Franz Brentano_The True and the Evident.pdf

Introduction xvii
5. The basis of epistemology is the theory of the evident—the insightful judgement, the
judgement which is justified in itself and which constitutes knowing. This is the topic of
the final dictations in Part Four. I shall anticipate two of the more frequent objections and
misunderstandings.
It has been argued that, since one can be mistaken about what is evident, an epistemology
or theory of knowledge which is based upon the concept of the evident is impossible. But
from the fact that we are capable of insightful judgements—judgements which are seen to
be correct—it does not follow that every erroneous or incorrect judgement is seen to be
erroneous or incorrect!
It has also been noted that we sometimes fail to recognize insightful judgements as
such and that we sometimes mistake erroneous judgements for those that are insightful.
But this very argument presupposes that there is a distinction between the two types of
judgement and indeed that we are able to make the distinction. For if we did not know, with
respect to some judgements, that they are insightful, and with respect to others, that they
are erroneous, how could we know that the one type of judgement is sometimes mistaken
for the other? The fact that we are able to tell that some judgements are insightful and some
are not assures us that we are able to guard against such mistakes, or to correct them.
Brentano has shown, repeatedly and in detail, that it is “an absurd undertaking to try to
use reasoning to guarantee the evidence of what is self-evident”.* He has been reproached
for “never having considered the problem of the logical presuppositions of his so-called
a priori evident judgements”. If he is guilty of this charge, at least he may be said to have
asked why anyone should suppose that there is such a problem. Presumably these mysterious
“logical presuppositions” are themselves known. What is the nature of this knowledge,
then? Does this knowledge also have “logical presuppositions”, or is it ultimate—that is to
say, directly evident and justified in itself? Surely one is not blind to the fact that either (i)
we should give up all talk about knowledge, or (ii) we may reason in a vicious circle, or
(iii) we must admit that there is ultimate knowledge—i.e., that there are judgements which
are self-evident and justified in themselves. If there is anyone who doesn’t see this, then, as
Aristotle put it, we can only leave him behind.
But our theory of the evident is not to be held responsible for the transformation it
has undergone in Husserl’s Ideen (with its “adequate” and “inadequate” evidence and its
“perceptual explosion”); nor is it compatible with Meinong’s “evident surmises”.
6. Kant’s “Copernican revolution” contains a faint suggestion of the truth, as I have
indicated elsewhere.* But Kant did not overthrow the correspondence theory. He shifted
the system of coordinates from the object to the subject: our knowledge is not a function
of the things; the things—to the extent that they are our phenomena—are a function of our
knowledge. Using the terminology of practical reason, we could say that Kant transforms our
knowledge from something heteronymous to something autonomous. But the correct point
* Franz Brentano, Versuch über die Erkenntnis, edited by Alfred Kastil (Felix Meiner, Leipzig
1925).
* O.Kraus, “Die ‘kopernikanische Wendung’ in Brentanos Erkenntnis- und Wertlehre”,
Philosophische Hefte, Vol. I, No. 3 (Berlin 1929).