Franz Brentano_The True and the Evident.pdf

Notes 103
single characteristic. Mental and physical things, indeed n-dimensional things, can be subsumed
under the concept of “thing”, or “entity”; but what characteristics could a physical thing or a mental
thing have in common with the “impossibility of a round square” or a “past pleasure”? These are
not to be subsumed under one concept. Otherwise the word “entity” would be equivocal, sometimes
referring to things and sometimes to non-things. The question is discussed in Part IV.
16 The defect in these detailed arguments consists in the following: Brentano proceeds from the
concept of correct (richtig) or fitting (as he had done in Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis, Section
22), instead of proceeding from the concept of the evident or insightful (einsichtigen) judgement;
but the concept of the correct can be acquired only by an appeal to a judgement which is seen to
be correct, or seen to be evident. Brentano had always held, however, that we can give an account
of correct and incorrect only by reflecting on the evident judgement (or, in the emotive sphere, by
reflecting on emotions which are, analogously, correct or right, and incorrect or wrong). In Vom
Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis, all reference to “true and false”, “right and wrong”, is reduced to
judging that is seen to be correct and to loving or hating that is seen to be correct.
Elements of different theories are lined up here in a somewhat disorderly manner. An older conception
which derives from Aristotle connects the correct with the convenient or with the fitting,
and a later, more progressive theory reduces the correct to the evident, to that which is insightful.
We must stay with this later doctrine. For it alone sheds light on the question: What is truth?
17 It is clear that Brentano was here trying to improve upon Aristotle’s definition of truth—to
transform it without completely abandoning it. But this half-way measure is astonishing in view
of the fact that, even then, Brentano based the theory of knowledge upon the concept of evident
judgement, just as he based the theory of value upon that of correct emotion.
18 We say of a judgement that it fits, corresponds to, or harmonizes with its object provided that the
judgement is true; and we say of a judgement that it is true provided that the judgement is evident,
or that we believe that it corresponds to an evident judgement with respect to its quality, or that
we believe that an evident judgement that is concerned with the same object could not possibly
be of a different quality. This is the consequence of Brentano’s later doctrine which emerges more
and more clearly in the essays that follow, and which we must defend against the older doctrine
that was advanced in the lecture on truth. Two judgements are said to correspond qualitatively (or
formally) if both are affirmative, or both are negative, and if they have the same temporal mode.
19 What holds of evident judgement also holds of correct emotion. Any discussion of correct
or right in the sphere of emotive phenomena derives its meaning from evident judgement. We
call an emotion suitable to its object, or fitting to its object, if it is seen to be correct, or if we
believe that no emotion that is seen to be correct and that is directed upon the same object could
possibly have a different quality. In saying of something that it is “good” we mean that no attitude
towards the object other than love, or positive evaluation, could possibly be seen to be correct.
“Good” is a syncategorematic word, like “being” and “non-being”. Compare the Introduction
and the Notes to the new edition of Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis (3rd edn, Leipzig 1934);
see also Brentano’s Psychologie, Vol. II, as well as the later essays in the present volume.
Hence the complete opposite of what is said in the text is true. It is not that the correctness of loving
and hating depends upon whether or not we love the good or hate the bad; the truth of the matter is
just the other way round. And to say that our emotion fits or corresponds to the object again, is only
to say, that the emotion is right or correct. The basic point is that the emotion is seen to be correct. We
say of an object that it is good or bad if it fits an emotion which is right—a correct emotion. One does
not first recognize the value and then recognize the emotion as correct; it is, again, the converse that
is true. What we call a value or a good is whatever may be the object of a correct emotion; we know
that any qualitatively (formally) different emotion directed upon such an object is one that cannot
possibly be correct. This was Brentano’s later view.