally different from intellectual ones in that the fromer have, while the later lack intensity. I will deal with a philosophical and exegetical problem that arises from this distinction and use it to shed light on Chisholm‘s reading of Brentano‘s remarks on intellectual pleasure. The so-called 'Brentano-Chisholm view of Pleasure‘ has it that intellectual pleasure is, roughly, a propositional attitude of being pleased that p which causes sensory 'pleasure. I use my reconstruction of Brentano‘s view to argue that the 'Brentano-Chisholm-line'‘ is not Brentano‘s and that Brentano even theorized about a different phenomenon."
———. 2019. "How a Statement Has Meaning by Expressing a Judgement—Brentano Versus Marty on Utterance Meaning." In Anton Marty and Contemporary Philosophy, edited by Bacigalupo, Giuliano and Leblanc, Hélène, 33-57. Cham (Switzerland): Palgrave Macmillan.

"In this paper, I will focus on the second commitment of intentionalist semantics: meaning facts supervene on facts about someone doing something with a communicative intention. My aim is to explore an alternative view of meaning according to which not speaker, but utterance meaning is the basic notion of a theory of meaning. The alternative is suggested in the work of Marty’s philosophical teacher Franz Brentano (1838–1917). In his lectures on logic, Brentano took some utterances to have meaning in the relevant sense of ‘meaning’ independently of whether they are made in order to influence the thought of others. Brentano therefore prioritized utterance meaning over speaker meaning: the primary source of meaning is not a speaker meaning something by doing something, but what she does has meaning.

Brentano’s proposal constitutes a welcome alternative to meaning intentionalism, and I will argue that it solves a number of problems that plague the intentionalist view of Marty and Grice. Hence, while Brentano seems to endorse later elements of meaning intentionalism in unpublished work, he shouldn’t have.(4)

I will start with some scene setting (Sect. 2) and then argue that non-communicative utterances pose a problem for the meaning intentionalism of Marty and Grice (Sect. 3). I will use the problem to expound Brentano’s theory of meaning and argue that it has the potential to solve the problem of non-communicative utterances (Sect. 4). However, the Brentano’s view faces a different problem (Sect. 5). The remainder of the paper (Sects. 6–11) is devoted to answering the problem and thereby to show that Brentano’s original idea can be defended and developed to yield an insight into speaker meaning." (p. 35)

(4) In unpublished manuscripts, Brentano endorsed also an intentional view of utterance, see his MS (‘Die Sprache’ Sp 4d).
———. 2019. "Correctness first: Brentano on judgment and truth." In The Act and Object of Judgment: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives, edited by Ball, Brian Andrew and Schuringa, Christoph, 129-150. New York: Routledge.

"1. Introduction

Truth is one of our most central concepts. Many philosophers tried to get clear about truth by giving defi nitions of this concept that decompose it into its marks. Franz Brentano took this approach to be of limited value. According to him, the primary question about any concept is how we acquire it, not how to define it. He argued that the concept of truth is derived from our awareness of correct judging, where correctness is a notion prior to truth. Truth stands to judgment as goodness to love: x is good if, and only if, x is correctly loved; x is true if, and only if, x is correctly judged. In current philosophy, Brentano’s correctness is often called ‘fittingness’. (1) In this terminology, Brentano proposed that fittingness is the primitive notion that allows us to understand value in general and truth in particular. In this paper, I will use an objection made by Moore to develop and defend Brentano’s story of how we come to acquire the concept of correctness. In particular, I will argue that we need to revise our conception of self-evident judgment if we want to be a fittingness-first theorist like Brentano." (p. 129)
———. 2019. "Brentano's Empiricism and the Philosophy of Intentionality." Philosophy and Phenomenological Research no. 98:50-68.

Abstract: Brentano’s Thesis that intentionality is the mark of the mental is central to analytic philosophy of mind as well as phenomenology. The contemporary discussion assumes that it is a formulation of an analytic definition of the mental. I argue that this assumption is mistaken. According to Brentano, many philosophical concepts can only be elucidated by perceiving their instances because these concepts are abstracted from perception. The concept of the mental is one of these concepts. We need to understand Brentano’s Thesis accordingly: It is a piece of advice on how to become introspectively aware of the distinctive feature of mental phenomena. On this understanding of Brentano’s Thesis standard objections to it no longer arise."
Thomasson, Amie. 2000. "After Brentano: a one-level theory of consciousness." European Journal of Philosophy no. 8:190-209.

"I will argue that the presence of an early one-level theory in Brentano’s work is not merely of historical interest, for it can show the way to develop an alternative one-level view of consciousness. Although certain modifications from his original view are required, I will argue that a phenomenologically sensitive one-level view developed along the lines he suggests can provide a better analysis of what consciousness consists in, and what distinguishes conscious from unconscious states, than either higher-order or current one-level representational views of consciousness." (p. 190)
Tomasi, Pietro. 2007. "The unpublished "History of Philosophy" (1866-1867) by Franz Brentano." Axiomathes no. 17:99-108.

"There are many difficulties with the existing interpretation of Brentano's works. The problem stems from the fact that Brentano's works, letters, manuscripts, memoirs, etc. remain unpublished or undiscovered. Moreover some Brentano's scholars, namely Kastil and Mayer-Hillebrandt, were incorrect in their method in publishing the philosopher's works. Namely, they misinterpreted his earlier works by incorporating numerous interpolations from different time periods as being the philosopher's final thoughts. More importantly, as evidenced by Antonio Russo's recent discovery (*), they also failed to realise the fact that Brentano's own theoretical views or works were mostly based on Aristotle and Thomas thoughts on metaphysics, that Brentano's main intention was to develop a scientific demonstration on this topic, and that this issue occupied his mind until his death.

It is hoped that this paper goes some way in resolving the said errors and coupled with the continue discovery of new material that the jigsaw of Brentano's works and thinking shall someday be correctly completed."

(*) [See: Russo Antonio (2003)]
Torrijos-Castrillejo, David. 2020. "The early Brentano and Plato’s God." Brentano Studien no. 17:137-156.

Abstract: "The interest of the young Brentano for the philosophy of Plato is linked to his Aristotelian studies. Brentano understands Aristotle’s philosophy in deep continuity with Plato’s one. This continuity is clear in one of the most controversial points of Brentano’s interpretation of Aristotle: the nature of God and the status of human soul. Brentano finds in both Plato and Aristotle a personal, monotheistic and creationistic God who also creates human soul, which is immortal. This approach is explained in some texts from the youth of Brentano, although there are signs indicating that he sustained it until the end of his life. In his interpretation of Plato’s God, we see that Brentano identifies Him with the Idea of Good and the Demiurge. The Idea of Good would have even created the other Platonic Ideas, which should be understood as gods."
Tucker, Miles. 2020. "Moore, Brentano, and Scanlon: a defense of indefinability." Philosophical Studies no. 177:2261-2276.

Abstract: "Mooreans claim that intrinsic goodness is a conceptual primitive. Fitting-attitude theorists object: they say that goodness should be defined in terms of what it is fitting for us to value. The Moorean view is often considered a relic; the fitting-attitude view is increasingly popular. I think this unfortunate. Though the fitting-attitude analysis is powerful, the Moorean view is still attractive. I dedicate myself to the influential arguments marshaled against Moore's program, including those advanced by Scanlon, Stratton-Lake and Hooker, and Jacobson; I argue that they do not succeed."
Twardowski, Kazimierz. 1999. "Franz Brentano and the History of Philosophy." In On actions, Products and Other Topics in Philosophy, edited by Brandl, Johannes and Wolenski, Jan, 243-253. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Translation by Arthur Szylewicz of a review of F. Brentano, Die vier Phasen der Philosophie und ihr augenblicklicher Stand (1895) published in: Przelom, 11 (II) August 3 1895, Vienna, pp. 335-346.

"By defending Brentano' s views in this fashion, I by no means wish to claim that his "four phases" are the last word in the historiosophy of philosophy. I am convinced that even these sorts of investigations advance only gradually, and cannot be made complete and perfect all at once. We should also remember that from a different vantage point, say, one which takes into account the relation of philosophy to religion, other historiosophical laws can be formulated, as Professor Straszewski has done in the work cited in our introduction. It seems to me, however, that as far as philosophy itself is concerned, rather than its relation to other realms in the intellectual evolution of mankind, the philosophy of the history of philosophy that Brentano offers may, for the time being, pass for the relatively best solution to the problems that are mounting in this growing field." (p. 250 of the reprint)

References

M. Straszewski, Dzieje filozofii w zarysie, vol. I [Outline of the History of Philosophy], Kraków: Ksiegarska Spólka Wydawnicza Polska, 1912, p. 67 n.
Valentine, Elizabeth. 2003. "The relation of Brentano to British philosophy." Brentano Studien no. 10:263-268.

"Brentano's work has had its greatest influence in Austria, Germany, Poland and Italy, but its importance for an understanding of British analytical philosophy is increasingly being recognised.

Brentano visited England in 1872, meeting with Herbert Spencer amongst others; he had a preference for British philosophy, regarding Kant and Hegel as the height of decadence. Despite this, English editions of his work were slow to appear. For a long time the only work to be translated into English was Our knowledge of right and wrong (1902). The first English edition of Psychology from an empirical standpoint did not appear until 1973. A new edition has recently been prepared (1995).

It could be argued that Brentano's work set the agenda for much twentieth century British philosophy, with regard to method (analysis); topic (reference, intentionality and meaning); and, to some extent, doctrine (the shift from idealism to realism). A key figure in the mediation of thisinfluence was G.F. Stout." (p. 263)
Vallicella, William. 2001. "Brentano on Existence." History of Philosophy Quarterly no. 18:311-327.

"Franz Brentano is an important transitional figure in the history of philosophy. Although he was steeped in Aristotle and the scholastics, his deflationary linguistic approach to metaphysical questions anticipates twentieth-century analytic treatments.

Indeed, Gustav Bergmann calls him "the first linguistic philosopher."(1) A good example of Brentano's deflationism is his theory of existence, which in some ways anticipates the influential theories of Frege and Russell. My aim here is to present and evaluate Brentano's theory of existence. Although I will be arguing that it is fatally flawed, there is much to learn from it." (p. 311)
Vasyukov, Vladimir L. 1993. "Antidiodorean logics and the Brentano-Husserl's conception of time." Axiomathes no. 4:373-388.

Abstracty: "In [Vasyukov 1993] some systems of Legniewskian Ontology were introduced as a toolkit for Husserl's and Meinong's theory of objects. Here such consideration is extended to Brentano-Husserl's theory of time. So-called antidiodorean logics are used as the foundations of the approach undertaken."

References

[Vasyukov 1993] V.L. Vasyukov, "A Leśniewskian Guide to Husserl's and Meinong's Jungle", Axiomathes 1, 59-74.
Velarde-Mayol, Victor. 2002. On Brentano. Belmont: Wadsworth.

"Brentano is in the crossroads between the two major philosophical traditions in Western philosophy, namely, Continental and Analytic philosophy. He resurrected the notion of intentionality, which was pervasively used by both philosophical traditions with very different outcomes and applications. In Continental philosophy, phenomenology is a development of Brentano's ideas on intentionality, in such a way, that without this, phenomenology would be impossible. In Analytic philosophy, one of the few notions shared with Continental philosophy is precisely the intentional character of mental acts, but with different application and interpretation. Here, in this book, we will dedicate to Brentano's psychology more attention than to other topics, not only because of its historical influence but also because it plays an essential role in his whole philosophy.

There are some subjects that are missing here: aesthetics and the relations between philosophy and religion. The reason of this lack is only the constraints of space. A decision was made in favor of some topics over others that could illustrate better Brentano's philosophy." (p. 1)
Vendrell Ferran, Íngrid. 2020. "Brentano and the Birth of a New Paradigm in Philosophy of Emotion." In Franz Brentano's Philosophy after Hundred Years: From History of Philosophy to Reism, edited by Fisette, D., Frechette, Guillaume and Janoušek, Hynek. Cham (Switzerland): Springer.

Abstract: "This chapter argues that the view of the emotions put forward by Brentano, and the modifications and refinements of his claims undertaken by his followers, led to the birth of new paradigm in the philosophy of emotion. The paper is structured as follows. After the introduction, section 2 presents the context in which Brentano’s theory emerged. Section 3 is devoted to Brentano’s three main claims on the emotions, focusing on their intentionality, their dependency on cognitions, and their relation to values. Section 4 offers an overview of the main debates surrounding these claims among the authors belonging to Brentano’s school. Section 5 underlines the parallels between views on the emotions put forward by Brentano and his followers and similar claims defended in contemporary analytic philosophy."
Vinogradov, Evgeni G. 1998. "The Rationalistic Paradigm of Franz Brentano and Kazimierz Twardowski." In The Lvov-Warsaw School and Contemporary Philosophy, edited by Kijania-Placek, Katarzyna and Wolenski, Jan, 101-104. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

"In the philosophical heritage ofKazimierz Twardowski the comparatively small work 'Franz Brentano and the History of Philosophy' is probably not very important.

But the breath of a new day and new ideas make it available nowadays, a hundred years after its first publication in Vienna.(1) This work is a summary or a detailed review of Franz Brentano's paper 'The Four Phases of Philosophy and Its Contemporary Stage', in which the Brentanian historical-philosophical conception is put forward.(2)" (p. 101)

(1) K. Twardowski, 'Franciszek Brentano a historya filozofji' (Franz Brentano and the History of Philosophy), Przelom 1, No. 11, 1895, pp. 335--346. Our examination of Twardowski's work is based on B. Dombrowski's translation of K. Twardowski's Rozprawy i artykuly jilozojiczne (Philosophical Dissertations and Articles), Lvov, 1927.

(2) F. Brentano, 'Die vier Phasen der Philosophie und ihr augenblicklicher Stand', Verlag der J.G. Gotta'schen Buchhandlung, Stuttgart, 1895.
Volpi, Franco. 1989. "The experience of temporal objects and the constitution of time-consciousness by Brentano." Topoi Supplement no. 4:127-140.
Weingartner, Paul. 1978. "Brentano's Criticism of the Correspondence Theory of Truth and the Principle 'Ens et verum convertuntur'." Grazer Philosophische Studien no. 5:183-196.

"This paper investigates Brentano's criticism of the correspondence theory of truth within the context of a discussion of his ontological assumptions. Brentano's interpretation of the formula veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus and of the principle ens et verum convertuntur is shown to fit into the history of these principles and into modern interpretations like that of Tarski."
Werner, Sauer. 2017. "Brentano’s Reism." In The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School, edited by Kriegel, Uriah, 133-143. New York: Routledge.

"On January 7, 1903, Brentano wrote to Anton Marty that by now he thought it to be “impossible that factuality (Tatsächlichkeit) should belong to an irreale except in dependence on something real” as “concomitantly” occurring (Brentano 1966a: 106). For instance, when someone is thinking of a reale or thing (Ding) A, say the sun or a centaur, there exists concomitantly to the A-thinker (who is a thing) also an irreale, namely, a thought-of thing (Gedankending) which is the thought-of A (Brentano 1930: 31, 48).

Thus, when writing this letter, Brentano still held the view that the realm of beings comprises besides entia realia or things also entia irrealia.(1) But then on September 10, 1903, he tells Marty that now he “is making a new attempt to understand all entia rationis [i.e., irrealia] as fictions, viz., to deny that they are” (1966a: 108). So it was during the time between these two letters that there occurred what has been dubbed the “reistic turn” in Brentano’s ontological thinking.

In the following, we will, first, give a rough outline of the scope of the entia realia; second, what we may call Brentano’s master argument for reism will be discussed; and third, we will attempt to sketch a way out Brentano might have taken in the face of the difficulties inherent in his brand of reism." (p. 133)

(1) Albeit in a restricted way, since before he had acknowledged also irrealia that are entirely independent of realia: see Brentano 1930: 26.

References

Brentano, Franz (1930). Wahrheit und Evidenz. Leipzig: Felix Meiner.

Brentano, Franz (1966a). Die Abkehr vom Nichtrealen. Bern: Francke.
Willard, Dallas. 1998. "Who Needs Brentano? The Wasteland of Philosophy without its Past." In The Brentano Puzzle, edited by Poli, Roberto, 15-43. Aldershot: Ashgate.

"In the volume of studies which forms the immediate background for this conference,(1) we read of "the oblivion into which the figure and thought of Brentano have fallen," and of his current 'invisibility' (pp. xv, 9, etc.)· I believe Brentano to be someone of great philosophical value in his own right. But it seems to me that the state of affairs thus described with reference to Brentano is much greater than Brentano, and is of profound significance for the understanding of philosophy as a practice and a field of inquiry. Brentano's invisibility is chiefly a matter of what has come to be regarded as 'good philosophical work' in the course of the 20th Century. And this is especially true from the viewpoint of current North American Analytic philosophy, which I shall almost exclusively have in mind with my comments. If we are concerned about the fate of Brentano's thought, it is essential to deal with prevailing assumptions about how philosophy is done and when it is well done.

I think that similar points as I shall make here with reference to current Analytic philosophy in North America and Brentano could also be made with reference to, say, Hermeneutical philosophy from Heidegger on and Brentano, or to the various other forms of what, in the United States, tends to be called 'Post-Structuralism,' or sometimes 'Post-Modernism,' and Brentano. But I cannot cover all these areas, of course, and am most familiar with how 'Analytic' philosophy is now actually practiced in the United States. And it is philosophical practice that lies at the heart of my concerns." (p. 15)

(1) Albertazzi, L., Libardi, M. and Poli, R. (eds) (1996). The School of Franz Brentano, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
Wolenski, Jan. 1989. "Brentano's criticism of the correspondence conception of truth and Tarski's semantic theory." Topoi no. 8:105-110.

"This paper is a sequel to Simons and Wolenski [De Veritate: Austro-Polish contributions to the theory of truth from Brentano to Tarski, 1989], which contains a short discussion of Brentano's arguments against the theory of truth based on the concept of a correspondence between truth-bearers and reality (or its appropriate portions). In that paper we attempt to show that Tarski's conception successfully meets Brentano's objections. l Here I should like to extend as well as, in some points, improve what we said in Simons and Wolenski [1989]. There are several reasons for doing this. First, the renaissance of Brentano's own philosophy and Brentanism in general requires that his arguments deserve considerable attention. Secondly, Brentano's arguments against the correspondence theory of truth have become part of philosophical folklore.

Thirdly, Tarski's semantic truth-definition, despite the reservations raised by several authors, is often considered as a possible modern interpretation of the classical theory of truth. Fourth, Tarski's theory of truth is deeply rooted in the Brentanian theoretical tradition, independent of Tarski's own philosophical consciousness.

It is further interesting to see how, if at all, his definition of truth is affected by critical arguments of his philosophical great-grandfather (via Twardowski, Lukasiewicz, Lesniewski and Kotarbinski)." (notes omitted)
———. 1994. "Brentano, the Univocality of Thinking, 'Something', and 'Reism'." Brentano Studien no. 5:149-166.

"Brentano's argument for Reism from the univocality of 'thinking' is examined. Firstly, Brentano's original formulation is given. Secondly, comments on the argument made by Marty, Kamitz, Teller and Farias are summarized and briefly discussed. The univocality argument is then embedded into the frameworks of two logical systems: predicate calculus and Lesniewskian ontology; the latter system is shown as a more effective basis for reism than the former. Finally, it is argued that a distinction between formal-ontological reism and metaphysical reism should be made."
Woleński, Jan. 1996. "Reism in the Brentanist Tradition." In The School of Franz Brentano, edited by Albertazzi, Liliana, Libardi, Massimo and Poli, Roberto, 357-375. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

"The term 'reism' was introduced by Tadeusz Kotarbinski to denote the philosophical view that the category of things is the sole ontological category.(1)

Shortly after Elementy went in print, Kazimierz Twardowski pointed out in a letter to Kotarbinski, that a similar ontological theory has been elaborated by Franz Brentano in the last period of his life. In 1930, Kotarbinski delivered a lecture at 7th International Philosophical Congress in Oxford. After the congress, he received a letter from Georg Katkov with further information on Brentano's reism.(2)" (p. 357)

(...)

"The later course of Brentano's ontology may be seen as a constant departure from his early view.(7)

Brentano became a reist around 1904 but earlier he restricted the categories of irrealia which can be objects of presentations to four kinds, namely immanent objects, contents of mental acts Gudging, loving, hating), relations, and collectiva. Especially, he rejected universals (genera, differentiae specificae) as genuine objects." (p. 358)

(1) Kotarbinski 1929, 67. This letter was published in Kotarbinski's 1966. The termn 'reism' appears on p. 57 of the English edition.

(2) Kotarbinski mentions letters from Twardowski and Katkov in his 1930-1931. This paper contains a brief comparison of his views with those of Brentano. In Kotarbinski 1935 (his review of Kraus 1934) and in Kotarbinski 1976 one finds more comprehensive comparisons written by Kotarbiflski himself. See also Smith 1990, 170-174.

(7) Mayer-Hillebrand 1966, 1-99, 399-403 gives extensive treatment to Brentano's ontological development (page-numbers henceforth according to Meiner's edition, Hamburg 1977); see also Srzednicki 1965.

References

Brentano 1966a F. Brentano, Die Abkehr vom Nichtrealen, ed. by F. Mayer-Hillebrand, Bern, A. Francke Verlag.

Kotarbinski 1929 T. Kotarbinski, Elementy teorii poznania, logikiformalnej i metodologii nauk [Elements of the theory of knowledge, formal logic and the methodology of sciences], Lvov, Ossolineum. Eng!. trans!. in Kotarbinski 1966a.

Kotarbinski 1930-1931 T. Kotarbinski, "Uwagi na temat reismu" [Remarks on reism], Ruch Filozojiczny 12, 7-12.

Kotarbinski 1935 T. Kotarbinski, review of O. Kraus, Wege und Abwege der Philosophie, Przeglad Filozoficzny 38, 163-168.

Kotarbinski 1966a T. Kotarbinski, Gnosiology. The scientific approach to the theory of knowledge, tr. by O. Wojtasiewicz, Oxford / Wroclaw, Pergamon Press Ossolineum.

Kotarbinski 1966 T. Kotarbinski, "Franz Brentano as reist", in McAlister 1976, 194-203.

Mayer-Hillebrand 1966 F. Mayer-Hillebrand, "Einleitung der Herausgeberin", in Brentano 1966a, 1-99, 399-403 (pagination according to second edition, Hamburg,

McAlister 1976 L. McAlister (ed.), The philosophy of Franz Brentano, London, Duckworth.

Smith 1990 B. Smith, "On the phases of reism", in Woleński 1990a, 137-183.

Srzednicki 1965 J. Srzednicki, Franz Brentano's analysis of truth, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff.

Woleński 1990a J. Woleński (ed.), Kotarbinski: Logic, semantics and ontology, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.
Zahavi, Dan. 1998. "Brentano and Husserl on Self-Awareness." Études Phénoménologiques no. 27/28:127-168.

"Brentano now continues his analysis by turning to self-awareness, or as he calls it inner consciousness (inneres Bewußtsein). As we have just seen, Brentano takes consciousness to be characterized by a reference to an object, namely to the object that it is conscious of. But as he then points out, the term ‘conscious’, can be used in a twofold sense. On the one hand, we say of an act that it is conscious, insofar as it is aware of an object. On the other hand, we say of an object that it is conscious, insofar as one is aware of it. All psychical acts are characterized by their being conscious of something. The question is whether they are also conscious in the second sense, that is, whether one is also aware of them, or whether one must deny this and consequently admit the existence of unconscious psychical acts.(15)" (p. 5)

(15) Brentano 1874, pp.142-143.

References

Brentano, F.: Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt I (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1874/1973).
———. 2004. "Back to Brentano?" Journal of Consciousness Studies no. 11:66-87.

Abstract: "For a couple of decades, higher-order theories of consciousness have enjoyed great popularity, but they have recently been met with growing dissatisfaction. Many have started to look elsewhere for viable alternatives, and within the last few years, quite a few have rediscovered Brentano. In this paper such a (neo-)Brentanian one-level account of consciousness will be outlined and discussed. It will be argued that it can contribute important insights to our understanding of the relation between consciousness and self- awareness, but it will also be argued that the account remains beset with some problems, and that it will ultimately make more sense to take a closer look at Sartre, Husserl, and Heidegger, if one is on the lookout for promising alternatives to the higher-order theories, than to return all the way to Brentano."
Zelaniec, Wojciech. 1996. "Franz Brentano and the Principle of Individuation." Brentano Studien no. 6:145-164.

Abstract: "In this article I discuss a view on individuation exposed by Brentano in his Theory of Categories. According to this view, it is the spatial location of a physical thing that is its principle of individuation. I put forward hypotheses concerning the assumptions on the force of which Brentano might have arrived at this view. I also assess the `price' that has to be paid for making such assumptions."
———. 1997. "Disentangling Brentano: why did he get individuation wrong?" Brentano Studien no. 7:455-463.
Zimmer, Alf. 1998. "On Agents and Objects: Some Remarks on Brentanian Perception." In The Brentano Puzzle, edited by Poli, Roberto, 93-112. Aldershot: Ashgate.

"Introduction: the 'invisibility' of Brentano in modern psychology

From my point of view, the Brentano puzzle (Albertazzi, Libardi and Poli, 1996) has two aspects: (i) The quantitative Zeitgeist of psychological science during the second part of the nineteenth century was incompatible with Brentano's genuinely qualitative approach and (ii) the open-mindedness of modem psychology for qualitative analysis can not refer to Brentano because the mental avenue to his Psychology from an empirical point of view is blocked by Husserl's reinterpretation and his rebuttal of psychologism. While the latter part of the puzzle has been analyzed in detail, the first aspect remains unaddressed because the exclusively quantitative orientation of psychological science at the end of the last century appears alien in the light of today's psychology where the most stringent tools of experimentation and mathematics are used to build formal models of qualitative change (see Kruse and Stadler, 1995)." (p. 93)

References

Albertazzi, L., Libardi, Μ. and Poli, R. (1996). introduction. Brentano and His School: Reassembling the Puzzle, in L. Albertazzi, Μ. Libardi and R. Poli (eds), The School of Franz Brentano, Kluwer, Amsterdam, pp. 1-23.

Kruse, P. and Stadler, Μ. (1995). Ambiguity' in Mind and Nature, Springer, Berlin.
Zimmerman, Dean W. 1996. "Indivisible Parts and Extended Objects: Some Philosophical Episodes from Topology’s Prehistory." The Monist no. 79:148-180.

"Brentano and Whitehead - last heroes of the old debate. There are, broadly speaking, three doctrines about physical boundaries to be found in the medieval and modern debate; I shall call them "indivisibilism", "moderate indivisibilism", and "anti-indivisibilism". In section II I describe these views, and mention some of their better-known proponents. Then indivisibilism, moderate indivisibilism, and anti-indivisibilism each receives a section of its own. Although this paper will not pretend to offer a decisive answer to the question which of these three (if any) is in fact correct, it is intended to serve as a sort of historical propaedeutic to the consideration of this question. Along the way, I shall try to show that the most promising version of moderate indivisibilism was being developed by Franz Brentano at the same time Alfred North Whitehead was providing mortar to fill the holes remaining in earlier versions of anti-indivisibilism. Whitehead's contribution to anti-indivisibilism is his famous method of extensive abstraction, first developed in a series of papers written between 1914 and 1917. Curiously enough, these were the very years during which Brentano - near the end of his life and by then completely blind - dictated his works on boundaries and continua. Brentano admits physical points, lines, and surfaces as real parts of extended bodies; and, just as Whitehead's work advances the anti-indivisibilist cause, Brentano's is a step forward for moderate indivisibilism. Brentano's work on boundaries trickled out ever so slowly, the lion's share remaining unpublished until 1976. Furthermore, although Whitehead discussed the philosophical problems about boundaries in his first exposition of the method of extensive abstraction, he did not realize that the method contributed to their resolution; and his better known later works omit discussion of these problems altogether. For these reasons, the continuity between the older debate and the contributions of Whitehead and Brentano is easy to miss." (pp. 149-150, notes omitted)

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