Franz Brentano_The True and the Evident.pdf

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112 Notes 15 “Meaning” is here to be taken in its widest sense, as “use” or “function”, and thus pertains, not only to what has meaning in the strict sense, but also to that which is merely synsemantic. 16 This paragraph shows that, at the time it was written, Brentano had not completely abandoned the correspondence theory. The question raised here—“Is ‘existent’ a logical name?”—is answered negatively in the following paragraph. 17 What Brentano here says about the distinction between “There is an A” and “A is existent” is not in accord with his later thought. Any distinction between “There is an A” and “A is existent” would come to this: the latter expression emphasizes one’s conviction that the acceptance or affirmation of A is correct. 18 In other words: “If there is an A then there is a B” cannot be rendered as “The being of A does not exist without the being of B”. For “being” is only a synsemantic word and not a genuine name. The expression “does not exist” has one function in “The being of A does not exist”, and quite a different function in “The devil does not exist”; in the latter case, it is used with a genuine name. The true function of these synsemantica is indicated in paragraphs 30 and 31 of this essay. 19 This little essay is more advanced than the previous one of the year 1904. 20 “The Good”, “the Beautiful”, and “the True”, are here treated as denominationes mere extrinsecae. They are synsemantic expressions which appear to state something about the grammatical subject with which they are conjoined. “Knowledge is good”, for example, tells us this: it is impossible at one and the same time to value knowledge correctly and not to value it positively (where “to value positively” means to love). On the predicate “true”, see the Introduction and the discussion that follows. 21 For example, the spatial falls under these determinations: the extended, the three-dimensional, the shaped, the temporal. It is impossible to conceive a spatial thing lacking such determinations. 22 The essential determination “the spatial” overlaps with the essential determination “the temporal”; “extended” overlaps with “shaped”. In other words, there are several lines or series of predications. 23 “The thinker” is accidental with respect to “the soul”, just as “the qualitative” is accidental with respect to “the spatial”; for the soul can cease to think, and the spatial can cease to be qualitative. 24 Brentano believed that the evident, for example, inheres (inhäriert) in the judgement, just as the judgement, in turn, inheres in the thought or idea (Vorstellung), and the thought or idea in the soul. In other words: the soul underlies the thinking; the thinking underlies the judging; and the judging underlies the evident. The soul is the substratum of consciousness, the spatial the substratum of qualities. 25 If the form or shape disappears or changes, the spatial object disappears or changes, and conversely. 26 The accident (the property, the quality) may be lost while the substance continues to exist; but the converse is impossible. 27 A collective and a continuum are wholes of which one part can continue to exist while others cease to exist. 28 Thus one who observes a continuous multiplicity of things might be called a continuously multifarious observer. For further details, see the Psychologie, Vol. III, pp. 81 ff. This little essay is a theory of categories in nuce; it is included here especially because of paragraphs 3 to 5. The theory of categories itself is taken up in a separate volume: Franz Brentano, Kategorienlehre (Leipzig 1933), ed. Alfred Kastil. PART THREE (References 1 to 47) 1 This first letter is intended only to clear up a few deep-rooted errors about the theory of the “immanent object”, and, in particular, certain misunderstandings propagated by some of Brentano’s pupils. In thinking, I always have something as the object of my thinking, or as the content of my thinking; but whether or not there is such an object is something else again. Following old lectures of Brentano, some have made a threefold distinction, between the act, or intentional relation, the content, or immanent object, and thirdly, the object itself. But this threefold distinction cannot be
Notes 113 made phenomenognostically—phenomenologically—with reference to the act of thinking. For the distinction brings up the question whether the thing that I am thinking about exists or not. And this question can be answered only by considering the acts of judgement which pertain to the thing I am thinking about. When our concern is only with thinking, then we should not take acts of judgement into account. 2 The report on the Fifth International Psychological Congress (Rome 1905) contained many typographical errors, and Brentano’s lecture Von der psychologischen Analyse der Tonqualitäten had been rather badly garbled. This lecture contains Brentano’s “Zweikomponentenlehre” which he had formulated long before Revesz. For further details, see Brentano’s Untersuchungen zur Sinnespsychologie (Leipzig 1907), and Vom sinnlichen und noetischen Bewusstsein (Vol. III of the Psychologie), Part I. 3 The nature of Höfler’s remarks, against which Brentano’s polemic is directed, may be gathered from the wording of the letter. Evidently he had attributed the following theory to Brentano: that someone who thinks of A has, as his object or content, “the A which is thought about”, where “object” and “content” are used synonymously. Compare my edition of the Psychologie, particularly Vol. I, where Brentano emphasizes (e.g., p. 172) that hearing has a content, or object, different from the hearing itself—namely, the sound and not the heard sound. But there are passages in the Psychologie which might be misunderstood (e.g., Vol. I, pp. 31 and 177). It is certain, however, that Brentano always held that we hear the tone and not the heard tone, we believe in God and not in the believed-in God, we deny God and not the denied God. But he had held earlier that there is a certain correlation between the intentional relation and the object of this relation. (See the Introduction to Vol. I of the Psychologie.) In Höfler’s Congress lecture (Atti, Rome, 1906, p. 327) we also find Brentano criticized for using “content” and “intentional object” synonymously. Of course this is a matter only of terminology. But to avoid ambiguity, it is preferable not to speak of “content” in connection with judgements, where it is customary to say of two judgements, having the same object, that they may differ in content, depending upon whether they are affirmative or negative, assertoric or apodictic. Marty spoke of the contents of judgements in a wholly different sense, using the term synonymously with “state of affairs” (Sachverhalt) or “objective” (Meinong). There is no terminological agreement whatever in this area. Unfortunate as this may be, no respectable psychologist or epistemologist who uses the expression “content of consciousness” would make the mistake to which the members of the Rehmke school refer (most recently Heyde, in the Journal Grundwissenschaft, Vol. IX). According to Rehmke and his followers, “content of consciousness” implies that consciousness must be spatial, like a container or vessel. I may reassure him that the “inner linguistic form” has not seduced us into taking the word in this way. Strictly speaking, one could not even use our German word for thinking—i.e., “Vorstellen”—without giving rise to the suspicion that we intend a kind of spatial confrontation (Vor-sichHinstellen). Brentano does admit that the term “content” should not be used as a synonym for “object”. In Von der Klassifikation der psychischen Phänomene (1911), now Vol. II of the Psychologie, Brentano states that it is advisable not to use “content” for object of thought: “No one could possibly say that, because the judgements ‘God exists’ and ‘God does not exist’ have the same object, they also have the same content” (p. 39). Nevertheless it is now customary to speak of the “content” of a concept (of a conceptual idea) and to distinguish it from its range or extension (Umfange). Marty discusses the term “content” in considerable detail in his Untersuchungen zur Grundlegung der allgemeinen Grammatik und Sprachphilosophie (Halle, 1908). This term, which has been so greatly used and misused, does indeed receive still another meaning from Marty, insofar as he uses it synonymously with “state of affairs” (Sachverhalt) and in the way in which Meinong and Russell use “objective”. On this point, there is much critical material in my edition of Brentano’s Psychologie. In the editions of the Psychologie, and elsewhere, I have made it a rule never to interpret “content” as synonymous with “object”, despite the fact that even now one often speaks of the content of visual sensation, meaning thereby the coloured thing which we intuit.
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Routledge Revivals The True and the
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Translated from the German WAHREIT
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x Contents To Anton Marty, 2 Septem
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xii Preface fortune to be able to c
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INTRODUCTION by OSKAR KRAUS I. ON T
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xvi Introduction to the confusion.*
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xviii Introduction of view—just a
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xx Introduction 9. The dictations o
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xxii Introduction These irrealia, o
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xxiv Introduction 13. Ehrenfels has
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xxvi Introduction The motivation be
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I ON THE CONCEPT OF TRUTH (Lecture
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4 The True and the Evident 9. What,
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6 The True and the Evident 16. In t
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8 The True and the Evident No furth
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10 The True and the Evident of cert
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12 The True and the Evident this ex
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14 The True and the Evident be give
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16 The True and the Evident referen
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II BEING IN THE SENSE OF THE TRUE (
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III DESCARTES’ CLASSIFICATION OF
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22 The True and the Evident somethi
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24 The True and the Evident Psychol
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26 The True and the Evident Unfortu
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28 The True and the Evident logicia
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30 The True and the Evident which i
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32 The True and the Evident There i
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34 The True and the Evident Are we
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36 The True and the Evident way. On
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38 The True and the Evident It is c
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40 The True and the Evident is basi
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Part Two TRANSITION TO THE LATER VI
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44 The True and the Evident concept
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46 The True and the Evident 13. But
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48 The True and the Evident each of
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50 The True and the Evident 8. Such
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I ON THE SO-CALLED “IMMANENT OR I
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II ENS RATIONIS AND ENS IRREALE To
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III IN OPPOSITION TO THE SO-CALLED
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58 The True and the Evident When do
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60 The True and the Evident I have
Page 84 and 85: 62 The True and the Evident the con
Page 86 and 87: 64 The True and the Evident to supp
Page 88 and 89: 66 The True and the Evident degree
Page 90 and 91: 68 The True and the Evident concept
Page 92 and 93: 70 The True and the Evident non-exi
Page 94 and 95: Part Four THE LATER VIEW AS SET FOR
Page 96 and 97: 74 The True and the Evident 6. And
Page 98 and 99: 76 The True and the Evident 14. Any
Page 100 and 101: II ON THE MEANING OF “VERITAS EST
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Page 104 and 105: 82 The True and the Evident in whic
Page 106 and 107: 84 The True and the Evident would s
Page 108 and 109: 86 The True and the Evident 6. If e
Page 110 and 111: VI ON THE EVIDENT (Fragment of 12 J
Page 112 and 113: APPENDICES
Page 114 and 115: 92 Appendix 1: On the General Valid
Page 116 and 117: 94 Appendix 1: On the General Valid
Page 118 and 119: 2 ON THE ORIGIN OF THE ERRONEOUS DO
Page 120 and 121: NOTES by Oskar Kraus
Page 122 and 123: 100 Notes between saying (i) that i
Page 124 and 125: 102 Notes and futural thinking are
Page 126 and 127: 104 Notes 20 Later Brentano declare
Page 128 and 129: 106 Notes he held instead that the
Page 130 and 131: 108 Notes any kind of a thing, and
Page 132 and 133: 110 Notes given in some way or othe
Page 136 and 137: 114 Notes The Rehmke school refuses
Page 138 and 139: 116 Notes in the sentence “The tr
Page 140 and 141: 118 Notes 24 Compare the letter abo
Page 142 and 143: 120 Notes 39 Brentano’s expressio
Page 144 and 145: 122 Notes these consequences, which
Page 146 and 147: 124 Notes someone who is judging wi
Page 148 and 149: 126 Notes 4 Brentano’s hope of le
Page 150 and 151: INDEX abstracta, 63-4, 71, 162, 178
Page 152 and 153: 130 Index Husserl, E., xv, xvi, xvi
Page 154 and 155: 132 Index propositions; see content
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