Franz Brentano_The True and the Evident.pdf

Notes 115
to the “thinking or contemplation of the horse”. But correlates are such that one cannot be thought
without the other; hence anyone who thinks about the “contemplated horse” must also think about
the “thinking about a horse”, and conversely. This “thinking about a horse” is an object of inner
perception; thus the “contemplated horse” as well as the thinking about it would be objects of inner
perception. But the next sentence of the letter indicates that the objects of our sense-experience—for
example, the sense-qualities—and the objects of our conceptual thinking are objects only of primary
consciousness; they are never objects of inner perception (i.e., of secondary consciousness).
8 Brentano is saying that, so far as he knows, he never held the “contemplated horse” to be an object
of primary consciousness. For this would have been tantamount to denying that there is an object of
primary consciousness. The “contemplated horse”, according to what was said before, is an object
of secondary and not primary consciousness. Compare Franz Hillebrand, Die neuen Theorien der
kategorischen Schlüsse (Vienna 1891)., p. 37.
In connection with all these considerations, compare the new edition of the Psychologie vom
empirischen Standpunkt, especially Vol. I, Introduction, Vol. II (Von der Klassifikation der psychischen
Phänomne), and, last but not least, the introduction to Vol. III (Vom sinnlichen und noetischen
Bewusstsein) which contains several corrections pertaining to the introduction to Vol. I.
9 Here and in other places personal communications have been left out and are indicated by “…….”
Finally, the following ought to be noted. Alois Höfler states in his Logik (Vienna 1890), Section
6: “In contrast with the object (Gegenstand oder Objekt) which is assumed to be independent of
thought, the content of a thought or judgement (as well as of feeling and volition) is called the ‘immanent
or intentional object’.” What he is really concerned with here is this: if I think about something
which does not exist, say a Pegasus, then the thought does have an object, which may be referred to
as “immanent”. But it has no “object per se (Objekt schlechtweg)”, no object which is “assumed to be
independent of thinking”. What does this mean? Only that what I have as immanent object, i.e., what
I am thinking about, does not exist, and thus cannot possibly be the object of an evident affirmative
judgement.
On the other hand, if I think of a horse (i.e., of something existing independently of my thinking),
then I have as immanent object something that cannot possibly be the object of a correct rejection or
denial. One easily overlooks the fact—this is especially true of Husserl in the present context—that
the word “object” has a twofold use. The sentence, “I have a horse as object (as object or content
of my thought)”, means no more than “I am thinking of a horse”. The word “object” functions here
synsemantically: it lacks autosemantic meaning. But if I say that the tree is not merely an object of
my thinking, but also that it exists as an object per se, as a “thing in nature” (Husserl, Ideen, I, p.
184), then “object” means the same as “thing” (for the two words are often used interchangeably) and
is thus being used autosemantically. For this reason it is misleading to distinguish between the “tree
as immanent object” and the “tree per se (Baum schlechthin)”. To say “The tree exists as the immanent
object of my thought” is to say only “I am thinking of the tree”; so far as the mere thinking is
concerned, the question whether the tree exists out there or not may remain undecided (“bracketed”).
But if the tree exists and I “perceive” it, then the situation is entirely different. In this case not only
do I have the tree per se, the thlng, as my object (i.e. not only do I think of it), but I also accept it or
believe in it and do so correctly (thus having a belief which is such that its contrary cannot possibly
be evident).
When Husserl writes in the Ideen (p. 187) that “the real object is to be bracketed”, he is saying only that
the thing (the thing in nature) is not to be judged about, when one is giving an account of the nature of thinking
as such, and that the question whether the tree can be rightly accepted or rejected is beside the point.
If Husserl also requires that the tree as a real thing be “bracketed” in the case of perception, then
he is asking us to disregard “the suggestion of reality” (Wirklichkeitssuggestion), i.e. to disregard the
belief in the tree and to think of perception as a mere thought or idea. He is far from having made his
views clear to himself or to others. For this purpose he would have to recognize that in the sentence,
“I have a tree as an intentional object”, the word “object” functions only synsemantically, and that